Oracle server CPU selection

[drmalony]

We are specifying server hardware for OA. I know enough about database server requirements to know that applications like a data warehouse and reporting are generally considered to function better with a higher number of cores, and correspondingly lower clock speed. When single thread performance is a priority (like OLTP), then fewer cores and higher clock speed provide better database performance. Our application will have few users running report against the database.

Should I treat Oracle intregrated with OA more like a datawarehouse and emphasize core count? Or like OLTP demanding high single thread performance and emphasize clock speed?

Here is a very recent discussion from the perspective of MS SQL Server: 4-14-16: Hardware 201 - Sizing Database Hardware with Glenn Berry: http://www.alaskasql.org/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=46

[vogler]

Hi,
Oracle 12c Standard Edition 2 will only use up to 16 cores (in case of a cluster 8 cores per node, maximum two nodes).
It's better to invest the money in more (and faster) discs, to stripe/mirror the data (and don't use RAID5).
regards,
Andy

[drmalony]

I was thinking RAID6 of SSDs.

But my question was primarily about CPU speed. I can get 2.4 GHz 10 core cpus for about the same price as 4 core 3.5 GHz. Which is preferable for use in an Oracle server with OA, only 1-2 occasional reporting clients?

[vogler]

i would prefer the 10 core cpu instead of 4 cores (for oracle)... until now i haven't seen wincc oa systems where the cpu load on oracle systems was high.

raid6 is as bad as raid5 is (or maybe more worse... for writing).. but if you use SSD's, then maybe it does not matter ... if the raid cpu is powerful enough for the additional parity calculations...

[drmalony]

I will be using a high-end LSI raid controller card - not motherboard. In your experience of CPU load, were you running report queries against the DB? We aren't doing much with our server yet, and generally cpu utilization is very low, but when we run a query against a large data set, it can peg the processors for 20 minutes.

It's interesting how RAID debates can go. I've read articles emphazing RAID6 virtues (never 5 anymore).

[vogler]

20 min? wow, what kind of reports are you doing? maybe the reports are really that complex, or maybe the queries can be optimized. when i see long running queries i would first analyze the queries and the execution plan and see what oracle is doing and if the queries can be optimized... but i agree, if you just have a few clients then a higher cpu frequency is maybe better.

raid - for example oracle recommends to use raid 10, and also with Oracle ASM (direct attached disks to oracle and oracle handles data & redundancy) the only option is to use RAID 10 or unprotected RAID0.

[vogler]

not sure if oracle really recommends raid 10. didn't find any official oracle paper.