Oracle® Real Application Clusters Installation Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Microsoft Windows Part Number E10818-02 |
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This section describes new features as they pertain to the installation and configuration of Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC). The topics in this section are:
The following is a list of new features for Oracle RAC 11g release 2 (11.2):
Oracle Automatic Storage Management and Oracle Clusterware Installation
Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS)
Daylight Savings Time Upgrade of Timestamp with Timezone Data Type
With Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 (11.2), Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) and Oracle Clusterware are installed into a single home directory, which is referred to as the Grid Infrastructure home. Configuration assistants that start after the installer interview process configure Oracle ASM and Oracle Clusterware.
The installation of the combined products is called Oracle Grid Infrastructure. However, Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Automatic Storage Management remain separate products.
Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) is a new multi-platform, scalable file system and storage management design that extends Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) technology to support all application data. Oracle ACFS provides dynamic file system resizing, and improved performance using the distribution, balancing and striping technology across all available disks, and provides storage reliability through Oracle ASM's mirroring and parity protection.
Note:
Oracle ACFS is only supported on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 64-bit.The Oracle ASM Dynamic Volume Manager (Oracle ADVM) extends Oracle ASM by providing a disk driver interface to Oracle ASM storage allocated as Oracle ASM volume files. You can use the Oracle ADVM to create virtual disks that contain file systems. File systems and other disk-based applications issue I/O requests to Oracle ADVM volume devices as they would to other storage devices on a vendor operating system. The file systems contained on Oracle ASM volumes can be used to support files beyond Oracle database files, such as executable files, report files, trace files, alert logs, and other application data files.
Cluster node times should be synchronized, particularly if the cluster is to be used for Oracle Real Application Clusters. With this release, Oracle Clusterware provides Cluster Time Synchronization Service (CTSS), which ensures that there is a synchronization service in the cluster. If Network Time Protocol (NTP) is not found during cluster configuration, then CTSS is configured to ensure time synchronization.
With this release, DBCA no longer sets the value for LOCAL_LISTENER. When Oracle Clusterware starts the database resource, it updates the instance parameters. The LOCAL_LISTENER is set to the virtual IP endpoint of the local node listener address. You should not modify the setting for LOCAL_LISTENER. New installation instances only register with Single Client Access (SCAN) listeners as remote listeners. SCANs are virtual IP addresses assigned to the cluster, rather than to individual nodes, so cluster members can be added or removed without requiring updates of clients served by the cluster. Upgraded databases will continue to register with all node listeners, and additionally the SCAN listeners.
When time zone version files are updated, TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE (TSTZ) data could become stale. In previous releases, database administrators ran the SQL script utltzuv2.sql
to detect TSTZ data affected by the time zone version changes and then had to carry out extensive manual procedures to update the TSTZ data.
With this release, TSTZ data is updated transparently with very minimal manual procedures using newly provided DBMS_DST PL/SQL packages. In addition, there is no longer a need for clients to patch their time zone data files.
See Also:
Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for information about preparing to upgrade Timestamp with Time Zone data, Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for information about how to upgrade the Time Zone file and Timestamp with Time Zone data, and Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide for information about performance effects of clients and servers operating with different versions of Time Zone filesEnterprise Manager Database Control 11g provides the capability to provision automatically Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC installations on new nodes, and then extend the existing Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC database to these provisioned nodes. This provisioning procedure requires a successful Oracle RAC installation before you can use this feature.
See Also:
Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide for information about this featureWith this release, you can use Enterprise Manager Cluster Home page to perform full administrative and monitoring support for both standalone database and Oracle RAC environments, using High Availability Application and Oracle Clusterware Resource Management. Such administrative tasks include creating and modifying server pools.
With this release, you can apply patches to the Oracle RAC database using Enterprise Manager. A new Enterprise Manager feature, the Provisioning Advisor Console, enables you to customize, monitor, and deploy patch applications to nodes on the cluster.
In the past, adding or removing servers in a cluster required extensive manual preparation. With this release, you can continue to configure server nodes manually, or use Grid Plug and Play to configure them dynamically as nodes are added or removed from the cluster.
