About Using NVMe Over Fabrics Devices for Data Files

Use NVMe over Fabrics storage devices with Oracle ASM on Linux operating system to store Oracle Database data files.

Starting with Oracle Database 23ai, you can use TCP/IP network connections to access the remote NVMe storage devices using Oracle Native user space NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) solution directly from Oracle processes. The Oracle Grid Infrastructure server works as an initiator that connects to an NVMe-oF storage target created using Linux Kernel nvmet_tcp module.

You can use NVMe-oF storage devices to create Oracle ASM disk groups. These disk groups can store Oracle Database data files. This configuration extends Oracle ASM capabilities to the NVMe-oF storage devices. Direct access to NVMe-oF storage targets from Oracle Database servers offers lower latency and greater throughput for I/O operations.

Oracle Grid Infrastructure 23ai works only with NVMe of Fabrics storage targets with Linux kernel 5.4 or later versions. Use an Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) on your Oracle Grid Infrastructure server to connect to an NVMe-oF storage target. Oracle recommends that you use a 25 GbE or higher Ethernet NIC to minimize latency.

Note:

The performance of databases stored on the NVMe-oF devices depends on the performance of the network connection between the Oracle Grid Infrastructure servers and the NVMe-oF storage targets. For optimal performance, Oracle recommends that you connect the Oracle Grid Infrastructure servers to the NVMe-oF storage targets using private dedicated network connections.