How to Replace a Host Adapter When Using Oracle Real Application Clusters Only

Before You Begin

This procedure relies on the following prerequisites and assumptions.

• You are using Oracle Real Application Clusters only. If you are using other failover or scalable data services, follow the instructions in How to Replace a Host Adapter When Using Failover and Scalable Data Services Only or How to Replace a Host Adapter When Using Both Failover and Scalable Data Services and Oracle Real Application Clusters.

• Except for the failed host adapter, your cluster is fully operational and all nodes are powered on.

If your nodes are configured for dynamic reconfiguration, see the Sun Cluster system administration documentation, and skip steps that instruct you to shut down the node.

This procedure provides the long forms of the Sun Cluster commands. Most commands also have short forms. Except for the forms of the command names, the commands are identical. For a list of the commands and their short forms, see Appendix A, Sun Cluster Object-Oriented Commands, in Sun Cluster 3.1 - 3.2 Hardware Administration Manual for Solaris OS.

1. Become superuser or assume a role that provides solaris.cluster.read and solaris.cluster.modify RBAC authorization.

2. Determine the Oracle instance that is running on Node A.

   # ps -ef | grep oracle

3. Shut down the Oracle Real Application Clusters instance and any other process on Node A that should be stopped before shutting down the node.

   To shut down and restart an Oracle instance in the RAC environment, refer to your Oracle documentation.

4. If the storage devices that are attached to the failed host adapter contain a quorum device, add a new quorum device on a different storage device. Then remove the old quorum device.

   To determine whether the affected device contains a quorum device, use one of the following commands.

   • If you are using Sun Cluster 3.2, use the following command:

     # clquorum show

   • If you are using Sun Cluster 3.1, use the following command:

     # scstat -q

   To add and remove quorum devices, see the Sun Cluster system administration documentation.

5. Detach the Veritas Volume Manager plexes on the storage array attached to the failed host adapter.

   For more information, see your Veritas Volume Manager documentation.

6. Record the details of disk groups and volumes affected by the failed host adapter

   Record this information because you use it in Step 15 of this procedure to reattach plexes on the storage array. To determine which plexes are affected, see your Veritas Volume Manager documentation.

7. If Node A is enabled with the Solaris dynamic reconfiguration (DR) feature, perform any DR-specific steps and skip to Step 10.

   For more information on DR, see your Sun Cluster system administration documentation.

8. Shut down Node A.

   To shut down and power off a node, see your Sun Cluster system administration documentation.

9. Power off Node A.

10. Replace the failed host adapter.

    To remove and add host adapters, see the documentation that shipped with your nodes.

11. If Node A enabled with the Solaris dynamic reconfiguration feature, perform any DR-specific steps and skip to Step 14.

    For more information on DR, see your Sun Cluster system administration documentation.

12. Power on Node A.

13. Boot Node A into cluster mode.

    For the procedure about booting cluster nodes, see Chapter 3, Shutting Down and Booting a Cluster, in Sun Cluster System Administration Guide for Solaris OS.

14. If necessary, upgrade the host adapter firmware on Node A.

    If you use the Solaris 8, Solaris 9, or Solaris 10 Operating System, Sun Connection Update Manager keeps you informed of the latest versions of patches and features. Using notifications and intelligent needs-based updating, Sun Connection helps improve operational efficiency and ensures that you have the latest software patches for your Sun software.

    You can download the Sun Connection Update Manager product for free by going to http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=4457d96d.

    Additional information for using the Sun patch management tools is provided in Solaris Administration Guide: Basic Administration at http://docs.sun.com. Refer to the version of this manual for the Solaris OS release that you have installed.

    If you must apply a patch when a node is in noncluster mode, you can apply it in a rolling fashion, one node at a time, unless instructions for a patch require that you shut down the entire cluster. Follow the procedures in How to Apply a Rebooting Patch (Node) in Sun Cluster System Administration Guide for Solaris OS to prepare the node and to boot it in noncluster mode. For ease of installation, consider applying all patches at the same time. That is, apply all patches to the node that you place in noncluster mode.

    For a list of patches that affect Sun Cluster, see the Sun Cluster Wiki Patch Klatch.

    For required firmware, see the Sun System Handbook.

15. Reattach the Veritas Volume Manager plexes on the storage array to their respective volumes.

    For more information, see your Veritas Volume Manager documentation.

16. (Optional) Bring your Oracle Real Application Clusters instance online. This is the instance you identified in Step 1.

    To shut down and restart an Oracle instance in the RAC environment, refer to the Oracle 9iRAC Administration Guide.

17. (Optional) If you relocated a quorum device in Step 4, and if you want your configuration to use the same quorum structure after the host adapter replacement, relocate the quorum device function back to this storage array.

    To add and remove quorum devices, see the Sun Cluster system administration documentation.