Exadata Storage Layout : Webcast on Feb 9, 2011, noon EST

Oracle Exadata SIG Webcast on Feb 9, 2011, noon EST
Title: Exadata Storage Layout (see http://OracleExadata.org for details)

Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Time: 9:00 am, PST
Dial in: 1-866-682-4770 (US)
Meeting Number: 270 356 386
Meeting Password: 123456
List of Toll-Free International Dial-In Numbers: http://twurl.nl/3775vt
Note: Audio will be streamed over the internet.
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To join the online meeting
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1. Go to https://oracleconferencing.webex.com/oracleconferencing/j.php?ED=7866298&UID=17535453&PW=NODExY2FmMjNh&RT=MiM0
2. If requested, enter your name and email address.
3. If a password is required, enter the meeting password: 123456
4. Click "Join".

Abstract:
In Oracle 10gR1, Oracle introduced Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and changed the way we think of managing database storage. Exadata is tightly integrated with ASM and provides the underlying disks that have traditionally been presented to ASM by the operating system. Looking at all the various intricacies of cell storage can be a little daunting at first. There are several layers of abstraction between physical disks and the ASM diskgroups many DBA’s are familiar with. If you’ve never worked with Oracle’s ASM product there will be a lot of new terms and concepts to understand there as well. This presentation discusses the various layers of abstraction, from physical disk to grid disk and how they are used to provide storage for the Oracle database. From there, we’ll take a look at the options for carving up and presenting Exadata grid disks to the database tier. The Oracle recommended approach is to create a few large “pools” of disk across all storage cells. While this approach generally works well from a performance standpoint, there are reasons to consider alternate strategies. Sometimes, isolating a set of storage cells to form a separate storage grid is desirable. This provides separation from more critical systems within the Exadata enclosure so that patches may be installed and tested before they are implemented in production. We’ll take a look at how ASM provides fault tolerance and storage virtualization to databases and how all the various pieces work together to provide flexible, high performance storage to the Oracle database.

Bio:
Randy Johnson is a Principal Consultant at Enkitec, a consulting firm specializing in Oracle. Randy has over 18 years of experience with Oracle beginning with Oracle 7 in the early 90's. Much of his career has combined Oracle DBA work with Unix administration duties. Over the last 5 years Randy focused almost exclusively on RAC and ASM. He is also an authority on Oracle backup and recovery via RMAN having written a popular utility for automating RMAN scripts called Dixie. Randy occasionally blogs at blog.enkitec.com.

My first blog post from the cell text message. Come to my Competing on Appliances talk at RMOUG on feb 17 2011. Shyam

Gartner Jan 2011 Magic Quadrant for DW Database Management Systems

The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Jan 2011 is out... Ever since I have started following Oracle Exadata and started the Oracle Exadata SIG (http://OracleExadata.org).

In about two weeks, I will be giving a talk titled "Competing on Appliances" at Denver in RMOUG 2011. So this was quite timely!

Teradata has earned the top honors being one of the pioneers in the data warehouse appliance space. Oracle with its three distinct data warehouse solutions: Oracle stand-alone Db 11g, Reference Configurations on variety of hardware and Exadata with Exadata Storage Server, top the next spot. In recent years though, I think the reference configuration or optimized warehouse initiative has faded away as obviously Oracle wants to promote their own H/W stack. Thus, two main options are Oracle DB on traditional hardware and Exadata systems. Keeping in mind that Exadata specially V2 came out in end of 2009, its position is pretty comfortable in the top quadrant. IBM Smart Analytics took the next spot even though Netezza was measured in its own for 2010. Sybase IQ has helped to put SAP on this map too!