Exadata and ZFS Storage at Nielsen Travis Parker February 4, 2014

Who is nielsen A Measurement Company Known for the “Nielsen Ratings” 2 Main Businesses: Measuring what people “Watch” and what people “Buy” Measuring these things involves analyzing Terabytes and Terabytes of data Global Technology and Information Center (GTIC) located in Oldsmar, FL

History of nielsen 90th Anniversary this year

History of nielsen

History of nielsen

ORACLE AT NIELSEN Oracle is a key partner of Nielsen’s Large Oracle footprint – 1,000 instances and growing Large Databases, Frequently Loaded Data, Tight SLAs Key challenges: Availability, Large Queries, ETL, Co-hosting

Problem ETL processes take 7 days to run New large client is 6X larger than the largest current client SLAs cannot be met using existing database server hardware Backup and restore is problematic – easier to just re-run ETL Aggressive deployment deadlines (of course) Prepared for: [Client Name] Source: XXXXXX

Potential solutions Exadata Netezza back end, Oracle front end Requires copying data around Reliability Prepared for: [Client Name] Source: XXXXXX

Why exadata appeals to nielsen It’s an Oracle Database. It’s a RAC cluster. We already have RAC clusters. We already have Oracle databases. Nearly transparent high availability. Worst case, restart the application. No DNS changes, no connect string changes for HA. Very high availability without passive hardware. Flexible. Can implement multiple ways. InfiniBand interconnect reduces interconnect traffic concerns. Prepared for: [Client Name] Source: XXXXXX

Fully monitored by enterprise manager 12c EM12c monitors ZFS

Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Backup to disk over InfiniBand 1 ZFS Storage Appliance with 2 disk shelves Connects to Exadata via InfiniBand network (40 Gigabit/sec – 17.5 TB/hour) Web interface for administration, patching

solution Deploy Exadata NOW! Re-architect application, consolidate activities into 1 database, modify for RAC Port scripts from AIX to Linux Test application Go Live Attach ZFS Storage Appliance via InfiniBand for backups

outcome Installation to go-live in 10 days ETL processing time improved by 7X over previous hardware Critical client deadline met Fastest Exadata implementation in North America

Long term outcome Architecture greatly simplified – 8 servers with 2 databases each reduced to 1 large database on 3 Exadata compute nodes. Exadata was originally going to be dedicated to Walmart. 1.5 years later – no production outages, no missed SLAs Backups run daily and complete easily during off hours

ZFS STORAGE APPLIANCE Backup Performance Around 6TB/hour backing up (seeing 9TB/hour+ on second ZFS) Approximately 2X+ compression without reduced performance No failures (other than the occasional disk) in 1.5 years Can attach multiple Exadatas if they are on different InfiniBand subnets Backup time reduced by as much as 75X Elapsed time for 1TB backup on Exadata X2-2 : 10 Min to 12 Min vs. 10 Hours using RMAN, NetBackup, and VTL Elapsed time for 1TB restore on Exadata X2-2 : 16 minutes vs. 5 Hours using RMAN, NetBackup, and VTL

Lessons learned A small team of very qualified people can do a lot in a short period of time Exadata allows you to consolidate databases you wouldn’t have considered ZFS Appliances are a good option for making timely backups and accelerating restore time

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