The start of March means I have been working at Violin Memory for exactly two years. This also corresponds to exactly two years of the flashdba blog, so I thought I'd take stock and look at what's happened since I embarked on my journey into the world of storage. Quite a lot, as it happens... … Continue reading Postcards from Storageland: Two Years Flash By
Tag: flash memory
Oracle AWR Reports: Understanding I/O Statistics
One consequence of my job is that I spend a lot of time looking at Oracle Automatic Workload Repository reports, specifically at information about I/O. I really do mean a lot of time (honestly, I'm not kidding, I have had dreams about AWR reports). One thing that comes up very frequently is the confusion relating … Continue reading Oracle AWR Reports: Understanding I/O Statistics
Oracle Exadata X4 (Part 2): The All Flash Database Machine?
This article looks at the new Oracle Exadata X4-2 Database Machine from Big Red. In part one I looked at the changes made from the X3 model (more stuff) as well as the implications (more license bills). I also covered some of the confusing and bewildering descriptions Oracle has used to describe the flash capacity … Continue reading Oracle Exadata X4 (Part 2): The All Flash Database Machine?
Predictions for 2014: DataBase-as-a-Service
It's that time of year again where lots of people write articles which begin with the words "It's that time of year again..." and make endless references to crystal balls, tea leaves and the benefits of hindsight. But not me, I'm not descending into cliché. Apart from that first sentence, which with the benefit of … Continue reading Predictions for 2014: DataBase-as-a-Service
Oracle Exadata X4 (Part 1): Bigger Than It Looks?
One of the results of my employment history is that I tend to take particular interest in the goings on at a certain enterprise software (and hardware!) company based in Redwood Shores. I love watching Oracle's announcements, press releases, product releases and financial statements to see what they are up to - and I am … Continue reading Oracle Exadata X4 (Part 1): Bigger Than It Looks?
The Most Expensive CPUs You Own
Storage for DBAs: Take a look in your data centre at all those humming boxes and flashing lights. Ignore the storage and networking gear for now and just concentrate on the servers. You probably have many different models, with different types and numbers of CPUs and DRAM inside. My question is, which CPUs are the most … Continue reading The Most Expensive CPUs You Own
The Real Cost of Oracle RAC
Oracle RAC is sold as a high-availability solution, but its real cost – in licenses, complexity and the hidden assumption that losing a node doesn’t count as an outage – is rarely made explicit.
The Real Cost of Enterprise Database Software
Oracle database licensing is eye-wateringly expensive per CPU core – and storage costs, often seen as prohibitive, represent a surprisingly small fraction of the total three-year spend.
Storage Myths: Put Oracle Redo on SSD
Putting Oracle redo logs on SSD is a common reflex response to slow databases – but it usually misdiagnoses the problem, and SSDs handle write-heavy sequential workloads worse than you might expect.
Storage Myths: IOPS Matter
IOPS figures dominate flash storage marketing, but for databases latency is the metric that matters – high IOPS at unpredictable latency deliver no real-world value.
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