What is SSD? How to get Good Performance from SSD?

Memory based disks or Solid state disks (SSD) are based on the concept of RAM disks. However, they are relatively more stable. An SSD is very similar to a standard disk drive and, for most practical purposes, behaves like one. To the host system, an SSD is a disk drive. But an SSD does not store data on magnetic disk media. Instead, it stores data on high density arrays of high speed DRAM memory chips. This eliminates the inherent mechanical delays that come with the need to spin a hard disk and position the read/write heads to execute an I/O request. By eliminating such latencies, SSDs achieve access times much faster than conventional disk drives. 

With most vendors, SSD performance is fast and reliable. An SSD has an integral battery-powered hard-disk drive and associated software continuously backing up its contents. At any moment, typically 81 percent of the data on the SSD is backed up to the hard disk. During power failures, batteries maintain power long enough to back up the rest of the data. In some implementations, backing up the contents onto disk is handled at the hardware level, enhancing performance and reliability further.

For database applications, SSDs provide a viable option for enhancing performance by eliminating variable seek times without compromising availability. Most vendors implement custom versions of the SSD concept. An instance, Sun Microsystems has PrestoServe, a high speed static memory-based storage medium that is backed up by lithium powered batteries. In typical Oracle implementations, small but heavy accessed files, such as online redo logs, Undo data files, can be placed on SSDs.

Most implementations of SSDs incorporate highly resilient fault monitoring during regular operations, which includes continuous header checking and data-retention system monitoring. However, have a chat with your vendor’s technical personnel and ensure that such checks are indeed continuous in your case. Also, have an arrangement with your vendor so that their technical personnel can visit your site and perform data-integrity checks at regular intervals, at least every three or four months. If possible, purchase tools from the vendor to conduct such tests in house, more often if necessary. For more assistance about performance tuning, kindly check our remote dba support services or directly contact us.

What is Oracle Database?

Oracle Database – What is it?

Oracle Database, known more colloquially as simply Oracle, is database management system with a model which relational as well as object-oriented.  This article attempts to clarify in lay-man terms what the Oracle Database system does.

What does the Oracle Database do? - The primary purpose of the Oracle Database is to store collected data and retrieve the same when required. Since, in large companies and organisations, the amount of data is huge and almost unmanageable, the Oracle Database is used very frequently. It also provides multi-user access which allows many users from the same organisation to access the data at the same time without crashes or bugs. Another advantage of having an Oracle Database manage your information is that the data is secure and even if the system crashes, retrieving the data becomes very easy.

How does an Oracle Database Work? : - An oracle database usually contains datafiles which contain and classify the various data in various tables and indices. It stores these datafiles and executes pre-stored functions and procedures. The data is stored typically as tablespaces which are contained in memory segments, extents and data blocks.

To identify and control these various datafiles, the Oracle Database has a control file which essentially records the name and locations of the various files and the time of creation and change. This control file also aids in system data recovery in case of a crash.

The use of a database system makes the management and handling of data extremely simple. It also records the various changes made by multiple users and keeps a record of which changes were made by whom. However, it must be noted that there is a lock on changing and modifying data by other users if one user is already doing so. 

Thus the Oracle Database system is a boon for information and data storage and management in most companies worldwide. Nowadays, Oracle database is most popular RDBMS in global market and Oracle company is also becoming giant. Oracle is having now Sun products like Java, MySQL, Solaris operating system and Sun hardware, Sun storage. Before taken over of Sun Microsys, Oracle didn't have it's own operating system and hardware like IBM DB2 and Microsoft. But now Oracle has everything and it becomes most powerful database, software, hardware company in market. Due to these all reasons, database administrator of Oracle is earning more and DBA services is highly demand-able in market.

 

Oracle Database 11g – Features and Advantages

The latest version of the Oracle Database systems is the 11g which was released both for both Linux and Windows in 2007. Oracle has drastically improved their Database Management Systems since they burst onto the scene. Developing an application has become that much easier and the effort and cost behind it has also gone down significantly. Therefore Oracle Database 11g or simply Oracle 11g has several advantages as are listed below.

It provides a real life testing analyzer which basically tests an application in a variety of circumstances which may come out in real life. This helps in shielding the application from going down when it goes live. This is of a great benefit to the companies who experience lesser and lesser unplanned downtime and consequently, they lose less money.

 

11g also has new data compression which increases support for compression of all kinds of data. Providing more capability to sort unstructured and backup data, it reduces storage costs of the company. Because of this advanced storage compression, the impact on the performance of the system is also increased as the pressure on memory and bandwidth is greatly reduced.

Another major improvement for Oracle 11g is the deployment of new Data Security which is stronger and more secure than before. It protects against internal espionage by controlling who can access what data and when. It has a high network encryption as well as SSL-based encryption.

 

Besides the above main features, there is also a significant increase in the performance in Oracle 11g. The new business intelligence applications are speeding up by use of new partitioning methods. It also provides additional administrative support control which helps reduce the operational cost of maintain the database. In short, the Oracle 11g upgrade should be obtained by all users because the cost of upgrading the system is well worth the benefits obtained from it.

There are lots of new features added in Oracle 11g including security and performance improvement. High availability and scalability is main concern in new version of Oracle. Off course, nowadays company and people require these all features in database. Use of database is increasing including locally and globally and due to these reasons, security is most important for database support. Oracle specialists and remote dba experts are able to maintain critical databases with these new features.