Changes in This Release for Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide

This chapter lists new features in Oracle Clusterware for Oracle Database 19c and 18c.

Changes in Oracle Clusterware Release 18c

Following is a list of features that are new in the Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide for Oracle Clusterware 18c.

Cross-Cluster Dependency Proxies

Cross-cluster dependency proxies provide resource state change notifications from one cluster to another, and enable resources in one cluster to act on behalf of dependencies on resources in another cluster. You can use cross-cluster dependency proxies, for example, to ensure that an application in an Oracle Application Member Cluster only starts if its associated database hosted in an Oracle Database Member Cluster is available. Similarly, you can use cross-cluster dependency proxies to ensure that a database in an Oracle Database Member Cluster only starts if at least one Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) instance on the Domain Services Cluster is available.

See Also:

Cross-Cluster Dependency Proxies

Shared Single-Client Access Names

A shared single-client access name (SCAN) enables the sharing of one set of SCAN virtual IPs (VIPs) and listeners (referred to as the SCAN setup) on a dedicated cluster in a data center with other clusters to avoid the deployment of one SCAN setup per cluster. This feature not only reduces the number of SCAN-related DNS entries, but also the number of VIPs that must be deployed for a cluster configuration.

A shared SCAN simplifies the deployment and management of groups of clusters in the data center by providing a shared SCAN setup that can be used by multiple systems at the same time.

Node VIPs Optional

Starting with this release, the use of node virtual IP (VIP) addresses is optional in a cluster environment. This enhancement reduces the number of IP addresses that are required for the deployment without the node VIPs. An additional benefit is that this change simplifies the Oracle Clusterware deployment.

Note:

This feature is only applicable to test and development environments.

Zero-Downtime Database Upgrade

Rapid Home Provisioning offers zero-downtime database upgrading, which automates all of the steps required for a database upgrade. It can minimize or even eliminate application downtime during the upgrade process, and minimize resource requirements. This upgrade method also provides a fallback path to which to roll back upgrades, if necessary.

See Also:

Zero-Downtime Upgrade

REST API for Rapid Home Provisioning and Maintenance

This release of Oracle Clusterware provides the most common Rapid Home Provisioning workflows as REST API calls.

In addition to invoking Rapid Home Provisioning and Maintenance through the command-line interface, you can invoke workflows through the new REST API, which provides new flexibility when integrating with bespoke and third-party orchestration engines.

See Also:

Oracle Database REST API Reference

Engineered Systems Support

Use Rapid Home Provisioning to patch Oracle Exadata infrastructure. In addition to patching Oracle Database and Oracle Grid Infrastructure software homes, you can now patch the software for the database nodes, storage cells, and InfiniBand switches in an Oracle Exadata environment. Integration of Oracle Exadata components support into Rapid Home Provisioning enables management and tracking of maintenance for these components through the centralized inventory of the Rapid Home Provisioning service.

Dry-Run Command Validation

The workflows included in Rapid Home Provisioning commands are composed of multiple smaller steps, some of which can fail. This release of Oracle Clusterware includes a dry-run command mode for several RHPCTL commands that enables you to evaluate the implact of those commands without making any permanent changes.

Configuration Drift Reporting and Resolution

Rapid Home Provisioning maintains standardized deployments across the database estate.

Authentication Plug-In

Rapid Home Provisioning integrates authentication with the mechanisms in use at a data center.

Command Scheduler and Bulk Operations

Using Rapid Home Provisioning, you can schedule and bundle automated tasks that are essential for maintenance of a large database estate. You can schedule such tasks as provisioning software homes, switching to a new home, and scaling a cluster. Also, you can add a list of clients to a command, facilitating large-scale operations.

Local Switch Home for Applying Updates

Rapid Home Provisioning automatons for updating Oracle Database and Oracle Grid Infrastructure homes can be run in a local mode, with no Rapid Home Provisioning Server or Client in the architecture.

These automatons feature the same user interface, outcome, and many of the command line options as the server and client modes. This provides for a consistent, standardized maintenance approach across environments that are constructed with a central Rapid Home Provisioning Server and those environments that do not employ the Rapid Home Provisioning Server.

