Database falls over

[SpiritOfLennon]

Hi,
I'm hoping someone can help me with this as I am rapidly ageing. We have an Oracle 8.1.7 database on a HP UX 11.00 server. The database seems okay most of the time and then suddenly, seemingly for no reason the load on the Unix server goes sky high and the database grinds to a halt. There are no intensive Oracle process or Unix processes working and HP have looked at the server and claim it is okay. If anyone could give me any advice on where to look and what the problem may be it would be highly appreciated. Just to give you an indication of my level of experience I have a fair knowledge of Oracle DBA skills and good HP -UX skills. Any suggestions including humourous ones would be appreciated at this stage as people are starting to scream ( it's month end ). SOL
I'm only guessing but my guess work generally works for me.

 

[carp]

If a database falls over in the server and nobody is around to hear it, does it make any noise?

Is it possible that you have a lot of checkpoints queueing up? If so, you might want to lower the frequency of checkpoints.

Another possibility would be if your Archiver process is too slow; LGWR could be waiting for ARCH to archive the next log group, which could cause your database to slow down while hammering your file I/O.

 

[alexhu]

By load on the server going sky high do you mean usr, sys or wio ?

Alex

 

[lfoata]

Something similar happened to me a couple of years ago. You may want to take a good look at your IO controller. I had a faulty raid controller that gave me the same symptoms and digital was also saying that the hardware was fine until I proved them wrong !!!! Too bad I.T. is not cash business

Luc Foata
Unix sysadmin, Oracle DBA

 

[SpiritOfLennon]

Hi,
Still fighting fires here. We eventually had to take the database down and attempt a reboot which failed, we are getting the following message from our web console.
LVM: Recovered Path ( device 0x1f04a000) to PV 1 in VG 3
LVM: Recovered Path ( device 0x1f048000) to PV 0 in VG 3
LVM: Restored PV 1 to VG 3
LVM: Restored PV 0 to VG 3
Which continuously loops and is unbreakable.
We're speaking with HP and have invoked disaster recovery
Life sucks. Thanks all. SOL
I'm only guessing but my guess work generally works for me.

 

[SpiritOfLennon]

Firstly I'd like to thank everyone for there advice, we have solved the problem, HP had told us to set some Kernel parameters incorrectly, they very kindly came in and corrected their screw up. I have taken note of all your advice and am reviewing the set up of the system. Thanks again. SOL
I'm only guessing but my guess work generally works for me.