Executive summary

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For the database setup we recommend that you place the logs into separate disk groups to reduce the wait time for log events!

The comparison of Oracle 11g with Oracle 10g showed a very impressive improvement of approximately a factor of four for a transactional workload, together with more effective caching behavior. The CPU effort per transaction was also lower, which highly recommends an update to Oracle Release 11g at least for transactional workloads.

For DASD devices and database workload we highly recommend the use of HyperPAV. It provides a 40% performance improvement and is very convenient to manage.

For FCP devices the recommended setup for our workload is a multipath setup with the policy multibus and the rr_min_io parameter 100. It provides the highest transactional and disk throughput at the lowest CPU cost.

Comparing FCP and ECKD disk devices

Taking into account the aspects summarized in the executive summary above, some clear recommendations can be made as to which device configuration is most suitable:

When maximum performance should be reached FCP devices are good candidates, but it requires additional CPU capacity to drive the workload
When administration effort and low CPU requirements have a high priority, ECKD devices with HyperPAV are good candidates

There are certainly other criteria such as the existing environment and skills which might favor one or the other disk type.