Preface

The Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide introduces Oracle Clusterware and Real Application Clusters (RAC) by describing the architectures of these products as well as providing an overview of them. This book also describes administrative and deployment topics for Oracle Clusterware and RAC.

Information in this manual applies to RAC as it runs on all platforms. In addition, the content of this manual supplements administrative and deployment topics for Oracle single-instance databases that appear in other Oracle documentation. Where necessary, this manual refers to platform-specific documentation. This Preface contains these topics:

• Audience

• Documentation Accessibility

• Structure

• Related Documents

• Conventions

Audience

The Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide is intended for database administrators, network administrators, and system administrators who perform the following tasks:

• Install and configure RAC databases

• Administer and manage RAC databases

• Manage and troubleshoot clusters and networks that use RAC

To use this document, you should be familiar with the administrative procedures described inOracle Database 2 Day DBA and the Oracle Database Administrator's Guide. You should also read Oracle Database Concepts to become familiar with Oracle database concepts. You should also be familiar with installing and configuring RAC as described in the platform-specific Real Application Clusters installation guides.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

TTY Access to Oracle Support Services

Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services within the United States of America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For TTY support, call 800.446.2398.

Structure

This document is organized as follows:

Chapter 1, "Introduction to Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters"

This chapter introduces Oracle Clusterware and RAC by describing the Oracle Clusterware and RAC architectures as well as the component processing of these products. The chapter describes the Oracle Clusterware API that you can use on both single-instance Oracle databases as well as RAC databases to use the Oracle high availability features. This chapter briefly describes workload management, high availability, and services. This chapter also describes the Oracle Clusterware and RAC installation processes. In addition, the chapter introduces RAC-specific design, deployment, and administration topics.

Chapter 2, "Introduction to Oracle Clusterware and RAC Administration and Deployment"

This chapter introduces RAC administrative and deployment topics by describing the Oracle Database 10g RAC documentation set. This chapter provides an overview of database and instance management, storage management, and services management. This chapter also provides an overview of administering RAC environments with Oracle Enterprise Manager, as well as a description of application deployment in RAC environments. In addition, this chapter introduces the Oracle Clusterware, and additional high availability features such as load balancing, Recovery Manager (RMAN), and Data Guard.

Chapter 3, " Administering Oracle Clusterware Components"

This chapter describes how to administer the voting disks and the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) disks. This chapter explains how to backup and recover these components as well as how to add, replace, repair, remove, and troubleshoot them.

Chapter 4, " Administering Storage"

This chapter explains how to administer storage components in RAC by describing Automatic Storage Management (ASM) administration, datafiles, redo log files, and automatic undo tablespace administration.

Chapter 5, " Administering Database Instances and Cluster Databases"

This chapter explains how to administer RAC database instances and RAC databases. This chapter provides an overview of the tools that you can use to administer RAC environments, such as Enterprise Manager, SQL*Plus, and the Server Control Utility (SRVCTL). This chapter also describes how to start and stop instances and databases using these tools. In addition, this chapter describes parameter use in RAC and the administration of the Server Parameter File (SPFILE).

Chapter 6, "Introduction to Workload Management"

This chapter describes how to administer services and other high availability features in RAC environments. This chapter explains Connection Pool Load Balancing and connection load balancing and also describes how to change VIP addresses, how automatic restarts after failures function, and OCI event notification. In addition, this chapter explains how to administer high availability features such as services with Enterprise Manager and the Server Control Utility (SRVCTL).

Chapter 7, "Configuring Recovery Manager and Archiving"

This chapter explains how to configure Recovery Manager (RMAN) for use with RAC databases. This chapter discusses how to configure the snapshot control file location, the RMAN control file, and the automatic Server Parameter File (SPFILE) autobackup feature. This chapter also explains how to manage archived redo logs and provides RMAN configuration scenarios for RAC environments. In addition, this chapter explains how to change the archiving log mode in RAC.

Chapter 8, " Managing Backup and Recovery"

This chapter explains how to administer backup and recovery in RAC. This chapter explains instance recovery and the chapter provides Recovery Manager (RMAN) back up and restore scenarios for RAC environments. This chapter also describes RAC instance recovery, parallel backup, recovery with SQL*Plus, and using the Flash Recovery Area in RAC.

