Hitachi vsp-g1000-for-oracle-environments

White
Paper
Hitachi VSP G1000: A Strong Foundation for
Oracle Environments
By Nik Rouda, Senior Analyst and Mark Peters, Senior Analyst
April 2014
This ESG White Paper was commissioned by HDS
and is distributed under license from ESG.
© 2014 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

White Paper: Hitachi VSP G1000: A Strong Foundation for Oracle Environments 2
Contents
A Better Storage Platform for Oracle ...........................................................................................................3
Challenges in an Enterprise Oracle Environment.........................................................................................3
The High Cost of Database Licenses......................................................................................................................... 3
The Cost and Inefficiency of Legacy Storage at Scale............................................................................................... 4
Slow Performance at Extreme Scale......................................................................................................................... 4
A Closed and Rigid Architecture Causes Its Own Problems...................................................................................... 5
Database Service Outages and Downtime ............................................................................................................... 5
Trouble Migrating Oracle Versions........................................................................................................................... 5
Difficulty Integrating Storage and Database ............................................................................................................ 6
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 Delivers in Oracle Database Environments ..................................6
The Bigger Truth .........................................................................................................................................10
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Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are
subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of
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A Better Storage Platform for Oracle
Conducting business today generates massive amounts of transactional, environmental, and operational data from
customers and activities. Running a business today also requires massive amounts of data for deeper understanding
of historical results, real-time insights, and future possibilities. Taken together, the management of data then forms
a virtuous feedback loop, with the power to directly and positively influence strategy, accelerate innovation, and
improve overall odds of success.
However, management of data comes with its own challenges, which can impact the loop. Enterprises need a
capable environment with which to handle the rigorous demands and unforgiving attitudes of customers, partners,
and internal decision makers. Most often, this environment spans the range of IT, reaching to applications,
databases, networks, security, servers, and storage. Very frequently the database of choice is Oracle, and a great
deal of attention is paid to tuning the databases themselves for the best possible performance, availability, and
functionality. Less often do IT staff fully appreciate the interconnections and interdependencies of the entire
technology stack, perhaps a symptom of worker specialization and departmental organization around particular
disciplines for each of the layers. One commonly overlooked dependency is the need for an optimal storage
platform underlying everything else.
Yet the choice of storage is critical to most of the important attributes of the Oracle environment. A list of the
desired overall characteristics must include:
 Low total cost of ownership and, therefore, potential for high ROI
 High scalability, which is crucial for database environments
 High performance, which is a prerequisite for the majority of Oracle “data servers”
 Openness and flexibility, which are key both in terms of function (e.g., migrations) and heterogeneity
 Minimal downtime, which is paramount due to the mission-critical nature of databases
 Easy administration, which leads to cost savings and efficiency/productivity features that actually get used
 Tight integration with multiple versions of the Oracle database, which almost (almost!) goes without saying
The underlying storage will have a distinct impact on the outcomes for each of these areas. To better understand
this point, this paper will look at how each attribute manifests problems to be managed, the resulting business
impacts, and suggested best practices to resolve the issue. Following that will be a closer look at a particularly
attractive choice for storage in large enterprise Oracle environments: Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 (VSP
G1000).
Challenges in an Enterprise Oracle Environment
Enterprises will typically encounter a range of obstacles as they increase their reliance on Oracle as a central data
repository for both transactional and analytic activities. These may be magnified by scale, meaning the larger the
company, the larger the problems to be faced, and if unresolved, they can actually threaten core business
operations. This section will explore some of the most common points of contention.
The High Cost of Database Licenses
A side effect of the explosive growth of data in business is the escalating cost to store, process, manage, and
protect that data. As data proliferates and data-driven business becomes the norm with many more use cases and
users, there is correspondingly more load on the server infrastructure to accommodate it. Often, different business
requirements push to more databases as well. Online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads may be kept distinct
from online analytics processing (OLAP) requirements, different departments or workgroups may want their own
isolated instances, and testing and development may be separated from production until deemed ready for rollout.
