Migrating to new page sizes using Sybmigrate - Sybase

Sybase ® Adaptive Server ® Enterprise 12.5:
Migrating to New Page Sizes Using Sybmigrate
A Technical White Paper
WHITE PAPER

Introduction
Unlike earlier releases of ASE which support only 2K page size, 12.5 ASE release can have various page sizes:
2K, 4K, 8K and 16K. Larger logical pages allow users to create larger rows, which can improve the performance
because ASE accesses more data each time it reads a page. For example, a 16K page can hold 8 times the
amount of data as a 2K page, an 8K page holds 4 times as much data as a 2K page, and so on, for all the sizes
for logical pages. However, the release will not support a direct upgrade from pre-12.5 2K page server to a
server with a different logical page size. Users will therefore need to move their data to the new server when
the page size is different. To assist users with different page-size migration, Sybase releases the sybmigrate
utility to execute such task.
Written in Java, sybmigrate can be used in an interactive GUI mode or in non-interactive, command line
mode with a resource file, to help users with the migration process. It has the following user benefits:
• Ease of use
• Rich graphical user environment
• Capability to operate in the batch model – an alternative to the graphical user environment
• Greater level of control
• Intuitive process for migration
Please be aware that throughout this document, migration process refers to the actual process of copying the
database schema, user data and user objects from one server to another server, not the upgrading of ASE
installation to a new release, or upgrading an existing application.
Standard Migration Process
Preparing your database server (and underlying databases) for migration from a 2K page size to an nK page
size is very easy and does not require a significant amount of effort. Remember, you will be performing a
database (or server) migration, and in order to ensure success, some preliminary steps need to be taken. You
will notice, however, that they do not differ from the standard upgrade procedures recommended by Sybase.
• Run full dbcc checks on your database(s) to be migrated, fix problems reported
• Perform backups of the database(s) to be migrated
• Build a new nK page ASE server
After performing these steps, launch $SYBASE/$SYBASE_ASE/bin/sybmigrate. The migration utility will come up.
For more information on ASE server configuration, pre-setup procedures preparation, and other general
prerequisites, please refer to the migration utility manual. After the pre-setup is complete, there are three steps
or sessions for the migration process - Setup, Migration, and Validation.
2

Setup
The primary goal here is to setup the migration paths, define the source and target ASE server as well as
databases, etc. Additionally, performance related aspects like number of threads can be fine-tuned here.
Here is a sample screenshot of the session.
To facilitate the migration process, sybmigrate will create two system databases in the source ASE:
• Sybmigratedb – For migration tasks, progress and other control information
• Migration database – Contains proxy tables for each user table selected for migration. The proxy tables only
exist for the life of the data transfer of the user table
Migration
This session is to migrate objects and data from the source database to the target database. In this session, users
can select objects to be migrated. Although this step is where the major migration action takes place, there are
very minimal manual operations involved. A sample screenshot showing objects being selected is displayed here.
3

Validation
This is to validate the objects and data that users have migrated. The steps are the same as the "Migrate" session
except that users need to select "validate database objects and data" in the "Session Type" screen for GUI.
Customer Scenario
A premium movie and entertainment company has deployed a combination of core Sybase technologies,
including Sybase ASE, Replication Server,® and EAServer to host its e-Business website. Together, these
products serve content to its website visitors, from programming schedules to special subscription offers
during yearly promotions.
The website currently runs on Sybase ASE 11.9.2 on RedHat Linux 6.2, however they would like to upgrade to
Sybase ASE 12.5 on RedHat 7.2 and utilize the larger page size of the database server.
Since this database server serves a mission critical area of this company, downtime for a cutover must be
minimal. Therefore, a "test-run" of the migration utility was performed on the following hardware:
• RedHat Linux 7.2
• Adaptive Server Enterprise Version 12.5.0.1
• Compaq dual-cpu intel-based blade server
• Ultra-SCSI disk, 2x18GB
• Compaq smartRAID controller
The database that was used in this test was approximately 700MB in size. Using the migration utility, it took
approximately 2 minutes to migrate this database from a 2K 12.5.0.1 server to an 8K 12.5.0.1 server – all using
the default values of ASE.
In this migration process, there are no adjustments made to the database server configuration; all values used
for the migration (pre-allocated extents, etc.) are all set at the default values. Migration is performed
successfully, and no problems are encountered with the migration utility. Minor adjustment may be required
to make sure that certain key values are the same on both servers before performing the process.
Tuning for Better Performance
Designed for simplistic operation, the migration utility also offers different configurations for optimum
performance. By fully leveraging multi-threading, it can migrate DDL objects and data in parallel. Each
thread has a connection to the servers to perform the task. These threads can be configured with the
following three options:
• WORK_THREAD – The number of threads used to query the DDL objects from the source database
and recreate them on the target database in parallel
• DATA_COPY_THREAD – The number of threads used to copy the user tables data in parallel
• CREATE_INDEX_THREAD – The number of threads used to recreate the indexes on the target
database in parallel
4

In addition to the parallelism in the migration utility, the ASE also does parallel data copy within the
partition tables.
These migration utility thread configurations require ASE resources. Therefore, users must also configure
the ASE. Here are the ASE configurations users must configure to allow better performance:
• cis packet size – On the source ASE, this must be set to the value same as the target ASE page size
• max network packet size – On the target ASE, this must be at least the target ASE page size
• cis bulk insert batch size – This number must be configured to a value that is low enough to avoid getting
too many locks, but high enough to avoid too many commits
• number of user connections – This number is tied to the number of threads migration utility uses and the
number of partitions in tables. Each migration utility thread has its own server connection. Therefore, users
must configure this to a value greater than the number of threads migration utility uses. A valid value would
be DATA_COPY_THREAD * maximum number of partitions in tables being migrated + (10% to 30%).
The 10% to 30% is due to the behavior of the garbage collection in different platform Java VM
• max parallel degree – On the source ASE, this must be configured to a value that is the maximum number of
partitions in tables being migrated
• number of worker processes – On the source ASE, this must be configured to DATA_COPY_THREAD *
maximum number of partitions in table being migrated
• partition groups – On the source and target ASE, this must be configured to DATA_COPY_THREAD *
maximum number of partitions in table being migrated
• allow resource limits – This configuration must be off for source ASE
• select on syscomments.text – This configuration must be on for both source and target ASE’s
• number of open objects – If needed, adjust to accommodate proxy tables in migration database
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This Technical White Paper was prepared by Sybase, Inc. L02176 MIL5014