Planning

This section describes the following forms of planning to consider when deploying databases:

• Capacity planning identifies your immediate and long-term storage needs.
• Storage architecture planning addresses the underlying architecture required to support those needs.

Capacity planning

DBAs apply their experience and training to help clients determine their potential storage needs. Administrators work collaboratively with clients to perform the following tasks:

• Design and deploy database infrastructure that can be scaled up with new demands (as opposed to a rebuild).
• Identify disk space shortages and recommend workarounds before they impact normal operations.
• Assist with determining when RAM or CPU upgrades will benefit overall DB workloads.

Storage architecture

In order for databases to properly function, it is critical to plan and deploy databases on the proper storage underpinning. Ensuring proper disk storage implementation allows for the isolation of performance bottlenecks. DBAs are responsible for performing the following task as necessary:

• Separating the OS from the database at the disk layer.
• Separating the database from the backup disks.
• Isolating I/O bottleneck areas to discrete disk storage that can be tuned for the required workloads. These tasks are performed on storage area network (SAN) storage and local storage.