Using the gridSetup Utility to Manage Oracle Clusterware

Gold image-based installation, using the gridSetup utility (gridSetup.sh or gridSetup.bat), replaces using Oracle Universal Installer for installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure. You can also use gridSetup-based management to perform Oracle Clusterware management tasks such as cloning, add-node and delete-node operations, and downgrade using the gridSetup utility.

Deprecated Features in Oracle Clusterware 18c

The following features are deprecated in Oracle Clusterware 18c, and may be desupported in a future release:

Using addnode.sh to Manage Oracle Grid Infrastructure

With this release, you will use gridSetup.sh to launch the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Grid Setup Wizard to configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure after installation or after an upgrade.

Flex Cluster (Hub/Leaf) Architecture

With continuous improvements in the Oracle Clusterware stack towards providing shorter reconfiguration times in case of a failure, Leaf nodes are no longer necessary for implementing clusters that meet customer needs, either for on-premises, or in the Cloud.

Changes in Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 2 (12.2)

The following are changes in Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide for Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 2 (12.2):

New Features for Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 2 (12.2)

Following is a list of features that are new for Oracle Clusterware 12c release 2 (12.2).

Enhancements to Rapid Home Provisioning

Rapid Home Provisioning enables you to create clusters, and provision, patch, and upgrade Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle Database homes. You can also provision Oracle Database on Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 (11.2) clusters.

Rapid Home Provisioning leverages a new file system capability for separation of gold image software from the site-specific configuration changes. This separation ensures that the home path remains unchanged throughout updates. This feature combines the benefits of in-place and out-of-place patching. This capability is available with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2).

Cluster Resource Activity Log

In addition to existing logs, which are mainly focused on reporting error situations, the cluster resource activity log contains information about resource activity across the cluster. You can use the cluster resource activity log to track resource behavior in the cluster, and to understand chain reactions triggered by the planned or unplanned relocation of individual resources.

Shared Grid Naming Service (GNS) High Availability

Shared GNS High Availability provides high availability of lookup and other services to the clients by running multiple instances of GNS with primary and secondary roles.

See Also:

Highly-Available Grid Naming Service

Server Weight-Based Node Eviction

Server weight-based node eviction acts as a tie-breaker mechanism in situations where Oracle Clusterware must evict a particular node or a group of nodes from a cluster, in which all nodes represent an equal choice for eviction. The server weight-based node eviction mechanism helps to identify the node or the group of nodes to be evicted based on additional information about the load on those servers. Two principle mechanisms, a system inherent automatic mechanism and a user input-based mechanism, exist to provide respective guidance.

See Also:

Server Weight-Based Node Eviction

Load-Aware Resource Placement

Load-aware resource placement prevents overloading a server with more applications than the server is capable of running. The metrics used to determine whether an application can be started on a given server, either as part of the startup or as a result of a failover, are based on the anticipated resource consumption of the application as well as the capacity of the server in terms of CPU and memory.

See Also:

Load-Aware Resource Placement

Cluster Health Advisor

The Cluster Health Advisor provides system administrators and database administrators early warning of pending performance issues and root causes and corrective actions for Oracle RAC databases and cluster nodes. This advanced proactive diagnostic capability enhances availability and performance management.

Enhancements to Cluster Verification Utility

Cluster Verification Utility (CVU) assists in the installation and configuration of Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC). CVU performs a range of tests, covering all intermediate stages during the installation and configuration of a complete Oracle RAC stack. In this release, CVU provides several enhancements, such as information about the progress of each check and allowing the user to specify an output format such as XML or HTML on request.

See Also:

CVU Usage Information

IPv6 Support for Oracle Real Application Clusters on The Private Network

You can configure cluster nodes to use either IPv4- or IPv6-based IP addresses on a private network, and you can use more than one private network for a cluster.

Simplified Image-based Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), Grid Infrastructure software is available as an image file for download and installation.

This feature greatly simplifies and enables quicker installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure.

Note:

You must extract the image software into the directory where you want your Grid home to be located, and then run the gridSetup.sh script to start the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

Separation of Duty for Administering Oracle Real Application Clusters

Starting with Oracle Database 12c release 2 (12.2), Oracle Database provides support for separation of duty best practices when administering Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) by introducing the SYSRAC administrative privilege for the clusterware agent. This feature removes the need to use the powerful SYSDBA administrative privilege for Oracle RAC.

