A round-up of the significant new ODA improvements from last quarter of 2014. This presentation was first delivered by Simon Haslam at a ClubOracle event in London on 26 February 2015. Note: content assumes some familiarity with ODA

1. 1 | 101
ODA: What’s New?
Simon Haslam
26 February 2015
#ClubOracle

2. 2 | 102
$(whois simon)
Veriton: Oracle infrastructure consultant,
specialised in Fusion Middleware, EDG, MAA, HA etc
Co-founder & Technical Director of O-box Products

3. 3 | 103

4. 4 | 104
Recent releases
ODA
12.1.2.2.0ODA
X5-2

5. 5 | 105
24 cores
192GB memory
4 x 73GB SSD redo
HA / RAC / patching out of box
Fibre option
32 cores
512GB memory
4 x 200GB SSD
Optional extra storage
DB12c
ACFS
12.1.2
48 cores
Fibre option
ODA VP
2.5+
ODA Milestones
72 cores
Up to 1536GB 2133
InfiniBand
ODA Cache
2012 2013 2014 2015
WLS
ODA
2.6
WLS
ODA
2.7
ODA
Cache
12.1.2.2
Shared
repo
2.7
O-box
SOA
launched
Today’s
focus

6. 6 | 106
ODA Engineering
Focus New
Database
Features
Hardware
Improvements
Virtualized
Platform
Evolution
12c inc In-Memory DB
ACFS
ODA Cache
Cores
InfiniBand
Memory
SSD
Disk capacity
ACFS
vDisks
EM
ODA X5-2
OAK 12.1+

7. 7 | 107
Hardware Improvements

8. 8 | 108
DDR4 2133MHz
10k RPM, SAS 12Gb/s + PCI controller
SAS 6Gb/s, 3.5” disks
ODA Cache
16 x 4TB 7.2k RPM
Simon’s highlights on official Oracle slide

9. 9 | 109
ODA X5-2 Storage
ODA Cache: slots 16-19, REDO slots 20-23
Bulk Data HDD
Redo Logs
ODA Cache
SSD

10. 10 | 1010
New ODA X5-2 Hardware Improvements -
Summary
More SSD
Faster memory (& optionally more)
InfiniBand
More cores
More HDD storage
Hardware RAID on compute nodes
Still has silly long cables:
SAS - 2m
IB QSFP - 3m!

11. 11 | 1011
New Database Features

12. 12 | 1012
Databases on ACFS
New in ODA 12.1.2 (Sept. 14)
All new 12c databases created using oakcli are on ACFS
Upgraded databases remain on ASM (can migrate to ACFS)
Can still create a DB on ASM if use DBCA (e.g. with OAK
templates)
ODA X5-2 introduces ACFS metadata on SSD

13. 13 | 1013
Thoughts about Databases on ACFS
Hot topic in ODA-land!
Being pioneered & pushed on ODA
Before 11.2.0.4 ASM Admin Guide: “Oracle ACFS does not support
any file type that can be directly stored in Oracle ASM, except
where explicitly noted in the documentation”
ACFS metadata on SSD
What does this say about ACFS on previous ODAs?
Experiences
Historical bugs
None recent so have open mind
ACFS could well be way of future
because of significant benefits from
snapshots/cloning

14. 14 | 1014
ODA Cache
V important new ODA-only feature!
Separate from +REDO SSD
SSDs: 4 * 400GB raw
~800GB usable after mirroring
<~5% space compared to ~16TB? HDD DATA (double mirror, ext
rec.)
High IOPS capability means used carefully ODA Cache is
likely to have significant performance benefit
+FLASH diskgroup
on ODA X5-2 h/w
(ASMDV flashdata)
There are 3 types of ODA Cache usage… 

15. 15 | 1015
ODA Cache use 1)
For Database Files
Choose either selected datafiles or entire database(?!)
Read/write (like regular datafile storage but on SSD)
If you don’t have enough free +FLASH oakcli will put into
+DATA

16. 16 | 1016
ODA Cache use 2)
“Flash Cache”
Overspill from DB block buffers
By default flash_cache_file_size is set to 3 x “SGA” up to 196GB
Resizing this param. needs a DB restart
Read only (& so duplicated on HDD presumably)
See “Oracle Database Smart Flash Cache” white paper
Thanks to Jason Arneil for link  :
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/systems-hardware-architecture/oracle-db-smart-flash-cache-175588.pdf
ODA Flash Cache is available to both instances in RAC cluster
 unique to ODA !

17. 17 | 1017
ODA Cache use 3)
ACFS Meta-data
(details are a bit sketchy to me at moment )
Supposed to make DB performance on ACFS “very similar”
to being directly on ASM
Will also benefit ODA VP for VMs on shared repo

18. 18 | 1018
+REDO
+DATA HDD
+RECO HDD
1 2
Instance
1
Instance
2
SGA SGA
Exafusion
IB
Data held at 3 tiers:
1) Memory
2) ODA Flash
3) HDDFlash Cache
accessible to
BOTH nodes
ODA X5-2 Data Tiers
+FLASH

19. 19 | 1019
New Database Features
12c Multi-Tenant support
In Memory DB support
In Memory DB + RAC soon?
+ all the rest of the Database 12c stuff…

20. 20 | 1020
Virtualized Platform
Enhancements

21. 21 | 1021
ACFS related
Shared repository is on ACFS
i.e. ACFS performance improvements help VMs
Snapshots & Cloning commands now in oakcli
ACFS COPY – now multi-threaded
Sparse file support
Can copy/clone and file stays sparse

22. 22 | 1022
Virtual Disks
Option to create new vDisks and add to a VM
vDisks can be shared between multiple VMs
I’m not convinced you’d want to!
Option to resize vDisks

23. 23 | 1023
Enterprise Manager Plug-in for ODA
* NOT RELEASED YET, MAY NEVER BE RELEASED etc *
More important to ODA VP than bare metal as otherwise have no
visibility of VMs anywhere except command line
Will also include hardware related info

24. 24 | 1024
Infrastructure Considerations

25. 25 | 1025
General Trends
With each hardware release ODA is getting bigger:
More cores
More memory
More storage is getting bigger & some SSD
Management & DBaaS will improve

26. 26 | 1026
Why is this a near perfect machine for mixed
Oracle* workloads?
Processor heavy
fast & lots (up to 72) of cores
Plenty of Memory (& expandable)
e.g. 2 core VMs = 14/28/42GB per VM
ODA Flash Cache
for hot data or partitions + ACFS metadata
VM-VM and VM-database connectivity via InfiniBand
Simple, reliable virtualization
Flexible licensing
* For DBAs: by “Oracle” I mean
multiple Oracle products,
not just database!

27. 27 | 1027
Sanity Check - Fully Populated:
$ List Price for Processor Licences
Full of DB EE, RAC, Partition, EM Diag, Tuning = 3.4 x 106
Best suited for DB plus*
non storage IO-intensive workload
How much I/O bandwidth would you need
for database workload justifying 72 cores?
* Or partially licensed for DB & unused cores (since h/w cost << licences)
Like SOA 

28. 28 | 1028
Further Reading

29. 29 | 1029
LinkedIn ODA Community
MOS ODA Forum
https://community.oracle.com/community/support/engineered_systems
/oracle_database_appliance
ODA posts on my blog, e.g.
http://www.veriton.co.uk/roller/fmw/entry/what_you_need_to_know

30. 30 | 1030
Thanks for listening!
@simon_haslam
http://simonhaslam.co.uk
Fusion Middleware & Oracle platform consulting
http://veriton.com
For SOA or WebCenter on ODA please visit
http://o-box.com
Any
Questions?