3.7.0 HP StorageWorks HP Scalable NAS File Serving Software provisioning guide for Oracle HP Scalable NAS (AG513-96013, October 2009)

1MB on most Oracle ports; on a few ports such as Solaris, even larger transfers are
supported. In general, a 4MB volume stripe width is a good choice. The LUNs in the
array should be mirrored (RAID1) or at least parity protected (RAID5 or RAID6, for
example). A mirrored LUN striped with the volume manager achieves the optimal
S.A.M.E. (Stripe and Mirror Everything) data placement methodology recommended
by Oracle Corporation.
For more information about importing disks and creating dynamic volumes, see the
HP Scalable NAS File Serving Software administration guide.
PSFS filesystems
All NAS devices in the industry today present an internal filesystem via the NFS
protocol. In the case of HP Scalable NAS, the internal filesystem, PSFS, is fully
symmetric and distributed. This means that all NAS heads have equal, direct
read/write access to all filesystems and therefore all files. Combining the filesystem
with the volume manager makes the foundation for the tremendous scalability this
architecture offers.
Before filesystems can be exported via NFS from the cluster NAS heads, the Database
Administrator will need to establish the purpose of the filesystem so that the
appropriate PSFS internal mount options can be used. (These options should not be
confused with NFS client mount options, which are discussed later in this document.
The PSFS options refer to how the NFS Server cluster internally mounts devices that
will be exported). Other than the default mount options, there are two mutually
exclusive mount options to consider for Oracle deployments:
• “Std File Optimized” mount option
• “DB Optimized”database mount option
Standard File Optimized option versus DB Optimized option
In HP Scalable NAS, filesystems can be mounted for general purpose use or for
optimal database object use. For filesystems that the Oracle Administrator will use
for Oracle binaries, the Storage Administrator will need to mount the PSFS filesystem
with the Standard File Optimized mount option. This includes either separate or
shared $ORACLE_HOME or $APPL_TOP filesystems. On the other hand, any Oracle
database object (e.g., control files, redo logs, datafiles, datafiles for temporary
tablespaces, clusterware files) should reside in an PSFS filesystem mounted with the
DB Optimized mount option. For Real Application Clusters databases and Clusterware
files, the DB Optimized mount option is a requirement.
Another way to decide which PSFS mount option is needed is to determine if the
database will open the files in the filesystem using direct I/O. If that is the case, the
NAS Administrator: deploying HP Scalable NAS for use with Oracle16