And mergers and acquisitions lead to a potentially more fragmented IT infrastructure, where often the roadblock to

integration is islands of homogeneous storage systems. There’s no point merging software, databases, and
networks if the various types of “spinning rust” at the end of the wire are effectively speaking different languages!
In a traditional relational databases environment, this issue may be further magnified by database software
licensing costs that weren’t originally designed for the big data era. This per-database, per-node, per-core, and per-
hard drive software licensing escalation places inordinate strain on the capital and operating budgets of many
organizations.
A recommended approach is to look for technologies that have resources to support and deliver higher server
utilization. Many customers are seeking to consolidate databases to reach much higher average utilization levels,
and being able to portably move databases without interrupting operations can be a huge benefit in this effort (this
might mean not only non-disruptive migrations [long held as a key element in storage nirvana], but also an ability to
manage heterogeneous storage devices from one central controller). As long as a robust governance model is in
place to sequester sensitive data and control access appropriately, elements of this can be done quite satisfyingly
with the right hardware choice…but the range of choices for suitable storage platforms is, frankly, not extensive.
The Cost and Inefficiency of Legacy Storage at Scale
As already noted, the technology stack must scale to meet new demands and data volumes. If the cost of database
licenses is a serious challenge, it is often matched by the cost of the underlying storage. Most IT budgets aren’t
growing fast enough to cover increasing storage demands, and this can lead to self-defeating policies on long-term
data retention. While some data is kept to meet mandatory regulations and for record keeping, other useful data
may be archived or permanently deleted in an attempt to control costs. Redundant data sets also complicate the
issue, with the same data stored multiple times for different scenarios. Many legacy storage systems may not be
designed to cost-efficiently handle this rapid data growth in Oracle database environments.
An advisable solution is to explore storage systems that can offer the extreme scalability required by modern
enterprises. The best arrays have architectural design characteristics and pricing models that make far more
financial sense as data growth reaches new exponential heights. Again, consolidation of databases can be a high-
impact strategy to reduce data redundancy and related costs, which is important as ESG research has found that
25% of respondents view managing data growth as one of their most important IT spending priorities.1
Just as much
as raw capacity, there is a need for solutions with optimized resource utilization features built-in to provision
smoothly and to cope with the demand of large databases. Support for storage technology should, as previously
mentioned, preferably be heterogeneous in nature to match today’s heterogeneous IT infrastructures. Also, storage
virtualization is a prerequisite to driving the levels of optimization that scalable and flexible Oracle environments
demand if storage is to be anything other than an increasingly expensive anchor dragging down the advances in
Oracle software capabilities. Storage virtualization enables everything from thin provisioning to replication, and
ensures the optimum use of the storage resource (i.e., constrains cost).
Slow Performance at Extreme Scale
Today, data is generated by a wide range of users, applications, automated processes, and even machine sensors.
This data often gets loaded directly (or sometimes indirectly) into Oracle databases for immediate transaction
records or analytical needs. A major consideration is how well the databases and underlying infrastructure can
handle the processing of this data ingestion, later extraction, or in-place querying. If the compute or storage
resources are insufficient or inadequate for the various workloads, then overall system performance suffers. If
system performance suffers, users are quickly dissatisfied and soon after, IT teams and database administrators
hear complaints that they aren’t meeting the needs of the business. This is clearly unacceptable to anyone involved.
Often, the slowest component of any database process is the I/O time, and this delay is multiplied when it exceeds
storage system resources. To solve or avoid such circumstances, technology decision makers should seek out
1 Source: ESG Research Report, 2014 IT Spending Intentions Survey, February 2014.

storage platforms that achieve both radically higher performance and higher scalability than traditional offerings.
