Disk considerations for the database

The preparation for optimal workload distribution is a significant consideration when you set up the database for IBM® Product Master.

In most of the customer implementations, the Product Master database processing workload is shared in the following way:

90% OLTP (Online Transaction Processing)
10% Batch Processing

Distributing the workload in this manner means that concurrent activity and single row updates are done during peak business hours and large batch processing is done during off-peak-time. You must understand the type of workload your database is expected to perform so that you can lay out the physical database most effectively.

To achieve a balanced I/O, the Product Master DBA team would like for you to use a greater number of relatively low-capacity disks that are allocated for the database rather than fewer high-capacity disks. A minimum of 6 to 10 disks per processor is ideal for optimal performance. Having too few large disks can cause database to wait on disc I/O and impact performance.

RAID 10 provides excellent performance and availability. If overall cost is a concern, use RAID 5 with Fast Write Cache. If cost is not a concern, then RAID 10 is ideal for the storing data.

The Product Master DBA team would prefer physically separating data, index, and UNDOTBS1 table space on the disks when you create table spaces and add data files.