This chapter provides the best practice recommendations for moving your current configuration to an Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) environment to create a redundant, reliable system and database, without sacrificing simplicity and performance.
This chapter contains these topics:
MAA combines the scalability and availability advantages of Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) with the data and site protection capabilities of Oracle Data Guard.
An MAA environment consists of a site containing an Oracle RAC primary database and a second site containing a cluster that minimally hosts at least one physical or logical standby database, but ideally hosts a combination of logical and physical standby databases. This environment provides the most comprehensive solution for both unplanned and unplanned outages because it inherits the capabilities and advantages of both Oracle Database 11g with Oracle RAC and Oracle Data Guard.
However, while the ideal MAA configuration includes an Oracle RAC primary database with an Oracle RAC standby database, business requirements or other considerations might indicate that you choose a different ending configuration or that you perform a phased transition to MAA. That is, some ending configurations could actually be intermediate steps in a phased implementation to an Oracle RAC primary with Oracle RAC standby configuration.
The best practice for moving your configuration to an MAA environment is to use Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control (release 10.2.0.5 or later).
Chapter 3 showed how the point-and-click nature of Grid Control allows you to take an existing configuration that is at any level of implementation and attain a complete MAA architecture (including Data Guard, Oracle RAC, and ASM) with minimal downtime. You can perform virtually all steps within the Grid Control environment.
Grid Control enables:
Creation and extension of a high availability MAA environment with minimal downtime. These capabilities include:
Moving to more robust and available storage (for example, file system to ASM) through creation of a physical standby database. Downtime incurred is limited to the time it takes to perform a switchover to the standby database.
Moving from an exclusive single-instance database to clustering by converting a physical standby database to Oracle RAC. Downtime incurred is limited to the time it takes to perform a switchover to the standby database.
Extension of an existing Oracle RAC database to include more instances or nodes. Zero downtime is incurred.
Complete, repeatable steps to deploy both single instance and Oracle Clusterware, ASM, and Oracle RAC software into either a new or an existing environment. The processing handles all steps necessary for installation and configuration in a single lights-out, scheduled execution.
Complete, repeatable steps with zero downtime to add additional nodes to an existing Oracle Clusterware, ASM, and Oracle RAC environment. The processing handles all steps necessary for installation and configuration, using the current cluster environment as the source for the extension in a single lights-out, scheduled execution.
See Also:
The Oracle Enterprise Manager documentation set at http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/oem.html
The "HA Best Practices for Grid Control" MAA white paper at http://www.otn.oracle.com/goto/maa
If you cannot use Grid Control to move your configuration to an MAA architecture, then you can perform the steps manually using SQL*Plus statements.
The setup of your current configuration determines which topics in this section you should complete. For example, Table 6-1 describes instructions for some possible starting configurations.
Table 6-1 Starting Configurations Moving to an MAA Environment
| IF your starting configuration includes ... | THEN ... |
|---|---|
|
A single-instance primary database |
Convert the primary database to Oracle RAC using the instructions in"Converting a Single-Instance Database to an Oracle RAC Database" . |
|
A single-instance standby database |
Convert the standby database to Oracle RAC using the instructions in "Converting a Single-Instance Database to an Oracle RAC Database" . |
|
A single-instance Data Guard configurations |
Convert the primary and/or standby databases to Oracle RAC using the instructions in "Converting a Single-Instance Database to an Oracle RAC Database" . |
|
An Oracle RAC primary database, but no Data Guard configuration |
See "Adding an Oracle Data Guard Configuration to an Oracle RAC Primary Database" to add a single-instance standby or an Oracle RAC standby database to the configuration. |
|
A single-instance database or an Oracle RAC database without ASM |
Migrate the database to ASM using the instructions in the MAA white paper: "Migration to Automatic Storage Management" at |
The process of adding nodes to form an Oracle RAC database involves first creating a cluster by installing Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC software on the nodes and then adding Oracle RAC instances. Basically, the steps include the following tasks:
Connect nodes to the cluster.
Install Oracle Clusterware on all nodes that are a part of the cluster.
Prepare storage for Oracle RAC on new nodes.
Add nodes at the Oracle RAC database layer.
Add database instances to new nodes.
See Also:
Your platform-specific Oracle RAC installation guide for complete step-by-step informationA series of MAA white papers have been published that provide step-by-step instructions on how to create either a single-instance Data Guard standby database, or an Oracle RAC standby database. The following sections describe the high-level tasks you must perform and provide links to the white papers for detailed instructions.
Creating an Oracle RAC standby database from an existing Oracle RAC primary database involves the following basic tasks:
Gather files and perform back up.
Configure Oracle Net on the standby database.
Create the standby instances and database.
Configure the primary database for Data Guard.
Verify the Data Guard configuration.
For step-by-step instructions, see the "MAA / Data Guard 10g Setup Guide—Creating an Oracle RAC Standby for an Oracle RAC Primary" white paper at
http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/MAA_WP_10g_RACPrimaryRACPhysicalStandby.pdf
Creating a single-instance standby database for an Oracle RAC primary database involves the following basic tasks:
Gather files and perform back up.
Configure Oracle Net on the physical standby database.
Create the physical standby instances and database.
Configure the primary database for Data Guard.
Verify the Data Guard configuration.
For step-by-step instructions, see the "MAA / Data Guard 10g Setup Guide—Creating a Single-Instance Standby for an Oracle RAC Primary" white paper at
Creating an Oracle RAC logical standby database from an existing Oracle RAC physical standby database involves the following basic tasks:
Prepare the physical standby database environment.
Convert the physical standby database to a logical standby database.
Verify the Data Guard configuration.
For step-by-step instructions, see the "MAA/ Data Guard 11g Setup Guide—Creating an Oracle RAC Logical Standby for an Oracle RAC Primary Database" white paper at