One future-proofing approach is to select a platform that can be upgraded non-disruptively, increasing
specifications with better hardware but without stopping business. Additionally, the well-integrated, judicious use
of solid-state storage will actually be able to drive up performance and at the same time, drive down the average
cost per GB/TB across the storage infrastructure; to serve growing database environments, this is a crucial
balancing act.
A Closed and Rigid Architecture Causes Its Own Problems
Another area causing significant concern for companies with large Oracle environments is the issue of vendor lock-
in. While it may be tempting to go with a much-hyped brand name offering, the proprietary nature and strict design
specifications of these products can be limiting sometimes. No one ever wants to have to “rip and replace” a
production system for changes to manage continuous data growth or technology enhancement curves. Nor is the
prospect of paying premium prices for the privilege of upgrading a viable option. Sometimes, buyers will get stuck
in a “boom and bust” cycle of deliberately over-provisioning, accepting low utilization rates, and then still running
short for some databases before the next scheduled hardware refresh budget comes around. This is quite wasteful
in terms of both administrative time and money. There is no doubt that the database will expand, so planning
ahead to smoothly accommodate this growth is essential.
While ESG has found that 52% of surveyed organizations expect their 2014 IT budgets for storage to increase, 2
this
spend should be directed toward more open and flexible storage platforms. Organizations will want to select
offerings that allow maximum utilization of the storage capacity as a whole, with the ability to pre-allocate
sufficient space for all databases, and dynamically use capacity only as it is needed. Having functionality that assigns
data to appropriate classes of storage in the system helps again with overall utilization efficiency and can ensure
that the most frequently accessed data is stored on the highest performing storage technology. Not least, being
able to expand and embrace not only local storage and networked storage but also “naturalized” storage can also
give more options for different demands.
Database Service Outages and Downtime
The need to handle various configuration and infrastructure changes without impacting ongoing operations has
been mentioned several times. This is no accident: Disruption of services and the corresponding lost business
opportunities have a very real cost, though it is sometimes difficult to estimate precisely. Oracle databases may be
very resilient and well-rounded from a management point of view, but they still require occasional care and tuning.
This can be compounded if the supporting storage also needs planned downtime, as few DBAs or IT staff will
perform a large number of potentially risky changes all at once. Add in the inevitable unplanned incidents, and total
service availability often becomes a high-profile issue for the business executives.
When selecting a storage platform, functionality that can deliver continuous availability should rank high on the
evaluation criteria. While many vendors say they offer good results for mean time between failures (MTBF),
redundancy, hot-swapping, and similar high-availability features, few come close to truly providing a zero-
downtime foundation.
Trouble Migrating Oracle Versions
Oftentimes the bigger and more mission-critical an Oracle database is to the organization, the less often it is
updated. Fears over mishaps due to software bugs or human errors push out service intervals on production
systems, to the detriment of current capabilities. Yet choosing between out-of-date versions or business
interruptions is not a good choice. Organizations need to be able to fluently support and migrate from popular and
proven Oracle 9i, 10g, 11g, and 12c software versions and even complex RAC implementations, when it suits the

application requirements, or they will fall behind in valuable features and potentially lag their competitors in
development.
The ideal storage platform would be able to ingest and serve up data without interruption, even as new versions of
Oracle are tested and rolled into production. Simplified, customer-driven, non-disruptive online data migration is
the best way to accomplish this goal, yet remains a rare (although, as we shall see, not unobtainable) feature
because it can be extremely difficult to implement universally at the storage layer. Customers need storage that can
not only accommodate multiple versions of Oracle simultaneously, but that is also tested and capable of supporting
all the common Oracle database versions.
Difficulty Integrating Storage and Database
A final topic of concern for enterprise database developers and IT operations staff alike is the compatibility of their
respective technologies. Skills specialization means that few architects can directly manage the entire stack and
they will have to work together on design and process decisions. Yet this leads to more IT overhead and project
delay, and a risk of error in communications of requirements. Generic storage is lacking in any connectivity to most
common Oracle tools, such as Recovery Manager (RMAN), Automatic Storage Management (ASM), and the
Enterprise Manager (OEM) including Cloud Control, and this implies a lot more custom scripting or even manual
administration in order to handle regular frequency tasks. This obviously adds further cost and risk.
