Understanding Storage Masterclass with James Morle

Scale Abilities have announced the first UK dates for James Morle's Understanding Storage Masterclass.
If you have ever been confused about how your storage interacts with Oracle, or frustrated at always losing 'discussions' with your storage team, this seminar is for you!  
If you would like to gain a better understanding about the storage tier and be able to communicate well with your storage administration colleagues when there are problems, make sure to attend this two-day masterclass by James Morle. The seminar is focused on the component of the database platform that is probably the least understood—the storage tier.
 

The storage tier is often shrouded in mystery, frequently managed by other teams, and more often than not performing very badly. This seminar aims to deconstruct the storage tier and demystify the operation of the myriad components within it. Starting with the moment Oracle determines a need to go to disk until that requirement is fulfilled, we look in detail at all the processes and technology that lie in between. You will also learn some vital theory topics to help you gain a better understanding of what you can expect, and specific nuts and bolts explanations of how an I/O request is requested and serviced in many different con- figurations. As well as static slides, we will look at some examples of Oracle doing I/O and show some diagnostic techniques so that you can find out what is happening in your specific case.

Objectives

• Understand the theory and practice of I/O.
• Understand the components that interact to comprise and I/O.
• Learn to break open the black box and troubleshoot I/O performance problems.
• Be able to make informed decisions about designing storage systems for Oracle databases.

Structure
Day One: The first day is the ‘theory day’. It is vital to understand this theory in order to make informed decisions about architecture and performance diagnostics.

• Unit 1 – Fundamentals: The Memory Hierarchy, Latency, Bandwidth
• Unit 2 – Connectivity: Fibre Channel, Ethernet, SAS, SATA, PCIe, Infiniband
• Unit 3 – The Physics of Disk Storage
• Unit 4 – The Anatomy of a Storage Array

Day Two: The second day is more practical, and you are welcome to bring along your laptop (with Oracle installed) if you want to try some of the diagnostic techniques presented here.

• Unit 5 – The Server View of I/O: How does the Operating System issue and report on I/O (Linux/UNIX based)
• Unit 6 – How Oracle Performs I/O, part one: Direct I/O, Async I/O, Oracle I/O request types by process, buffered I/O, direct path I/O
• Unit 7 – How Oracle Performs I/O, part two: ASM internals, Direct NFS
• Unit 8 – The Latency Revolution: Flash storage and emerging technologies

Note: This masterclass is constantly being developed and improved and the exact content is subject to change.
Forthcoming Schedule

• April 24/25 2012 – Prospero House, London. BOOK HERE (UKOUG Members are eligible for £100 discount)