Oracle on VMware 5.5

[techie8]

Has anyone deployed oracle instances on VMware environment? If yes, I need some guidance on topics like VM configuration such as SCSI adapters, should I use LSI adapter or PVSCSI adapters? If PVSCSI, then are they supported by both VMware and oracle.Any benchmarking on oracle instances running on VMware to support single database or multiple databases?

Thx

[rcporto · Accepted solution]

Take a loot at this paper: https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/partners/oracle/Oracle_Databases_on_VMware_-_Best_Practices_Guide.p...

Page #20 talks exactly about paravirtualized SCSI adapter:

5.5.2 Paravirtualized SCSI Adapters

A variety of architectural improvements have been made to the storage subsystem of VMware vSphere 4. The combination of the new Paravirtualized SCSI driver (PVSCSI), and additional ESX/ESXi kernel-level storage stack optimizations dramatically improves storage I/O performance.

VMware recommends that you create a primary adapter for use with a disk that will host the system software (boot disk) and a separate PVSCSI adapter for the disk that will store the Oracle data files.

[techie8]

I will read this document tonight. Thx

[Alistar]

One thing to beware of, is that VMware does not recommend using PVSCSI while using Directly Attached Storage (virtual disks on RAID Controllers).

Otherwise, good luck!

[techie8]

Agreed, we will be using FC SAN for this project and then I will test the data files IOPS requirements on LUN provisioned from this storage using PVSCSI adapters.

Thx