Re: Oracle 9i RAC

From: Howard J. Rogers <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au>
Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 07:40:03 +1000
Message-ID: <kBac9.20410$g9.61420@newsfeeds.bigpond.com>

Patrick London wrote:

> Pete Sharman <peter.sharman_at_oracle.com> wrote in message
> news:<akj47m0dod_at_drn.newsguy.com>...

>> In article <pan.2002.08.28.11.07.28.301.14437_at_scutty.co.uk>, "Scutty"
>> says...
>> >
>> >Hi guys,
>> >
>> >Just wondeign if anyone out there is using Oracle 9iRAC?
>> >If you are what platform are you running and is it working ok?
>> >
>> >Only asking as we are mid-roll out on with a 9iRAC/Alpha tru-cluster
>> >system and its been... interesting!
>> >
>> >Cheers
>> >Andy
>>
>>
>> TruCluster is my personal favorite for RAC (NOT an Oracle recommendation
>> by the
>> way!) because of the CFS. And after all, Digital/Compaq/HP/whoever the
>> next buyer is have been in clustering forever.
>>
>> If your clusterware is set up correctly, it is REALLY simple to get this
>> installed and working. At one client that had the cluster set up 100%
>> correctly (this is really an OS issue, not an Oracle one), I installed
>> RAC, built a database, migrated a portion of their Production system,
>> tested TAF and load-balancing and did quite a bit of knowledge transfer
>> in 4 days flat,
>> including one day lost because of a glitch with a patch. Ttrue to all
>> DBA norms, I was of course installing the patch without backing up the
>> kernel due to time constraints - oops!
>>

> 
> On Windows 2000, we are trying to understand that if you are running
> Windows 2000 Advanced Server and making Node 1 and Node 2 part of
> an OS cluster, where would Oracle's cluster file system be installed?
> My understanding is that Oracle's CFS simply alleviates the need for
> dealing with raw partitions, but does not replace cluster aware OS
> software.  Is this correct?  So if you have Node 1 and Node 2 both
> running Windows 2000 Advanced Server and they are the two nodes in
> the window cluster, where is Oracle CFS installed?  Can it be on a
> third machine that is not one of the nodes, but serves as the crude
> shared storage?  Any info would help.  The pre-install and install docs
> don't seem to answer these issues and I can't find anyone who has
> more detail info.
> 

As far as I can tell, it's important that the two machines are NOT part of a Windows Cluster. Windows 'clustering' is a bit weird, frankly: what node 1 writes to the shared disk isn't seen by node 2, until node 1 blows up. In other words, it's failover clustering, not true clustering with shared access to the shared device.

I don't have the doco to hand, but I could have sworn there's an instruction in the Windows installation documents to switch off the Microsoft Clustering service before proceeding with the install.

Point being, it's perfectly possible to RAC two Windows Pro boxes (and use the CFS, even though the installation doco doesn't say that you can do so on that version).

When you install the CFS on node 1, incidentally, the relevant software gets automatically copied across to node 2, and a service is started on *both* nodes. So, no -there's no third machine, and it goes on both nodes of the cluster, but *you* only have to physically install it on one.

It makes RAC installation a doddle, since you only need a couple of partitions to work with, instead of the bezillion you require with raw devices. You get the opportunity to tell Oracle whether you want the CFS to be used for the ORACLE_HOME, the datafiles, or both... in other words, it makes possible the single installation of Oracle's executables onto the shared drive... each node doesn't have to have it installed separately, and installation time is therefore about halved. Frankly, it's a godsend.

Regards
HJR

> 

>> HTH. Additions and corrections welcome.
>>
>> Pete
>>
>> SELECT standard_disclaimer, witty_remark FROM company_requirements;
Received on Sat Aug 31 2002 - 16:40:03 CDT