Monday, January 24, 2011

Recovering Oracle

Here is nice schema how to recover oracle:

http://examples.oreilly.com/unixbr/oracle.html


TSM WiKi

TSM Wiki:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/tivolistoragemanager/Home

LPAR and VIO on IBM AIX UNIX Servers

Virtual I/O (VIO) and Virtualization

Briefly What is Virtualization?

The Virtual I/O Server is part of the IBM System p5 Advanced Power Virtualization hardware feature. Virtual I/O Server allows sharing of physical resources between LPARs including virtual SCSI and virtual networking. This allows more efficient utilization of physical resources through sharing between LPARs and facilitates server consolidation.
This allows a single machine to run multiple operating system (OS) images at the same time but each is isolated from the others. POWER4 based machines started this in 2001 by allowing many Logical Partitions (LPAR) to run on the same machine using but each using different CPUs, different memory sections and different PCI adapter slots. Next came with POWER4, the ability to dynamically change the CPU, memory and PCI adapters slots with the OS running. With the introduction of POWER5 in 2005, further Virtualization items have been added:
  1. Less than a whole CPU can be allocated to a LPAR
  2. The LPARs sharing CPUs can be setup to allow automatic load balancing (in milliseconds)
  3. The sharing of disks, networks, optical devices (CD/DVD) using a VIO Server (see below)
For whole article read:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/virtualization/VIO
Source: IBM DeveloperWorks Wiki

Saturday, January 15, 2011

HA/Clustered SAN Storage Solution for VMware?

VMware server HA is resolved by "VMware HA" already but what's about HA on storage level?

I mean real storage HA, no single point of failure, switchover without down time, synchronous mirroring between two storages, CDP - continuous data protection.
Have you ever thought about any solution to ensure HA on storage level?
I have spent many hours, days to find out proper solution.

VMware ESX/ESXi hosts can be placed into groups called clusters. A cluster contains 2 to 32 ESX hosts that work cooperatively together to provide features such as VMware HA and DRS. All the virtual machines in this HA cluster are protected by VMware HA. VMware HA detects failures of the ESX hosts, so when an ESX host fails, VMware HA moves and restarts the virtual machines on another unaffected ESX host in the cluster. Shared storage is an important component of the solution. Since the storage array stores the virtual disks of possibly all the virtual machines, even the smallest disruption can create a wide range of effects in a storage array where availability is vital.

I've found solutions: SAN storage cluster or SAN virtualization.
Read more bellow....

TSM Reporting Error -- Server Information

Operational Reporting reports fail with errors, either ANS1051E Invalid password, or empty report with:
Error -- Server Information

Results

Cause:
The administrator password used in the Operational Reporting configuration is out of sync with the password stored on the TSM Server.

Monday, January 10, 2011

IOBlazer - Storage stack micro-benchmark for VMware

How to do stress test and benchmark of storage subsystem in virtual environment?
Here is the answer: IOBlazer is storage / disk benchmark for VMware.

IOBlazer is a multi-platform storage stack micro-benchmark. IOBlazer runs on Linux, Windows and OSX and it is capable of generating a highly customizable workload.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Oracle Database 11g: Interactive Quick Reference Guide to Oracle Database 11g Release 2

Oracle Database 11g: Interactive Quick Reference Guide to Oracle Database 11g Release 2 

Top DBA Views: Key DBA static data dictionary views and dynamic performance views organized by product feature areas
Architecture: A single diagram that illustrates the relationships between key database memory structures, processes, and storage
Background Processes: A comprehensive list that categorizes the background processes and flags which are new in Oracle

Download the Oracle Database 11g Interactive Quick Reference

Source: Oracle's Database Application Developer Newsletter

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Basic troubleshooting for library and tape drives in AIX and TSM

Basic troubleshooting for library and tape drives in AIX
Source:
IBM Technote:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21406601

Many times issues with Tivoli Storage Manager Server in AIX connecting to tape libraries and/or drives can be resolved by checking some basics. The first things to do when addressing hardware issues are given in the steps below.

1) AIX: Does AIX have the correct device driver for the library and/or tape drives?
2) AIX: Does AIX list the library and/or tape drives as Available?
If 6.1, does the db2 instance owner account have read/write access?
3) TSM: Does TSM list the drives as online?
4) TSM: Does TSM list the paths as online and using the correct device name?
5) AIX: Can you test the library and/or drives from device utilities in AIX?
6) TSM: Does reconfiguring the library and/or drives in AIX and TSM resolve the issue?