Troubleshooting

Improving Oracle OLTP database performance with Dell Fluid Cache for DAS
11
Test methodology
This section describes the test environment, test methodologies and the tools used to benchmark the
two solutions described in the Solution design and reference architecture section. Most of the steps
described in the Baseline configuration test methodology sub-section are used for Fluid Cache based
solution testing as well. The subsequent sub-sections describe the methods and procedures that are
specific to that particular solution.
Test environment
Dell Quest Benchmark Factory (BMF) software was used as the benchmarking tool for the OLTP
performance testing in this whitepaper. As shown in Figure 3, BMF was setup on a dedicated server and
was connected to the solution under test via a GigE Ethernet link. “Solution under test” represents
each of the storage solutions described in the Solution design and reference architecture section. BMF
was used to create the 450GB TPC-C database schema set and was also used to generate the OLTP
workload against that database schema.
Performance benchmarking architecture Figure 3.
Baseline configuration test methodology
This section describes the test methodology used to evaluate the baseline configuration. The steps
listed in this section forms the basis for Fluid Cache based solution section that follows.
1. Solution hardware setup: The baseline configuration hardware was configured as described in
the Traditional HDD-based storage solution (Baseline Configuration) section.
2. Database Server setup: The operating system (OS), network, storage and database pre-
requisites were configured on the PowerEdge R720 database server according to Dell’s
recommended best practices
4
.