Full, native support for Oracle tools—not just as a datasheet assertion, but proven in large, sensitive, real-world
environments—should be considered mandatory for any storage system to be considered in “serious” Oracle
environments. Customers would be wise to audit which extensions they use today or will need in the future and
identify whether their storage can integrate directly with these, eliminating the multi-domain effort to recreate the
necessary operational functionality.
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 Delivers in Oracle Database
Environments
So far, this paper has focused primarily on the most significant
challenges faced by large enterprises in their Oracle environments,
and general guidance on the optimal remedies for these issues. The
remainder will examine Hitachi VSP G1000 to see how well it meets
these needs. Prospective customers are urged to conduct their own
technical and financial evaluations, but this review should help
demonstrate the superior nature of the latest HDS product, even
without providing a comprehensive description of all currently
available features.
Let’s start with the “basics” and then return to look at how VSP
G1000 supports specific Oracle database user requirements. Even
Oracle users cannot survive on software dazzle alone: VSP G1000
does not disappoint in the “specs” arena, delivering 4X the internal
bandwidth, 3X the IOPS, and double the cache (up to 2 TB) capacity
when compared with the previous VSP. And while Oracle database
environments can be performance-hungry, VSP G1000 has plenty of
“oomph”—it can deliver up to three million IOPS. This is key because
storage I/O really matters to databases. Another key performance
feature is the integrated flash acceleration and tiering. Hitachi has
built an embedded flash memory controller, specifically for the most demanding workloads such as Oracle: Hitachi
Accelerated Flash. It delivers greater performance with a lower price per gigabyte then commodity solid-state
drives.
Figure 1. VSP G1000 and Oracle

Turning from “horsepower” to “handling,” the key enabler of much of the functionality is the Storage Virtualization
Operating System. It enables the complete separation of host and storage, regardless of connectivity, system type,
location, or vendor, and creates a continuing storage infrastructure. Regardless of where the data is or what
hardware it’s on, you get one view of all virtualized storage assets; imagine the power of that as databases are
merged or integrated. Users can also logically group storage resources with the business applications (such as
Oracle) that rely on them, making it easier to configure, report, replicate, and migrate when needed, without
having to go searching for what goes with what.
The system has almost an embarrassment of functional riches, but some that are useful, both generally to IT as well
specifically to Oracle environments include:
 Integrated active mirroring is a new capability that ensures you can provision and manage active-active
clustered volumes up to 100 km apart. In other words, VSP G1000 turns a heterogeneous mix of storage
into a distributed pool of virtual storage that can be spread over multiple data centers. Here VSP G1000
nicely complements Oracle RAC with the Global Active Device (GAD) functionality. This allows read and
write I/O on mirrored volumes over distance while keeping data consistency, making it a great platform for
Oracle RAC environments.
For those with experience in the storage industry, this should sound familiar. HDS has been delivering
heterogeneous storage virtualization for more than a decade. HDS has helped Oracle customers provide
disaster recovery and migration between data centers over distances for years as well. So what's new and
different about the active-active stretched cluster support that's built into the new VSP G1000 platform?
Put simply, instead of managing remote mirrored copies of storage, VSP G1000 transparently maintains a
single cache coherent copy that can be accessed from multiple data centers. Instead of relying on
application-specific stretched clustering software that's implemented at the server layer, VSP G1000 does it
transparently at the storage layer. Instead of the competitive approach of adding extra layers of hardware
and software in an appliance to implement stretched storage clustering, Hitachi built it into VSP G1000.
What are the practical implications of this valuable new technology in an Oracle database environments?
The easiest to understand is the ability to non-disruptively migrate databases between data centers. It also
simplifies hardware upgrades and enables faster disaster recovery. Less obvious is the ability to provide
transparent access to a centrally managed database for users being serviced from multiple data centers.
