VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.1 Oracle Administrator's Guide

VERITAS Extension for Oracle Disk Manager Prerelease 8 September 2005, 8:54am
42 VERITAS Storage Foundation for Oracle Administrator’s Guide
VERITAS Extension for Oracle Disk Manager
VERITAS Extension for Oracle Disk Manager is a custom storage interface defined by Oracle
Corporation beginning with Oracle9i. Oracle Disk Manager allows Oracle9i to exploit system
bandwidth through an improved Application Programming Interface (API) that contains advanced
kernel support for file I/O. Oracle Disk Manager reduces administration overhead by providing
enhanced support for the Oracle Managed Files (OMF) infrastructure also introduced beginning
with Oracle9i. Combining VERITAS Extension for Oracle Disk Manager with Oracle9i offers
better database throughput for I/O intensive workloads due to specialized I/O features that greatly
improve the I/O system call profile for such key Oracle server processes as the Log Writer and
Database Writers.
With VERITAS Extension for Oracle Disk Manager, Oracle9i is able to use the same system calls
for datafiles stored in the VERITAS File System as they do with raw partitions. Oracle Disk
Manager files look just like ordinary file system files and can be handled as such. Care is given
within Oracle Disk Manager to ensure files are created with contiguous disk blocks automatically
for improved sequential file access performance. Oracle Disk Manager files can be backed up and
recovered through VERITAS NetBackup, Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN), or other backup
software. See “Using VERITAS Extension for Oracle Disk Manager” on page 123 for more
information.