Troubleshooting gc block lost and Poor Network Performance in a RAC Environment (Doc ID 563566.1)

Troubleshooting gc block lost and Poor Network Performance in a RAC Environment (Doc ID 563566.1)

Summary

In Oracle RAC environments, RDBMS gathers global cache work load statistics which are reported in STATSPACK, AWRs and GRID CONTROL. Global cache lost blocks statistics ("gc cr block lost" and/or "gc current block lost") for each node in the cluster as well as aggregate statistics for the cluster represent a problem or inefficiencies in packet processing for the interconnect traffic. These statistics should be monitored and evaluated regularly to guarantee efficient interconnect Global Cache and Enqueue Service (GCS/GES) and cluster processing. Any block loss indicates a problem in network packet processing and should be investigated.

The vast majority of escalations attributed to RDBMS global cache lost blocks can be directly related to faulty or mis-configured interconnects. This document serves as guide for evaluating and investigating common (and sometimes obvious) causes.

Even though much of the discussion focuses on Performance issues, it is possible to get a node/instance eviction due to these problems. Oracle Clusterware & Oracle RAC instances rely on heartbeats for node memberships. If network Heartbeats are consistently dropped, Instance/Node eviction may occur. The Symptoms below are therefore relevant for Node/Instance evictions.

Symptoms:

Primary:

• "gc cr block lost" / "gc current block lost" in top 5 or significant wait event

Secondary:

• SQL traces report multiple gc cr requests / gc current request /
•  gc cr multiblock requests with long and uniform elapsed times
• Poor application performance / throughput
• Packet send/receive errors as displayed in ifconfig or vendor supplied utility
• Netstat reports errors/retransmits/reassembly failures
• Node failures and node integration failures
• Abnormal cpu consumption attributed to network processing