Chapter 9, " Administrative Options"

This chapter describes administrative tasks or options within Oracle tools that are specific to RAC. These include Enterprise Manager tasks, special tasks that you perform with SQL*Plus, quiescing RAC databases, and administering network interfaces with the Oracle Interface Configuration Tool (OIFCFG).

Chapter 10, " Adding and Deleting Nodes and Instances"

This chapter explains how to add and delete nodes and instances in RAC environments.

Chapter 11, "Design and Deployment Techniques"

This chapter describes design and deployment techniques for deploying applications in RAC environments. This chapter also describes high availability topics such as deploying services and how the Oracle Clusterware manages services within RAC.

Chapter 12, "Monitoring Performance"

This chapter describes how to monitor performance in RAC environments. This includes an explanation of how to verify interconnect settings, descriptions of performance views for RAC, and descriptions of RAC-specific statistics and how to monitor them. This chapter also describes the Automatic Workload Repository (AWR) and how to analyze RAC statistics and RAC wait events. This chapter also explains how to monitor performance in RAC environments with Enterprise Manager. This chapter describes the Enterprise Manager Cluster Performance and Cluster Database Performance Pages. The chapter also describes the Cluster Cache Coherency and Coherency Instances Pages.

Chapter 13, "Making Applications Highly Available Using the Oracle Clusterware"

This chapter explains how use Oracle Clusterware commands to extend the high availability of the Oracle Clusterware framework to custom applications. That is, you can use RAC high availability features to make your custom applications highly available.

Appendix A, "Troubleshooting"

This appendix explains important troubleshooting topics such as how to contact Oracle Support Services, using log and trace files, and using the Cluster Verification Utility (CVU).

Chapter B, "High Availability Oracle Clusterware Command-Line Reference and C API"

This appendix describes Oracle Clusterware application programming interface (API) command reference information. This chapter describes the Oracle Clusterware commands, information about the C-code application API, and an explanation about the functions for managing resource structures. Use information in this appendix with Chapter 13, "Making Applications Highly Available Using the Oracle Clusterware".

Appendix C, " Oracle Cluster Registry Configuration Tool Command Syntax"

This appendix describes the OCRCONFIG syntax, which is the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) configuration tool.

Appendix D, " Server Control Utility Reference"

This appendix is the Server Control Utility (SRVCTL) command reference. This appendix includes such topics as SRVCTL command syntax and options, RAC database configuration and administration tasks that you can perform with SRVCTL, as well as descriptions of node-level tasks.

Appendix E, "Oracle Real Application Clusters Tools Messages"

This appendix describes the messages for the Java-based RAC management tools.

Glossary

The glossary defines important RAC-specific terms.

Related Documents

For more information, refer to the Oracle resources listed in this section.

• Platform-specific Real Application Clusters installation guides

• Oracle Database 2 Day DBA

• Oracle Database Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Database Net Services Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Database Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows (32-Bit)

• Oracle Database 10g Administrator's Reference Release 1 (10.1) for UNIX Systems: AIX-Based Systems, HP-UX, Tru64 UNIX, Linux, and the Solaris Operating System (SPARC)

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Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this documentation set. This section describes:

• Conventions in Text

• Conventions in Code Examples

• Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

Conventions in Text

We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

Conventions in Code Examples

Code examples illustrate SQL, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, or other command-line statements. They are displayed in a monospace (fixed-width) font and separated from normal text as shown in this example:

SELECT username FROM dba_users WHERE username = 'MIGRATE';

The following table describes typographic conventions used in code examples and provides examples of their use.

[ ]

DECIMAL (digits [ , precision ])

{ }

{ENABLE | DISABLE}

|

{ENABLE | DISABLE}
[COMPRESS | NOCOMPRESS]

...

CREATE TABLE ... AS subquery;

SELECT col1, col2, ... , coln FROM employees;

acctbal NUMBER(11,2);
acct    CONSTANT NUMBER(4) := 3;

Italics

CONNECT SYSTEM/system_password
DB_NAME = database_name

UPPERCASE

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;
SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES;
DROP TABLE hr.employees;

lowercase

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;
sqlplus hr/hr
CREATE USER mjones IDENTIFIED BY ty3MU9;

Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

The following table describes conventions for Windows operating systems and provides examples of their use.

C:\oracle\oradata>

C:\>exp HR/HR TABLES=employees QUERY=\"WHERE job_id='SA_REP' and salary<8000\"

HOME_NAME

C:\> net start OracleHOME_NAMETNSListener