REVIEW OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING A publication of IIETA

STUDIES
ISSN: 2369-0755 (Print), 2369-0763 (Online)
Vol. 3, No. 4, December 2016, pp. 81-86
DOI: 10.18280/rces.030401
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 http://www.iieta.org/Journals/RCES

Implementation of oracle real application cluster

Hayat Z., Soomro T.R.

Computer Science, SZABIST, Dubai, UAE

Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Oracle Real Application Cluster is Oracle technology component that can be active on multiple servers to
serve as Oracle database server unique. Each server has separate own database instance and these all act as
instance of single database for the external network access on the virtual IP address unique. The architecture
of the RAC is provides fault tolerance and a great power of treatment. Oracle RAC provides several features
in any database operation of the enterprise level for example the scalability, availability, load balancing and
failover .Oracle Real Application Cluster is a technology that allows multiple servers to serve as the single
Oracle database server. Each server has its own database instance and these all act as instance of single data
base for the external network access on the virtual IP address unique. The architecture of the RAC is provides
fault tolerance and a great power of treatment. The purpose of this study is to serve as a quick reference guide
to the installation of management and operation The Oracle Cluster ware Real Application Cluster (RAC)
database. This feature is initially targeted for the technical staff mainly of DBA Admins of the system.

Keywords: Node, Shared Storage, SAN, NAS, Cluster Ware, Oracle Kernel, Cluster Interconnects, Oracle
ASM, SCANIP, DNS, CRS,FRA, Data files, Redo log files, Control file, Archive logs, SSH, RAID.

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 What is Oracle?

Cluster database instances are common challenging for Oracle Corporation is an American global computer
each vendor application is presenting its own architecture technology, headquartered in Redwood City, California. The
design. Customers have the option to choose the product for company mainly specializes in the development and
mission-critical application. There are two leading marketing of database software and technology, engineering
management relational database products are available in the systems in the cloud and enterprise software products. Oracle
market. Both are data management platforms that provide is the world's leading supplier of software for information
different features that have demonstrated their ability to management, but is best known for its refined products for
manage large-scale, mission-critical applications. However, relational databases. An Oracle database is a collection of
both companies are offering different visions of how large- data treated as a unit. The purpose of a database is to store
scale, mission-critical applications of the future will be and retrieve related information any. A database server is the
developed, designed and implemented. Oracle is unique key to solving the problems of information management [2].
application vendor offering Real Application Clusters (RAC)
which increased in technology “scale-out” as the silver bullet 1.2 Why using Oracle Real application?
for all types of applications, databases, essentially canceling
the approximation traditional scale. Oracle claims that RAC Oracle Real Application Clusters is Oracle technology
offers unique scalability and availability at a low cost because component that can be allows multiple servers to serve as a
of its ability to use inexpensive hardware. Oracle RAC and database server Oracle alone. Each server has its own
related technologies are the maximum availability of Oracle database instance and this act as a single instance database
architecture, which improves disaster protection database and instance for access to the external network in the single
provide load balancing application. All previous architectures virtual IP address. Architecture is the RAC provides fault
have existed in earlier versions of Microsoft SQL Server. tolerance and high processing capacity. Oracle RAC is
Consequently, only improvements can be found in most of the providing multiple functions in any database operation at
features of SQL Server 2008 [1]. company level, for example, scalability, availability, load
balancing and failover .oracle Real Application Cluster is a
technology that allows multiple servers to serve as a server
Oracle database alone. Each server has its own database
instance and this act as a single instance database instance for

