9.1.19.2 Oracle Flex ASM

Oracle Flex ASM enables Oracle ASM instances to run on a separate physical server from the database servers.

If the Oracle ASM instance on a node in a standard Oracle ASM cluster fails, then all of the database instances on that node also fail. However, in an Oracle Flex ASM configuration, Oracle 12c database instances would not fail as they would be able to access another Oracle ASM instance remotely on another node.

With Oracle Flex ASM, you can consolidate all the storage requirements into a single set of disk groups. All these disk groups are mounted by and managed by a small set of Oracle ASM instances running in a single cluster. You can specify the number of Oracle ASM instances with a cardinality setting.

Oracle Flex ASM is enabled by default with Oracle Database 12c release 2 (12.2). Oracle Exadata Database Machine ships with cardinality set to ALL, which means an Oracle ASM instance is created on every available node. See the following topics for details:

• About Oracle Flex ASM in Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
• Managing Oracle Flex ASM in Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide

• About Oracle Flex ASM Clusters Networks in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation and Upgrade Guide for Linux