Oracle^® Solaris Cluster Geographic Edition Data Replication Guide for Oracle Data Guard

Validating an Oracle Data Guard Protection Group

This section provides the following information:

• How the Data Replication Layer Validates the Application Resource Groups

• How the Data Replication Subsystem Verifies the Oracle Data Guard Broker Configuration

• How to Validate an Oracle Data Guard Protection Group

How the Data Replication Layer Validates the Application Resource Groups

During protection group validation, the Oracle Data Guard data replication layer validates the application resource groups in the protection group. The Oracle Data Guard data replication layer verifies the following conditions:

• The resource group under the control of the protection group that is being validated does not contain a resource group that contains an Oracle database-server resource.

  • If you add a failover resource group, it must not contain a SUNW.oracle_server resource.

  • If you add a scalable resource group, it must not contain a SUNW.scalable_rac_server_proxy resource.

  • Neither a failover nor a scalable resource group can contain an ORCL.oracle_external_proxy resource.

  You cannot add these resource groups to an Oracle Data Guard protection group because the Oracle database that is managed by the Oracle database-server resource is shut down on the standby cluster when the protection group is started globally, thus disabling the Oracle Data Guard data replication.

• The Auto_start_on_new_cluster property in an application resource group in the protection group is set to False.

  When you bring a protection group online on the primary cluster, the data replication layer brings the application resources groups that are participating in that protection group online only on the same primary cluster. Setting the Auto_start_on_new_cluster property to False prevents the Oracle Solaris Cluster resource group manager from automatically starting the application resource groups. In this case, the startup of resource groups is reserved for the Geographic Edition software.

  When the protection group is activated, application resource groups in the protection group need to be online only on the primary cluster.

The Configuration status is set to OK after successful validation. If validation is not successful, the Configuration status is set to Error.

How the Data Replication Subsystem Verifies the Oracle Data Guard Broker Configuration

When you add an Oracle Data Guard broker configuration to a protection group, the data replication layer verifies that the Oracle Data Guard broker configuration exists.

When you run the geopg add-replication-component command, a shadow Oracle database-server resource group and a replication resource group for the Oracle Data Guard broker configuration are created. In addition, the configuration is successfully validated on the local cluster. However, the configuration might not be valid on the remote cluster. You can use the geopg validate protection-group command on the remote cluster to troubleshoot an invalid configuration.

The shadow Oracle database-server resource group contains an Oracle Solaris Cluster resource. This resource is based on the Generic Data Service SUNW.gds resource type. The shadow Oracle database-server resource shadows the real Oracle database-server resource that manages and monitors the Oracle database in the Oracle Data Guard broker configuration.

For more information about the shadow Oracle database-server resource group, see Oracle Data Guard Shadow Resource Groups.

The replication resource group contains an Oracle Solaris Cluster resource that is based on the SUNW.gds resource type. The replication resource monitors the state of the database replication as reported by Oracle Data Guard broker.

For more information about replication resources, see Oracle Data Guard Replication Resource Groups.

For the validation to be successful, ensure that the following conditions are met:

• The resource group that is named in the local_oracle_svr_rg_name property contains a resource of the appropriate resource type:

  • For a scalable resource group, the property specifies a resource group that contains a resource of the SUNW.scalable_rac_server_proxy or SUNW.oracle_external_proxy resource type.

  • For a failover resource group, the property specifies a resource group that contains a resource of the SUNW.oracle_server or SUNW.oracle_external_proxy resource type.

  When the resource group contains a resource of the SUNW.scalable_rac_server_proxy or SUNW.oracle_server resource type, that resource is used to determine the values for ${ORACLE_HOME} and the local Oracle database SID values.

• The Oracle Data Guard dgmgrl command shows a SUCCESS status for the Oracle Data Guard broker configuration. The presence of Oracle ORA- messages in the output from the dgmgrl command might indicate that the sysdba_username password is incorrect or that the cluster has been disabled. Oracle errors are returned as part of the messages that are generated by the validate command.

• The sysdba_username password is valid for the standby cluster to ensure that switchovers are possible. Or, the Oracle wallet connection mechanism, dgmgrl /@service_name, can successfully connect to the broker.

• The Oracle Data Guard broker configuration details match those held by Geographic Edition. The details to check include which cluster is primary, the configuration name, the database mode (for both the primary and standby cluster), the replication mode, the standby type, that FAST_START FAILOVER is disabled, and that BystandersFollowRoleChange is set to NONE.

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Caution  -  Do not use Oracle Solaris Cluster commands to change, remove, or bring offline these resources or resource groups. Use only Geographic Edition commands to administer shadow Oracle database-server resource groups, replication resource groups, and resources that are internal entities that are managed by Geographic Edition software. Altering the configuration or state of these entities directly with Oracle Solaris Cluster commands could result in an unrecoverable failure.

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How to Validate an Oracle Data Guard Protection Group

When the Configuration status of a protection group is displayed as Error in the output of the geoadm status command, you can validate the configuration by using the geopg validate command. This command checks the current state of the protection group and its entities.

If the protection group and its entities are valid, the Configuration status of the protection groups is set to OK. If the geopg validate command finds an error in the configuration files, the command displays a message about the error and the configuration remains in the error state. In such a case, you can fix the error in the configuration and run the geopg validate command again.

This command validates the configuration of the protection group on the local cluster only. To validate the protection group configuration on the partner cluster, run the command again on the partner cluster.

Before You Begin

Before validating the configuration of a protection group, ensure that the protection group you want to validate exists locally and that the common agent container is online on all nodes of both clusters in the partnership.

1. Assume the root role or assume a role that is assigned the Geo Management rights profile.

   For more information, see Securing Geographic Edition Software in Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.3 Geographic Edition Installation and Configuration Guide.

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   Note -  If you use a role with Geo Management rights, ensure that the /var/cluster/geo ACLs are correct on each node of both partner clusters. If necessary, assume the root role on the cluster node and set the correct ACLs.

   # chmod A+user:username:rwx:allow /var/cluster/geo

   The /var/cluster/geo directory must have the correct access control lists (ACL) applied for compatibility between the Geo Management rights profile and Oracle Data Guard.

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2. Validate the configuration of the protection group.

   This command validates the configuration of a single protection group on the local cluster only.

   phys-node-n# geopg validate protection-group

This example shows how to validate a protection group.

phys-node-n# geopg validate sales-pg