José Valerio

New Oracle ACFS Features – 11.2.0.2

Jose Valerio — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 07:27:50 +0000

Introduced in 11.2.0.2

Oracle ACFS Replication

The Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) Replication feature supports asynchronous replication of an ACFS file system from a primary to standby site. The replication is based on log replication file (ACFS log), shipped from similar way that DG does. The bandwidth should be calculated based in your log size.

The Oracle ACFS Replication feature allows you to replicate ACFS file systems across the network to another (possibly distant) site. This provides a disaster recovery capability for the file system. This feature can be used in conjunction with Oracle Data Guard to replicate all Oracle data.

Oracle ACFS Security and Encription

Oracle ASM Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) security feature provides realm-based security for Oracle ACFS. The encryption feature enables data stored on disk (data-at-rest) to be encrypted.

Oracle ACFS security feature provides the ability to create realms to specify security policies for users or groups for accessing file system objects. The new security feature provides a finer-grained access control on top of the access control provided by the operating system.

Oracle ACFS encryption feature provides the ability to keep data in an Oracle ACFS file system in encrypted format to prevent unauthorized use of data in the case of data loss or theft.

Oracle ACFS Tagging

The Oracle ACFS Tagging feature provides a method for relating a group of files based on a common naming attribute assigned to these files called a tag name. You are able to use this feature alone or in conjunction with other features. For example, in conjunction with Oracle ACFS Replication, you can select specific files that you would like to replicate to a different remote cluster site by assigning a unique tag name to them. You would then instruct Oracle ACFS Replication to replicate files based upon this tag name. By using tagging in this respect, the need to replicate entire Oracle ACFS file systems is reduced. You can delete a group of files usings tags.

Oracle ACFS Replication Considerations

ACFS Replication it is not bidirectional.

A -> B

However it is possible to replicate from B -> A too.

Complexity can grow up to other sites per example:

A -> B
A <- B
B -> C
C -> D

México Development Center – MDC

Jose Valerio — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 04:41:48 +0000

Oracle has open recently the new Development Center in Guadalajara México as an extension of Oracle US DC. This is an advanced center with focus in all Oracle core products.

RAC One node utilities (Omotion, RacOne2Rac)

Jose Valerio — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:36:43 +0000

Omotion

Omotion allows users to migrate from RAC One Node instance to another node in the cluster.This utility is very useful to migrate databases for planned maintenance or if your cluster node is running out of resources and can no longer handle the database. To mitigate disruption to application users, the use of either Transparent Application Failover or Fast Connect Failover is required. If none of these technologies is used then users will be disconnected from the database and receive the typical error ORA-3113.

$ ./Omotion (interactive mode)RAC One Node databases on this cluster:# Database Server Fix Required=== ======== ===================== ============[1] racdbnode1 gridlinux1 N

[2] racdbnode2 gridlinux2 N

Enter number of the database to migrate [1]: 2

Specify maximum time in minutes for migration to complete (max

30) [30]: 5

Available Target Server(s) :

# Server Available

=== =============== =========

[1] gridlinux4 Y

[2] gridlinux5 Y

Enter number of the target node [1]: 1

Omotion Started…

Starting target instance on gridlinux3

Migrating sessions …

Stopping source instance on gridlinux2

Omotion Completed…

RacOne2rac

If you need to update from RAC One Node to full RAC, exist a tool called racone2rac that can make the transition easy. Just select your RAC One Node database from a text-based menu and allow the tool to convert it to a RAC database. The result of the conversion looks similar to what you would get with a so called policy managed RAC database. Policy managed databases are new with Oracle 11g Release 2, and they mark a new way to administer the traditional RAC database, where the database administrator was responsible for administering all aspects of the RAC database. With the policy managed databases, DBA only has to define how many nodes he’d like the database to have, and Oracle will take care of the rest, the missing database components will be created as needed. This is in my opinion the evolution and should be used and adopted by smarts administrators in the short time.

$ ./racone2racCandidate Databases on this cluster:# Database RACOne Node Fix Required=== ======== ============= ============[1] db11gR2 YES N

Enter the database to convert to one node RAC database [1]:

You are converting db11gR2 to single instance Oracle RAC database

running on gridlinux2.

Do you want to Continue? [Y]es or [N]o? Y

Please wait, this may take a few minutes to finish…………

Database configuration modified.

To add more instances just run dbca.

