Role-Allocated Software Owners and Database Upgrade After Oracle ASM Upgrade

Review these topics if you have an existing Oracle ASM installation that you installed before Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2).

Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2), Oracle ASM is installed with Oracle Clusterware as part of an Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. The same Oracle software installation owner account owns both Oracle ASM and Oracle Clusterware. If you have an existing Oracle ASM installation owner that is different from your Oracle Clusterware installation owner, then review these topics and complete required changes to your system.

About Migrating Operating System Users for Existing Oracle ASM Installation Owners
Using role-allocated system privileges groups and Oracle installation owners may require you to migrate existing Oracle installation owner users.
Keeping the Existing User as the Oracle ASM Operating System User
Use the existing Oracle ASM installation owner to simplify upgrades.
Changing the Operating System User for Single-Instance Oracle ASM
Oracle recommends that you change a single-instance deployment to an Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) deployment on an Oracle Grid Infrastructure cluster.
Changing the Operating System User for an Oracle RAC Database
You may need to change the Oracle user for Oracle Real Application Clusters to take advantage of role-allocated system privileges.

Parent topic: Post-Upgrade Tasks for Oracle Database

About Migrating Operating System Users for Existing Oracle ASM Installation Owners

Using role-allocated system privileges groups and Oracle installation owners may require you to migrate existing Oracle installation owner users.

If you separate the operating system user ownership of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure binaries and the Oracle Database installation owners of one or more databases, then you must migrate the operating system user of an upgraded Oracle ASM or database home. For example, if you are migrating from one software binary owner (such as oracle) to multiple role-allocated software owner user accounts (such as grid, oracle1, oracle2), then change the owner of the existing Oracle ASM installation owner to the installation owner that you plan to use for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

Keeping the Existing User as the Oracle ASM Operating System User

Use the existing Oracle ASM installation owner to simplify upgrades.

If you are using the same operating system user for your Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation that you used for your existing Oracle ASM installation, then you can run Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) to perform an Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation, and select the upgrade option. OUI automatically upgrades your existing Oracle ASM installation from the earlier release to Oracle Database 12c in the Grid home.

Parent topic: Role-Allocated Software Owners and Database Upgrade After Oracle ASM Upgrade

Changing the Operating System User for Single-Instance Oracle ASM

Oracle recommends that you change a single-instance deployment to an Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) deployment on an Oracle Grid Infrastructure cluster.

When you upgrade to Oracle Grid Infrastructure, Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM are owned by the same Oracle installation owner. For example, if your earlier release Oracle ASM installation is installed in Oracle home 4 (OH4), and the operating system installation owner account is oracle, then you have to change the Oracle ASM operating system user to grid.

A single-instance database using Oracle ASM as its file system enables you separate Oracle Database operating system privileges from Oracle Database privileges. If you have two or more databases using Oracle ASM, then the binaries of each database can be owned by separate installation owner accounts, providing role separation both for Oracle Database privileges, and for the common storage tier shared by all databases. No Oracle Database installation owner has Oracle Grid Infrastructure binary ownership and privileges. Each database installation owner account has only those privileges required to access storage.

Changing the Operating System User for an Oracle RAC Database

You may need to change the Oracle user for Oracle Real Application Clusters to take advantage of role-allocated system privileges.

There may be scenarios where you must change the operating system installation owner for an Oracle RAC database. For example, if your earlier release database is installed in Oracle home 4 (OH4) and oracle is the installation user account owner for that database, then you should consider changing the Oracle Grid Infrastructure operating system installation user account owner to grid. Changing the operating system user of Oracle Grid Infrastructure (Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM) enables separate databases to run as separate operating system users, so that no Oracle Database installation owner user account can make changes to the storage tier that other databases use.