81
access to the external network in the single virtual IP address. 1.5 Purpose of the study
Architecture is the RAC provides fault tolerance and high
processing capacity. The purpose of this document is to serve The purpose of this study is to serve as quick reference
as a quick reference guide for installation management and guide for managing and operating Oracle Cluster ware and
operation of the database Oracle Real Application Cluster Real Application Cluster (RAC) database. This is initially
goods Cluster (RAC). This is initially intended for technical targeted for technical personnel mainly DBA’s System
staff, mainly system administrators DBA [3]. Admins.By definition RAC enables multiple instances that
are interconnected by accessing shared oracle database. In a
1.3 Comparison of Oracle RAC with other database RAC environment, the Oracle database runs on two or more
management system systems in a cluster while concurrently accessing a single
shared database. The result is a single database system that
A failover cluster solution in general cannot be associated spans multiple hardware systems yet appears as a single
with Oracle Real Application Clusters. With Oracle RAC unified database system to the application. This enables RAC
same database instance is running on all RAC nodes enabling to provide high availability, scalability, and redundancy
all nodes to actively share workload in the cluster. This during failures within the cluster. RAC provide stations all
means, Oracle Real Application Clusters can make use of any system types, from read-only data warehouse systems to
new node in the cluster, scaling out the workload immediately update-intensive online transaction processing (OLTP)
across all nodes. Using Oracle’s Automatic Storage systems. This article is installation and configuration of two
Management (ASM), mirroring data either within a storage node Oracle real time application cluster this article can be
subsystem or between more than one storage systems is help to learn about two node cluster database and conversion
totally transparent to the RAC database. ASM provides standby oracle database to oracle RAC instance [3].
normal redundancy to maintain a single mirror (either on
another disk or other storage systems) and high redundancy to 1.6 Scope of the study
maintain 2 data copies in different locations. ASM stripes the
data across all disks, ensuring an optimized IO utilization. In HOME Required Allocated Mount
addition, all ASM disk groups, the logical unit in which ASM Space Space point
organizes the disk available to ASM, are open and accessible GRID_HOME 10GB 81GB ( Both /u01
on every node of the cluster at any point in time. In case of a ORACLE_HOME 10GB Homes) /u01
node failure, no data needs to be made visible to another
node, since all the data is already accessible to any node. In This study is details document that how to Install and
case of a storage failure, the RAC database remains fully configure Oracle RAC Database on two Nodes on VMWare
operational without any service interruption. Microsoft Workstation as virtual environment. This study can help to
introduced new feature SQL database mirroring like oracle know about Oracle RAC architecture deep knowledge about
Data Guard in oracle. It was provided in an early version as oracle RAC.it is best for education purpose to make testing
part of the initial SQL Server 2005 release. Microsoft using open source storage to know .it also provide step by
changed the status as part of the SP1 upgrade. With SQL step method to setup RAC database environment. This study
Server 2008, the Mirror Database feature has undertaken also explained comparison between Oracle RAC and
some further enhancements. For example, only in the 2008 Microsoft SQL Server [5].
version of SQL Server, a manual failover can be performed
without restarting the database. In addition, the mirroring 1.7 Limitation of the study
protection is comprehensive to pages of data in a way that
once a page is found to be corrupt on either the principal This study is provided for educational purposes only setup
server or mirror server, the corresponding page is retrieved has been kept simple to determine ideas and concepts [1].
from its partner server and the database operation can Material and methods: This study is based on experimental
continue seamlessly. Using a newly available compression approach this section provided all pre-installation and post
technology, Microsoft furthermore allows compressing the installation methods which includes Virtual Lab software
data flow between the primary server and the mirror server to requirements followed by Hardware requirement and
reduce network traffic. While the classic Mirror Database software requirements in general for Oracle RAC for cluster
approach could only have 1 mirror server, Microsoft SQL environment installation and configuration. Before launching
Server 2008 introduces a variant allowing periodical Log installation methods, we need to consider few things this
Shipping between more than 1 warm standby sites. Log study uses the 64-bit versions of Oracle Linux and Oracle 11g
shipping occurs on a schedule and therefore, there is a time Release 2.
delay between the data changes on the master server and
these changes transferred to the secondary server. [1] [4]. 1.8 Virtual lab requirements