Grid Plug and Play reduces the costs of installing, configuring, and managing server nodes by starting a grid naming service within the cluster to allow each node to perform the following tasks dynamically:
Negotiating appropriate network identities for itself
Acquiring additional information it needs to operate from a configuration profile
Configuring or reconfiguring itself using profile data, making host names and addresses resolvable on the network
Because servers perform these tasks dynamically, adding and removing nodes simply requires an administrator to connect the server to the cluster, and to allow the cluster to configure the node. Using Grid Plug and Play, and using best practices recommendations, adding a node to the database cluster is part of the normal server restart, and removing a node from the cluster occurs automatically when a server is turned off.
Oracle configuration assistants provide additional guidance to ensure recommended deployment, and to prevent configuration issues.
Oracle configuration assistants provide the capability of deconfiguring and deinstalling Oracle Real Application Clusters, without requiring additional manual steps.
With this release, the single client access name (SCAN) is the address to provide for all clients connecting to the cluster. The SCAN is a domain name registered to at least one and up to three IP addresses, either in the domain name service (DNS) or the Grid Naming Service (GNS). The SCAN eliminates the need to change clients when nodes are added to or removed from the cluster. Clients using SCAN can also access the cluster using Easy Connect Naming.
With this release, you can use srvctl
to shut down all Oracle software running within an Oracle home, in preparation for patching. Oracle Grid Infrastructure patching is automated across all nodes, and patches can be applied in a multi-node, multi-patch fashion.
In this release, there are two installation types: Desktop Class and Server Class.
The Desktop Class installation type is a simplified installation with a minimal number of manual configuration choices. The Desktop Class installation performs a full Oracle Database installation with a basic configuration.
The Server Class installation type allows for more advanced configuration options. Select this option when installing Oracle RAC, if you use Enterprise Manager Grid Control, or if you want to configure database storage on Oracle ASM.
Opatch now can apply patches in multi-node, multi-patch fashion, and will not start up instances that have a non-rolling patch applied to it if other instances of the database do not have that patch. Opatch also detects if the database schema is an earlier patch level than the new patch, and it runs SQL commands to bring the schema up to the new patch level.
Oracle Universal Installer no longer removes Oracle software. Use the new Deinstallation Tool (deinstall.bat
) available on the installation media before installation as well as in the Oracle home directory after installation. This tool can also be downloaded from Oracle TechNet.
See Also:
Chapter 8, "Removing Oracle Real Application Clusters Software" for more informationNote the following changes with this release:
Installing files on raw devices is no longer an option available during installation. You must use a shared file system, or use Oracle Automatic Storage Management. If you are upgrading from a previous release and currently use raw devices, then your existing raw devices can continue to be used. After upgrade is complete, you can migrate to Oracle ASM or to a shared file system if you choose.
The SYSDBA privilege of acting as administrator on the Oracle ASM instance is removed with this release.
This section describes Oracle Database 11g release 1 features as they pertain to the installation and configuration of Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC).
The topics in this section are:
With Oracle Database 11g release 1 (11.1), Oracle Clusterware can be installed or configured as an independent product. In addition, new documentation is provided for Oracle Database storage administration. For installation planning, note the following documentation:
This book provides an overview and examples of the procedures to install and configure a two-node Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC environment.
This book provides procedures either to install Oracle Clusterware as a standalone product, or to install Oracle Clusterware with either Oracle Database, or Oracle RAC. It contains system configuration instructions that require system administrator privileges.
This book (the guide that you are reading) provides procedures to install Oracle RAC after you have completed successfully an Oracle Clusterware installation. It contains database configuration instructions for database administrators.
This book provides information for database and storage administrators who administer and manage storage, or who configure and administer Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM).
This is the administrator's reference for Oracle Clusterware. It contains information about administrative tasks, including those that involve changes to operating system configurations.
This is the administrator's reference for Oracle RAC. It contains information about administrative tasks. These tasks include database cloning, node addition and deletion, Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) administration, use of Server Control Utility (SRVCTL) and other database administration utilities.
