About Oracle ASM

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Oracle Automatic Storage Management
What is ASM, Why it is used and where it used?What is needed to for ASM?How to Install and manage ASMASM is new option for
managing storage beginning with 10gR2, it reduces burden on Linux systemAdministrator and DBA to check for hot
spot as highly used data files and file layout, whenever thestorage configuration changes, the database storage is re-
balanced.ASM can also be used to provide redundancy, through the mirroring of database files on different
disks.ASM is self-tuning and self
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managing storage solution for large and small databases. Once we startedusing ASM the DBA needs only manage the disk groups for setting
up a database. After setup, the DBAneed only be concerned with disk groups when monitoring and changing disk
allocations within the diskgroups.ASM is more used in RAC, but you can always use ASM without RAC. There is no relationship
ASM withRAC, it is self-sustaining storage solution.ASM needs its own oracle database (there is no data files gets
created with this database) instance tomanage storage solution for other database, other all the databases it managing
becomes clients for thisone ASM instance. One ASM instance can manage multiple Oracle Databases.When you install 10gR2 and use
OUI to do so, you get option of to install ASM database, you must haveASM instance running before using ASM for Oracle Database.
Best Practices
ASM is the volume manager for all databases that employ ASM on a given node. Therefore, onlyone ASM instance
is required per node regardless of the number of database instances on thenode.ASM instance managing the storage
for several database instances

Separate ASM oracle home

What are the components of ASM?

ASM disksASM database services

ASM Files

ASM disk groupsASM templates

Install - Configure ASM and ASMlibs

1.

Configure storage2.

Install rpm to ASMLibs3.

Install ASM instance4.

Create Oracle Database using ASM

Configure RAW storage.
ASM needs RAW partitions to be configured before installing ASM instance. ASM requires rawdisks partitions (without file system) and
initially used by root. It should be used indefined in
“/etc/sysconfig/rawdevices”
Contents of this file should like ..#raw device binding/dev/raw/raw1 /dev/sdb1/dev/raw/raw2 /dev/sdb2.The ownership of the raw
devices should be transferred to user oracle upon configuration. All thepartitions should be
owned by “oracle” with group permission “dba” and restart the rawdevices.
/etc/init.d/rawdevices retstartFollowing command will show the current raw devices binding# raw
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qaOnce above configuration is done, proceed to install ASM instance using Oracle software binaries, whichwill prompt you for if you want to
install ASM or regular database, once ASM is selected, above rawdevices mount information needed.
ASMLib
T o use Automatic Storage Management for database storage for Linux, then Oracle recommends thatyou install the ASMLIB driver and
associated utilities, and use them to configure candidate disks
Partition your disksBind partitions to raw devices with correct permsInstall asmlib /etc/init.d/oracleasm configure

/etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk DISK1 /dev/sdb1 (for each disk required) /etc/init.d/oracleasm scandisks (on the
2nd node)Run DBCA to map the ASM disks to disk groups.1.

/etc/init.d/oracleaasm status2.

/etc/init.d/oracleaasm listdisk 3.

Fdisk
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l /dev/sdd4.

/etc/init.d/oracleasm create disk SD5(any name) /dev/sd5 ( raw device path)5.

/etc/init.d/oracleasm listdisk Should return

“
SB5)6.

/etc/init.d/oracleasm querydisk /dev/sdb5 ( path )7.

/etc/init.d/oracleasm scandisk
Install ASM software/Database instance
Most of the input needed while installing ASM instance1.

I
t is need to be installed user ‘oracle ‘ dba privilege
2.

It should be installed separate oracle home.3.

If cluster is installed already , OUI will automatically detect the cluster option4.
ASM instance can also running under cluster mode, thus eliminating storage as SPOF.5.

It will ask Disk Group Name - , Redundancy - and A candidate Disks , ( which we configured stepone)6.

By default external redundancy is selected , at this level SAN redundancy is assumed7.

Once ASM binaries are installed ,8.

Logs $ORACLEINVENTOYR/logs
What are the major parameters in init.ora for ASM INSTANCE?-
ASM instance is always names +ASM for non-rac or +ASM_<Node #> for RAC
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INSTANCE_TYPE = ASM
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ASM_POWER_LIMIT
= (0-11) defaults is 1
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ASM_DISKSTRING

–
comma separated list of strings that limits the set of disksthat ASM discovers
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ASM_DISKGROUPS
= List of disk groups to be mounted by an ASM
V$ASM_OPERATION
–
This view provides information that can be used for adjusting ASM_POWER_LIMIT ( 1-11),resulting power of
rebalance operation when adding disks to disk groupV$ASM_DISK_STATSV$ASM_DISKGROUP_STAT

Backup and Recovery of ASM Instance

An ASM instance does not have any files , only metadata which gets stored on individual disk heads and it is triple
mirrored , so there is not to be backup. ASM always caches the metadatafrom disk heads to SGA ,which
contain information about the disk group and files
Data on ASM disks always backup by RMAN.
ASM
VIEW

ASM INSTANCE

DB INSTANCE

v$asm_diskgroupDescribes a disk group (number,name, size related info, state, andredundancy type)Contains one row
forevery open ASM disk inthe DB instance.

v$asm_clientIdentifies databases using diskgroups managed by the ASMinstance.Empty

v$asm_diskContains one row for every diskdiscovered by the ASM instance,including disks that are not partof any disk
group.Contains rows only fordisks in the disk groupsin use by that DBinstance.

v$asm_fileContains one row for every ASMfile in every disk group mountedby the ASM instance.Contains rows only
forfiles that are currentlyopen in the DB instance.

v$asm_aliasContains one row for every aliaspresent in every disk groupmounted by the ASM instance.Empty

v$asm_operationContains one row for every activeASM long running operationexecuting in the ASM instance.Empty

v$asm_attribute

All ASM configuration attributes

v$asm_disk_iostat

Disk I/O statistics