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Storage Myths: Dedupe for Databases
Spot the duplicate duck Storage for DBAs: Data deduplication – or “dedupe” – is a technology which falls under the umbrella of compression, i.e. reducing the amount of capacity required to store data....
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Postcards from Storageland: Competitive Blogging
A couple of years ago I left the warmth and comfort of the database world and joined the storage industry – a harsh unrelenting world full of cut-throat competition and vendor rivalries, where...
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Storage Myths: Storage Compression Has No Downside
Image courtesy of marcovdz Storage for DBAs: My last post in this blog series was aimed at dispelling the myth that dedupe is a suitable storage technology for databases. To my surprise it became the...
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Oracle Exadata X4 (Part 1): Bigger Than It Looks?
One of the results of my employment history is that I tend to take particular interest in the goings on at a certain enterprise software (and hardware!) company based in Redwood Shores. I love watching...
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Predictions for 2014: DataBase-as-a-Service
It’s that time of year again where lots of people write articles which begin with the words “It’s that time of year again…” and make endless references to crystal balls, tea leaves and the benefits of...
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Oracle Exadata X4 (Part 2): The All Flash Database Machine?
This article looks at the new Oracle Exadata X4-2 Database Machine from Big Red. In part one I looked at the changes made from the X3 model (more stuff) as well as the implications (more license...
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Playing The Data Reduction Lottery
Picture courtesy of Capsun Poe Storage for DBAs: Do you want to sell your house? Or your car? Let’s go with the car – just indulge me on this one. You have a car, which you weren’t especially planning...
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Oracle Fixes The 4k SPFILE Problem…But It’s Still Broken
As anyone familiar with the use of Oracle on Advanced Format storage devices will know to their cost, Oracle has had some difficulties implementing support of 4k devices. Officially, support for...
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New script for setting up multipath.conf entries
I’ve added a new script to the Useful Scripts page called setup-violin-mpath.sh which automates the process of creating entries for the /etc/multipath.conf file on Red Hat 6 / Oracle Linux 6. As the...
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Oracle AWR Reports: Understanding I/O Statistics
One consequence of my job is that I spend a lot of time looking at Oracle Automatic Workload Repository reports, specifically at information about I/O. I really do mean a lot of time (honestly, I’m...
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Oracle ASMLib: Physical and Logical Blocksize
This article is about the use of Advanced Format devices on Oracle’s ASMLib kernel library for Linux. For background, read this page on 4k sector sizes first, otherwise it might all sound like...
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More Problems with Oracle’s Support of 4k Devices
This is going to be another one of those posts, a bit like this one, that discuss the use of Oracle’s database product with Advanced Format devices. I wish there weren’t so many of these posts, but it...
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Postcards from Storageland: Two Years Flash By
The start of March means I have been working at Violin Memory for exactly two years. This also corresponds to exactly two years of the flashdba blog, so I thought I’d take stock and look at what’s...
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New installation cookbook for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3
Exactly what it says on the tin, I’ve added a new installation cookbook for SUSE 11 SP3 which creates Violin on a set of 4k devices. I’ve started setting the add_random tunable of the noop I/O...
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A New Approach To My Blogroll
Like most people, I have a panel on the right hand side of my blog which contains my blogroll, i.e. a list of links to the blogs of other people I respect and admire. And like most people in the Oracle...
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The Ultimate Guide To Oracle with Advanced Format 4k
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...
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How To Succeed In Presales?
This article is aimed at anyone considering making the move into technical presales who currently works in a professional services, consultancy or support role, or as customers and end-users. You will...
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Oracle SLOB On Solaris
Guest Post This is another guest post from my buddy Nate Fuzi, who performs the same role as me for Violin but is based in the US instead of EMEA. Nate believes that all English people live in the...
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Understanding Disk: Caching and Tiering
When I was a child, about four or five years old, my dad told me a joke. It wasn’t a very funny joke, but it stuck in my mind because of what happened next. The joke went like this: Dad: “What’s big...
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Understanding Flash: What Is NAND Flash?
In the early 1980s, before we ever had such wondrous things as cell phones, tablets or digital cameras, a scientist named Dr Fujio Masuoka was working for Toshiba in Japan on the limitations of EPROM...
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