1.4 Oracle Cluster ware (OCR) VMware Workstation 9.0.0 build-812388
Open filer SAN
The Oracle Cluster ware requires the following two critical


files: 1.9 Hardware requirements

 
Voting Disk


Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR Physical memory


swap space
Temporary space

82
 All servers should be used in the cluster should have the groupadd asmadmin
same chip Architecture, for example, all Linux processors or groupadd asmdba
all x86 64-bitprocessors groupadd asmoper
groupadd oper
1.10 Software requirements # useradd -g oinstall -G asmadmin, asmdba, asmoper, dba


-m grid


Oracle Database-version 11.2.0.1 or higher # useradd -g oinstall -G dba, asmdba, asmadmin, oper -m
Oracle Cluster Ready Services-version 11.2.0.1 or oracle
higher # passwd oracle
# passwd grid


1.11 Shared storage Repeat Step 1 through Step 3 on each node in your cluster
SSH Configuration and Configuring Kernel
Disk space for software installation Parameters
Set the following kernel parameters to values greater than


1.12 Network hardware requirements or equal to the recommended
Stage the Oracle Software
All Nodes should have at least 2 Network Interface cards It is recommended that you stage the required software


(NIC), or Network Adapters. onto a local drive on Node 1 of your cluster.
Public interface names must be the same for all Nodes.

Prepare the shared storage for Oracle RAC
Example, if the public interface on one node uses the network

Device which are configured for ASM Disks
adapter eth0, then you must configure eth0 as the public Verify the setting with using following commands
interface on all nodes.

from nod1:
Here interfaces are bonded to improve the performance & Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Database Software
high availability. Here the Installation
a. Bonded interfaces for Public & Private From Figure 2.6.10-1 to 5 are the grid installation
b. Subnet Requirements processes.
c. NSLOOKUP for all IPs in the Nodes (a command to Login grid user
resolve the host) is given and Figure 2.1 shows below the # xhost +
successfulness of commands and it resolve the host. # su - grid

Figure 0.2 Grid Installtion Step-1

Figure 0.1 Nslookup Command Output

All Nodes /etc/hosts file will look like this.

1.13 Operating System Software Requirements

Validate Oracle Linux packages “yum install oracle-

validated”


Update operating System yum update


Network Time Protocol Setting
User Accounts
Groupadd dba
Groupadd oinstall Figure 0.3 Secure shell connectivity

83
  ASM Disk Group Creation

Run ./asmca utility from the grid home to invoke the below
configuration to configure the asm disk group in ASM
instance as below

Figure 0.7 Install the Oracle Database 11gR2 Binaries

Figure 0.4 Automatic storage configuration disk groups

Figure 0.8 Type of Oracle Installation

Figure 0.5 Creating Disk Groups
 Sequence of and Stopping and Starting Oracle RAC
Shutdown Procedure
- Stop RAC Database instance on each node
- Stop nodeapps (Listener, VIP, GSD, ONS) on each
node
Startup Procedure
- Start nodeapps (Listener, VIP, GSD, ONS) on each
node
- Start RAC Database instance on each node
Starting and Stopping Instances and RAC Database
ORCL
NOTE: In RAC, shutting down one instance does not
interfere with the operation of other running instances. To
shut down a RAC database completely, shut down every
instance that has the database open or mounted.
All Cluserware commands should be executed from
$CRS_HOME/bin
A) Starting up and Shutting Down with SQLPLUS
ORCL Database Shutdown Procedure
(We need to use appropriate instance name i.e ORCL1 /
ORCL2)
Figure 0.6 Verify the Cluster resources from the GRID - Sqlplus /nolog
Home - Conn /@ORCL1 as sysdba
- Shutdown immediate
ORCL Database Startup Procedure
- Sqlplus /nolog
- Connect /@ORCL1 as sysdba

84
 - Startup •SQL Server on SMP servers with Database Mirroring for
B) Starting up and Shutting Down with SRVCTL high availability is a more cost effective and easier to manage
NOTE: With powerful SRVCTL utility we can solution than Oracle RAC. SQL Server can meet the
startup/shutdown a single instance or all instances of RAC scalability requirements of 99% of customers’ real-world
database with a single command. applications, while providing the desired levels of
\ availability.
•For situations where scale-out architectures are the only
./srvctl stop instance –d ORCL –i ORCL1  To
ORCL Database Shutdown Procedure
- choice, both Oracle RAC and SQL Server should be
stop instance 1
./srvctl stop instance –d ORCL –i ORCL2  To
considered as equally
-
stop instance 2
./srvctl stop database –d ORCL  To shutdown
2.2 Final output and test
-
both instances of ORCL database together

