- How does performance really stack up compared with a DAS or SAN
solution? Does the IP stack -vs- SCSI stack cause a significant performance lag?
Robin,
It all depends on which Unix platform you run Oracle. Solaris' NFS client in any release before Solaris 9 has a huge bug that slows down performance. Try exporting a filesystem on your Solaris host and mounting localhost:/filesystem. Then try some benchmarks...they stink. As I understand it, the HP-UX nfs client does not have these issues and performs well with NAS.
- Are there compelling reasons why this would be a preferred solution?
Netapp features: instant snapshot, snapmirror, snaprestore. These features are critical in an Oracle (and Clearcase) implementation.
Are there compelling reasons why this solution should be avoided?
What are the gotchas of such a solution? Are there configuration issues that can trip you up?
NFS over UDP is sometimes recommended by Netapp SE's to avoid TCP overhead. TCP is preferable in my opinion.
I have not personally implemented Oracle on NAS, but I've been in contact with folks in my company who have played with it. The Solaris gotcha is the big problem. If you're using ORacle on HP-UX, try it out.
/Brian/