1 Introduction to Oracle Database 2 Day + Real Application Clusters Guide

About This Guide

This is an Oracle RAC database administration, task-oriented guide that shows you how to configure and manage the environment for Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC. This guide also explains how to create an Oracle RAC database and how to perform routine Oracle RAC database administrative tasks.

The goal of this guide is to help you understand the basic steps required to install and maintain an Oracle RAC environment, including how to perform basic troubleshooting, performance monitoring, and backup and recovery activities. This guide is based on Red Hat Linux, but you do not need to be a Linux expert to use this guide.

About Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters

Oracle RAC extends Oracle Database so that you can store, update, and efficiently retrieve data using multiple database instances on different servers at the same time. Oracle RAC provides the software that facilitates servers working together in what is called a cluster. The data files that make up the database must reside on shared storage that is accessible from all servers that are part of the cluster. Each server in the cluster runs the Oracle RAC software.

An Oracle Database database has a one-to-one relationship between datafiles and the instance. An Oracle RAC database, however, has a one-to-many relationship between datafiles and instances. In an Oracle RAC database, multiple instances access a single set of database files. The instances can be on different servers, referred to as hosts or nodes. The combined processing power of the multiple servers provides greater availability, throughput, and scalability than is available from a single server.

Each database instance in an Oracle RAC database uses its own memory structures and background processes. Oracle RAC uses Cache Fusion to synchronize the data stored in the buffer cache of each database instance. Cache Fusion moves current data blocks (which reside in memory) between database instances, rather than having one database instance write the data blocks to disk and requiring another database instance to reread the data blocks from disk. When a data block located in the buffer cache of one instance is required by another instance, Cache Fusion transfers the data block directly between the instances using the interconnect, enabling the Oracle RAC database to access and modify data as if the data resided in a single buffer cache.

Oracle RAC is also a key component for implementing the Oracle enterprise grid computing architecture. Having multiple database instances accessing a single set of datafiles prevents the server from being a single point of failure. Any packaged or custom application that ran well on a Oracle Database will perform well on Oracle RAC without requiring code changes.

You will learn more about the operation of the Oracle RAC database in a cluster, how to build the cluster, and the structure of an Oracle RAC database in other sections of this guide.

About Automatic Storage Management

With Oracle RAC, each instance must have access to the datafiles and recovery files for the Oracle RAC database. Using Automatic Storage Management (ASM) is an easy way to satisfy this requirement.

ASM is an integrated, high-performance database file system and disk manager. ASM is based on the principle that the database should manage storage instead of requiring an administrator to do it. ASM eliminates the need for you to directly manage potentially thousands of Oracle database files.

ASM groups the disks in your storage system into one or more disk groups. You manage a small set of disk groups and ASM automates the placement of the database files within those disk groups.

ASM provides the following benefits:

• Striping—ASM spreads data evenly across all disks in a disk group to optimize performance and utilization. This even distribution of database files eliminates the need for regular monitoring and I/O performance tuning.

• Mirroring—ASM can increase data availability by optionally mirroring any file. ASM mirrors at the file level, unlike operating system mirroring, which mirrors at the disk level. Mirroring means keeping redundant copies, or mirrored copies, of each extent of the file, to help avoid data loss caused by disk failures. The mirrored copy of each file extent is always kept on a different disk from the original copy. If a disk fails, ASM can continue to access affected files by accessing mirrored copies on the surviving disks in the disk group.

• Online storage reconfiguration and dynamic rebalancing—ASM permits you to add or remove disks from your disk storage system while the database is operating. When you add a disk to a disk group, ASM automatically redistributes the data so that it is evenly spread across all disks in the disk group, including the new disk. The process of redistributing data so that it is also spread across the newly added disks is known as rebalancing. It is done in the background and with minimal impact to database performance.

• Managed file creation and deletion—ASM further reduces administration tasks by enabling files stored in ASM disk groups to be managed by Oracle Database. ASM automatically assigns file names when files are created, and automatically deletes files when they are no longer needed by the database.

ASM is implemented as a special kind of Oracle instance, with its own System Global Area and background processes. The ASM instance is tightly integrated with the database instance. Every server running one or more database instances that use ASM for storage has an ASM instance. In an Oracle RAC environment, there is one ASM instance for each node, and the ASM instances communicate with each other on a peer-to-peer basis. Only one ASM instance is required for each node regardless of the number of database instances on the node.

Oracle recommends that you use ASM for your database file storage, instead of raw devices or the operating system file system. However, databases can have a mixture of ASM files and non-ASM files.

Tools for Installing, Configuring, and Managing Oracle RAC

The following is a description of the tools used for installing, configuring, and managing an Oracle RAC database:

• Oracle Universal Installer (OUI)–OUI installs the Oracle Clusterware and the Oracle Database software with Oracle RAC. After you configure the nodes that you want to use in your cluster, OUI installs the Oracle software on the specified nodes using a network connection.

• Cluster Verification Utility (CVU)–The CVU is a command-line tool that you can use to verify a range of cluster and Oracle RAC components such as shared storage devices, networking configurations, system requirements, and Oracle Clusterware, as well as operating system groups and users. You can use the CVU for preinstallation as well as postinstallation checks of your cluster environment. The CVU is especially useful during preinstallation and during installation of Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC components. OUI runs the CVU after the Oracle Clusterware installation to verify your environment.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager–Oracle Enterprise Manager has both the Database Control and Grid Control graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for managing single- instance and Oracle RAC environments.

• Server Control (SRVCTL)–SRVCTL is a command-line interface that you can use to manage the resources defined in the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR). These resources include the node applications, called nodeapps, that make up Oracle Clusteware, which includes the Oracle Notification Service (ONS), the Global Services Daemon (GSD), and the Virtual IP (VIP). Other resources that can be managed by SRVCTL include databases, instances, listeners, services, applications, and Oracle Enterprise Manager agents. Using SRVCTL you can start and stop nodeapps, databases, instances, listeners, and services, delete or move instances and services, add services, and manage configuration information.

• Cluster Ready Services Control (CRSCTL)–CRSCTL is a command-line tool that you can use to manage Oracle Clusterware daemons. These daemons include Cluster Synchronization Services (CSS), Cluster-Ready Services (CRS), and Event Manager (EVM). You can use CRSCTL to start and stop Oracle Clusterware and to determine the current status of your Oracle Clusterware installation.