Oracle Upgrade Paths (Updated to Nov,2010)

Jose Valerio — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:08:46 +0000

In response to many questions received the last month and before to talk about RAC you should resolve how to upgrade your old database, read below:

“If the current database version is Oracle 7.3, Oracle 8.0, Oracle 8.1, or Oracle 9.0, then the database must be upgraded first to an intermediate release, and then upgraded from that intermediate release to Oracle 11.2”

Initial	Terminal	Intermediate	Final
7.3.3.3	7.3.4	9.2.0.8	11.2
8.0.5	8.0.6	9.2.0.8	11.2
8.1.7	8.1.7.4	10.2.0.4	11.2
9.0.1.4	9.0.1.4	10.2.0.4	11.2
9.2.0.1	9.2.0.8	* Direct from 9.2.0.8	11.2
10.1.0.1	10.1.0.5	* Direct from 10.1.0.5	11.2
10.2.0.1	10.2.0.5	* Direct from 10.2.0.4	11.2
11.1.0.1	11.1.0.6	* Direct from 11.1.0.6	11.2

* Upgrade could be made from 11.2 via database upgrade or without using an intermediate release. In some cases to use direct upgrade you need to patch your database to the terminal release.

Example:

For release 9.2.0.3, you must first upgrade to an intermediate Oracle Database release, as follows: 9.2.0.3 (or lower) -> 9.2.0.8 -> 11.2

Comming back to Oracle!

Jose Valerio — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 01:28:59 +0000

Finally after a hard desition I’m leaving BGH S.A. to resume my Oracle career working with one of the more advanced Oracle development teams.

I wanna say thanks to my wife and sons to support me in the transition, it’s a challenge, I know!!, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy my new function.

Thank you BGH S.A. Special thanks to Fernando Sciaccaluga and Reinaldo Gonzalez.

See you Argentina !

36° Peregrinación a Luján 2010

Jose Valerio — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:38:10 +0000

Octubre de 2010.

Felicitaciones Paula en este tu segundo peregrinaje a Lujan. Tanto mamá como yo estamos realmente muy orgullos de este logro tuyo. Ma&Pa

From Jose Valerio, OCP, RAC OCE

Paula y compañeros de colegio.

OpenSolaris distro is dead.

Jose Valerio — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:59:58 +0000

Oracle does not intend to release any future version of OpenSolaris. The company plans to migrate existing corporate OpenSolaris users to an upcoming Solaris 11 Express binary distribution that will be made available prior to the official launch of Solaris 11. The Open Source community will make an effort to continue the project but in my opinion this will fail. If you are interested go to http://illumos.org

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/external/idg/2010/08/13/13idg-oracle-signals-the-end-for-opensolaris-13737.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

OracleVM 2.2.1 – EIP is at pci_create_bus+0×47/0x19a

Jose Valerio — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 02:28:47 +0000

September 2010,

I’m hitting this horrible bug after install OracleVM. At this time I did not find a solution if you do not have access to http://linux.oracle.com . I will record the evolution of this problem in this post.

“Unfortunately we are hitting a known bug in a fresh OracleVM installation (2.2.1) on a HP Laptop dv7-4080 with virtualization enable by BIOS. Somebody knows if Oracle will be update this old kernel in the short time to fix first boot issues, I mean more newer kernels than 2.6.18-128. I know I can update but its really frustating to have a problem in first boot.”

RedHat patch 470202 > Bug 480914

http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1128921&tstart=0

Resolution:

- Opened a SR at support

Support engineer could not find an easy workaround to avoid the issue and request to configure Kdump. Thanks to Marphy I hitted other kdump issue, so tired to figth with this I decided to try the following solution:

Installed OEL 5.4 64 Bits
Install VMWare ESX 4

and … I saw the light, OEL recognize the hardware correctly. VMWare detects Intel VT and compile the modules according to the OEL kernel. After that could create 64 bits guest machines too. It is not what I exepected to do but it works without re-inventing the wheel.

Exadata V2 – Spanish

Jose Valerio — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 04:09:58 +0000

Que es el Oracle Exadata?

En principio se trata de un appliance siendo esta la segunda versión, es un rack integra el almacenamiento y la CPU además de componentes de última tecnología que apuntan a maximizar la performance al límite y brindar alta disponibilidad de software y hardware. Algunas de sus características son, el uso de la tecnología FlashFire de Sun, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 y Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software Release 11.2. Según Oracle y Sun esta segunda versión de Exadata es “el doble de rápida” que la primera versión en el almacenamiento de datos. Exadata cuenta con el Smart Flash Cache, una tecnología basada en Sun FlashFire que permite mejorar el rendimiento y la escalabilidad para OLTP. Todo el hardware es redundante en el Exadata por lo que no hay que pensar en puntos de falla porque no los tiene.

