Comments on: Enterprise environment are moving more and more towards service oriented functional groups. SAN as a service, database as a service, etc. So SAN guys are saying DBAs shouldn’t worry about this, they use gigantic arrays with 100′s of spindles, they guarantee performance, etc. What are your thoughts on this? http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/sql-server/enterprise-environment-are-moving-more-and-more-towards-service-oriented-functional-groups-san-as-a-service-database-as-a-service-etc-so-san-guys-are-saying-dbas-shouldnt-worry-about-this-the/ Tue, 07 May 2013 13:39:52 +0000 hourly 1 By: Toshana http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/sql-server/enterprise-environment-are-moving-more-and-more-towards-service-oriented-functional-groups-san-as-a-service-database-as-a-service-etc-so-san-guys-are-saying-dbas-shouldnt-worry-about-this-the/#comment-1028 Toshana Thu, 05 May 2011 14:49:45 +0000 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/sql-server/enterprise-environment-are-moving-more-and-more-towards-service-oriented-functional-groups-san-as-a-service-database-as-a-service-etc-so-san-guys-are-saying-dbas-shouldnt-worry-about-this-the/#comment-1028 I’m in 100% agreement with “mrdenny” backed by a real world example.

We recently migrated some production SQL server form EMC storage to a HDS AMS 2500. HDS folks sword up and down that DP Pools filled with a lot of spindles would out preform standard practices. We made some nice sized DP Pools consisting of Raid 5 (4+1) groups. Well it turns out a DP Pool lacks simultaneous writes. Say you have 10 Raid 5 groups consisting of (4+1) when the storage array writes to disk it writes in a (32 MB virtual page) on one of the Raid groups once it fills the 32MB virtual page it then moves on to a new 32 MB virtual page on another Raid group. So it basically round-robins raid groups in 32MB virtual page files.

I can safely say we are now in the process of moving our systems off the DP Pools and back to a new EMC array with standard practices of separate spindles for drives.

Nick

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