Impact analysis of the Disk consolidation in VMs running oracle databases

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Impact analysis of the Disk consolidation in VMs running oracle databases

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Article ID: 419075

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSAN VMware vSAN 8.x

Issue/Introduction

Alerts on the virtual machine running Oracle Databases: "Disk consolidation is needed."

The alerts started after the Oracle DB migration from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9. Rather than upgrading the OS, new VMs were created, and Oracle disks were manually mounted from the RHEL 8 VM to the RHEL 9 VMs.
The DB team wants to understand the impact when consolidation happens and if we need to schedule a downtime.

Environment

VMware vSAN 8.x

Resolution

Follow the steps as below to minimize user impact while consolidating Oracle database disks.

What to expect

Disk consolidation is an online operation. You may observe brief latency spikes while it runs.

Recommended timing

Schedule during off‑hours when activity is lowest.

Pre‑start actions

If possible, stop Oracle services to prevent new writes and help speed consolidation.
Do not shut down the VM—powering off the VM forces single‑threaded consolidation and greatly increases runtime.
Do not run backups or other disk‑intensive operations during consolidation.

During consolidation

Monitor latency and database responsiveness. Be prepared to notify stakeholders if the impact exceeds acceptable thresholds.

Post‑consolidation

Verify database performance and resume normal operations (start Oracle services if stopped).

Notes: Stopping Oracle services is recommended but optional; weigh against availability needs.