Tuning HP Tru64 UNIX V5.1A and V5.1B for Oracle

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Introduction
This document provides some generic guidelines on how to set key tunable parameters applicable to
Oracle® environments running HP Tru64 UNIX V5.1B. In addition, specific patches are
recommended for use in Oracle environments.
Where appropriate, there are also recommendations for Tru64 UNIX V5.1A; since this release is still
supported by HP under a Prior Version Support with Sustaining Engineering (PVS-SE) support
agreement. Although Tru64 UNIX V4.0F and V4.0G are also still supported by HP under the special
PVS-SE support agreement, no recommendations are made for this release. See the Prior Version
Support section for more information on PVS-SE.
In the past there were several resources and documents available that provided recommendations on
how to set certain tunable parameters in /etc/sysconfigtab, but there has always been a fair
amount of confusion regarding which guidelines to follow.
For the purposes of this document, the assumption is that the Oracle version in use is 8.1.7 or later;
this is important as, starting with version 8.1.7, Oracle uses the AdvFS direct I/O capabilities to
bypass the unified buffer cache (UBC) of the file system layers.
Unless otherwise noted, the recommendations in this document are applicable to all systems used as
an Oracle database server.
Unless stated otherwise, the recommendations for Oracle RAC described here will also apply to
Oracle 8i OPS.