It’s a brave thing, calling something the “Ultimate Guide To …” as it can leave you open to criticism that it’s anything but. However, this topic – of how Oracle runs on Advanced Format storage systems and which choices have which consequences – is one I’ve been learning for two years now, so this really is everything I know. And from my desperate searching of the internet, plus discussions with people who are usually much knowledgeable than me, I’ve come to the conclusion that nobody else really understands it.
In fact, you could say that it’s a topic full of confusion – and if you browsed the support notes on My Oracle Support you’d definitely come to that conclusion. Part of that confusion is unfortunately FUD, spread by storage vendors who do not (yet) support Advanced Format and therefore benefit from scaring customers away from it. Be under no illusions, with the likes of Western Digital, HGST and Seagate all signed up to Advanced Format, plus Violin Memory and EMC’s XtremIO both using it, it’s something you should embrace rather than avoid.
However, to try and lessen the opportunity for those competitors to point and say “Look how complicated it is!”, I’ve split my previous knowledge repository into two: a high-level page and an Oracle on 4k deep dive. It’s taken me years to work all this stuff out – and days to write it all down, so I sincerely hope it saves someone else a lot of time and effort…!
Advanced Format with 4k Sectors
Advanced Format: Oracle on 4k Deep Dive
Filed under: Advanced Format, ASM, Blog, Database, Flash, Linux, Storage Tagged: advanced format, ASM, flash memory, linux, oracle