I'm considering the following environment:
 ===============================================
 - Dell 6800 (dual-core 64-bit Intel(r) Xeon(r) 7100 series
processors) with 30GB RAM
 - Suse Enterprise 64bit (either 9 or 10)
 - Oracle 10.1.0.4 (this would be migrated)
 - ASM for database filesystem
 - Same storage as above

... I think you will be very impressed at the throughput of the Xeon
"Tulsa" 7100 series. From what I see it is the formost way to get the
best performance for your Oracle license dollars out there at the moment
(with x86_64)--a trend that will likely remain until AMD release HT 3.0.

... the Xeon 7100 processors are so much faster than US-III. You didn't
say how many Dell processors in total (e.g., RAC?). You may have a
tremendous amount of idle CPU...

 I'm basically looking to improve service times on the disks
 (currently is can sometimes be up to 900 ms and averages at 100
ms).
 I was hoping ASM would get me there .. ???

...ASM cannot improve disk service times--all things being equal. That
is, if you send ASM via ASMlib or libaio to block 1042 in datafile 42,
the service times will be the same. ASM isn't about faster I/O. It is a
space management offering.


 We are also growing and our data processing volumes has
increased by 70% the last
 2 years. The system is now running faster than ever, but with
the expected growth,

...hmmm...that is faster than Moore's law.

 Any input would be greatly appreciated.

...if "any" input is appreciated, I'll recommend PolyServe...OK, I'll
crawl back into my hole...



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