To remain competitive in a rapidly changing global economy, businesses are increasingly demanding higher levels of service availability and IT cost reductions through server and storage consolidations. Oracle RAC One Node is well suited to meet such challenges. This article covers how to implement Oracle RAC One Node on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.
Oracle RAC One Node, a new option in Oracle Database 11g Release 2, is a single instance of Oracle RAC running on a node in a cluster. RAC One Node offers a form of virtualization where multiple databases can be consolidated on the same physical server, sharing a common pool of storage and server resources and thus reducing the physical IT footprints. It enhances protection from hardware or software failures and allows the ability to perform server maintenance and workload management by transparently relocating database instances to an available node. Oracle RAC One Node does not offer the same capabilities of Oracle RAC. However, when the need arises for scalability and high availability that Oracle RAC provides, an Oracle RAC One Node can easily be upgraded to a multi-node RAC (requires Oracle RAC license).
In this guide, we will demonstrate migrating our applications residing on an existing single database instance to Oracle RAC One Node and later converting the RAC One Node to a full RAC. We will also briefly explore some of the new RAC services in Oracle 11g Release 2.
Downloads for this guide:
- Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.1.0) for Linux x86-64.
- Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Grid Infrastructure (11.2.0.1.0) for Linux x86-64.
Note that as of this writing, Oracle RAC One Node is only available on Linux platform.
Overview
Our RAC One Node set up comprises of two Intel x86 servers running on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5. The Operating System has been installed and patched on both nodes and each has access to a shared storage and connectivity to the public and private network.
This guide is structured into the following steps:
1. Preliminary Installation
2. Install Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Grid Infrastructure software
3. Install Oracle Database 11g Release 2 software
4. Create ASM disk group for Fast Recovery Area
5. Create Oracle Database 11g (appsdb)
6. Initialize the Database to Oracle RAC One Node
7. Migrate database applications to Oracle RAC One Node
8. Oracle Database Migration with Omotion
9. Create a second Oracle Database (racdb) on the spare node
10. Initialize the second Database to Oracle RAC One Node
11. Upgrade the second Database to Oracle RAC
An overview of our single database instance environment:
| Host Name | OS Kernel | Memory | Processor | Service Name | Instance Name | Database Name | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plaice | Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 (2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5) | 4GB | 1 x Intel Xeon Dual Core, 2.0Ghz | finsdb | finsdb | finsdb | ||
Software owner account and location:
| OS User | Oracle Base | Oracle Home |
|---|---|---|
| oracle | /u01/app/oracle | /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 |
File storage:
| File System | Location |
|---|---|
| ext3 | /u01/oradata/appsdb |
IP Addresses:
| Name | IP Address |
|---|---|
| plaice | 192.168.1.180 |
An overview of the Oracle RAC One Node environment:
| Host Name | OS Kernel | Memory | Processor | Service Name | Instance Name | Database Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| gurnard1 | Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 (2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5) | 4GB | 1 x Intel Xeon Quad Core, 2.0Ghz | appsdb finsdb | appsdb_1 | appsdb |
| gurnard2 | Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 (2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5) | 4GB | 1 x Intel Xeon Quad Core, 2.0Ghz | racdb | racdb_1 | racdb |
Software owner accounts and locations:
| OS User | Oracle Base | Oracle Home |
|---|---|---|
| grid | /u01/app/grid | /u01/app/11.2.0/grid |
| oracle | /u01/app/oracle | /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 |
File storage:
| File | File System | Location | Redundancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| OCR and Voting Disk | ASM | +DATA | Normal |
| Database Files | ASM | +DATA | Normal |
| Online Redo Logs | ASM | +DATA, +FRA | Normal/External |
| Fast Recovery Area | ASM | +FRA | External |
IP Addresses:
| Name | IP Address |
|---|---|
| gurnard1 | 192.168.1.181 |
| gurnard2 | 192.168.1.182 |
| gurnard1-priv | 10.10.10.181 |
| gurnard2-priv | 10.10.10.182 |
| Grid Naming Service (GNS) VIP | 192.168.1.208 |
And an overview of the Oracle RAC environment:
| Host Name | OS Kernel | Memory | Processor | Service Name | Instance Name | Database Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| gurnard1 | Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 (2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5) | 4GB | 1 x Intel Xeon Quad Core, 2.0Ghz | racdb | racdb2 | racdb |
| gurnard2 | Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 (2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5) | 4GB | 1 x Intel Xeon Quad Core, 2.0Ghz | racdb1 |
Software owner accounts and locations:
| OS User | Oracle Base | Oracle Home |
|---|---|---|
| grid | /u01/app/grid | /u01/app/11.2.0/grid |
| oracle | /u01/app/oracle | /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 |
File storage:
| File | File System | Location | Redundancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| OCR and Voting Disk | ASM | +DATA | Normal |
| Database Files | ASM | +DATA | Normal |
| Online Redo Log | ASM | +DATA, +FRA | Normal/External |
| Fast Recovery Area | ASM | +FRA | External |
IP Addresses:
| Description | Name | IP Address |
|---|---|---|
| Public network address | gurnard1.vcconsult.com | 192.168.1.181 |
| Public network address | gurnard2.vcconsult.com | 192.168.1.182 |
| Private network address | gurnard1-priv.vcconsult.com | 10.10.10.181 |
| Private network address | gurnard2-priv.vcconsult.com | 10.10.10.182 |
| Grid Naming Service (GNS) VIP | gurnard.vcconsult.com | 192.168.1.208 |
You’ll install the Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle Database software on each node for high availability and redundancy.