Changes in This Release for Oracle Grid Infrastructure

This new release of Oracle Grid Infrastructure provides improvements to the installation process, performance, and automation.

• Changes in Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c
  

Changes in Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c

The following are changes in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c:

• New Features
  New features for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c.
• Deprecated Features
  Deprecated features for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c.

New Features

New features for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c.

Following are the new features for Oracle Clusterware 18c and Oracle Automatic Storage Management 18c:

New Features for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c

• gridSetup-based Management

  Gold Image-Based installation, using gridSetup.sh, provides a centralized mechanism of installing and managing Oracle Grid Infrastructure. gridSetup-based Management enables management tasks such as cloning, addNode operations, deleteNode operations, and downgrade to be performed by this simple command.

• Shared Single Client Access Name (SCAN)

  A shared 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.

  For more information, see Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide

• NodeVIP-Less Cluster

  NodeVIP-Less Cluster simplifies cluster deployments and management by eliminating the need for additional IPs per node in the cluster.

  NodeVIP-Less Cluster deployments are intended for use in volatile non-production environments, where ease of deployment is more important than simplifying the failover management.

  For more information, see Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide

• Converting Normal or High Redundancy Disk Groups to Flex Disk Groups without Restricted Mount

  You can convert a conventional disk group (disk group created before Oracle ASM release 18c) to an Oracle ASM flex disk group without using the restrictive mount (MOUNTED RESTRICTED) option.

  For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide

Deprecated Features

Deprecated features for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 18c.

The following feature is deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in another release. See Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of deprecated features in this release.

• Flex Cluster (Hub/Leaf) Architecture

  Starting with Oracle Database 18c, Leaf nodes are deprecated as part of Oracle Flex Cluster 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.