IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) 3.1 and lower and Oracle RAC
(Doc ID 302806.1)
Last updated on AUGUST 30, 2023
Applies to:
Oracle Database - Enterprise EditionIBM AIX on POWER Systems (64-bit)
IBM AIX Based Systems (64-bit)
Purpose
Overview.
GPFS has been verified for use with:
- Oracle9i Real Application Cluster (RAC) and Oracle Database 10g RAC (10.1.0.x and 10.2.0.1) on both AIX 5L v5.3 and v5.2.
- Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.1) RAC on Linux on POWER.
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9 for IBM POWER with Service Pack (SP) 2
- Red HatEnterpriseLinux (RHEL) 4 for POWER with Update 1
- Oracle 11g (11.1.0.6) RAC on both AIX 5L v5.3 and v6.1.
Scope
Software support details can be found in the table GPFS and Oracle RAC - Supported Software Configurations below:
GPFS is IBM’s high-performance parallel, scalable file system for IBM UNIX clusters capable of supporting multi-terabytes of storage within a single file system.
GPFS is a shared-disk file system where every cluster node can have parallel, concurrent read/write access to the same file.It is designed to provide high-performance I/O by "striping" data across multiple disks accessed from multiple servers.GPFS provides high availability through logging and replication, and can be configured for automatic failover from both disk and node malfunctions.
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GPFS can be used for components of an Oracle Database 10g RAC configuration including the shared Oracle Home, the Oracle data and log files.GPFS can also be used to complement the Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) feature in Oracle Database 10g; managing the shared Oracle Home.
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Oracle Clusterware binaries should not be placed on GPFS as this reduces cluster functionality while GPFS is recovering, and also limits the ability to perform rolling upgrades of Oracle Clusterware.
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Oracle Clusterware voting disks and the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) should not be placed on GPFS as the I/O freeze during GPFS reconfiguration can lead to node eviction, or cluster management activities to fail.
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Oracle Database binaries are supported on GPFS. The system should be configured to support multiple ORACLE_HOME’s so as to maintain the ability to perform rolling patch application.
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Oracle Database 10g database files (E.G. data files, trace files, and archive log files) are supported on GPFS.
GPFS 2.1 and 2.2 were previously approved for Oracle RAC but GPFS 2.3 onwards now offers several new key features including:
- Support for AIX 5L v5.3.
- Single-node quorum with tie-breaker disks.
- Single GPFS cluster type.
- More disaster recovery options.
A summary of key GPFS features for Oracle RAC Databases is given below. All Oracle RAC configurations planning to use GPFS should select GPFS 3.1 or 3.2 while existing GPFS and Oracle RAC users should consider upgrading to GPFS 2.3.
This document also includes:
- A Summary of HACMP requirements and options with Oracle RAC and/or GPFS:
- GPFS and AIX tuning requirements for Oracle.
- Sample GPFS installation and configuration scenarios.
- Example migration to GPFS 2.3 from a previous GPFS version.
- A list of GPFS references and additional information.
Details
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In this Document
| Purpose |
| Overview. |
| Scope |
| Details |
| GPFS and Oracle RAC - Supported Software Configurations: |
| Key GPFS features for Oracle RAC Databases on AIX 5L and Linux on POWER. |
| GPFS Tuning Requirements for Oracle. |
| AIO and DIO options: |
| Configuring LUNS for GPFS and Oracle: |
| GPFS Block Size, Oracle "db_block_size" and "db_file_multiblock_read_count": |
| GPFS and AIX 5L Tuning for AIO |
| GPFS Threads |
| Corresponding tuning of AIX AIO maxservers. |
| GPFS and pinned SGA |
| Other important GPFS files system attributes: |
| GPFS 2.3 Installation Examples: |
| Example 1: Creating A GPFS file system without replication and with tie-breaker disks that are part of the GPFS file system. |
| 1. Pre-installation steps. |
| 2. Install GPFS software. |
| 3. Create a 2 node GPFS cluster. |
| 4. Create the cluster-wide names for the Network Shared Disks (NSDs) to be used by GPFS. |
| 5. Further customize the cluster configuration and designate tie-breaker disks. |
| 6. Start GPFS on all nodes: |
| 7. Create and mount the GPFS file system: |
| Example 2: Creating A GPFS file system using GPFS replication and tie-breaker disks that are not part of the GPFS file system. |
| 1. Pre-installation steps. |
| 2. Install GPFS software. |
| 3. Create a 2 node GPFS cluster. |
| 4. Create the cluster-wide names for the Network Shared Disks (NSDs) to be used for the GPFS file system. |
| 5. Create the cluster-wide names for the Network Shared Disks (NSDs) to be used for the tie-breaker disks. |
| 6. Identify the tie breaker disks to the cluster configuration using the ‘mmchconfig’ command. |
| 7. Start GPFS on all nodes. |
| 8. Create and mount the GPFS file system: |
| Example migration to GPFS 2.3 from a previous GPFS version: |
| 1. Ensure all disks in the file systems to be migrated are in working order by issuing"mmlsdisk" command and checking for disk status to be "ready" and availability to be "up". |
| 2. Shutdown GPFS daemons on all nodes of the cluster |
| 3. Export the GPFS file systems (mmexportfs). |
| 4. Delete all existing nodes for each nodeset in the cluster (mmdelnode). |
| 5. Delete the existing cluster by issuing mmdelcluster. (only a 2.2 or less command) |
| 6. Install GPFS 2.3 software on all of the cluster nodes : |
| 7. Determine which nodes will be quorum nodes in your GPFS cluster and create a new GPFS cluster across all desired cluster nodes (mmcrcluster). |
| 8. Complete the movement of the GPFS file system to your new cluster (mmimportfs). |
| 9. Start GPFS on all nodes of the cluster (mmstartup). |
| 10. Complete the migration to the new level of GPFS (mmchfs). |
| GPFS and Oracle References and Additional Information: |
| My Oracle Support |
| GPFS |
| GPFS 2.3 FAQ: |
| GPFS Forum at IBM developerWorks: |
| GPFS 2.3 Summary of Changes: |
| GPFS 2.3 Announcement Details:http://www-306.ibm.com/common/ssi/OIX.wss? DocURL=http://d03xhttpcl001g.boulder.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/4/897/ENUS204- 294/index.html&InfoType=AN |
| GPFS Product Home Page: |
| GPFS 2.3 Publications: |
| Direct to man pages for GPFS 2.3 commands: |
| Migrating to GPFS 2.3 from previous GPFS versions: |
| Establishing disaster recovery for your GPFS cluster: |
| EtherChannel and Link Aggregation with AIX 5L |
| AIX EtherChannel and IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation |
| Oracle and AIX 5L |
| References |