VMware advice for waters_connect / UNIFI network installations or migrations - WKB13533

ENVIRONMENT

• UNIFI 1.9.4 and earlier
• waters_connect / UNIFI versions
• virtual network server 

ANSWER

In preparation for any discussions on installations or migration upgrades of existing UNIFI servers to a VMware ESXi environment, please follow the guidance in the relevant Installation or Upgrade Guides.

Here are some key recommendations:

• Set memory reservations in VCenter equal to or larger than the Oracle SGA. This is roughly the amount of memory used by the OracleServiceUNIFI and is set at install (check in Task Manager)
• Use a dedicated Datastore for the ASM DATA Diskgroup
• Ensure ASM datastore has sufficient I/O. Recommend using raid 10 (1+0)
• Provide one large virtual disk for the Oracle ASM (multiple virtual disks should not be used)
• Provide another virtual disk for the FRA Backup volume. This should not reside on the same datastore as the Oracle ASM.
• Do not size vdisks to full datastore size as Vmware needs a small amount of working space - see Large Capacity Virtual Disk Conditions and Limitations (vmware.com)
• Storage should be fiber-connected using 10/15K SAS drives or SSDs. 
• UNIFI processing performance is partly dependent on processor speed so faster cores (ideally >=3.5 GHz)
• Provide 16-24 CPU cores in order to allow parallel processing of analyses.
• Ensure that the storage provided is sufficient for the TOF / QUAD data rates expected and period of data retention before archival - this is very customer dependent and may need a period of evaluation.
• Direct Oracle access is not permitted under the Waters Oracle Embedded License. Also not permitted to use 3rd party backup tools that make use of rman, sqlplus etc.
• Waters only support backups made using Waters Database Manager (WDM) and our validated backup scripts.
• Snapshots or VMware Backups are not recommended on the running Oracle database.

More details can be found in this guide from VMware:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/part...ices_Guide.pdf

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Also see advice in the installation guides and Key advice for UNIFI 1.9.4 servers - WKB90563.

Also see Example disk drive configurations for UNIFI QUAD and QTOF servers - WKB28717.