SYSRAC, like SYSDG, SYSBACKUP and SYSKM, helps enforce separation of duties and reduce reliance on the use of SYSDBA on production systems. This administrative privilege is the default mode for connecting to the database by the clusterware agent on behalf of the Oracle RAC utilities, such as SRVCTL.

Support for Oracle Domain Services Clusters and Oracle Member Clusters

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2), Oracle Grid Infrastructure installer supports the option of deploying Oracle Domain Services Clusters and Oracle Member Clusters.

SCAN Listener Supports HTTP Protocol

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), SCAN listener enables connections for the recovery server coming over HTTP to be redirected to different machines based on the load on the recovery server machines.

Reasoned Command Evaluation (Why-If)

The What-If command evaluation introduced in a previous release of Oracle Clusterware did not provide enough detail about why Oracle Clusterware chose a particular action on a specific entity. Reasoned command evaluation provides more details about the rationale behind the policy decisions, explaining the entities involved, their attributes, and the criteria used to arrive at each potential action.

See Also:

Overview of Command Evaluation

Support for Oracle Extended Clusters

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2), Oracle Grid Infrastructure installer supports the option of configuring cluster nodes in different locations as an Oracle Extended Cluster, which consists of nodes that are located in multiple locations called sites.

See Also:

Oracle Extended Clusters

Global Grid Infrastructure Management Repository

Oracle Grid Infrastructure deployment now supports a global off-cluster Grid Infrastructure Management Repository (GIMR). This repository is a multitenant database with a pluggable database (PDB) for the GIMR of each cluster. The global GIMR runs in an Oracle Domain Services Cluster. A global GIMR frees the local cluster from dedicating storage in its disk groups for this data and permitting longer term historical data storage for diagnostic and performance analysis.

Resource Groups

With resource groups, Oracle Clusterware offers an intuitive model to manage and monitor an application composed of various resources as a single composite entity.

See Also:

Resource Groups

Oracle Real Application Clusters Reader Nodes

Oracle RAC Reader Nodes facilitate Oracle Flex Cluster architecture by allocating a set of read/write instances running Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) workloads and a set of read-only database instances across Hub Nodes and Leaf Nodes in the cluster. In this architecture, updates to the read-write instances are immediately propagated to the read-only instances on the Leaf Nodes, where they can be used for online reporting or instantaneous queries.

See Also:

Overview of Oracle Flex Clusters

Oracle Trace File Analyzer Collector

The Oracle Trace File Analyzer (TFA) Collector is a diagnostic collection utility that simplifies diagnostic data collection for Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Grid Infrastructure, and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) systems. TFA can automatically collect diagnostic information when it detects that an incident has occurred.

TFA also has a web-based visualization feature that adds easy-to-navigate, web-based visualization to TFA that is installed as part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure. You can use TFA to efficiently review and analyze diagnostic information gathered as part of a TFA collection.

Using TFA, you can choose between automated and manual collection of diagnostic data, which can then either be analyzed directly or as a data stream to auxiliary systems, such as My Oracle Support, to be visualized or analyzed in a certain context.

Deprecated Features in Oracle Clusterware 12c

The following features are deprecated in Oracle Clusterware 12c release 2 (12.2), and may be desupported in a future release:

Using config.sh to Launch Oracle Grid Infrastructure Configuration Wizard

With this release, you will use gridSetup.sh to launch the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Grid Setup Wizard to configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure after installation or after an upgrade.

Deprecation of the configToolAllCommands Script

The configToolAllCommands script runs in the response file mode to configure Oracle products after installation and uses a separate password response file. Starting with Oracle Database 12c release 2 (12.2), the configToolAllCommands script is deprecated and is subject to desupport in a future release.

To perform postinstallation configuration of Oracle products, you can now run the Oracle Database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installer with the -executeConfigTools option. You can use the same response file created during installation to complete postinstallation configuration.

Deprecation of diagcollection.pl Script

The diagcollection.pl utility script packaged with Oracle Clusterware is being deprecated in favor of the Oracle Trace File Analyzer.

Desupported Features

The following features are desupported in Oracle Clusterware 12c release 2 (12.2):

Oracle Clusterware Commands Prefixed with crs_

You are no longer able to use Oracle Clusterware commands that are prefixed with crs_.

