Oracle's vision of multi-core processors on Solaris

Thursday Feb 16, 2006

There seems to be some confusion about how an Oracle instance uses multi-core processors. From a database point of view, it can use all CPU resource that is offered by Solaris. To find out what CPU resources are available, use the "prtdiag" and "psrinfo" commands. The example below shows a single board USIV domain on a SF25K. There are a total of 4 * USIV Processors running 8 cores @1.2GHz each. The prtdiag output shows the 4 processors with two CPU ID's each. The psrinfo command simply shows all 8 cores.

catscratchb:root> /usr/sbin/prtdiag
System Configuration:  Sun Microsystems  sun4u Sun Fire 15000
System clock frequency: 150 MHz
Memory size: 32768 Megabytes

========================= CPUs =========================

         CPU      Run    E$    CPU     CPU
Slot ID   ID       MHz    MB   Impl.    Mask
--------  -------  ----  ----  -------  ----
/SB01/P0   32, 36  1200  16.0  US-IV    2.2
/SB01/P1   33, 37  1200  16.0  US-IV    2.2
/SB01/P2   34, 38  1200  16.0  US-IV    2.2
/SB01/P3   35, 39  1200  16.0  US-IV    2.2

catscratchb:root> /usr/sbin/psrinfo
32      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:23
33      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:25
34      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:25
35      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:25
36      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:25
37      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:25
38      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:25
39      on-line   since 02/07/2006 18:00:25

Oracle does size internal latching structures based on the number of CPUs available. This sizing does NOT disallow Oracle shadow process from using CPU resource, it simply makes the system better suited to scale. To find out how many CPUs Oracle thinks are available, run the following SQL command as sysdba. We have found that Oracle sizes its data structures based on the number or CPU IDs that are reported by psrinfo.

SQL> connect / as sysdba

SQL> select ksppinm name, ksppstvl value, ksppdesc description
       from x$ksppi x, x$ksppcv y
       where (x.indx = y.indx)
         and ksppinm like '%cpu_count%'
       order by name;

NAME            VALUE  DESCRIPTION
--------------- ------ ----------------------------------
cpu_count       8      number of CPUs for this instance