InfoScale™ 9.0 SmartIO for Solid-State Drives Solutions Guide - Solaris

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)
Platform: Solaris
  1. Introducing SFHA Solutions SmartIO
    1.  
      About SmartIO for solid-state drives
    2.  
      About SmartIO in an SFHA environment
    3.  
      About SmartIO in an Active/Active cluster environment
    4. About SmartIO in the Solaris virtualized environments
      1.  
        Performing live migration between LDOMs in the SmartIO environment
    5.  
      About the SmartIO caching profiler tool
  2. Using the SmartIO feature: use cases
    1. About SmartIO read caching for applications running on VxVM volumes
      1.  
        Required configuration for SmartIO read caching for VxVM volumes
      2.  
        Automatic caching for VxVM volumes
      3.  
        Setting up SmartIO read caching for VxVM volumes
      4.  
        Verifying the VxVM cache area and monitoring the caching
    2. About SmartIO read caching for applications running on VxFS file systems
      1.  
        Required configuration for SmartIO read caching for a VxFS file system
      2.  
        Automatic caching for VxFS file systems
      3.  
        Setting up SmartIO read caching for VxFS file systems
      4.  
        Verifying the VxFS cache area and monitoring the caching
      5.  
        Customizing the caching behavior
    3. About SmartIO caching on SSD devices exported by FSS
      1.  
        Status of cache areas when nodes leave or join the cluster
      2.  
        Setting up cache areas using SSDs exported by FSS
    4. About SmartIO write-back caching for applications running on VxFS file systems
      1.  
        Required configuration for SmartIO write-back caching for a VxFS file system
      2.  
        Setting up SmartIO write-back caching for VxFS file systems
      3.  
        Verifying the VxFS cache area and monitoring the caching (writeback mode)
    5. About multiple SmartIO cache areas for read and write-back caching on VxFS file systems
      1.  
        About the smartiocache option
      2.  
        Converting VxFS cache areas from one type to another
      3.  
        Setting up multiple cache areas on a system
      4.  
        Verifying the VxFS cache areas
    6. About SmartIO caching for Oracle databases on VxFS file systems
      1.  
        Prerequisites and configuration for using the SmartIO plug-in for Oracle
      2.  
        Setting default SmartIO caching policies for a database running on a VxFS file system
      3.  
        Setting SmartIO caching policies for database objects
      4.  
        Pinning and unpinning database objects
      5.  
        Enabling and disabling caching for the database
      6.  
        Listing cache policy details for the database
      7.  
        Listing cache statistics for the database
    7. About SmartIO caching for databases on VxVM volumes
      1.  
        Applying a SmartIO database caching template for a VxVM volume
  3. Administering SmartIO
    1.  
      Creating a cache area
    2.  
      Displaying information about a cache area
    3. Enabling or disabling caching for a data object
      1.  
        Enabling or disabling caching for a file system
      2.  
        Enabling or disabling caching for a data volume
    4.  
      Adding a device to the cache area
    5.  
      Pausing caching from a volume to a cache area
    6.  
      Removing a device from the cache area
    7.  
      Destroying a cache area
    8.  
      Setting the attributes of the VxVM cache area
    9.  
      Setting or changing the caching mode for a VxFS cache area
    10.  
      Flushing dirty data from a writeback cache area
    11.  
      Tuning the writeback caching
    12. Viewing the SmartIO cache statistics
      1.  
        Viewing the detailed caching stats for a VxVM cache area
      2.  
        Viewing the detailed caching stats for a VxFS cache area
  4. Troubleshooting and error handling
    1. Support for a persistent or 'warm' VxVM cache
      1.  
        Primary volume failure with a stale cache could cause possible data corruption
      2.  
        Migrating a cache during HA failover is not supported
    2.  
      Cache area is lost after a disk failure (3158482)
    3.  
      Cache is not online after a reboot
    4.  
      Recovering the write-back cache after a node failure
  5. Appendix A. Command reference
    1.  
      SmartIO command reference

Verifying the VxFS cache area and monitoring the caching (writeback mode)

After the SmartIO feature is configured, you can verify that the cache area is present and that caching is occurring.

