Providing Storage savings and Comparable performance using VMware Cloud Flex Storage for Oracle Backups

Posted on May 27, 2023 by Sudhir Balasubramanian

You are as good as your last backup – DBA 101 – the ability to allow restore & recovery from an earlier point in time to allow business recover from unplanned event.

We are all aware that slow database Backups will result in database backup’s spilling outside the production backup window resulting in disruption of database operations and breach of SLA’s as well.

Key points to take away from this blog

This blog is the second blog in the series of evaluating VMware Cloud Flex Storage as a viable & comparable Storage option for Oracle backups destination.

The first blog Providing Performance and Storage savings using VMware Cloud Flex Storage for Oracle Archivelogs  was an exercise to evaluate the feasibility and showcase the advantages of using VMware Cloud Flex Storage for business-critical Oracle workloads on VMware Cloud on AWS as a viable & comparable Storage option for Oracle Archivelog files destination.

Offloading Archivelog files and Backup dumps to VMware Cloud Flex Storage results in

  • Providing storage & comparable performance to Archivelog & Backup activities for the database
  • Ensuring Tier-1 vSAN Internal NVMe storage is reserved for hot/warm database data for capacity and performance.

This blog is not meant to be a performance benchmarking-oriented blog in any way. Remember, any performance data is a result of the combination of hardware configuration, software configuration, test methodology, test tool, and workload profile used in the testing, so the performance improvement I got with my workload in my lab is in no way representative of any real production workload which means the performance improvements for real world workloads will be better.

VMware Cloud Flex Storage

VMware Cloud Flex Storage is a Storage-as-a-Service offering for VMware Cloud on AWS that provides the ability to provision and scale storage independently of their SDDC hosts.

VMware Cloud Flex Storage is fully VMware-managed and natively integrated, so you can cost-effectively supplement your capacity needs rather than purchasing additional SDDC hosts.

VMware Cloud Flex Storage provides disaggregated cloud storage for non-mission critical applications, such as file servers, analytics, and lower-tier databases. Disaggregated storage provides the performance of local storage with the flexibility of storage area networks.

More information on VMware Cloud Flex Storage can be found here and here.

Oracle Archivelog

Oracle Database lets you save filled groups of redo log files to one or more offline destinations, known collectively as the archived redo log.

The process of turning redo log files into archived redo log files is called archiving. This process is only possible if the database is running in ARCHIVELOG mode

When the database is running in ARCHIVELOG mode, the log writer process (LGWR) cannot reuse and hence overwrite a redo log group until it has been archived. The background process ARCn automates archiving operations when automatic archiving is enabled. The database starts multiple archiver processes as needed to ensure that the archiving of filled redo logs does not fall behind.

More information on Oracle Archivelog can be found here.

Oracle Backup

In general, the purpose of a backup and recovery strategy is to protect the database against data loss and reconstruct the database after data loss.

Typically, backup administration tasks include the following:

  • Planning and testing responses to different kinds of failures
  • Configuring the database environment for backup and recovery
  • Setting up a backup schedule
  • Monitoring the backup and recovery environment
  • Troubleshooting backup problems
  • Recovering from data loss if the need arises

More information on Oracle Backup can be found here.

Test Bed

The Test bed is a 4 Node VMware Cloud on AWS cluster with the setup shown as below –

  • vCenter version was 8.0.0 build 20432146
  • 4 Amazon EC2 i3.metal ESXi servers
  • VMware ESXi, 8.0.0, 20430035
  • VMware Cloud Flex Storage (NFS v3)
  • Oracle 21.5 with Grid Infrastructure, ASM Storage and ASMLIB
  • OEL UEK 8.7

VMware Cloud Flex Storage datastore details are shown as below.

‘vSAN Default Storage Policy’ details are shown as below.

Oracle VM ‘Oracle21C-OL8-Customer-DB-FlexStorage’ details are shown as below.

The VM has 18 vCPU’s, 128GB RAM, the single instance database ‘ORA21C’ was created with created with multi-tenant option & provisioned with Oracle Grid Infrastructure (ASM) and Database version 21.5 on O/S OEL UEK 8.7.

Oracle ASM was the storage platform with Oracle ASMLIB for device persistence. Oracle SGA & PGA set to 64G and 10G respectively.

All Oracle on VMware platform best practices were followed.

