HP Serviceguard Storage Management Suite Version A.02.01.01 for HP-UX 11i v3 Release Notes, Edition 1 (May 2010)

Oracle Disk Manager (ODM) with VxFS and LVM
Oracle Disk Manager (ODM) for VxFS file systems on LVM volumes is not supported. Oracle
Files that need ODM capability must reside on a VxFS file system created on a VxVM or CVM
volume.
Oracle Disk Manager (ODM) Limitation for CFS Oracle Bundles
Single instance Oracle databases are not permitted outside of Serviceguard packages in
environments using HP Serviceguard Storage Management Suite T2776CB, T2777CB, T8686CB,
T8687CB, T8696CB and T8697CB bundles. If there are any Oracle instances not controlled by
Serviceguard packages, a halt of the system multi-node package SG-CFS-pkg could bring down
the node or cluster. Place all Oracle single instances in Serviceguard packages when deploying
these bundles. In addition, single instance Oracle packages using VxFS and VxVM must have a
direct dependency on the system multi-node package SG-CFS-pkg.
ODM Must be Used for Oracle RAC Data on CFS File Systems
ODM - Oracle Disk Manager is included in all SG SMS Oracle bundles (T2773, T2774, T2776 and
T2777). ODM must be used for Oracle RAC data on CFS file systems. ODM can also be used for
Oracle standalone databases with data on VxVM volumes with VxFS file systems. ODM is not
supported for use on file systems on LVM logical volumes. ODM improves the I/O performance
for Oracle databases with data on VxFS and CFS file systems. The performance approaches that
of Oracle data on raw disks.
Dirty Region Logging (DRL) for Mirrored Volumes
If a system failure occurs while mirrored volumes are in use, the mirrors will recover and clean
up any writes that were in progress when the system failed. The Dirty Region Logging (DRL)
feature tracks writes that are in progress to reduce the recovery effort after a system failure.
Without DRL, the entire volume must be recovered, because there is no way to determine which
blocks had writes in progress at the time of the system failure.
The recovery operation is I/O intensive and can be time consuming, depending on the number
of volumes and how large they are. In a clustered environment the IO performance of multiple
nodes using the same volume will be impacted during recovery.
HP strongly recommends that you use DRL with mirrored data volumes in a clustered
environment to enable faster volume recovery. However, Oracle database volumes should be
configured without DRL, because the Oracle database application keeps its own logs and does
not require VxVM to maintain logs. For information on DRL and the Veritas™ SmartSync Recovery
Accelerator, see the Veritas™ Volume Manager Administrator’s Guide, HP-UX 11i v3, 5.0.
HP-UX Operating Environment Upgrade Limitations
When you purchase an HP Serviceguard Storage Management Suite (SG SMS) Operating
Environment (OE) bundle, the SG SMS software is provided on one DVD and the HP-UX OE
(Mission Critical - MCOE, Data Center - DCOE, or High Availability - HAOE) is provided on a
separate DVD.
The software provided on the SG SMS DVD relies on products and filesets that are provided on
the OE DVD, including HP Serviceguard and the Veritas Storage Foundation products. Each SG
SMS OE version relies on specific versions of HP Serviceguard and Enterprise Cluster Master
Toolkit (ECMT) that can change with new HP-UX OE releases.
The software on the SG SMS DVD is installed using swinstall. If an HP-UX OE is installed on
your system and you attempt to install a SG SMS OE version that is not supported with the
versions of Serviceguard and ECMT included with the HP-UX OE, swinstall will detect the
incompatible software and the installation will fail.
34 HP Serviceguard Storage Management Suite Version A.02.01.01 for HP-UX 11i v3 Release Notes