The following are installation option changes for Oracle Database 11g release 1 (11.1):
Oracle Application Express: This feature is installed with Oracle Database 11g. It was previously named HTML DB, and was available as a separate Companion CD component.
Oracle Configuration Manager: Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) is integrated with Oracle Universal Installer. However, it is an optional component with database and client installations, and you must select Custom Installation to enable it. Oracle Configuration Manager, used in previous releases as Customer Configuration repository (CCR), is a tool that gathers and stores details relating to the configuration of the software stored in the Oracle ASM and database Oracle home directories.
Refer to Oracle Configuration Manager for Improved Support in New Components Available for Installation in this chapter for further information.
Oracle Data Mining: Enterprise Edition installation type selects Oracle Database Mining option by default.
Oracle Database Vault: This feature is offered during installation. It is an optional component for database installation, available through Custom installation.
Oracle SQL Developer: This feature is installed by default with template-based database installations, such as General Purpose, Transaction Processing, and Data Warehousing. It is also installed with database client Administrator, Runtime, and Custom installations.
Oracle Warehouse Builder: This information integration tool is now installed with both Standard and Enterprise Edition versions of the Oracle Database. With Enterprise Edition, you can purchase additional extension processes. Installing the Oracle Database also installs a pre-seeded repository, OWBSYS, necessary for using Oracle Warehouse Builder.
Oracle XML DB: Starting with Oracle Database 11g, Oracle XML DB is no longer an optional feature. It is installed and configured using Database Configuration Assistant for all database installations.
The following are the new components available while installing Oracle Database 11g:
Oracle Application Express: Starting Oracle Database 11g, HTML DB is no longer available as a Companion CD component. Renamed as Oracle Application Express, this component is installed with Oracle Database 11g.
With Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Application Express replaces iSQL*Plus.
Oracle Configuration Manager: This feature is offered during custom installation. It was previously named Customer Configuration repository (CCR). It is an optional component for database and client installations. Oracle Configuration Manager gathers and stores details relating to the configuration of the software stored in database Oracle home directories.
Oracle SQL Developer: This feature is installed by default with template-based database installations, such as General Purpose, Transaction Processing, and Data Warehousing. It is also installed with database client Administrator, Runtime, and Custom installations.
Oracle Warehouse Builder: This feature is now included as an option in the Database installation.
Oracle Real Application Testing: This feature is installed by default with the Enterprise Edition installation type of Oracle Database 11g.
See Also:
Oracle Database Performance Tuning Guide for more information about Oracle Real Application TestingThe following is a list of enhancements and new features for Oracle Database 11g release 1 (11.1):
The Automatic Diagnostic Repository is a feature added to Oracle Database 11g. The main objective of this feature is to reduce the time required to resolve bugs. Automatic Diagnostic Repository is the layer of the Diagnostic Framework implemented in Oracle Database 11g that stores diagnostic data and also provides service APIs to access data. The default directory that stores the diagnostic data is ORACLE_BASE\diag
.
The Automatic Diagnostic Repository implements the following:
Diagnostic data for all Oracle products is written into an on-disk repository.
Interfaces that provide easy navigation of the repository, and the capability to read and write data
For Oracle RAC installations, if you use a shared Oracle Database home, then the Automatic Data Repository must be located on a shared storage location available to all the nodes.
Oracle Clusterware continues to place diagnostic data in the directory CRS_home
\log
, where CRS_home
is the Oracle Clusterware home.
Oracle ASM fast mirror resync quickly resynchronizes Oracle ASM disks within a disk group after transient disk path failures as long as the disk drive media is not corrupted. Any failures that render a failure group temporarily unavailable are considered transient failures. Disk path malfunctions, such as cable disconnections, host bus adapter or controller failures, or disk power supply interruptions, can cause transient failures. The duration of a fast mirror resync depends on the duration of the outage. The duration of a resynchronization is typically much shorter than the amount of time required to completely rebuild an entire Oracle ASM disk group.
