Planning the Sun Cluster HA for Oracle Installation and Configuration

This section contains the information that you need to plan your Sun Cluster HA for Oracle installation and configuration.

Configuration Requirements

Your data service configuration might not be supported if you do not adhere to these requirements.

Use the requirements in this section to plan the installation and configuration of Sun Cluster HA for Oracle. These requirements apply to Sun Cluster HA for Oracle only. You must meet these requirements before you proceed with your Sun Cluster HA for Oracle installation and configuration. Sun Cluster HA for Oracle can be configured to run in non-global zones if required. If you are configuring Sun Cluster HA for Oracle to run in a non-global zone, you must use a highly available local file system. You can also configure the Sun Cluster HA for Oracle in a zone cluster.

Raw devices from Sun Cluster device groups are not supported in non-global zones.

For requirements that apply to all data services, see Configuration Guidelines for Sun Cluster Data Services in Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS.

• Oracle application files – These files include Oracle binaries, configuration files, and parameter files. You can install these files either on the local file system, the highly available local file system, or on the cluster file system.

  See Configuration Guidelines for Sun Cluster Data Services in Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS for the advantages and disadvantages of placing the Oracle binaries on the local file system, highly available local file system, and the cluster file system.

• Database related files– These files include the control file, redo logs, and data files. You must install these files on either raw devices or as regular files on the highly available local or cluster file system. Raw devices from Sun Cluster device groups are not supported in non-global zones.

• ASM configuration – Automatic Storage Management (ASM) is a new storage option introduced with Oracle database 10g that provides the services of a file system, logical volume manager, and software redundant array of independent disks (RAID) in a platform independent manner. If you are planning to install ASM, you should choose the appropriate ASM instance and disk group for your Oracle database installation. There are two types of ASM instances, single ASM instance and clustered ASM instance. See Choosing the Appropriate ASM Instance for information on choosing the appropriate ASM instance. For more information on ASM, see the Oracle documentation corresponding to the Oracle database version you are using.

  If the single instance Oracle database is installed on a node using an ASM disk group, then certain files are not included with in the ASM disk group and they are resided locally. You should ensure that these files are copied to the other cluster nodes from the node where the single instance Oracle database is created.

  If you are using Oracle 11g database, you should copy the following directories to other cluster nodes:

  • ${ORACLE_BASE}/diag/rdbms/sid

  • ${ORACLE_BASE}/admin

  • ${ORACLE_HOME}/dbs/pfile.ora

  If you are using Oracle 10g database, you should copy the following directories to other cluster nodes:

  • ${ORACLE_HOME}/admin

  • ${ORACLE_HOME}/dbs/initsid.org

  In the following example, you use the /usr/sfw/sbin/wget command from the target cluster node to recursively copy the ${ORACLE_HOME}/admin directory in Oracle 10g.

  # su dbuser cd ORACLE_HOME /usr/sfw/bin/wget -r -nH --Cut-dirs=n ftp://user:password@host:ORACLE_HOME/admin

  In the /usr/sfw/sbin/wget command, the -r option is for recursive copy and -nH option is for disabling prefixing of host directories. Specify the --Cut-dirs option to ignore directory components. For the detailed description of options for /usr/sfw/sbin/wget, see wget man page.

Configuration Planning Questions

Use the questions in this section to plan the installation and configuration of Sun Cluster HA for Oracle. Write the answers to these questions in the space that is provided on the data service worksheets in Configuration Worksheets in Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS.

• What resource groups will you use for network addresses and application resources and the dependencies between them?

• What is the logical hostname (for failover services) or shared address (for scalable services) for clients that will access the data service?

• Where will the system configuration files reside?

  See Configuration Guidelines for Sun Cluster Data Services in Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS for the advantages and disadvantages of placing the Oracle binaries on the local file system rather than the cluster file system.

• Does your database setup require standby instances?

  If you use the clsetup utility to register and configure Sun Cluster HA for Oracle, some of these questions are answered automatically by the utility.

  For information about standby databases, see your Oracle documentation.

• Are you planning to use ASM storage?

  If you are planning to use ASM storage, you should decide if you require single instance or clustered instance ASM. See Choosing the Appropriate ASM Instance for information on how to choose the appropriate ASM installation.

  For information about standby databases, see your Oracle documentation.