On the sybase-l mailing list,
Sybase
Jeff Tallman replied to a question on how to avoid unnecessary reorgs. He graciously agreed to let me post his response here 
You can avoid most (if not all) of the reorgs by doing:
- setting the exp_row_size to something that covers about 90% of the space each row takes up
- changing enable housekeeper GC to a 4 or 5
Both of these are a *MUST* do for DOL (datapages or datarows). See manuals on ‘enable housekeeper GC’ for correct setting of 4 or 5 (refers to whether deletes are batch or OLTP).
You can also watch for housekeeper overflows in monEngine/monOpenObjectActivity……and if you see any HKGC pending – wait a few before shutting down.
Jeff wrote up an excellent article, Locking Redux – APL vs. DOL and Tuning, that goes into detail why this is the case.
I was able to move
a VMware Server 2.0 (v7) vm to VMware ESX.. it was a *live* copy where I performed a Windows Volume Shadow copy of the vm files. Everything worked for the most part but because the database, Sybase ASE 15.0.3, was running when the shadow copy was made, we had corruption in one database. Restore from backup and all is good.
Now we need to get an updated license file from Sybase as the NIC mac address has changed.. You can *not* use the mac address from the VMware Server on ESX. grr.
Twenty hours for the volume shadow copy to complete plus another 12 hours to scp the files to the esx box (esx console access is sloooow). Keep in mind that the host VMware Server box was rebooting itself randomly so I really couldn’t leave it alone. Then 3 hours to convert/clone the vmdk files and 2 hours to correct the database… I’m tired.
It turned out to be an issue with allocating 3.75GB to a VM that was causing the rebooting. Dropping it to 2 GB resolved the rebooting… who knew? Nothing in Google and VMware Support wasn’t able to find anything on their side.
Assuming that you installed Sybase OpenClient 15.5 from the 15.5 PC Client:
Install ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com (free) and install DBI if it isn’t already installed. It should be but you never know…
- Start -> ActiveState Perl -> Perl Package Manager
- install DBI
- exit
Now, the easy part. Install the DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM:
- download DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM
- extract zip file to temporary directory (e.g. c:\test)
- Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (as Administrator if Vista or Windows 7)
- cd \test
- ppm install DBD-Sybase.ppd
- exit
That’s it
It should automatically install the DBD::Sybase for Perl 5.8 or 5.10 depending on which version of Active State Perl you have installed.
If you ever receive a Sybase Power Designer file (such as the pdm file from Jeff Tallman) but you don’t want to either purchase or install the full blown Power Designer, then I have an answer for you. It is the Power Designer Viewer from Sybase.
While it is free, you have to fill out a form to get access to the download. Sybase Sales will likely call you regarding purchasing a full blown version of Power Designer. If you’re not interested in purchasing it, just tell them – Sybase Sales People are generally very nice folk.
I asked Jeff Tallman if I could redistribute his excellent MDA posters for Sybase’s ASE 15.5 database server. He said yes so … here they are in both Adobe PDF and Sybase PowerDesigner PDM formats!
Jeff Tallman also provided us with the MDA posters for Sybase 15.0.3 last year.