./srvctl start instance –d ORCL –i ORCL1  To

ORCL Database Startup Procedure
-
start instance 1
- ./srvctl start instance –d ORCL –i ORCL2  To
start instance 2
- ./srvctl start database –d ORCL  To start both
instances of ORCL database together
Starting and Stopping NODEAPPS(Listener, VIP,
GSD, ONS)
NODEAPPS shutdown Procedure
- ./srvctl stop nodeapps –n nod1
- ./srvctl stop nodeapps –n nod2
NODEAPPS startup Procedure
- ./srvctl start nodeapps –n nod1
- ./srvctl start nodeapps –n nod2
Starting and Stopping whole Clusterware stack

./crsctl stop crs  To be issued on each cluster node

CRSCTL shutdown Procedure
- Figure 0.1 Status of RAC database instance
as “root” user

./crsctl start crs  To be issued on each cluster node

CRSCTL startup Procedure
-
as “root” user
Monitoring Real Application Clusters Setup
Checking database status
- ./srvctl status database –d ORCL

./srvctl config database –d ORCL  will show

Checking database configuration
-
database configuration for each node
Checking Node Applications services status
- ./srvctl status nodeapps –n nod1| nod2

./crs_stat –t  Provides status information for

Checking all cluster services status
-
resources on the cluster nodes,below is a sample output
Checking Voting Disk status
- ./crsctl query css votedisk Figure 0.2 Check status for globel databases
Checking Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) status
- ./ocrcheck
Checking CRS daemon health
- ./crsctl check crs
Checking CSS daemon health
- ./crsctl check css [1] [5] [6] [7].

2. RESULT AND FINDING

2.1 Findings

After an in-depth analysis of Oracle RAC and SQL Server

it concludes that.
• Oracle RAC is an interesting technology with great
potential. However its high-cost and Excessive administrative
complexity offsets any potential hardware cost savings
obtained by using commodity hardware. Figure 0.3 Check the RAC database instaces

85
2.3 Discussion & future work [4] Oracle, “Oracle® Database Installation Guide 11g
Release 2 (11.2) for Linux,” [Online]. Available:
Oracle Real Application Cluster is projected for HA and http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e243
scalability RAC provide protection level hardware and 21/oraclerestart.htm.
software. Oracle Real Application Cluster database delivers [5] oracle, “oracle white paper,” MAY 2008. [Online].
HA to ensure constant data access even some cluster nodes Available: www.oracle.com/technetwork/.../twp-
are down due to any failure of hardware and software. It can racsqlserver-2008-130739.pdf.
be scaled up or down because the business scale grows. [6] Oracle, “Oracle® Real Application Clusters
Oracle Application Cluster is unique in the market offering its Installation Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Linux
capabilities. RAC is being used by millions customers and,” [Online]. Available:
worldwide in all industries who having mission critical http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e246
application environments. 60/chklist.htm.
[7] Oracle, “Oracle® Grid Infrastructure Installation
Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Linux,” [Online].
REFERENCES Available:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e224
[1] Oracle, “Oracle Grid Infrastructure, Oracle 89/prelinux.htm.
Documentation,” [Online]. Available: [8] Oracle, “TECH: Unix Semaphores and Shared
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18248_01/doc/install.112/e Memory Explained [ID 15566.1],” [Online].
16763/oraclerestart.htm#CHDFDAIG. Available:
[2] Oracle, “What is Oracle,” [Online]. Available: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e243
https://www.oracle.com/corporate/index.html#info. 21/pre_install.htm.
[3] D. O. O. source, “Why RAC,” [Online]. Available:
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/rac.111/b28254
/admcon.htm.

86