• Use identical server hardware on each node, to simplify server maintenance.

• Avoiding resource contention issues by not installing Oracle RAC on a primary domain controller or backup domain controller.

• Review "Checking the Hardware Requirements" in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation and Upgrade Guide for Microsoft Windows x64 (64-Bit) to ensure that your system has enough RAM.

• Verify the TEMP environment variable points to a location that has enough available space for the installation.

• For both the Enterprise and Standard Editions of Oracle RAC, the hard disk requirements for Oracle Database components include 32 MB required to install Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) on the disk partition where the operating system is installed. If sufficient space is not detected, then the installation fails and an error message appears.

• Install the supported operating system version and install the operating system packages and patches required for that version.

  For some operating systems, Oracle may require updates, such as service packs and individual patches. If such requirements exist, then they are stated in the Release Notes for a particular release. You can also apply other operating system patches as recommended by Microsoft, if there are no "certification exceptions" listed in the Release Notes. Refer to your operating system vendor for required operating system updates.

  Note:

  You must use the same operating system on each node in the cluster. Oracle strongly recommends that you use the same software configurations on each node of the cluster. Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC do not support heterogeneous platforms (each server must run the same Oracle software binaries) in the same cluster.

• (Optional) Stage all of the software on one node for installation (the "local node").

Create the required users and configure the environments

• Review the users created during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

• To install the Oracle Real Application Clusters software, you must use either a local or domain user. In either case, the Oracle Installation user must be an explicit member of the Administrators group on all nodes of the cluster.

• To install Oracle RAC software on Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) you must use a Windows Domain user account for the Oracle Home user.

• You can use a Local User to perform the installation provided the user has the same password on all nodes and is an explicit member of the Administrators group on all nodes of the cluster.

• During installation, you can specify an Oracle Home user. The Oracle Home User may be a Windows Domain User Account or a Windows Group Managed service account (GMSA).

Configure the network interfaces

• Verify that each node in your cluster can communicate with the other nodes using the net use command, for example, on node1 you can use the following command:

  C:\> net use \\node2\c$
  The command completed successfully.

• Set up the domain name forwarding for Grid Naming Service (GNS) if you plan to deploy GNS or Multi-Cluster GNS, and set up the network addresses in the DNS and on the server as needed.

Set up the required shared storage.

• All Oracle RAC database instances share the control file, server parameter file (SPFILE), redo log files, and all data files. These files must be placed on shared storage, and all the cluster database instances on cluster nodes must have access to these files. Each instance also has its own set of redo log files. During failures, shared access to redo log files enables surviving instances to perform recovery.

• Oracle recommends that you choose Oracle ASM as the shared storage option for database and recovery files.

• You can store shared files using Oracle ASM, Oracle ACFS, or on a Network File Server (NFS) using the Direct NFS client (DNFS).

• Files supported by Oracle ACFS include database and application executable files, trace files, alert logs, application reports, BFILEs, and configuration files.

• For Standard Edition and Standard Edition 2 (SE2) Oracle RAC installations, Oracle ASM is the only supported shared storage option for database or recovery files.

• If you do not have a storage option that provides external file redundancy, then you must configure at least three voting file areas to provide voting file redundancy.

• Processing Node instances access storage from Core Nodes that have ASM I/O Server running on them to provide storage services.

Upgrade the Time Zone File and TSTZ Data. As part of an installation of Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), time zone version files from 1 to 12 are installed in the path %ORACLE_HOME%\oracore\zoneinfo/. You can continue to use the current time zone version or upgrade to the latest version. Oracle recommends that you upgrade the server to the latest time zone version.

See Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for information about how to upgrade the time zone file and TSTZ data

Platform-Specific Server Configuration

• Ensure an external jobs user is created for HP-UX.

• Configure a Windows Domain user account to use when installing Oracle RAC on Oracle ACFS on Windows platforms.