The vmdk’s for the Oracle VM ‘Oracle21C-OL8-Customer’ are shown as below –

  • Hard Disk 1 (SCSI 0:0) – 80G for OS (/)
  • Hard Disk 2 (SCSI 0:1) – 80G for Oracle Grid Infrastructure & RDBMS binaries
  • Hard Disk 3 (SCSI 1:0) – 100G – ASM Disk Group GRID_DG (Grid Infrastructure)
  • Hard Disk 4 (SCSI 1:1) – 200G – ASM Disk Group DATA_DG (Oracle database)
  • Hard Disk 5 (SCSI 3:0) – 100G – ASM Disk Group REDO_DG (Redo Log Files)
  • Hard Disk 6 (SCSI 2:0) – 250G – ASM Disk Group SLOB_DG (SLOB load generator)
  • Hard Disk 7 (SCSI 1:3) – 130G – ASM Disk Group FRA_FLEX_DG for Oracle Archivelog files using VMware Cloud Flex Storage
  • Hard Disk 8 (SCSI 0:2) – 300G – ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_vsan’ for Oracle RMAN backup dumps on vSAN using default VSAN storage policy – ‘vSAN Default Storage Policy’
  • Hard Disk 9 (SCSI 0:3) – 310G – ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_flex’ for Oracle RMAN backup dumps on VMware Cloud Flex Storage

The Oracle Archivelog files were placed on VMware Cloud Flex Storage (ASM Disk Group FRA_FLEX_DG) .

The Oracle RMAN backups were tested using

  • ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_vsan’ for on vSAN using default VSAN storage policy – ‘vSAN Default Storage Policy’
  • ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_flex’ on VMware Cloud Flex Storage

Details of ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_vsan’ for Oracle RMAN backup dumps on vSAN & ‘/rman_flex’ for Oracle RMAN backup dumps on VMware Cloud Flex Storage are shown as below

Oracle ASM Disk Group details are as below:

grid@oracle21c-ol8:+ASM:/home/grid> asmcmd lsdg
State    Type    Rebal  Sector  Logical_Sector  Block       AU  Total_MB  Free_MB  Req_mir_free_MB  Usable_file_MB  Offline_disks  Voting_files  Name
MOUNTED  EXTERN  N         512             512   4096  1048576    204799        0                0               0              0             N  DATA_DG/
MOUNTED  EXTERN  N         512             512   4096  4194304    133116   119464                0          119464              0             N  FRA_FLEX_DG/
MOUNTED  EXTERN  N         512             512   4096  4194304    102396   102292                0          102292              0             N  GRID_DG/
MOUNTED  EXTERN  N         512             512   4096  1048576    102399    23755                0           23755              0             N  REDO_DG/
MOUNTED  EXTERN  N         512             512   4096  4194304    255996     9900                0            9900              0             N  SLOB_DG/
grid@oracle21c-ol8:+ASM:/home/grid>

Oracle ASM disks details are as below:

grid@oracle21c-ol8:+ASM:/home/grid> asmcmd lsdsk -k

Total_MB  Free_MB   OS_MB  Name             Failgroup        Site_Name  Site_GUID                         Site_Status  Failgroup_Type  Library                                                Label            Failgroup_Label  Site_Label  UDID  Product  Redund   Path

204799        0  204799  DATA_DISK01      DATA_DISK01                 00000000000000000000000000000000               REGULAR         ASM Library – Generic Linux, version 2.0.17 (KABI_V2)  DATA_DISK01                                                  UNKNOWN  ORCL:DATA_DISK01

133116   119464  133119  FRA_FLEX_DISK01  FRA_FLEX_DISK01             00000000000000000000000000000000               REGULAR         ASM Library – Generic Linux, version 2.0.17 (KABI_V2)  FRA_FLEX_DISK01                                              UNKNOWN  ORCL:FRA_FLEX_DISK01

102396   102292  102399  GRID_DISK01      GRID_DISK01                 00000000000000000000000000000000               REGULAR         ASM Library – Generic Linux, version 2.0.17 (KABI_V2)  GRID_DISK01                                                  UNKNOWN  ORCL:GRID_DISK01

102399    23755  102399  REDO_DISK01      REDO_DISK01                 00000000000000000000000000000000               REGULAR         ASM Library – Generic Linux, version 2.0.17 (KABI_V2)  REDO_DISK01                                                  UNKNOWN  ORCL:REDO_DISK01

255996     9900  255999  SLOB_DISK01      SLOB_DISK01                 00000000000000000000000000000000               REGULAR         ASM Library – Generic Linux, version 2.0.17 (KABI_V2)  SLOB_DISK01                                                  UNKNOWN  ORCL:SLOB_DISK01

grid@oracle21c-ol8:+ASM:/home/grid>

Test Use case

This blog vetted out the Oracle RMAN backup performance using the below as the backup destination

  • vSAN WorkloadDatastore – ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_vsan’
  • VMware Cloud Flex Storage – ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_flex’

The Oracle Archivelog files were placed on VMware Cloud Flex Storage (ASM Disk Group FRA_FLEX_DG).

We ran multiple Oracle RMAN backup runs for the 2 above use cases below and compared the Oracle & GOS metrics;

Comparing Oracle RMAN performance on ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_vsan’ for on vSAN using default VSAN storage policy – ‘vSAN Default Storage Policy. v/s ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_flex’ on VMware Cloud Flex Storage, we can see that

  • Total (MB) Read+Write per second are comparable across both SAN WorkloadDatastore and VMware Cloud Flex Storage vmdk’s

Looking at GOS Load statistics, we can see that the %user, %system, %idle & %IO wait time statistics are comparable across both vSAN WorkloadDatastore and VMware Cloud Flex Storage vmdk’s.

