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

Applying a SmartIO database caching template for a VxVM volume

SmartIO provides application templates to optimize caching for databases running on VxVM volumes. SmartIO uses the templates to apply policies to particular types of volumes in the database. For example, caching policies for index volumes and data volumes.

To apply a SmartIO sybase caching template for a VxVM volume

  1. Log in as root user.
  2. Export the SYBASE environment variable.
    # export SYBASE=/sybase

    Where /sybase is the Sybase home directory.

  3. Apply a SmartIO sybase caching template for a VxVM volume using the following command:
    # sfcache app cachearea=cachearea_name sybase \
 {olap|oltp} db_username db_server [db_name]

    Where:

    olap or oltp indicates the type of application load. OLAP, or Online Analytical Processing, applications process workloads intended for multi-dimensional analytical queries. OLTP, or Online Transaction Processing, applications process transaction-oriented workloads, such as for data entry and retrieval transaction processing.

    db_user_name indicates the Database User Name.

    db_server indicates the Database Server Name.

    db_name indicates the database name. The database name is optional. If database name is not specified, then the command runs for all databases under the user db_user_name.

    For example:

    # sfcache app cachearea=sfcachearea_1 sybase olap sa VXVMSYBS vmdb
  4. Enter the password for the database user at the prompt.
  5. If required, you can view the command activity in the caching log file.

    The log file is/etc/vx/log/sfcache.log.

    For example:

    Enabling caching for sybdg/DB1DATA
sfcache enable sybdg/DB1DATA
Disabling caching for sybdg/DB1LOG
Sfcache disable sybdg/DB1LOG

To apply a SmartIO oracle caching template for a VxVM volume

  1. Log in as root user.
  2. Apply a SmartIO oracle caching template for a VxVM volume using the following command:
    # sfcache app cachearea=cachearea_name oracle \
 {olap|oltp} oracle_user_name ORACLE_HOME \
 ORACLE_SID [ASM_HOME [ASM_SID]]

    Where:

    olap or oltp indicates the type of application load. OLAP, or Online Analytical Processing, applications process workloads intended for multi-dimensional analytical queries. OLTP, or Online Transaction Processing, applications process transaction-oriented workloads, such as for data entry and retrieval transaction processing.

    oracle_user_name indicates the user name of the Oracle user.

    ORACLE_HOME indicates the directory where the Oracle software is installed. Usually the ORACLE_HOME value is stored in the bash.rc file or the profile file of the Oracle user.

    ORACLE_SID indicates the System ID used to uniquely identify the database.

    ASM_HOME indicates the directory where the ASM software is installed.

    ASM_SID indicates the System ID for the ASM instance. By default, the value is +ASM. For multiple instances of ASM, the value may differ.

    The following examples show the variations of the app command for the Oracle database.

    The first example shows the Oracle database created directly on VxVM volumes. In this scenario, the ASM_HOME and ASM_SID values are not applicable.

    Example of Oracle on Raw volumes: 

    # sfcache app cachearea=sfcachearea_1 oracle olap oracle /ora_base/db_home rawdb

    The next example shows the Oracle ASM database created on VxVM volumes. In this scenario, you must specify the ASM_HOME. If required, specify the ASM_SID.

    Example of Oracle ASM: 

    # sfcache app cachearea=sfcachearea_1 oracle oltp oracle /orabin/dbbase/dbhome 
\ testdb /orabin/gridhome
  3. Enter the password for the database user at the prompt.
  4. If required, you can view the command activity in the caching log file.

    The log file is /etc/vx/log/sfcache.log.

    Example log file for Oracle on Raw volumes: 

    Fri Jun  7 22:04:31 IST 2013 sfcache app cachearea=sfcachearea_1 
oracle olap oracle /ora_base/db_home rawdb
Enabling caching for rawdg/rawvol02 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -v -g rawdg -e 'v_name="rawvol02"' 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %cache_area_type rawvol02 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %iscachevol rawvol02 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %caching rawvol02 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -o alldgs -q -v -e 'v_cachearea_vm=on' 
Enabling caching for rawdg/rawvol06 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -v -g rawdg -e 'v_name="rawvol06"' 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %cache_area_type rawvol06 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %iscachevol rawvol06 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %caching rawvol06 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -o alldgs -q -v -e 'v_cachearea_vm=on' 
Disabling caching for rawdg/rawvol01 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -v -g rawdg -e 'v_name="rawvol01"' 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %cache_area_type rawvol01 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %iscachevol rawvol01 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g rawdg -F %caching rawvol01

    Example log file for Oracle ASM: 

    Enabling caching for testdg/testvol 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -v -g testdg -e 'v_name="testvol"' 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g testdg -F %cache_area_type testvol 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g testdg -F %iscachevol testvol 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g testdg -F %caching testvol 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -o alldgs -q -v -e 'v_cachearea_vm=on' 
Enabling caching for testdg/testvol2 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -v -g testdg -e 'v_name="testvol2"' 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g testdg -F %cache_area_type testvol2 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g testdg -F %iscachevol testvol2 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -g testdg -F %caching testvol2 
/usr/sbin/vxprint -o alldgs -q -v -e 'v_cachearea_vm=on'