New section: Oracle SLOB Testing

For some time now I have preferred Oracle SLOB as my tool for generating I/O workloads using Oracle databases. I've previously blogged some information on how to use SLOB for PIO testing, as well as shared some scripts for running tests and extracting results. I've now added a whole new landing page for SLOB and … Continue reading New section: Oracle SLOB Testing →

Oracle SLOB On Solaris

Guest Post This is another guest post from my buddy Nate Fuzi, who performs the same role as me for Violin but is based in the US instead of EMEA. Nate believes that all English people live in the Dickensian London of the 19th century and speak in Cockney rhyming slang. I hate to disappoint, … Continue reading Oracle SLOB On Solaris →

SLOB2: Testing The Effect Of Oracle Blocksize

I recently posted a test harness for generating physical I/O using the new version of SLOB (the Silly Little Oracle Benchmark) known as SLOBv2. This test harness can be used for driving varying workloads and then processing the results for use in ... well, wherever really. Some friends of mine are getting very adept with … Continue reading SLOB2: Testing The Effect Of Oracle Blocksize →

New SLOB2 Physical I/O Harness

Short post to point out that I've now posted the updated PIO Test Harness for SLOB2. This can be used to run multiple SLOB tests with varying numbers of workers and values of UPDATE_PCT. In addition there is also a revised version of the AWR analyzer shell script which can be used to extract various … Continue reading New SLOB2 Physical I/O Harness →

SLOB: PL/SQL Commit Optimization

I ran some SLOB tests over the weekend using the new SLOBv2 kit and noticed some interesting results. I was using SLOB to generate physical I/O but the "anomaly" is best demonstrated by putting SLOB in "Logical I/O mode", i.e. by having a large enough buffer cache to satisfy all reads. I'm calling SLOB with the … Continue reading SLOB: PL/SQL Commit Optimization →

SLOB2: Essential for Every DBA Toolkit

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin released the second version of SLOB - the Silly Little Oracle Benchmark. Readers will know that I was already a big fan of the original version, but version 2 (which I was fortunate enough to test prior to its release) now has extra features and functionality which make it … Continue reading SLOB2: Essential for Every DBA Toolkit →

Using SLOB to Test Physical I/O

For some time now I've been using the Silly Little Oracle Benchmark (SLOB) tool to drive physical I/O against the various high performance flash memory arrays I have in my lab (one of the benefits of working for Violin Memory is a lab stuffed with flash arrays!) I wrote a number of little scripts and … Continue reading Using SLOB to Test Physical I/O →

SLOB using Violin 6616 on Fujitsu Servers

I've been too busy to blog recently, which is frustrating because I want to talk more about subjects that are important to me such as Database Virtualization and the great hype around In Memory Databases. However, in the meantime I'd like to share some results from running SLOB (the Silly Little Oracle Benchmark) on Violin … Continue reading SLOB using Violin 6616 on Fujitsu Servers →

SLOB on Violin 3000 Series with PCIe Direct Attach

A reader Alex asked if I could post a comparative set of tests from my previous 3000 series Infiniband testing but using the PCIe direct-attached method. I was actually very keen to test this myself as I wanted to see how close the Infiniband connectivity method could get to the PCIe latencies. Why? Well, PCIe … Continue reading SLOB on Violin 3000 Series with PCIe Direct Attach →

SLOB on Violin 3000 Series with Infiniband

Last week I invited Martin Bach to the Violin Memory EMEA headquarters to do some testing on both our 3000 and 6000 series arrays. Martin was very interested in seeing how the Violin flash memory arrays performed, having already had some experience with PCIe-based flash card vendor. There are a few problems with PCIe flash … Continue reading SLOB on Violin 3000 Series with Infiniband →