What's New in Oracle Database 10g RAC Installation and Configuration?

This section describes the new features in Oracle Database 10g as they pertain to the installation and configuration of Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). The topic in this section is:

• Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) New Features

• Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) New Features

Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) New Features

This section describes features introduced in Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) that affect the installation and configuration of RAC.

• Oracle Database 10g with RAC is available on both Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition.

• There are new and changed pages and dialogs for Oracle Universal Installer (OUI), Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA), and Database Upgrade Assistant. Virtual Internet Protocol Configuration Assistant (VIPCA) is a new tool for this release. These enhancements are described in the following:

  • OUI Cluster Installation Mode Page—This page enables you to select whether to perform a cluster or a single-instance Oracle Database 10g installation.

  • SYS and SYSTEM Passwords Page—This page has fields for entering and confirming the SYS and SYSTEM user passwords. This includes SYSMAN and DBSNMP if you use Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control.

  • Storage Options Page—This page has storage options for selecting the storage type for the database files such as control files, datafiles, and redo logs.

  • DBCA Services Page—This page enables you to create and configure services for your RAC environment.

  • DBCA Initialization Parameters Page—This page has two dialogs to display both Basic and Advanced parameter settings.

  • VIPCA—The pages for this assistant enable you to configure virtual internet protocol addresses for your RAC database.

• A new auxiliary, system-managed tablespace called SYSAUX contains performance data and combines content that was stored in different tablespaces (some of which are no longer required) in earlier releases. This is a required tablespace for which you must plan disk space.

• The gsdctl commands should only be used with Oracle9i databases. The Oracle cluster software installation process stops any existing GSD processes. To start or stop GSD processes manually, use srvctl start nodeapps or srvctl stop nodeapps respectively.

• Versions of cluster manager previous to Oracle Database 10g were sometimes referred to as "Cluster Manager". In Oracle Database 10g, this function is performed by an Oracle cluster software component known as Cluster Synchronization Services (CSS). The OracleCSService, OracleCRService, and OracleEVMService replace the service known previous to Oracle Database 10g as OracleCMService9i.

• Oracle Database 10g provides cluster file system support for Windows-based platforms.

• RAC and Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) support Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and Oracle Managed Files (OMF).

  See Also:

  • Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for information about Automatic Storage Management, a new database file management feature

  • Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide for more information about administering services and storage in RAC

  • Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for information about using DBUA

• The Oracle Database 10g version of the srvConfig.loc file is the ocr.loc file. The Oracle9i version of srvConfig.loc still exists for backward compatibility.

• If you use raw partitions in your Windows environment, then you can use a newly-introduced DBCA raw device mapping file to associate database objects with their partition symbolic link names. This removes the DBCA requirement in previous versions to always prefix raw partition symbolic links with a database name. This enables you to reuse the same raw partition symbolic links for any database name if that partition is not a part of any existing database.

Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) New Features

This section describes features introduced in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) that affect the installation and configuration of Oracle Clusterware and RAC.

• With this release, the component previously known as Cluster Ready Services, or CRS, is now called Oracle Clusterware.

• This release of Oracle Database 10g is provided with Cluster Verification Utility (CVU). CVU is a validation tool that you can use to check whether your cluster is properly configured, to avoid installation failures and database creation failures. It provides the following cluster setup checks:

  • The cluster configuration meets the requirements for installing Oracle Clusterware

  • The cluster configuration meets the requirements for Real Application Clusters installation

  • The cluster configuration meets the requirements for creating a database with Oracle Real Application Clusters, or meets the requirements for a change in database configuration

  You can use the CVU command-line interface:

  • To validate cluster components individually, including node connectivity, administrative privileges, and the proper configuration of Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR), Oracle Clusterware, and other required components for Real Application Clusters.

  • To validate a pre-defined set of requirements, including the proper setup for node connectivity, user equivalence, shared storage accessibility, integrity of the Oracle Clusterware stack, and other requirements that a system must have for a specific stage of RAC deployment like Oracle Clusterware or database installation and database configuration.

  CVU is available on the Oracle Clusterware media and is installed by OUI as part of the Oracle Clusterware installation. You can run CVU directly from the media, before installing Oracle software, to perform configuration checks. CVU commands to perform installation checks are provided in this installation guide.

  See Also:

  Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide for detailed information about CVU.

• With Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2), you can create duplicates of a cluster node (or "clone" a node) using an image file. Cloning is now the preferred method for adding nodes to a cluster. You can manage node cloning using a GUI provided by Enterprise Manager Grid Control. The command line process for cloning, as well as details about using non-interactive (silent) installation scripts, is described in the manual Oracle Universal Installer and OPatch User's Guide.