Changes in Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 1 (12.1)

Changes in Oracle Clusterware 12c release 1 (12.1)

This section lists features that are new in Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide for Oracle Clusterware 12c release 1 (12.1), and also lists deprecated and desupported features in this release.

Changes in Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2)

The following features are new in this release:

See Also:

Oracle Database New Features Guide for a complete description of the features in Oracle Database 12c

Rapid Home Provisioning

Rapid Home Provisioning enables you to deploy Oracle homes based on images stored in a catalog of precreated software homes.

See Also:

Rapid Home Provisioning for more information
Memory Guard Does Not Require Oracle Database QoS Management to be Active

With this release, Memory Guard is enabled by default independent of whether you use Oracle Database Quality of Service Management (Oracle Database QoS Management). Memory Guard detects memory stress on a node and causes new sessions to be directed to other instances until the existing workload drains and frees memory. When free memory increases on the node, then services are enabled again to automatically accept new connections.
Oracle Clusterware support for the Diagnosability Framework

The Diagnosability Framework enables Oracle products to use a standardized and simplified way of storing and analyzing diagnosability data.

See Also:

"Oracle Clusterware Diagnostic and Alert Log Data" for more information
Oracle Trace File Analyzer Collector

The Oracle Trace File Analyzer (TFA) Collector is a diagnostic collection utility to simplify diagnostic data collection for Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Grid Infrastructure, and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) systems.
Automatic Installation of Grid Infrastructure Management Repository

The Grid Infrastructure Management Repository is automatically installed with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 1 (12.1.0.2). The Grid Infrastructure Management Repository enables such features as Cluster Health Monitor, Oracle Database QoS Management, and Rapid Home Provisioning, and provides a historical metric repository that simplifies viewing of past performance and diagnosis of issues. This capability is fully integrated into Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control for seamless management.

Changes in Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.1)

The following features are new in this release:

See Also:

Oracle Database New Features Guide for a complete description of the features in Oracle Database 12c

Cluster Health Monitor Enhancements for Oracle Flex Clusters

Cluster Health Monitor (CHM) has been enhanced to provide a highly available server monitor service that provides improved detection and analysis of operating system and cluster resource-related degradation and failures. In addition, CHM supports Oracle Flex Clusters configurations, including the ability for data collectors to collect from every node of the cluster and provide a single cluster representation of the data.
Cluster Resources for Oracle ACFS and Oracle ADVM

Oracle Clusterware resource support includes enhancements for Oracle homes stored on Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS), Oracle ACFS General Purpose file systems for Grid homes, and Oracle ASM Dynamic Volume Manager (Oracle ADVM) volumes. These resources, managed by Oracle Clusterware, support automatic loading of Oracle ACFS, Oracle ADVM and OKS drivers, disk group mounts, dynamic volume enablement, and automatic Oracle ACFS file system mounts.

See Also:

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for more information
Oracle Flex Clusters

Oracle Flex Clusters is a new concept, which joins together a traditional closely-coupled cluster with a modest node count with a large number of loosely-coupled nodes. To support various configurations that can be established using this new concept, SRVCTL provides new commands and command options to ease the installation and configuration.

See Also:

Oracle Flex Clusters for more information
IPv6 Support for Public Networks

Oracle Clusterware 12c supports IPv6-based public IP and VIP addresses.

IPv6-based IP addresses have become the latest standard for the information technology infrastructure in today's data centers. With this release, Oracle RAC and Oracle Grid Infrastructure support this standard. You can configure cluster nodes during installation with either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses on the same network. Database clients can connect to either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. The Single Client Access Name (SCAN) listener automatically redirects client connects to the appropriate database listener for the IP protocol of the client request.

See Also:

"Understanding Network Address Configuration Requirements"
Shared Grid Naming Service

One instance of Grid Naming Service (GNS) can provide name resolution service for any number of clusters.

See Also:

"Oracle Clusterware Network Configuration Concepts" for more information
Oracle Grid Infrastructure User Support on Windows

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Database supports the use of an Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation owner account (Grid user) to own the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home, which you can specify during installation time. The Grid user can be either a built-in account or a Windows user account. A Windows Grid user account should be a low-privileged (non-Administrator) account, so that the Grid user has a limited set of privileges. Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure using a Grid user account helps to ensure that Oracle Database services have only those privileges required to run Oracle products.

