Overview of Managing Oracle RAC Environments

When managing Oracle RAC, there are many considerations, such as the deployment type, the tools to use, how to monitor the system, and how to evaluate performance.

About Designing and Deploying Oracle RAC Environments

Any enterprise that is designing and implementing a high availability strategy with Oracle RAC must begin by performing a thorough analysis of the business drivers that require high availability.

An analysis of business requirements for high availability combined with an understanding of the level of investment required to implement different high availability solutions enables the development of a high availability architecture that achieves both business and technical objectives.

See also

For help choosing and implementing the architecture that best fits your availability requirements:

"Design and Deployment Techniques" provides a high-level overview you can use to evaluate the high availability requirements of your business.

Oracle AI Database High Availability Overview and Best Practices describes how to select the most suitable architecture for your organization, describes several high availability architectures, and provides guidelines for choosing the one that best meets your requirements, and also provides information about the Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture

About Administrative Tools for Oracle RAC Environments

You administer a cluster database as a single-system image using the Server Control Utility (SRVCTL), Oracle Enterprise Manager, SQL*Plus, and other utilities.

• Server Control Utility (SRVCTL): SRVCTL is a command-line interface that you can use to manage an Oracle RAC database from a single point. You can use SRVCTL to start and stop the database and instances and to delete or move instances and services. You can also use SRVCTL to manage configuration information, Oracle Real Application Clusters One Node (Oracle RAC One Node), Oracle Clusterware, and Oracle ASM.
• Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (Oracle FPP): Use Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning to patch, upgrade, and provision Oracle RAC databases.
• Oracle Enterprise Manager: Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control GUI interface for managing both noncluster database and Oracle RAC database environments. Oracle recommends that you use Oracle Enterprise Manager to perform administrative tasks whenever feasible.

  You can use Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control to also manage Oracle RAC One Node databases.

• *SQL*Plus*: SQL*Plus commands operate on the current instance. The current instance can be either the local default instance on which you initiated your SQL*Plus session, or it can be a remote instance to which you connect with Oracle Net Services.

• Configuration Verification Utility (CVU): CVU is a command-line tool that you can use to verify a range of cluster and Oracle RAC components, such as shared storage devices, networking configurations, system requirements, and Oracle Clusterware, in addition to operating system groups and users. You can use CVU for preinstallation checks and for postinstallation checks of your cluster environment. CVU is especially useful during preinstallation and during installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC components. Oracle Universal Installer runs CVU after installing Oracle Clusterware and Oracle AI Database to verify your environment.

  Install and use CVU before you install Oracle RAC to ensure that your configuration meets the minimum Oracle RAC installation requirements. Also, use CVU for verifying the completion of ongoing administrative tasks, such as node addition and node deletion.

  Note:

  Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 26ai,
  Cluster Verification Utility (CVU) is renamed to
  Configuration Verification Utility (CVU).

• Oracle DBCA: The recommended utility for creating and initially configuring Oracle RAC, Oracle RAC One Node, and Oracle noncluster databases.
• NETCA: Configures the network for your Oracle RAC environment.

Related Topics

• Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide
• Server Control Utility Reference
• Oracle AI Database Net Services Administrator's Guide

See also

"Administering Database Instances and Cluster Databases" for an introduction to Oracle RAC administration using SRVCTL, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and SQL*Plus

"Monitoring Oracle RAC and Oracle Clusterware"

"Server Control Utility Reference" for SRVCTL reference information

Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide for information about the Configuration Verification Utility (CVU), in addition to other Oracle Clusterware tools, such as the OIFCFG tool for allocating and deallocating network interfaces and the OCRCONFIG command-line tool for managing OCR

Oracle AI Database Net Services Administrator's Guide for more information about NETCA

About Monitoring Oracle RAC Environments

Web-based Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control enables you to monitor an Oracle RAC database.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is a central point of control for the Oracle environment that you access by way of a graphical user interface (GUI). See "Monitoring Oracle RAC and Oracle Clusterware" for more information about using Oracle Enterprise Manager to monitor Oracle RAC environments.

Also, note the following recommendations about monitoring Oracle RAC environments:

• Use Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control to initiate cluster database management tasks.
• Use Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control to administer multiple or individual Oracle RAC databases.
• Use the global views ( GV$ views), which are based on V$ views. The catclustdb.sql script creates the GV$ views. Run this script if you do not create your database with Oracle DBCA. Otherwise, Oracle DBCA runs this script for you.

  For almost every V$ view, there is a corresponding global GV$ view. In addition to the V$ information, each GV$ view contains an extra column named INST_ID, which displays the instance number from which the associated V$ view information was obtained.

• Use the sophisticated management and monitoring features of the Oracle Database Diagnostic and Tuning packs within Oracle Enterprise Manager that include the Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM) and Automatic Workload Repository (AWR).

  Note:

  Although Statspack is available for backward compatibility, Statspack provides reporting only. You must run Statspack at level 7 to collect statistics related to block contention and segment block waits.

Related Topics

• Oracle AI Database Performance Tuning Guide

About Evaluating Performance in Oracle RAC Environments

You do not need to perform special tuning for Oracle RAC; Oracle RAC scales without special configuration changes.

If your application performs well on a noncluster Oracle AI Database, then it will perform well in an Oracle RAC environment. Many of the tuning tasks that you would perform on a noncluster Oracle AI Database can also improve Oracle RAC database performance. This is especially true if your environment requires scalability across a greater number of CPUs.

Some of the performance features specific to Oracle RAC include:

• Dynamic resource allocation

• Oracle AI Database dynamically allocates Cache Fusion resources as needed

  • The dynamic acquiring of resources improves performance by keeping resources local to data blocks
• Cache Fusion enables a simplified tuning methodology
• You do not have to tune any parameters for Cache Fusion
• No application-level tuning is necessary
• You can use a bottom-up tuning approach with virtually no effect on your existing applications
• More detailed performance statistics
• More views for Oracle RAC performance monitoring
• Oracle RAC-specific performance views in Oracle Enterprise Manager