http://www.orafaq.

com/wiki/ASM_FAQ

Why should we use separate ASM home?
ASM should be installed separately from the database software in its own ORACLE_HOME
directory. This will allow you the flexibility to patch and upgrade ASM and the database
software independently.
[edit] How many ASM instances should one have?
Several databases can share a single ASM instance. So, although one can create multiple ASM
instances on a single system, normal configurations should have one and only one ASM instance
per system.
For clustered systems, create one ASM instance per node (called +ASM1, +ASM2, etc).
[edit] How many diskgroups should one have?
Generally speaking one should have only one disk group for all database files - and, optionally a
second for recovery files (see FRA).
Data with different storage characteristics should be stored in different disk groups. Each disk
group can have different redundancy (mirroring) settings (high, normal and external), different
fail-groups, etc. However, it is generally not necessary to create many disk groups with the same
storage characteristics (i.e. +DATA1, +DATA2, etc. all on the same type of disks).
To get started, create 2 disk groups - one for data and one for recovery files. Here is an example:
CREATE DISKGROUP data EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY DISK '/dev/d1', '/dev/d2',
'/dev/d3', ....;
CREATE DISKGROUP recover EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY DISK '/dev/d10', '/dev/d11',
'/dev/d12', ....;
Here is an example how you can enable automatic file management with such a setup:
ALTER SYSTEM SET db_create_file_dest = '+DATA' SCOPE=SPFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM SET db_recovery_file_dest = '+RECOVER' SCOPE=SPFILE;
You may also decide to introduce additional disk groups - for example, if you decide to put
historic data on low cost disks, or if you want ASM to mirror critical data across 2 storage
cabinets.
[edit] Should I create table and index tablespaces in separate
diskgroups?
No, tables and indexes can be stored within a single disk group. Do not create different disk
groups for tables and indexes.
[edit] How to check how much disk space is allocated/ in-use
by an ASM instance?
Login to your +ASM instance (SYS AS SYSDBA) and execute the following query:
SQL> COL % FORMAT 99.0
SQL> SELECT name, free_mb, total_mb, free_mb/total_mb*100 "%" FROM
v$asm_diskgroup;
NAME FREE_MB TOTAL_MB %
------------------------------ ---------- ---------- -----
DATA 917104 1482145 61.9
RECOVER 17387 17437 99.7
From Oracle 10g Release 2, one can also use the asmcmd command line utility:
ASMCMD> du
Used_MB Mirror_used_MB
1523 1523
ASMCMD> lsdg
State Type Rebal Unbal Sector Block AU Total_MB Free_MB
Req_mir_free_MB Usable_file_MB Offline_disks Name
MOUNTED EXTERN N N 512 4096 1048576 11264 9885
0 9885 0 DISKGROUP1/
MOUNTED EXTERN N N 512 4096 1048576 10240 9906
0 9906 0 FLASH/
[edit] How big should I make my datafiles within ASM?
Use uniform sized files (say 2 or 4 GB each). Reason being that the a 2TB datafile will
unnecessarily extend backup and recovery times.
[edit] ASMCMD is very slow. How can I speed it up?
The asmcmd utility appears to be very slow. This slowness is a result of queries against the
v$asm_diskgroup view. To solve this problem edit the $ORACLE_HOME/bin/asmcmdcore
script and change all v$asm_diskgroup references to v$asm_diskgroup_stat.
V$asm_diskgroup and v$asm_diskgroup_stat provides exactly the same information, but the
%_stat view operates from cache, while v$asm_diskgroup rescans all disk headers. This method
is also used by Oracle in their Enterprise Manager product.
[edit] ASM disk header/superblock backups?
ASM disk headers (superblocks) cannot be backed up and restored in Oracle 10g. By
implication, if you use EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY and a single disk's header is accidentally
overwritten, the entire disk group will have to be restored. To solve this problem, Oracle
introduced the md_backup and md_restore asmcmd commands in Oracle 11g. In Oracle 10g, the
only viable method to prevent logical corruption of ASM header block is to add failgroup,
storage vendor has no responsibility to verify/checksum ASM disk header blocks (EXTERNAL
REDUNDANCY is not going to help). There is a kfed utility to backup ASM disk headers and
restore them for LIMITED scenario. It is best to be executed under guidance of a few elite
support engineers. Oracle did not advertise the utility due to the potential damage it could cause.
For those unrecoverable (tedious manual fixes) cases, restoring disk group is the last resort.
[edit] How does one create a database directly on ASM?
The trick is to create an SPFILE and restart the instance before issuing the CREATE
DATABASE statement:
STARTUP NOMOUNT PFILE=initorcl_0.ora
CREATE SPFILE FROM pfile='initorcl_0.ora';
SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE
STARTUP NOMOUNT
Point all OMF files into ASM:
ALTER SYSTEM SET db_create_file_dest = '+DATA';
ALTER SYSTEM SET DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE = 134G;
ALTER SYSTEM SET db_recovery_file_dest = '+RECOVER';
Issue the create database command:
CREATE DATABASE orcl
UNDO TABLESPACE undots
DEFAULT TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp
character set "WE8ISO8859P1"
national character set "AL16UTF16";
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