Re: Please help: Oracle9i/AIX5.2/Veritas vxvm raw devices Problem

From: Howard J. Rogers <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 21:12:00 +1000
Message-Id: <3f6ed983$0$10355$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

Howard J. Rogers wrote:

> A. Fuentes wrote:
>

>> 
>> 
>> Thanks for clarifying this. Howard is correct. After 9.2.0.2 raw devices
>> are not required for RAC. We can use OCFS.

>
>
> Not quite. Cluster File Systems have been around for quite some time, and
> were perfectly useable with 9iR1. Tru64 was the first certified Unix
> Cluster File System, and that was most definitely for 9iR1.
>

>> 
>> However, for this particular setup, I need to put the database files
>> on Veritas raw devices. And I don't know if the Oracle Software needs to
>> live in a Veritas FS vxfs, instead of the jfs where is now.

>
> The Oracle software can *not* be installed onto a raw device. Period. It
> consists of over 60,000 files, each one of which would require the
> creation of a separate raw partition. And a lot of them are text files
> which can't be stored on a raw partition in any case.
>
> If you have raw devices for your shared disk storage, then neither the
> Oracle installation itself, nor archive logs, nor the init.ora can be
> shared between instances using the raw device.

Sorry... hit the Enter Key too quickly....

However, the archived logs need to be *visible* to all instances, and therefore an NFS mount must be used to make them so. The init.ora simply cannot be shared with raw devices, so that's why Oracle created the spfile which, being a binary file, can indeed be placed on the raw device.

So, for your specific question, it's a matter of installing Oracle twice onto your journalling file system disks, and creating the control files, datafiles and online redo logs on the raw device.

Regards
HJR Received on Mon Sep 22 2003 - 06:12:00 CDT