Oracle provides Automatic workload repository (AWR) , a diagnostic tool with Oracle as a licensed feature. This feature is available on all OS platforms. Solaris , AIX , HPUX ,Linux and Windows and will run on all the platforms.
Nutanix has a platform agnostic script (.SQL) which is used to gather information on the server running Oracle in the following format.The script will be run by an oracle DBA/admin on multiple hosts/VMs and a similar output (dbname.out) is obtained depending on the situation. Multiple dbnameXX.out files are generated, one per database.
If we are provided a mixed output of .out files from AIX , Solaris , HPUX or Linux , we should be able to put these together into an Excel sheet and size it.
The user can then import the awr .out file or a zip file with multiple awr files (more common) into Sizer
Sizer will then do two things :
- Process the awr file(s) and create appropriate oracle workloads per this document
- Provide user with an excel summary file with details on the resulting workloads
AWR file structure
AWR files do end with .out file extension but are text files. Here is a sample
This sample shows one clustered database where same database is run on multiple hosts.
Information in an AWR we use for sizer
-
- NUM_CPU_CORES_PER_NODE – this is used to determine cores in Oracle workload.
- INSTANCES – will tell us if clustered when greater than 1
- DB_NAME – used to name the Oracle workload
- TOTAL_CORE_COUNT – Not used as not always in AWR
- HOSTS – This is needed to determine cores for the Oracle workload
- PHYSICAL_MEMORY_GB_PER_NODE – this will be the RAM requirement in the workload.
- Database_SIZE_GB – this will be the database storage.
How does Sizer come up with the core/ram/storage requirement for the given AWR file (or multiple files in a zip)
Each DB instance (per .out file) is a workload. Its core/ram and capacity requirements from the awr file becomes the sizing requirements for that workload.
However, a key point to note here is that due to the way Oracle is licensed [for the entire cores of the host], multiple DB instances on the same host are not treated as separate workload with separate core/ram requirements. The workload is at host level with the core and ram for the host as the core and ram requirements for the workload. The storage capacity across all DB instances on the host becomes the stoarge requirement for the workload.