Automatic Storage Management (ASM)

Most Oracle database installations have undergone explosive growth lately with increased storage and data retention requirements, resulting in the DBAs and System Administrators struggling to manage hundreds of disks. The sheer volume of disks and disk management issues have led to longer delays in identifying and rectifying database I/O bottlenecks and performance issues.

Fortunately, Oracle Database 10g offers the new Automatic Storage Management (ASM) feature for the efficient management of disk drives with 24x7 availability. 

It does so by creating disk groups, which are comprised of disks and the files that reside on them. With it, the DBA only need to manage a smaller number of disk groups. With the use of ASM, all that is required is to allocate disks to Oracle with the preferences for striping and mirroring using templates and let it handle the rest of the storage management chaos.

ASM Concepts

When the DBA creates database structures like tablespaces, archive logs, redo logs, and control files, he or she needs to specify the file location for the structure in terms of disk groups. The Automatic Storage Management (ASM) process will create and manage the underlying files for the structures.