We opened a call with HP support. They have identified 4 kernel parameters
that could be tuned (reduced, actually) to free up memory. According to 
what I understood,
there could be memory available but "not contiguously". These setting 
would reduce OS use
so that more memory is available for other apps, and hopefully it would 
all be contiguous.

ninode  1024
vx_ninode 18000
dbc_min   2 %
dbc_max_pct  3%

We are waiting to schedule a downtime to implement and test the new 
settings.


Prasad.



Larry Kingery wrote:

>First thing to do would be to check bperror and possibly
>bptm log to see what system call failed.
>
>Based on your description, we're probably both thinking it's
>a failure to allocate shared memory.
>
>BTW, NOSHM doesn't really disable or reduce the amount of shm that
>is used.  It just prevents it from being used in a certain way.
>
>  
>
>>2. Not sure this would be helpful, but would moving the Master off to a 
>>different box help? It still needs to be a Media since it has tons of data.
>>    
>>
>
>Probably not.  The big use of shm is on the media servers.
>
>  
>
>>3. How about adding more RAM to the box? Think it can go up to 16GB.
>>    
>>
>
>Probably not.  If it's a shm problem, adding more RAM isn't going to
>help unless the amount of shm is based on a formula based on RAM, which
>I rather doubt.
>
>  
>
>>4. Any other suggestions?
>>    
>>
>
>I'd write a little program which uses shm and see just how much is left
>after Oracle takes it.  You might also try reducing the
>NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS.
>
>
>
>
>  
>