Expert Oracle Exadata - Parent Directory

CHAPTER 13 MIGRATING TO EXADATAscope of this book, but we’ll touch the subject of the network hardware built in to Exadata databaseservers here.In addition to the InfiniBand ports, Exadata clusters also have built-in Ethernet ports. Table 13-2lists all the Ethernet and InfiniBand ports.Table 13-2. Exadata Ethernet and InfiniBand ports in each database serverExadata Version Hardware Ethernet Ports InfiniBand PortsV1 HP 2 × 1 Gb/s 2 × 20 Gb/s DDRV2 Sun 4 × 1 Gb/s 2 × 40 Gb/s QDRX2-2 Sun 4 × 1 Gb/s2 × 10 Gb/sX2-8 Sun 8 × 1 Gb/s8 × 10 Gb/s2 × 40 Gb/s8 × 40 Gb/sThe database servers and cells each have one more administrative Ethernet port for server management(ILOM).Note that this table shows the number of network ports per database server. So, while Exadata V2does not have any 10GbE ports, it still has 4 × 1GbE ports per database server. With 8 database servers ina full rack, this would add up to 32 × 1 GbE ports, giving you a maximum theoretical throughput of 32gigabits per second when using only Ethernet ports. With various overheads, 3 gigabytes per second oftransfer speed would theoretically still be achievable if you manage to put all of the network portsequally into use and there are no other bottlenecks. This would mean that you have to either bond thenetwork interfaces or route the data transfer of different datasets via different network interfaces.Different dblinks’ connections can be routed via different IPs or DataPump dumpfiles transferred viadifferent routes.This already sounds complicated, that’s why companies migrating to Exadata often used the highthroughputbonded InfiniBand links for migrating large datasets with low downtime. Unfortunately, theexisting database networking infrastructure in most companies does not include InfiniBand (in old bigiron servers). The standard usually is a number of switched and bonded 1 GbE Ethernet ports or 10 GbEports in some cases. That’s why, for Exadata V1/V2 migrations, you would have had to either install anInfiniBand card into your source server or use a switch capable of both handling the source Ethernettraffic and flowing it on to the target Exadata InfiniBand network.Luckily the new Exadata X2-2 and X2-8 releases both have 10 GbE ports included in them, so youdon’t need to go through the hassle of getting your old servers InfiniBand-enabled anymore and canresort to 10 GbE connections (if your old servers or network switches have 10GbE Ethernet cards inplace). Probably by the time this book comes out, nobody plans large-scale migrations to Exadata V1 andV2 anymore.430