Introduction:

For a 12c Upgrade project I have been asked to run all the preparations and investigate requirements to move from 11.2 Grid infrastructure to 12c.  While reading and preparing it became clear  that Grid Infrastructure management repository (GIMR) database has become mandatory in Oracle GI 12.1.0.2. According to documentation and as per information from various Colleagues on the Web: Data files associated with it will be created in same diskgroup as OCR or voting. (Average growth per day per node = app 750MB so a 4 node cluster would lead at default retention of 3 days to app /GB. Note retention can be changed).

Until Oracle 12C all clusters here have been set up with a minimum ocr / voting diskgroup for for the mere reason  that they only where supposed to hold the Oracle Registry and the Voting disk(s). In this case that means that +GRID diskgroup is only 2GB in size. But as always with changing releases comes changing times (or was that the other way around). Below you will find the steps I followed to expand the OCR / Voting diskgroup ( In my scenario called +GRID) in order to be able to host the GIMR.

Claiming extra ASM storage

A first step to be able to host the GIMR  made it necessary to get extra  ASM storage from the Storage  / Linux Colleagues. For  ASM requested 6 * 8 GB shared (means visible on all nodes of the cluster) ASM disks that will be added to an existing Diskgroup (in my case in mysrvr09hr – 12hr ) to diskgroup +GRID.  +GRID diskgroup has been created in the past with Normal Redundancy with three FAILGROUPS on 3 Disks. For now I only used 3 new disks (thus saving something for a rainy day in case more storage will be needed).

/dev/mapper/asm-vote04 GRID_0014 8 MEMBER ONLINE CACHED NORMAL
/dev/mapper/asm-vote05 GRID_0015 8 MEMBER ONLINE CACHED NORMAL
/dev/mapper/asm-vote06 GRID_0016 8 MEMBER ONLINE CACHED NORMAL

Details:

When adding disks to the +GRID diskgroup which is in my case holding OCR and Voting information some extra preparation is needed because it will be the goal to add the new disks to the existing Failgroups.

conn / as sysasm
set lines 300
--
alter system set asm_power_limit = 0;
-- Note Use the same failgroups as existings disks here! And add them in one
-- command.
alter DISKGROUP GRID add 
 FAILGROUP GRID_0000 disk '/dev/mapper/asm-vote04' name GRID_0014
 FAILGROUP GRID_0001 disk '/dev/mapper/asm-vote05' name GRID_0015
 FAILGROUP GRID_0002 disk '/dev/mapper/asm-vote06' name GRID_0016
;
--
alter system set asm_power_limit = 1;
alter DISKGROUP GRID rebalance power 3;
--
select * from gv$asm_operation order by 1,2,3;
--
col name format a15;
col path format a25;
col failgroup format a20;
--
select dg.name, d.path, d.failgroup, d.failgroup_type,dg.VOTING_FILES
from v$asm_diskgroup dg, v$asm_disk d
where dg.group_number = d.group_number and dg.name = 'GRID'
order by dg.name, d.path, d.failgroup;

Once  the add step has completed below information was displayed with 6 disks, who all were holding OCR / Voting info after the re-balance:

NAME PATH FAILGROUP FAILGROUP_TYPE VOTING_FILES 
--------------- ------------------------- -------------------- ------- - 
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote01 GRID_0000 REGULAR Y 
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote02 GRID_0001 REGULAR Y 
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote03 GRID_0002 REGULAR Y 
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote04 GRID_0000 REGULAR Y 
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote05 GRID_0001 REGULAR Y 
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote06 GRID_0002 REGULAR Y

As always seeing is believing in Oracle so Let’s check this:

crsctl query css votedisk

## STATE File Universal Id File Name Disk group
-- ----- ----------------- --------- ---------
 1. ONLINE 19e8fcfc4ab24f73bf301473eda5b98e (/dev/mapper/asm-vote01) [GRID]
 2. ONLINE 2da0b18a78cb4f1dbf0596f9fdbd13e2 (/dev/mapper/asm-vote02) [GRID]
 3. ONLINE 6d670887aa874f6cbf8b177acae2ea29 (/dev/mapper/asm-vote03) [GRID]

Hmm okay so this means that the Cluster still sees the old three votingdisks on the first three original disks. So it let’s make Time for part 2 , dropping the old disks .

# 
conn / as sysasm
set lines 300
--
alter system set asm_power_limit = 0;
-- Dropping the previous (Old disks)
alter DISKGROUP GRID drop DISK
 GRID_0000
,GRID_0001
,GRID_0002
;
--
alter system set asm_power_limit = 1;
alter DISKGROUP GRID rebalance power 3;
--
select * from gv$asm_operation order by 1,2,3;
--
select dg.name, d.path, d.failgroup, d.failgroup_type,dg.VOTING_FILES
from v$asm_diskgroup dg, v$asm_disk d
where dg.group_number = d.group_number and dg.name = 'GRID'
order by dg.name, d.path, d.failgroup;

this now shows:

NAME PATH FAILGROUP FAILGROUP_TYPE VOTING_FILES

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------- -
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote04 GRID_0000 REGULAR Y
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote05 GRID_0001 REGULAR Y
GRID /dev/mapper/asm-vote06 GRID_0002 REGULAR Y

And

crsctl query css votedisk
## STATE File Universal Id File Name Disk group
-- ----- ----------------- --------- ---------
 1. ONLINE 0915739721ca4f55bf0f9ea53d58ecee (/dev/mapper/asm-vote04) [GRID]
 2. ONLINE 15507ed4dd964f26bfc497f4913034db (/dev/mapper/asm-vote05) [GRID]
 3. ONLINE 219ed4aef2d74fcdbfa9c9e8b81dbbde (/dev/mapper/asm-vote06) [GRID]
Located 3 voting disk(s).

Okay that looks much better. Completed the action for expanding the diskgroup +Grid as a preparation for Grid Infrastructure management repository (GIMR) database for my 12C Grid Infrastructure upgrade.

Happy Reading,

Mathijs.