In prior releases on Windows operating systems, Oracle services ran as local system privileges which are fully privileged. This feature allows the services to run with user privileges to allow tighter control of security. Oracle creates the Windows database service for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure management repository under the security context of the Windows user specified when installing the Oracle Grid Infrastructure, which is the Grid user referred to in the previous paragraph.

In support of this feature, Oracle enhanced some Cluster Verification Utility (CVU) commands and added CRSCTL commands for managing wallets.

See Also:

Oracle Database Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows
Oracle Grid Infrastructure Rolling Migration for One-Off Patches

Oracle Grid Infrastructure one-off patch rolling migration and upgrade for Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) and Oracle Clusterware enables you to independently upgrade or patch clustered Oracle Grid Infrastructure nodes with one-off patches, without affecting database availability. This feature provides greater uptime and patching flexibility. This release also introduces a new Cluster state, "Rolling Patch." Operations allowed in a patch quiesce state are similar to the existing "Rolling Upgrade" cluster state.
Policy-Based Cluster Management and Administration

Oracle Grid Infrastructure allows running multiple applications in one cluster. Using a policy-based approach, the workload introduced by these applications can be allocated across the cluster using a cluster configuration policy. In addition, a cluster configuration policy set enables different cluster configuration policies to be applied to the cluster over time as required. You can define cluster configuration policies using a web-based interface or a command-line interface.

Hosting various workloads in the same cluster helps to consolidate the workloads into a shared infrastructure that provides high availability and scalability. Using a centralized policy-based approach allows for dynamic resource reallocation and prioritization as the demand changes.

See Also:

"Overview of Cluster Configuration Policies and the Policy Set" for more information

Oracle Clusterware 12c includes a generic_application resource type for fast integration and high availability for any type of application.

See Also:

"Oracle Clusterware Resource Types" for more information about the generic_application resource type
Oracle Flex ASM

Oracle Flex ASM enables the Oracle ASM instance to run on a separate physical server from the database servers. Any number of Oracle ASM servers can be clustered to support much larger database clients, thereby eliminating a single point of failure.

See Also:

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for more information about Oracle Flex ASM
Restricting Service Registration with Valid Node Checking

A standalone Oracle Database listener restricts clients from accessing a database registered with this listener using various conditions, such as the subnet, from which these clients are connecting. Listeners that Oracle Grid Infrastructure manages can now be configured, accordingly.
What-If Command Evaluation

Oracle Clusterware 12c provides a set of evaluation commands and APIs to determine the impact of a certain operation before the respective operation is actually executed.
See Also:
- for more information about the evaluation commands
- "What-If APIs" for more information about the APIs
Online Resource Attribute Modification

Oracle Clusterware manages hardware and software components for high availability using a resource model. You use resource attributes to define how Oracle Clusterware manages those resources. You can modify certain resource attributes and implement those changes without having to restart the resource using online resource attribute modification. You manage online resource attribute modification with certain SRVCTL and CRSCTL commands.
Oracle Cluster Registry Backup in Oracle ASM Disk Group Support

The Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) backup mechanism enables storing the OCR backup in an Oracle ASM disk group. Storing the OCR backup in an Oracle ASM disk group simplifies OCR management by permitting access to the OCR backup from any node in the cluster should an OCR recovery become necessary.

See Also:

"Managing Oracle Cluster Registry and Oracle Local Registry"

Deprecated Features

The following features are deprecated with this release, and may be desupported in a future release:

Management of Cluster Administrators using a stored list of administrative users

This method of administration is being replaced with more comprehensive management of administrative user roles by configuring the access control list of the policy set.
Deprecation of single-letter SRVCTL CLI options

All SRVCTL commands have been enhanced to accept full-word options instead of the single-letter options. All new SRVCTL command options added in this release support full-word options, only, and do not have single-letter equivalents. This feature might be desupported in a future release.

Desupported Features

See Also:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

Oracle Cluster File System on Windows

Oracle no longer supports Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS) on Windows.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control is replaced by Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express.
Raw (block) storage devices for Oracle Database and related technologies

Oracle Database 12c release 1 (12.1) and its related grid technologies, such as Oracle Clusterware, no longer support the direct use of raw or block storage devices. You must move existing files from raw or block devices to Oracle ASM before you upgrade to Oracle Clusterware 12c release 1 (12.1).