El licenciamiento de este poderoso equipo va cambiando a medida que madura en el mercado, al principio se comercializaba en cuatro configuraciones, ahora sólo se soportan tres:

Oracle Database Machine Quarter Rack (2 Nodos RAC)
Oracle Database Machine Half Rack (4 Nodos RAC)
Oracle Database Machine Full Rack (8 Nodos RAC)

Que tiene internamente?

La Exadata está equipada con procesadores Intel Xeon de nombre código Nehalem, característica que según Oracle hace 80% más rápido al CPU. Cuenta además con memoria DDR3 para hacer a la memoria 200% más rápida, memoria de 72 GB por servidor de base de datos, un sistema de red Infiniband de 40 Gbps y capacidad de raw disk de 100 TB (SAS) ó 336 TB (SATA) por rack.

Lo increible de Exadata es que no fue pensado solamente para OLTP sino que tambien puede ser utilizado para Warehouse, es decir que el mismo equipamiento sirve para llevar al extremo todo el mundo transaccional como así tambien el de inteligencia de negocios.

La base de datos se encuentran en alta disponibilidad protegidas mediante Real Application Clusters por lo cual dependiendo del tamaño del equipamiento la base puede estar en al menos dos nodos y hasta ocho.

El escalamiento de estos equipos es tambien horizontal, es decir que si un Exadata no alcanza se pueden ir acoplando de acuerdo a la necesidad y hasta ocho (8). Según el fabricante las I/O por segundo pueden alcanzar hasta 1.000.000 en su versión full. Esta potencia es más que suficiente hasta para el más exigente de los clientes, es realmente un monstruo. En esta segunda versión, Oracle agregó un indexado de almacenamiento y en cada celda de almacenamiento cuatro tarjetas flash para darle mayor velocidad a las transacciones.

Cuales son las contras entonces?

Básicamente sólo es posible subir al Exadata V2 bases de datos Oracle 11g Release 2, este es un gran impedimento porque muchas de las aplicaciones de mercado más conocidas todavía no han siquiera certificado para 11g Release 1.

El almacenamiento utiliza inifiband para comunicar el CPU con el storage server lo que garantiza una perfomance extraordinaria sin embargo la capacidad disponible del DB Machine no puede ser accedido externamente porque anula el soporte. Esta limitación no es una limitación técnica solo que Oracle no lo permite por entender que aplicaciones externas/extrañas no controladas por el mismo equipo pueden degradar la performance en general, tambien es cierto que el diseño de este equipamiento no fue pensado para usar de storage.

Entendiendo la potencia del equipo queda claro que fue pensado para unos pocos, se trata de un equipamiento de punta con costos altos o más bien acordes a la prestación, la reducción de los procesos en algunos casos es extraordinaria, se sabe de pruebas efectuadas por clientes que procesos de cinco horas se redujeron a segundos, sin duda esta potencia hay que pagarla pero armar un ROI no debería ser complicado si se logra reducir los tiempos de esta forma.

Todo parece indicar que Oracle va a lograr posicionarse en este mercado en el mediano plazo, si bien en Latinoamerica no hay equipos oficialmente instalados se sabe de muchas compañias interesadas en los beneficios que presta la solución.

Mientras tanto el gigante azul presenta soluciones que en mi opinión estan inmaduras a la fecha, como ser el Pure Scale, en teoría competidor del Oracle RAC, pero en Argentina y LatinoAmerica se desconocen instalaciones, quizas XIV pueda poner algún pequeño obstáculo, pero solo es un storage no una solución como Exadata.

Setiembre, 2010

Para todos aquellos que les pueda interesar Oracle Education ya tiene los cursos y entranamientos de Exadata en los schedules, en Argentina se realizará el primero a fines de Setiembre, es una capacitación con Workshop con equipos que se encuentran en el exterior.

Se vienen más soluciones al estilo Exadata?, sí, vamos a tener varias sopresas este año, algunas se van a anunciar justamente en este mes en el Oracle Open World.

RAC Scan Listener, August 2010 WP Updated.

Jose Valerio — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:54:47 +0000

Recently Mark and Barb from Oracle updated the oracle SCAN LISTENER white paper. In my opinion still is not very complete but it’s better than it predecessor. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/clustering/overview/scan-129069.pdf Authors: Barb Lundhild, Markus Michalewicz Last Updated: August 10th, 2010

If you don’t have a DNS

For education purposes only: http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/hunter-rac11gr2-iscsi-3.html#21 See: 21. Install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster

If you have a DNS

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/linux/DnsConfigurationForSCAN.php

More information

My old post here: http://jose-valerio.com.ar/blog/?p=354