Exadata X3, 11.2.3.2 and Oracle Platinum Services
- by Rene Kundersma
Oracle recently announced an Exadata Hardware Update. The overall architecture will remain the same, however some interesting
hardware refreshes are done especially for the storage server (X3-2L). Each cell will now have 1600GB of flash, this means an X3-2
full rack will have 20.3 TB of total flash ! For all the details I would
like to refer to the Oracle Exadata product page: www.oracle.com/exadata
Together with the announcement of the X3 generation. A new Exadata release, 11.2.3.2 is made available. New Exadata systems will be shipped with this release and existing installations can be updated to that release. As always there is a storage cell patch and a patch for the compute node, which again needs to be applied using YUM.
Instructions and requirements for patching existing Exadata compute nodes to 11.2.3.2 using YUM can be found in the patch README. Depending on the release you have installed on your compute nodes the
README will direct you to a particular section in MOS note 1473002.1.
MOS 1473002.1 should only be followed with the instructions from the
11.2.3.2 patch README. Like with 11.2.3.1.0 and 11.2.3.1.1 instructions
are added to prepare your systems to use YUM for the first time in case
you are still on release 11.2.2.4.2 and earlier. You will also find
these One Time Setup instructions in MOS note 1473002.1
By default compute nodes that will be updated to 11.2.3.2.0 will have the UEK kernel. Before 11.2.3.2.0 the 'compatible kernel' was used for the compute nodes. For 11.2.3.2.0 customer will have the choice to replace the UEK kernel with the Exadata standard 'compatible kernel' which is also in the ULN 11.2.3.2 channel. Recommended is to use the kernel that is installed by default.
One of the other great new things 11.2.3.2 brings is Writeback Flashcache
(wbfc). By default wbfc is disabled after the upgrade to 11.2.3.2. Enable wbfc after patching on the storage servers of your test
environment and see the improvements this brings for your applications.
Writeback FlashCache can be enabled by dropping the existing FlashCache, stopping the cellsrv process and changing the FlashCacheMode
attribute of the cell. Of course stopping cellsrv can only be done in a
controlled manner.
Steps:
drop flashcache
alter cell shutdown services cellsrv
again, cellsrv can only be stopped in a controlled manner
alter cell flashCacheMode = WriteBack
alter cell startup services cellsrv
create flashcache all
Going back to WriteThrough FlashCache is also possible, but only after flushing the FlashCache:
alter cell flashcache all flush
Last item I like to highlight in particular is already from a while ago,
but a great thing to emphasis: Oracle Platinum Services. On top of the remote fault monitoring with faster response times Oracle has included update and patch deployment services.These services are delivered by Oracle Advanced Customer Support at no
additional costs for qualified Oracle Premier Support customers.
References:
11.2.3.2.0 README
Exadata YUM Repository Population, One-Time Setup Configuration and YUM upgrades 1473002.1
Oracle Platinum Services
