10 Managing Storage
You can add storage to fully populate the base storage shelf and add a storage expansion shelf to your Oracle Database Appliance.
- About Managing Storage
You can add storage at any time without shutting down your databases or applications. - About Storage Addition Options for Oracle Database Appliance X6-2-HA
With this release, you can also add X7-2 storage disks to X6-2-HA Oracle Database Appliance, with some configuration changes. - Preparing for Storage Expansion
Review and perform these best practices before adding storage to the base shelf or adding the expansion shelf. - Adding the 10-Pack of SSDs
Add the 10-pack solid-state drives (SSDs) for data storage into the existing base configuration to fully populate the base storage shelf. - Adding the Storage Expansion Shelf
After the base storage shelf is fully populated, you can add the storage expansion shelf to expand the storage capacity.
About Managing Storage
You can add storage at any time without shutting down your databases or applications.
Oracle Database Appliance uses raw storage to protect data in the following ways:
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Flash or Fast Recovery Area (FRA) backup. Flash or fast recovery area is a storage area (directory on disk or Oracle ASM diskgroup) that contains redo logs, control file, archived logs, backup pieces and copies, and flashback logs.
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Mirroring. Double or triple mirroring provides protection against mechanical issues.
The amount of available storage is determined by the location of the FRA backup (external or internal) and if double or triple mirroring is used.
Oracle Database Appliance uses storage shelves, a base shelf and an optional storage expansion shelf. You can expand the base storage by adding a pack of solid-state drives (SSDs) to fully populate the base storage. You can further expand the storage by adding a second storage shelf. External NFS storage is supported for online backups, data staging, or additional database files.
Note:
You must fully populate the base storage shelf before adding the expansion shelf.When you add storage, Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) automatically rebalances the data across all of the storage including the new drives. Rebalancing a disk group moves data between disks to ensure that every file is evenly spread across all of the disks in a disk group and all of the disks are evenly filled to the same percentage. Oracle ASM automatically initiates a rebalance after storage configuration changes, such as when you add disks.
About Expanding Storage
If you need additional storage after fully populating the base shelf, you can add a storage expansion shelf. The expansion shelf is hot-pluggable, enabling you to expand storage without database downtime. After cabling and powering up the expansion shelf, the system automatically configures Oracle ASM storage and data is automatically distributed to the new shelf.
Note:
The process of rebalancing the data might impact performance until the new storage is correctly balanced across all drives. If possible, add a storage expansion shelf during a non-peak or non-production time period to minimize the performance impact of the automatic storage balancing.
The addition of the storage expansion shelf includes checks across both nodes. It is important to confirm that SSH does work across the nodes and all users can connect as expected using their shared password.
The following are the high level steps to expand storage:
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Review the Oracle Database Appliance storage options.
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Prepare for a storage upgrade by running checks to verify that the configuration is ready before adding storage to the base shelf or adding the expansion shelf.
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Add storage if the base configuration is not full.
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Add the storage expansion shelf, then log in to each server node and validate the cabling. After you confirm that the cabling is correct, power on the shelf and validate the storage.
Caution:
Review cabling instructions carefully to ensure that you have carried out cabling correctly. Incorrect connections can cause data loss when adding a storage expansion shelf to Oracle Database Appliance with existing databases.
Parent topic: Managing Storage
About Storage Addition Options for Oracle Database Appliance X6-2-HA
With this release, you can also add X7-2 storage disks to X6-2-HA Oracle Database Appliance, with some configuration changes.
Oracle Database Appliance X6-2-HA uses 1.6 TB raw Solid-State Drives (SSDs), formatted to 1.2 TB for performance. When you order for Oracle Database Appliance X7-2 storage, you receive the default 3.2 TB raw Solid-State Drives, partitioned as per your existing storage capacity.
The following options are available for storage addition:
About Storage Expansion
You can expand the base storage shelf by adding a 10-pack of solid-state drives (SSDs) to fully populate the base storage. In this case, partitions of 1.2 TB are created.
If you expand the base storage shelf by adding the 3.2 TB SSDs, then the storage is scaled to the existing configuration, that is, the usable disk capacity is 1.2 TB.
See the procedure Adding the 10-Pack of SSDs for steps to add the SSDs.
About Addition of Expansion Shelf
When the base storage shelf is fully populated, you can add a second storage shelf from the X7-2 storage. In this case, the usable disk capacity is 1.2 TB.
See the procedure Adding the Storage Expansion Shelf for steps to add the expansion shelf.
About Storage Disk Replacement
You can completely replace your 1.6 TB raw SSD storage with the X7-2 storage of 3.2 TB, and the 200 GB SSDs for REDO disk group with the 800 GB SSDs, respectively. oakd
uses the same size as the disk replaced. In this case, the usable disk capacity is 3.2 TB. You must redeploy Oracle Database Appliance, if you choose this option.
See the procedure Preparing for Storage Expansion for steps to expand the storage.
Parent topic: Managing Storage
Preparing for Storage Expansion
Review and perform these best practices before adding storage to the base shelf or adding the expansion shelf.
Parent topic: Managing Storage
Adding the 10-Pack of SSDs
Add the 10-pack solid-state drives (SSDs) for data storage into the existing base configuration to fully populate the base storage shelf.
Parent topic: Managing Storage
Adding the Storage Expansion Shelf
After the base storage shelf is fully populated, you can add the storage expansion shelf to expand the storage capacity.
The addition of the storage expansion shelf includes checks across both nodes. It is important to confirm that SSH does work across the nodes and all users can connect as expected using their shared password.
Note:
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Oracle recommends that you add a storage expansion shelf when you have relatively little activity on your databases. When the system discovers the new storage, Oracle ASM automatically rebalances the disk groups. The rebalance operation may degrade database performance until the operation completes.
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Only offline addition of X7-2 storage expansion shelf to X6-2-HA Oracle Database Appliance is supported.
Parent topic: Managing Storage