Looking at GOS disk statistics, we can see that the disk statistics are comparable across both vSAN WorkloadDatastore and VMware Cloud Flex Storage vmdk’s.

Remember, any performance data is a result of the combination of hardware configuration, software configuration, test methodology, test tool, and workload profile used in the testing, so the performance improvement I got with my workload in my lab is in no way representative of any real production workload which means the performance improvements for real world workloads will be better.

Summary

This blog is the second blog in the series of evaluating VMware Cloud Flex Storage as a viable & comparable Storage option for Oracle backups destination.

The first blog Providing Performance and Storage savings using VMware Cloud Flex Storage for Oracle Archivelogs  was an exercise to evaluate the feasibility and showcase the advantages of using VMware Cloud Flex Storage for business-critical Oracle workloads on VMware Cloud on AWS as a viable & comparable Storage option for Oracle Archivelog files destination.

Offloading Archivelog files and Backup dumps to VMware Cloud Flex Storage results in

  • Providing storage & comparable performance to Archivelog & Backup activities for the database
  • Ensuring Tier-1 vSAN Internal NVMe storage is reserved for hot/warm database data for capacity and performance.

This blog vetted out the Oracle RMAN backup performance using the below as the backup destination

  • vSAN WorkloadDatastore – ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_vsan’`
  • VMware Cloud Flex Storage – ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_flex’

The Oracle Archivelog files were placed on VMware Cloud Flex Storage (ASM Disk Group FRA_FLEX_DG).

Comparing Oracle RMAN performance on ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_vsan’ for on vSAN using default VSAN storage policy – ‘vSAN Default Storage Policy. v/s ext4 Filesystem ‘/rman_flex’ on VMware Cloud Flex Storage, we can see that

  • Total (MB) Read+Write per second are comparable across both SAN WorkloadDatastore and VMware Cloud Flex Storage vmdk’s

Looking at GOS Load statistics, we can see that the %user, %system, %idle & %IO wait time statistics are comparable across both vSAN WorkloadDatastore and VMware Cloud Flex Storage vmdk’s.

Looking at GOS disk statistics, we can see that the disk statistics are comparable across both vSAN WorkloadDatastore and VMware Cloud Flex Storage vmdk’s.

This blog is not meant to be a performance benchmarking-oriented blog in any way. Remember, any performance data is a result of the combination of hardware configuration, software configuration, test methodology, test tool, and workload profile used in the testing, so the performance improvement I got with my workload in my lab is in no way representative of any real production workload which means the performance improvements for real world workloads will be better.

Acknowledgements

This blog was authored by Sudhir Balasubramanian, Senior Staff Solution Architect & Global Oracle Lead – VMware.

Conclusion

Backup’s – the ability to allow restore & recovery from an earlier point in time to allow business recover from unplanned event.

We are all aware that slow database Backups will result in database backup’s spilling outside the production backup window resulting in disruption of database operations and breach of SLA’s as well.

  • Slow database Archivelog performance will considerably slow the database down which will result in a breach of SLA’s.
  • Slow database Backups will result in database backup’s spilling outside the production backup window resulting in disruption of database operations and a breach of SLA’s as well.

All Oracle on VMware vSphere collaterals can be found in the url below.

Oracle on VMware Collateral – One Stop Shop
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/01/oracle-vmware-collateral-one-stop-shop.html

About Sudhir Balasubramanian

27 + years Oracle hands on experience - Principal Oracle DBA / Architect, Oracle RAC/Data Guard Expert, Experienced in EMC SAN Technologies Currently – VMware (Broadcom) [2012-] Senior Staff Solution Architect & Global Oracle Practice Lead Principal Oracle DBA/Oracle Architect (1995 – 2011) [ Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Sony Electronics, Newgen Results (Aspen) ,Teletech Corp, SAIC, Active Network, Sempra Energy Holdings] VMware VCA – Cloud ,VMware vBCA Specialist VMware vExpert & vExpert Application Modernization - https://vexpert.vmware.com/directory/1038 Member of the Office of the Chief Technical Ambassador VMware (Alumni) Oracle ACE - https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=19297:3 Leading Author of “Virtualizing Oracle Business Critical Databases on VMware SDDC” Recognized Speaker@ Oracle Open World, IOUG, VMworld, VMware Partner Exchange, EMC World, EMC Oracle Summit and Webinars Industry recognized expert in Oracle Virtualization technologies Blogs http://vracdba.com/ | https://community.oracle.com/blogs/sudhirb https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/author/sudhirbalasubramanian/ Twitter : @vracdba [ https://twitter.com/vRacDba ] LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudhirbalasubramanian/
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