For a VxFS cache area, the sfcache list command shows the caching mode for the file or directory. If the mode is not explicitly set, the file or directory inherits the caching mode of the mount point. If the mode is explicitly set for a file or directory, that value persists across remounts. The displayed caching mode may differ from the mode that is enabled for the mount point. The writeback mode is not enabled unless the file system is mounted in writeback mode. If a file or directory is set to writeback mode, but the file system is mounted in another mode, the file or directory inherits the caching mode of the mount point.

To verify and monitor the cache area

  1. To display information about the cache areas on the system.
    # sfcache list

    For example, a single-node VxFS cache area displays output as follows:

    NAME          TYPE SIZE  ASSOC-TYPE  STATE  FSTYPE  DEVICE 
sfcachearea_2 VxFS 7.00g AUTO        ONLINE default sdg

    For a cluster file system with writeback enabled, if you issue the sfcache list command just after you mount with writeback enabled (and before any read caching has happened), the output shows the space used in cache as 1.0 GB. Cache reflection is configured, with a local log and a remote log that each have a log size of 512 MB.

  2. To display information about a specific cache area:
    # sfcache list sfcachearea_2
    Cachearea: sfcachearea_2
Assoc Type: AUTO
Type: VxFS
Size: 9.96g
State: ONLINE
Layout: CONCAT
FStype: default
Number of Columns: 0

/dev/vx/dsk/sfcache_defaultdg/sfcachearea_2:
FSUUID                       SIZE      MODE       MOUNTPOINT     CACHENAME
a6178a5604a50200577a0000a... 759.0 MB  read       /ora_inst1     sfcachearea_2
0d929856a7d60e003d380000f... 512.0 MB  writeback  /pdb2          sfcachearea_2
90929856b688000081410000b... 50.1 MB   read       /fast_recovery sfcachearea_2
02188a569d7e0700567d00007... 4 KB      nocache    -              sfcachearea_2
31188a5679a90900987d00007... 4 KB      nocache    -              sfcachearea_2
a55b8a56db160a00fa610000f... 4 KB      nocache    -              sfcachearea_2

    The output displays information about the cache configuration and attributes.

    See Displaying information about a cache area.

  3. To display information about a specific file system: 
    # sfcache list /mnt1
    /mnt1:
READ CACHE    WRITEBACK    MODE       PINNED  NAME
   39.0 MB         0 KB    writeback  yes     /mnt1/dir
   39.0 MB         0 KB    writeback  yes     /mnt1
  4. To see statistics on the cache usage, use the following command: 
    # sfcache stat sfcachearea_1
    TYPE: VxFS
NAME: sfcachearea_1
       Cache Name: sfcachearea_1
               Cache Size:       5 GB
        Cache Utilization:   1.426 GB (28.51 %)
File Systems Using Cache:       2
Writeback Cache Use Limit:  Unlimited
  Writeback Flush Timelag:      10 s

Read Cache                                Writeback
Hit Ratio  Data Read  Data Written    Hit Ratio  Data Written rdcachename  wbcachename

Total:
   7.98 %  157.7 MB   1.545 GB       0.00 %      0 KB


/pdb1:
   7.98 %  157.7 MB   1.545 GB       0.00 %      0 KB        sfcachearea_1     -


/pdb2:
   0.00 %  0 KB       0 KB           0.00 %      0 KB        sfcachearea_1  sfcachearea_2

    The output displays statistics for the cached data.

    See Viewing the SmartIO cache statistics .

  5. To see statistics on cache usage for a particular file system, use the following command:
    # sfcache stat /mnt1
    TYPE: VxFS :
       Cache Name: sfcachearea_1
       Cache Size:       5 GB
Cache Utilization:       4 KB ( 0.00 %)

Read Cache                                Writeback
   
Hit Ratio Data Read Data Written  Hit Ratio  Data Written rdcachename  wbcachename

/mnt1:
   0.00 %  0 KB     0 KB          0.00 %     0 KB         sfcachearea_1 sfcachearea_2
  6. Check the syslog to verify whether writeback mode caching is enabled.

    You should see a line such as the following in the syslog:

    vxfs: msgcnt 4 writeback caching is enabled for /dev/vx/dsk/testdg/vol1

    If writeback mode caching is disabled for a particular file system, you would see a line such as the following in the syslog:

    vxfs: msgcnt 9 writeback caching is disabled for /dev/vx/dsk/testdg/vol1