single node RAC system?

We are currently setting up our disaster recovery site (DRS).

For Oracle, we want to use Dataguard to copy our databases to physical standby databases on a single system at the DRS. The single system is quite capable of running the Dataguard load, but should we need to run production at the DSR, it will not suffice. We would therefore like to set up this system as single node cluster, so that we can easily add instances if necessary.

I tried installing clusterware on a single node, but the start of ONS fails with:

Start of `ora.l27.ons` on member `l27` failed. CRS-1006: No more members to consider
CRS-0215: Could not start resource 'ora.l27.ons'.

Metalink article 2411114.1 suggests that the set up is possible, though the environment described there differs from ours (we use 64-bit SLES 10, Oracle RAC 10.2.0.3, ASM). It also warns that "this configuration is not certified or supported by Oracle Support Services".

Has anyone tried setting up a single node cluster? If so, did you get the ONS error? How did you work around it? As to the support status, in theory, we could set up a two node cluster, and then take one node down. How would that differ from a single node cluster configuration?

Alternative suggestions to achieve our goals are also welcome, of course.

FWIIW, I opened an SR with Oracle four days ago, but they have yet to respond with something other than "we're looking into it'. A previous posting in ORACLE_DBA_EXPERTS also remained unanswered. I'm sort of pressed for time as the goal is to ship this to the DRS in three
weeks time, and just getting a first copy of the physical databases on the storage is going to take a while.

Kind regards,

Herta Received on Fri May 25 2007 - 16:12:37 CDT