1. X5-2 Deployment and User’s Guide
  2. Managing Storage

10 Managing Storage

You can add storage to fully populate the base storage shelf and add a storage expansion shelf to your Oracle Database Appliance.

About Managing Storage

You can add storage at any time without shutting down your databases or applications.

Oracle Database Appliance uses raw storage to protect data in the following ways:

  • Flash or Fast Recovery Area (FRA) backup. Flash or fast recovery area is a storage area (directory on disk or Oracle ASM diskgroup) that contains redo logs, control file, archived logs, backup pieces and copies, and flashback logs.

  • Mirroring. Double or triple mirroring provides protection against mechanical issues.

The amount of available storage is determined by the location of the FRA backup (external or internal) and if double or triple mirroring is used.

Oracle Database Appliance uses storage shelves, a base shelf and an optional storage expansion shelf. You can expand the base storage by adding a pack of solid-state drives (SSDs) to fully populate the base storage. You can further expand the storage by adding a second storage shelf. External NFS storage is supported for online backups, data staging, or additional database files.

Note:

The storage expansion shelf is no longer available for Oracle Database Appliance X7-2-HA and other older models. You can repurpose an existing storage expansion shelf from one Oracle Database Appliance system to another.

Note:

Oracle recommends that you upgrade your deployment to the latest Oracle Database Appliance software release before adding storage to ensure that your appliance has the latest firmware.

When you add storage, Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) automatically rebalances the data across all of the storage including the new drives. Rebalancing a disk group moves data between disks to ensure that every file is evenly spread across all of the disks in a disk group and all of the disks are evenly filled to the same percentage. Oracle ASM automatically initiates a rebalance after storage configuration changes, such as when you add disks.

Parent topic: Managing Storage

Preparing for Storage Expansion

Review and perform these best practices before adding storage to the base shelf or adding the expansion shelf.

  1. Update Oracle Database Appliance to the latest Patch Bundle before expanding storage.
  2. Confirm both nodes are at the same version and patch bundle level for software and firmware.
    # odaadmcli show version -detail 
    # odaadmcli inventory -q 

    Note:

    If oakd is not running in the foreground mode, on either node, fix the problem before adding storage.
  3. Check the disk health of the existing storage disks.

    Run the check on both nodes and use the default checks option to check the NetworkComponents, OSDiskStorage, SharedStorage, and SystemComponents. 

    #  odaadmcli validate -d
  4. Run the odaadmcli show diskgroup command on each node to display and review Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) disk group information. Verify that all disks are listed, are online, and are in a good state. 
    # odaadmcli show diskgroup data
    # odaadmcli show diskgroup reco
     # odaadmcli show diskgroup redo 
  5. Confirm Oracle ASM and CRS health on both nodes.
    Run the odaadmcli orachk command on each node. If there is a problem connecting to either node, then check the /etc/bashrc  file and remove (or remark out) any values in the profile for root, oracle, grid users.

    Run odaadmcli orachk on Node 0: 

    # odaadmcli orachk
...

Checking Status of Oracle Software Stack - Clusterware, ASM, RDBMS

. . . . . . . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Stack Status
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Host Name CRS Installed  ASM HOME   RDBMS Installed    CRS UP    ASM UP    RDBMS UP DB Instance Name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
odax3rm1       Yes           No          Yes              No        No        No          ........
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 ...

    Run odaadmcli orachk on Node 1: 

    # odaadmcli orachk
...

Checking Status of Oracle Software Stack - Clusterware, ASM, RDBMS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Stack Status
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Host Name CRS Installed  ASM HOME   RDBMS Installed    CRS UP    ASM UP    RDBMS UP DB Instance Name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
odax3rm2      Yes           Yes           Yes            Yes       Yes        Yes      b22S2 b23S2 b24S2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...
  6. Confirm communications between the nodes and that SSH is working using the same password for oracle, root, and grid.
    From each node:
    1. ssh to both nodes.
    2. Ping both nodes.
  7. Confirm there is at least 10 GB of space available on each node.
    [root@oda]# df -h
    [root@odb]# df -h

Parent topic: Managing Storage