Oracle Grid Infrastructure Concepts

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Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to:
Explain the principles and purposes of clusters
Describe Cluster hardware best practices
Describe the Oracle Clusterware architecture
Describe how Grid Plug and Play affects Clusterware
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Oracle Grid Infrastructure
ASM and Oracle Clusterware are installed into a single home
directory called the Grid Infrastructure home.
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What Is a Cluster?
A group of independent, but interconnected, computers
that act as a single system
Usually deployed to
increase availability and
performance or
to balance a dynamically
changing workload
Storage Network
Interconnect
Users
Network
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What Is Clusterware?
Software that provides various interfaces and services for a
cluster. Typically, this includes capabilities that:
Allow the cluster to be managed as a whole
Protect the integrity of the cluster
Maintain a registry of resources across the cluster
Deal with changes to the cluster
Provide a common view of resources
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Oracle Clusterware
Oracle Clusterware is:
A key part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure
Integrated with Oracle
Automatic Storage
Management (ASM)
The basis for ASM Cluster
File System (ACFS)
A foundation for Oracle
Real Application Clusters
(RAC)
A generalized cluster
infrastructure for all kinds
of applications
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Oracle Clusterware Architecture and Services
Shared disk cluster architecture supporting application
load balancing and failover
Services include:
Cluster management
Node monitoring
Event services
Time synchronization
Network management
High availability
Cluster Interconnect Link
Aggregation (HAIP)
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Goals for Oracle Clusterware
Easy installation
Easy management
Continuing tight integration with Oracle RAC
ASM enhancements with
benefits for all applications
No additional clusterware
required
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Oracle Clusterware Networking
Each node must have at least two network adapters.
Each public network adapter must support TCP/IP.
The interconnect adapter must support:
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) or Reliable Data Socket (RDS)
for UNIX and Linux for database communication
UDP for Windows platforms for database communication
All platforms use Grid Interprocess Communication (GIPc).
Interconnect: Private network
Public network
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Single-Client Access Name
The single-client access name (SCAN) is the address used
by clients connecting to the cluster.
The SCAN is a fully qualified host name located in the GNS
subdomain registered to three IP addresses.







The SCAN provides a stable, highly available name for
clients to use, independent of the nodes that make up the
cluster.
# dig @192.0.2.155 cluster01-scan.cluster01.example.com
...
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;cluster01-scan.cluster01.example.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
cluster01-scan.cluster01.example.com. 120 IN A 192.0.2.244
cluster01-scan.cluster01.example.com. 120 IN A 192.0.2.246
cluster01-scan.cluster01.example.com. 120 IN A 192.0.2.245
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
cluster01.example.com. 10800 IN A 192.0.2.155
;; SERVER: 192.0.2.155#53(192.0.2.155)
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Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM)
ASM is a volume manager and file system.
ASM operates efficiently in both clustered and
nonclustered environments.
ASM is installed in the Grid Infrastructure home separate
from the Oracle Database home.
Application
Operating system
Hardware
Logical Volume Manager
File system
Application
Operating system
Hardware
ASM

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ASM: Key Features and Benefits
Stripes files rather than logical volumes
Provides redundancy on a file basis
Enables online disk reconfiguration and dynamic
rebalancing
Reduces the time significantly to resynchronize a transient
failure by tracking changes while disk is offline
Provides adjustable rebalancing speed
Is cluster-aware
Supports reading from mirrored copy instead of primary
copy for extended clusters
Is automatically installed as part of the Grid Infrastructure
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ASM and Grid Infrastructure
ASM provides enterprise-class shared storage for Oracle
RAC databases.
OCR and voting disks can be stored in Oracle ASM.
Storing OCR and the voting disk on Oracle ASM eliminates
the need for third-party cluster volume managers.
Only one Oracle ASM instance is supported on a server.
When managing an ASM instance, the administration
activity must be performed in the Grid Infrastructure home.