 Policy-based automation makes deployment and ongoing management faster and more efficient. It also
makes it easy to dynamically align storage resources according to business needs, while maximizing ROI on
storage. Without data silos and virtualization islands, an organization gets the agility to scale in whatever
direction it wants, with whatever assets it wants, at whatever time and in whatever location it wants. This
enables IT to focus on service delivery instead of infrastructure management, and enables continuity of
operations with the least amount of complexity and disruption.
 Unified management is a key part of VSP G1000, and is essential to keeping costs down, which matters
whether you are running Oracle as much as anything else. If you can consolidate workloads to save on
power and cooling of floor space, you need to consolidate management to reduce administrative overhead.
Hitachi VSP G1000 platform has integrated Storage Navigator setup tasks into the consolidated Hitachi
Command Suite console, bringing together setup and ongoing operations in one application. Consolidated
user resource management and task lists reduce both OpEx and training costs. With global storage
virtualization, Hitachi Command Suite does all the discovery and management across heterogeneous
storage resources—HDS and other vendors—aligned by business groupings. Provisioning, monitoring,
keeping storage attributes (like performance and cost) in sync with application requirements, and
administering data protection is all done by Hitachi Command Suite, as is the tracking of storage usage and
costs for chargeback/show back.
 Non-disruptive data migration. Data migration has been one of the biggest pain points for IT, traditionally
requiring downtime and cost, while exposing organizations to unwanted risk of data loss and service
degradation. It’s typically been a cumbersome and disruptive activity, whether you do it yourself or get

professional services. With VSP G1000, data migrations can be executed transparently to the application
using Hitachi Command Suite. This makes migrations faster and easier, while maintaining RPOs and RTOs
for disaster recovery. Most everything is automated and driven from controller-based functionality (rather
than the more typical appliance approach); while heterogeneous migrations are made much easier with the
agnostic VSP, HDS-to-HDS migrations are completely non-disruptive…something that the owners of
mission-critical Oracle databases everywhere will love.
The result of these, and many other, capabilities is that VSP G1000 can help IT users in general—and demanding
Oracle users in particular —deliver against both of the key parameters by which storage infrastructures are
measured: performance and cost. Colloquially, this can be summed up as the ability to “do more for less”—in a
more formal sense, it is the ability to service both the CIO and the CFO simultaneously by driving better ROI. This is
currently, as the ESG research in Figure 1 demonstrates, the most-cited consideration in justifying IT investments.
And VSP G1000 promises to deliver against the other top five most-cited considerations as well!3
Figure 2. Top Five Most Important Considerations in Justifying IT Investments Over the Next 12 Months
Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2014.
Much as Oracle workloads are part of the overall IT endeavor (and that integration and interconnectedness again
make the choice of a powerful storage system important), we should return to looking specifically at the storage
challenges of Oracle databases, and reflect as to how VSP G1000 fares. In priority order:
1. Reducing database costs is possible by targeting goals of both higher utilization and consolidation. VSP
G1000 has greatly increased available resources because it is able to support three times the IOPS
(>3,000,000), two times the cache (up to 2TB), four times the internal bandwidth (>800 Gb/s), and up to
four times the processor cores (128.) of the previous generation of VSP. All of these enhancements will help
to increase the power and responsiveness of databases, allowing for more work done by fewer total Oracle
instances. The built-in, storage level, active-active clustering will enable the live migration of databases and
workloads, making consolidation even easier to conduct in practice.
