Oracle 10g, 11g Database Administration (DBA): RAC

Installing Oracle RAC (10g, 11g)

Note: This article ( named Installing Oracle RAC ) was taken from www.in-oracle.com.

Installing Oracle Application Cluster at home or at the office for testing purpose could be done in 3 ways:

Using iSCSI technology
Using VMware technology
Using an external hard disk which allow simultaneous connections

In such an architecture the shared directories stay on a computer which is configured (using iSCSI technology) to be an SAN (Storage Area Network). To get more information about iSCSI technology click here.

To get all the details you need for installing your own Oracle RAC 10g using iSCSI technology on a Linux system click here.

Using VMware technology

In such an architecture the shared directories and the 2 nodes are on the same computer. All is virtualized by the VMware technology. To get all the details you need for installing your own Oracle RAC 10g using VMware technology click here.

Using an external hard disk which allow simultaneous connections

Some external disks (a few only) allows simultaneous connections to the same file using Firewire cards/ cables. If you have such an external hard disk which could be seen by your Linux, you can install an Oracle RAC using this external hard disk. If you want to get a good documentation about the RAC installation on an external hard disk on Linux system, click here.

Several Remarks:

Even if all 3 solutions are good, me personally I prefer the first one (using the iSCSI technology).

Here are the weaknesses of each type of RAC installations:

RAC using iSCSI technology

RAC using VMware technology

RAC using Firewire technology

you need one computer more (needed for the SAN, which use iSCSI technology)

more services/ processes to manage (the iSCSI target process on the server and iSCSI initiator on the client)

You need a powerful computer (a P4 is ok, but works very slow) and a lot of RAM memory. Windows XP and Linux system have a 3 Gb RAM limit, which is enough, but more memory would be handy.

The Firewire external hard disk needed for this installation is not easy to be found. In my case I tried 2 new versions of Maxtor external hard disks which allow simultaneous connections through Firewire, but the Linux Firewire driver didn't work well with these 2 external hard disks. However this technology works.

If you want to use iSCSI technology, please try first if the openfiler (the open source software which allow you to use the iSCSI technology) can be installed on your computer. One some systems didn't work (the last time, using a Dell Optiplex 745, I received the error "Bad Page State in Process 'swapper'" error at one point of the installation).
Don't download the software on the same disk as the Oracle Homes (for the database and clusterware) because the installation will be much slower.
You don't have to use 2 NICs as in the documentations you can have only one and create a virtual IP for the private connection (this only for testing purpose).

Note: This article ( named Installing Oracle RAC ) was taken from www.in-oracle.com.

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