  Both Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters can be cloned.

• Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) enables rolling upgrades from Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) Cluster Ready Services to Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) Oracle Clusterware.

  During Oracle Clusterware installation, if Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) detects an Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) Cluster Ready Services installation, then OUI provides the option to install Oracle Clusterware across all nodes in the cluster, or across a subset of nodes in the cluster. During Oracle Clusterware installation, Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) Cluster Ready Services remains available on nodes that are not being upgraded.

• Starting with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2), Oracle Clusterware should be installed in a separate Oracle Clusterware home directory. This is a change to the Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) rules. You should not install Oracle Clusterware in an Oracle Clusterware directory in the release-specific mount point, as succeeding versions of Oracle Clusterware will overwrite the Oracle Clusterware installation in the same path. Installation of any version of Oracle Clusterware will also overwrite an existing Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) Cluster Ready Services installation in the same path.

• Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) Oracle Clusterware installation provides the option to use a Cluster Configuration File. The Cluster Configuration File simplifies Oracle Clusterware installation in situations such as installing in test environments, or installing Oracle Clusterware on a large number of nodes.

• Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) provides a simplified procedure for creating an Automatic Storage Management (ASM) instance and for configuring disk groups.

• ASM should be installed in a separate ASM home directory. This is a change to the OFA rules.

• With Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2), a single ASM instance is able to serve disk groups to all the database instances on the node, whether they are for single-instance or RAC databases. This change simplifies managing the cluster, as you do not need to distribute disks across multiple ASM instances statically. Instead, you can manage all disks with one ASM instance on each node.

• With Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2), an ASM disk group defined with normal redundancy can have its individual files defined with three-way redundancy (high redundancy) and, by default, the control file is created with three-way mirroring. You still have the option to create files in a normal redundancy group with the default two-way mirroring or with no mirroring.

  See Also:

  Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for more information about the use of ASM disk groups and their options

• Oracle cluster software, which was known as Cluster Ready Services in Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1), has been renamed to Oracle Clusterware in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2). Oracle Clusterware contains the cluster management software required to support Oracle Database 10g RAC databases. Oracle Clusterware also provides high availability components that provide many system management features, including determining node availability, cluster group membership, and locking services for Oracle processes. The components of Oracle Clusterware interact with third-party vendor clusterware, if present, to coordinate cluster membership information.

  In addition, while continuing to be required for RAC databases, Oracle Clusterware is also available for use with single-instance databases and applications that you deploy on clusters. The API libraries required for use with single-instance databases are provided with the Oracle Client installation media.

  With this release, the following updates have been made to Oracle Clusterware:

  • Versions of cluster manager previous to Oracle Database 10g were sometimes referred to as "Cluster Manager". In Oracle Database 10g, this function is performed by a Oracle Clusterware component known as Cluster Synchronization Services (CSS). The OracleCSService, OracleCRService, and OracleEVMService replace the service known previous to Oracle Database 10g as OracleCMService9i.

  • With this release of Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) with RAC, CSS has been modified to allow you to configure CSS with multiple voting disks. In the 10g Release 1 (10.1) version, you could configure only one voting disk. By enabling multiple voting disk configuration, the redundant voting disk enables you to configure a RAC cluster with a voting disk that is mirrored on multiple independent shared physical disks. This option facilitates the use of the iSCSI network protocol, and other Network Attached Storage (NAS) storage solutions.

    Note:

    To obtain the benefits of multiple voting disks, you must configure three voting disks.

  • Oracle Clusterware is available for use with single-instance databases and applications that you deploy on clusters.

    See Also:

    Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide for more information about Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Clusterware API, and the Oracle Clusterware API commands

• Oracle Database 10g installation requires you to perform a two-phase process in which you run OUI twice. The first phase installs Oracle Clusterware 10g Release 2 (10.2) and the second phase installs the Oracle Database 10g software with RAC. The installation also enables you to create and configure services for your RAC environment.

  If you have a previous Oracle cluster database version, then OUI activates Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA) to automatically upgrade your pre-Oracle Database 10g cluster database. DBUA can upgrade 9.x and 10.1 RAC databases, and can upgrade 10.1 RAC databases using ASM to 10.2. It can also upgrade ASM 10.1 to ASM 10.2 The Oracle Database 10g installation process provides single system image, ease of use, and accuracy for RAC installations and patches.