2. Massive scalability is readily provided with the increased capacities noted, plus a wide range of
complementary features including Hitachi Dynamic Tiering (HDT), Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning (HDP), and
26%
31%
37%
37%
38%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Reduction in capital expenditures
Improved security/risk management
Business process improvement
Reduction in operational expenditures
Return on investment
Which of the following considerations do you believe will be most important in
justifying IT investments to your organization’s business management team over the
next 12 months? (Percent of respondents, N=562, three responses accepted)

support for virtualizing heterogeneous storage. HDT is extremely valuable in being able to move data to the
optimal storage type based on both usage patterns and cost, finding the most efficient way to deliver on
requests. HDP is thin-provisioning software that lets the manager over-subscribe available space, ensuring
room to grow without the waste of excess idle system capacity. Support for heterogeneous storage means
legacy storage from different vendors can be used in conjunction with VSP G1000, again supporting the
best possible mix for varying requirements and extending the useful life of existing storage systems.
3. Higher performance comes from the higher utilization, and of course from the increased IOPS, cache, and
bandwidth that have been provided in the new system. The ability to conduct on-the-go hardware
refreshes as specs continue to improve also ensures any near future technology developments, such as
faster drives, can be quickly added to the platform. This all means VSP G1000 will have a longer effective
lifecycle while still raising its performance profile as needed.
4. An open, flexible platform is made possible courtesy of features including dynamic tiering, thin-
provisioning, and even a Hitachi NAS option for customers who want to run Oracle on NFS. Native
functionality that includes being able to automatically allocate data and related workloads to the most
appropriate type of storage, whether flash memory, solid-state state drive, or traditional disks, will be
essential. Incorporation of other Hitachi storage systems, including HNAS, further extend the capabilities
for consolidation, management, and delivery of file systems and applications.
5. Continuous availability, more than just high availability, comes from global virtualization, replication,
snapshots, and resilient storage management. While server and database software has approached this full
availability goal for some time, being able to manage it all at the storage level brings tremendous benefits
independent of operating system or third-party storage virtualization software. Truly seamless operations
should be possible through this virtualization at the data center, metro-area cluster, or, for some use cases,
even worldwide distances. As mentioned, VSP G1000 has a customer-driven workflow-based non-disruptive
migration capability that promises to reduce or eliminate scheduled downtime.
6. Oracle version support and upgrade without interruption is, again, delivered through the features
mentioned and the distributed active-active stretch cluster. VSP G1000 supports all common Oracle
database versions and has hooks to popular APIs. New Oracle versions can even be tested at length using
live clones of real data, applications, and workloads, and can be swapped into production without
disturbing live operations.
7. Oracle feature integration is brought by native connectors within VSP G1000 to Oracle ASM, RMAN, Oracle
VM, and OEM Cloud Control, which gives identical touch points for the database team to interact with the
underlying storage in ways that they already know and trust, with no new development required.

The Bigger Truth
Hitachi VSP G1000, bringing active-active stretch clustering, extremely simple and heterogeneous migration, as
well as even more performance and capacity, is an excellent option for enterprises requiring a powerful, efficient,
and flexible storage platform for their most demanding Oracle workloads. Global virtualization at the storage level
will be a big advantage with any application and over distance, reducing cost and complexity. But the solution is
also especially valuable in globally congruent and integrated database operations.
Virtual server machines revolutionized the way we provision and manage servers in the data center. With active-
active stretched clustering that's built into the storage system, transparent to applications, and easy to manage
from a single pane of glass, Hitachi has created virtual storage machines that revolutionize the way we provision
and manage storage in, and between, data centers.
While competitive offerings may meet some of the same requirements with an assortment of offerings, HDS has
excelled in addressing them all from a single solution, delivering performance and non-stop availability in a cost-
efficient package that is justifiably renowned for being “rock solid.” In a world that currently appears smitten with
“software-defined” everything, it is worth pausing to remember that we have not yet managed to find a way to
store data in the ether; consequently, users should not only demand extreme levels of functional sophistication
from the storage in their Oracle environments, but should also equally demand an indisputably reliable hardware
foundation. Hitachi VSP G1000 hits both targets soundly. A well-rounded, integrated technology approach like this
is quite valuable in meeting the operational needs of storage, server, and database teams alike. ESG research
findings support the need for solutions that combine these benefits and economics into one storage system.

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