This week I have had the challenge to finally install the Grid infrastructure Software 11.2.0.3.0 on a 4 Node production Real application cluster on Linux. I had followed all the guidelines and came well prepared because more than a month ago I had done the same on the preproduction cluster.
After building the complete Infra structure for Oracle (Grid Infra with Asm) and Rdbms in 11.2.0.2.0. version this Database Administrator is now facing a new challenge made by his Project leader. Please investigate the consequences of a Operating Upgrade from Red Hat Linux 5 ( 5.6) to (5.7) and change your Oracle environment to adapt to the changed Operating system. As they say often say in the Netherlands the Customer is King so this Admin was on his way. And of course set up a plan in which this will be done one step at the time , starting with a Test box. Because even with Kings the Dba should consider a Quote of one of the Oracle gurus (Arup Nanda : What’s more important guts or caution?” I would say pragmatism, bordering on caution; not guts. And i do believe the Guru is right in this matter.
Happy reading,
Mathijs
For a customer I had the privilege to investigate and implement a Logical standby Database. Primary side was a 6 Node RAC and the Standby side was scheduled to become a two Node RAC. The standby side was not meant as a Fail over solution but had to serve the purpose of an almost on-line Reporting environment to the customers ( in such a way also separating them from the production database). The requirements became quite a challenge in more than one aspect giving the facts that the project wanted to go live with it in the very next 2 weeks, that this was unknown territory for the complete team hmm and given the fact that the decision to change from a physical standby database to a logical one was one of the very last minute. I forgot who said it, but with respect I would like to quote the unknown creator of this following thought: .. but if things would always be easy you and I would be out of a job..
This week I came across the fact that the readme files for Applying Psu patches is often a puzzle to people. A PATCH action failed due to the fact that the –OH was NOT used, and in a Rac environment that is always something extra scary with dependencies. So I thought let us have some clearer picture with regard to this matter. Today i had to patch Oracle Restart environment with Grid Infrastructure 112030 and ditto Rdbms.
In order to make a good reminder for myself and for the community, well here are the steps that I performed. I have added some comments where needed.
Introduction
I have been asked to explore a scenario in which a database that is currently on a file systems is recovered with RMAN into ASM. In this web log the steps i have performed are shared.
A single instance/Db 11gr2 under control of 11gr2 grid infrastructure with ASM as storage solution. In ASM the disks are defined as external redundancy due to business rules ( no shooting the messenger please). I was Informed that a database had crashed . Grid Infra structure ( nor manual actions ) were able to start the database again. So I was asked please go take look and fix asap . The good thing was that I was aware of maintenance in the ASM Disk group on that Tuesday September 4th. So when alarms started to go off I had first clues (even Sherlock Holmes needs a first clue right ?). As always the alert log was first place to check for me. This document follows a number of steps during the analyses and the end status which was a proper database open (without reset logs). Bottom-line is give not up too fast. BUT also in this specific scenario it had been better if we had kicked the disk and started from scratch instead of trying to repair. But that being said I know that sounds wise when looking back ….
For a customer I have to implement Oracle Warehouse builder on several servers. So it became an interesting session cause during exploring, well actually it was already during installing found out that there are dependencies to other products that need to be present in the database before you can finish the job successfully. But as always Google is your friend so i was very happy in the end to summarise the steps and put them to a blog.
Bottom-line is that the following components need be present in your database before you can start with the Oracle Warehouse builder:
The remarkable thing was that during exploring i came across the fact that if you create your database via DBCA these components are installed. If you are a diehard and use the command line / scripts for that well then you need to do just a bit extra to be victorious. The environments in this note were set up manually.
On a grid infra-structure (11.2.0.3.0) cluster (SRVR1Rr – 2r -3r) we got more and more tickets that the ASM instances where having fragmented memory for the shared pool. The investigation showed that there was no SPFILE present, with automatic memory management in there. So this environment clearly needed better. Only thing found was some out of date INIT.ORA. From history this environment had been set up as an 11gr1 RAC cluster, and some time ago it had been upgraded to 11gr2 Grid Infra.
Mathijs Bruggink 