IBM TotalStorage DS6000 Series: Performance Monitoring and Tuning

412 IBM TotalStorage DS6000 Series: Performance Monitoring and Tuning

each of which is supported by a variety of techniques such as rule induction, neural networks,

conceptual clustering, association discovery, and so on. In these applications the DBMS will

only extract large sequential or possibly random files depending on the DBMS access

algorithms.

12.3.4 Video on demand

Video on demand consists of video playback that can be used to broadcast quality video for

either satellite transmission or a commercial application, like in-room movies. Fortunately for

the storage industry, the current data rates needed for this type of transfer have been reduced

dramatically due to data compression developments. A broadcast quality video stream

MPEG2 now only needs about 3.7 Mb/second bandwidth to serve a single user. These

advancements have reduced the need for higher speed interfaces and can be serviced with

the current interface. However, these applications are now demanding numerous concurrent

users interactively accessing multiple files within the same storage subsystem. This

requirement has changed the environment of video applications in that the storage

subsystem will be specified by a number of video streams that they can service

simultaneously. In this application the DBMS will only extract large sequential files.

12.3.5 Data warehousing

A data warehouse supports information processing by providing a solid platform of integrated,

historical data from which to do analysis. A data warehouse organizes and stores the data

needed for informational and analytical processing over a long historical time. A data

warehouse is subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, nonvolatile collection of data used to

support the management’s decision making process. A data warehouse is always a physically

separate store of data that spans a spectrum of time, and the relationships found in the data

warehouse are many.

An example of data warehouse is a design around a financial institution and its functions,

such as loans, savings, bank cards, and trusts for a financial institution. In this application

there are basically three kinds of operations: The initial loading, the access, and the updating

of the data. However, due to the fundamental characteristics of a warehouse these operations

can occur simultaneously. At times this application could perform 100 percent reads when

accessing the warehouse; 70 percent reads and 30 percent writes when accessing data while

record updating occurs simultaneously; or even 50 percent reads and 50 percent writes when

the user load is heavy. Keep in mind that the data within the warehouse is a series of

snapshots and once the snapshot of data is made, the data in the warehouse does not

change. Therefore, there is typically a higher read ratio when using the data warehouse.

12.3.6 Engineering and scientific applications

The engineering and scientific arena includes hundreds of different applications. Some typical

applications are CAD, Finite Element Analysis, simulations and modeling, large scale physics

applications, and so on. Some transfers could consist of 1 GB of data for 16 users, while

others may require 20 GB of data and hundreds of users. The engineering and scientific

areas of business are more concerned with the manipulation of spatial data as well as of

series data. This application typically goes beyond standard relational DBMS systems, which

manipulate only flat (two-dimensional) data. Spatial or multi-dimensional issues and the

ability to handle complex data types are commonplace in engineering and scientific

applications.

Object-Relational DBMS (ORDBMS) are now being developed, and they not only offer

traditional relational DBMS features, but will additionally support complex data types. Object

storage and manipulation can be done, and complex queries at the database level can be