CentOS - Feb 2006 - Oracle and kernel 2.6 vs 2.4 performance question

All,

We're currently running Oracle 9i on a RHEL AS 2.1 installation.  We 
need to upgrade to Oracle 10g, and I've half-way convinced my boss to 
upgrade to RHEL 4 (we're still discussing AS vs ES, since we're running 
2 HT processors...).

Anyway, I want to upgrade because of EOL issues whenever RHEL 5 comes 
out, but before he okays me wiping the server and installing 4, he wants 
to know if we're going to get any specific benefits out of upgrading the 
OS.  I recall that the 2.6 kernel did a bunch of optimization stuff, but 
is there anything in there that would affect the performance of Oracle 10g?

And if so, are there any web sites to which I can direct him?  So far my 
googling hasn't been very productive.  Maybe I'm using the wrong search 
terms.

Thanks!

Ben Weiss

Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
> All,
>
> We're currently running Oracle 9i on a RHEL AS 2.1 installation.  We 
> need to upgrade to Oracle 10g, and I've half-way convinced my boss to 
> upgrade to RHEL 4 (we're still discussing AS vs ES, since we're 
> running 2 HT processors...).
>
> Anyway, I want to upgrade because of EOL issues whenever RHEL 5 comes 
> out, but before he okays me wiping the server and installing 4, he 
> wants to know if we're going to get any specific benefits out of 
> upgrading the OS.  I recall that the 2.6 kernel did a bunch of 
> optimization stuff, but is there anything in there that would affect 
> the performance of Oracle 10g?
>
> And if so, are there any web sites to which I can direct him?  So far 
> my googling hasn't been very productive.  Maybe I'm using the wrong
> search terms.
>
Here's a somewhat dated comparison for your PHB to peruse....

http://www.2cpu.com/articles/98_1.html

Cheers,

On 07/02/2006, at 2:17 AM, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
> We're currently running Oracle 9i on a RHEL AS 2.1 installation.  We 
> need to upgrade to Oracle 10g, and I've half-way convinced my boss to 
> upgrade to RHEL 4 (we're still discussing AS vs ES, since we're 
> running 2 HT processors...).
>
> Anyway, I want to upgrade because of EOL issues whenever RHEL 5 comes 
> out, but before he okays me wiping the server and installing 4, he 
> wants to know if we're going to get any specific benefits out of 
> upgrading the OS.  I recall that the 2.6 kernel did a bunch of 
> optimization stuff, but is there anything in there that would affect 
> the performance of Oracle 10g?
2.6 introduced a new disk scheduler which is tunable and can make
some significant differences. I always found HT on ES2.1 to be a
performance liability, for what it's worth. We were using 9iR2.
> And if so, are there any web sites to which I can direct him?  So far 
> my googling hasn't been very productive.  Maybe I'm using the wrong
> search terms.
Redhat put out some nice, succinct papers when they release a
new version. They're management compatible too. I'd be looking
for pdfs at redhat's site.

Cheers,
Edwin.
--
Edwin Steele
System Administrator, CommSecure Australia Ltd.
ph: +61 2 94974400  fax: +61 2 94974499