See Also:
Oracle Database Storage Administrator's GuideDatabase Configuration Assistant (DBCA), Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA), and Oracle Net Configuration Assistant (NETCA) have been improved. These improvements include the following:
Provides a command line feature, deleteASM
, that removes Oracle ASM instances.
Provides the option to switch from a database configured for Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control to Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control.
Includes an improved pre-upgrade script to provide space estimation, initialization parameters, statistics gathering, and new warnings. DBUA also provides upgrades from Oracle Database releases 9.0, 9.2, 10.1, and 10.2.
Supports in-place patch set upgrades
Starts any services running prior to upgrades
This feature introduces a new SYSASM
privilege that is specifically intended for performing Oracle ASM administration tasks. Using the SYSASM
privilege instead of the SYSDBA
privilege provides a clearer division of responsibility between Oracle ASM administration and database administration.
In previous releases, Oracle ASM used the disk with the primary copy of a mirrored extent as the preferred disk for data reads. With this release, using the new initialization file parameter asm_preferred_read_failure_groups
, you can specify disks located near a specific cluster node as the preferred disks from which that node obtains mirrored data. This option is presented in Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA), or you can configure it after installation. This change facilitates faster processing of data with widely distributed shared storage systems or with extended clusters (clusters whose nodes are geographically dispersed), and improves disaster recovery preparedness.
Rolling migration for Oracle ASM enables you to upgrade or patch Oracle ASM instances on clustered Oracle ASM nodes without affecting database availability. Rolling migration provides greater availability and more graceful migration of Oracle ASM software from one release to the next. This feature applies to Oracle ASM configurations that run on Oracle Database 11g release 1 (11.1) and later. In other words, you must already have Oracle Database 11g release 1 (11.1) installed before you can perform rolling migrations.
Note:
You cannot change the owner of the Oracle ASM or Oracle Database home during an upgrade. You must use the same Oracle software owner that owns the existing Oracle ASM or Oracle Database home.See Also:
Oracle Database Storage Administrator's GuideUsing either Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control or rconfig
, you can convert an existing Oracle ASM instance from a single-instance storage manager to a clustered storage manager. You can convert Oracle ASM release 11.1 instances directly, and convert releases previous to 11.1 by upgrading the instance to 11.1, and then performing the conversion.
In Oracle Database 11g, the data mining schema is created when you run the SQL script catproc.sql
as the SYS user. Therefore, the data mining option is removed from the Database Features screen of Database Configuration Assistant.
Oracle Disk Manager (ODM) can manage network file systems (NFS) on its own, without using the operating system kernel NFS driver. This is referred to as Direct NFS. Direct NFS implements NFS version 3 protocol within the Oracle RDBMS kernel. This change enables monitoring of NFS status using the ODM interface. The Oracle RDBMS kernel driver tunes itself to obtain optimal use of available resources.
This feature provides the following:
Ease of tuning, and diagnosability, by giving the Direct NFS Client control over the input-output paths to Network File Server, and avoiding the need to tune network performance at the operating system level.
A highly stable, highly optimized NFS client for database operations.
Use of the Oracle buffer cache, rather than the file system cache, for simpler tuning.
A common, consistent NFS interface, capable for use across Linux, UNIX and Windows platforms.
Does not require additional configuration of NFS mounts. With operating system NFS drivers, even though NFS is a shared file system, NFS drives have to be mounted with the option noac
(No Attribute Caching) to prevent the operating system NFS driver from optimizing the filesystem cache by keeping file attributes locally. ODM automatically recognizes Oracle RAC instances, and performs appropriate operations for data files without requiring additional reconfiguration from users, system administrators, or DBAs.
With the development of stripe and mirror everything architecture (SAME), and improved storage and throughput capacity for storage devices, the original OFA mission to enhance performance has shifted to its role of providing well-organized Oracle installations with separated software, configuration files and data. This separation enhances security, and simplifies upgrade, cloning, and other administrative tasks.
Oracle Database 11g release 1 (11.1) incorporates several changes to OFA to address this changed purpose.
As part of this change:
During Oracle RAC installation, you are prompted to accept the default, or select a location for the Oracle base directory, instead of the Oracle home directory. This change facilitates installation of more than one Oracle home directory in a common location, and separates software units for simplified administration. For this release, you are not required to use Oracle base, but this may become a requirement in a future release.
