Interesting Observation with Database drives

[Richard Siemers]

We run Oracle on AIX using Oracle's "ASM" (Automatic Storage Management). Basically the RAW disks are assigned to Oracle instead of the operating systems logical volume manager. This means everyone except the DBA is blind to the amount of consumed/free space on those LUNs.

However, if the oracle LUNs are Thin Provisioned, you can use the 3par tools to see how much space has been allocated to the ASM LUNs and with some simple calculations figure it out yourself. Better yet you can also use System Reporter to track DB growth rates over time.

This is just one of many reasons why you should deploy a strong and meaningful LUN labeling convention from the start.

My basic naming convention is <Hostname>_<Lun#>
When I can, I will tag on additional info such as _ASM or _<VolumeGroupName> for AIX.

This makes it easier to work when in the provisioning list as well as the system reporter selection windows where filters are king.