zfs discuss - Mar 2008 - UFS Formatted ZVOLs and Oracle Databases / MDBMS

Hi all, here''s a couple questions.

Has anyone run oracle databases off of a UFS formatted ZVOL? If so, how does it
compare in speed to UFS direct io?

I''m trying my best to get rid of UFS, but ZFS isn''t up to par
on the speed of UFS direct io for MDBMS. So I''m trying to come up with
some creative ways to get the ease of use of the zfs filesystem manager, and get
the speed and functionality of UFS direct io. (Aren''t we all? hehe)

Also, are UFS formatted ZVOLs officially supported by Sun?

Thanks,
Brandon Wilson
bcwilson at bcwilson.com
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Brandon Wilson wrote:
> Hi all, here''s a couple questions.
> 
> Has anyone run oracle databases off of a UFS formatted ZVOL? If so, how
does it compare in speed to UFS direct io?
> 
I have not, but I suspect the performance will be worse than
pure zfs and ufsdio. For databases, you should try to minimize the
CPU cost per IO, and having to go thorugh UFS, then ZFS
will only make it worse.
> I''m trying my best to get rid of UFS, but ZFS isn''t up to
par on
>the speed of UFS direct io for MDBMS. So I''m trying to come up 
>with some creative ways to get the ease of use of the zfs 
>filesystem manager, and get the speed and functionality of 
>UFS direct io. (Aren''t we all? hehe)

Would you be willing to share some numbers?
-neel

> 
> Also, are UFS formatted ZVOLs officially supported by Sun?
> 
> Thanks,
> Brandon Wilson
> bcwilson at bcwilson.com
>  
>  
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
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> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss

Well I don''t have any hard numbers ''yet''. But
sometime in the next couple weeks when the Hyperion Essbase install team get
essbase up and running on a sun m4000, I plan on taking advantage of the
situation to do some stress and performance testing on zfs and MDBMS. Stuff like
ufs+directio, zfs, ufs formatted zvol, etc. It may be a while, but I''ll
post all the data once I get it. However, from what I''ve read,
I''m sure ufs+directio will win on the performance testing. But
I''m curious to this testing for myself.

Brandon Wilson
bcwilson at bcwilson.com
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Brandon Wilson wrote:
> Well I don''t have any hard numbers ''yet''. But
sometime in the next couple weeks when the Hyperion Essbase install team get
essbase up and running on a sun m4000, I plan on taking advantage of the
situation to do some stress and performance testing on zfs and MDBMS. Stuff like
ufs+directio, zfs, ufs formatted zvol, etc. It may be a while, but I''ll
post all the data once I get it. However, from what I''ve read,
I''m sure ufs+directio will win on the performance testing. But
I''m curious to this testing for myself.
>   
In my mind, managing a Zvol is about as easy as managing a
file.  Why not just use the Zvol directly?
 -- richard