With this release, as part of the implementation of Automatic Diagnostic Repository (ADR), the following admin
directories are changed:
bdump
(location set by the background_dump_dest
initialization parameter; storage of Oracle background process trace files)
cdump
(location set by the core_dump_dest
initialization parameter; storage of Oracle core dump files)
udump
(location set by the user_dump_dest
initialization parameter; storage of Oracle user SQL trace files)
By default, the location of these trace and core files is in the \diag
directory, which is in the path ORACLE_BASE\diag
.
The initialization parameters BACKGROUND_DUMP_DEST
and USER_DUMP_DEST
are deprecated. They continue to be set, but you should not set these parameters manually.
A new initialization parameter is introduced. DIAGNOSTIC_DEST
contains the location of "ADR base," which is the base directory under which one or more Automatic Database Repository homes are kept. Oracle documentation commonly refers to these homes as ADR homes. Each database instance has an ADR home, which is the root directory for a number of other directories that contain trace files, the alert log, health monitor reports, and dumps for critical errors. You can also view alert and trace files with the SQL statement select name, value from v$diag_info
.
The default Flash Recovery area is moved from ORACLE_HOME\..\flash_recovery_area
to ORACLE_BASE\flash_recovery_area
.
The default data file location is moved from ORACLE_HOME\..\oradata
to ORACLE_BASE\oradata
.
A new utility, The ADR Command Interpreter (ADRCI), is introduced. The ADRCI facilitates reviewing alert log and trace files.
For Oracle RAC installations, Oracle requires that the flash recovery area and the data file location are on a location shared among all the nodes. The Oracle Universal Installer confirms that this is the case during installation. This change does not affect the location of trace files for Oracle Clusterware.
See Also:
Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for detailed information about these changes, and Oracle Database Utilities for information about viewing alert log and list trace files with ADRCIDuring a custom installation, you are asked if you want to install Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM). OCM is an optional tool that enables you to associate your configuration information with your My Oracle Support account. This can facilitate handling of service requests by ensuring that server system information is readily available.
Configuring the OCM tool requires that you have the following information from your service agreement:
Customer Identification Number (CSI)
My Oracle Support user account name
Country Code
In addition, you are prompted for server proxy information, if the host system does not have a direct connection to the Internet.
Large data file support is an automated feature that enables Oracle to support larger files on Oracle ASM more efficiently and to increase the maximum file size.
See Also:
Oracle Database Storage Administrator's GuideIn previous releases, Database Configuration Assistant contains the functionality to configure databases while creating them either with Database Control or with Grid Control, or to reconfigure databases after creation. However, if you want to change the configuration from Database to Grid control, then this requires significant work. With Oracle Database 11g, Database Configuration Assistant enables you to switch configuration of a database from Database Control to Grid Control by running the Oracle Enterprise Manager Configuration Plug-in.
Oracle Database 11g release 11.1 includes the following:
ODP .NET Configuration
Developers can now configure ODP .NET using configuration files, including application config, web.config
, or machine.config
.
Settings in the machine.config
override the registry settings and the settings in the application config or the web.config
override the values in the machine.config
.
Performance Enhancements
The following performance enhancements have been made:
Improved Parameter Context Caching
This release enhances the existing caching infrastructure to cache ODP .NET parameter contexts. This enhancement is independent of database version and it is available for all the supported database versions. This feature provides significant performance improvement for the applications that execute the same statement repeatedly.
This enhancement is transparent to the developer. No code changes are needed to use this feature.
Efficient LOB Retrieval
This release improves the performance of small-sized LOB retrieval by reducing the number of round-trips to the database. This enhancement is available only with Oracle 11g release 1 or higher database versions.
This enhancement is transparent to the developer. No code changes are needed to use this feature.
The following components that were part of Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2) are not available for installation with Oracle Database 11g:
iSQL*Plus
Oracle Workflow
Data Mining Scoring Engine
Oracle Enterprise Manager Java console