A unique Oracle database feature is Real Application Clusters (RAC). RAC allows multiple database servers to work on the same database simultaneously, improving scalability and fault tolerance.
Both of these features have the potential to drop your operating costs: RAC allows you to use a cluster of inexpensive servers instead of a single massive SMP box, and ASM allows you to use a cluster of inexpensive disks instead of a single massive disk array.
RAC & ASM for E-Business Suite Users
Here's where things get interesting for E-Business Suite users: E-Business Suite Release 11i is certified with 9i RAC, 10gR1 RAC & ASM and 10gR2 RAC & ASM.
As an aside, we use 10gR1 RAC with our own E-Business Suite Release 11i instance for Oracle's corporate Global Single Instance. We're planning an upgrade to 10gR2 in the near future.
Initially Awkward with 10gR1
This is all good, but our first version of the E-Business Suite certification with 10gR1 RAC and ASM had an awkward restriction. To use this combination, you first had to migrate your E-Business Suite environment to RAC. After that was done, you could then migrate your RAC environment to ASM.
There were very good technical reasons for doing things this way, but no matter. This proved to be really problematic for customers who decided to take advantage of ASM long before they even considered switching to RAC.
Awkward No Longer
We have a small but brilliant team working in this area and they have managed to lift that restriction for E-Business Suite users. With the latest version of the 10gR1 RAC & ASM Installation Guide, you can now do this in any order you'd like: RAC then ASM, or ASM then RAC.
This restriction doesn't exist with our 10gR2 certification, so DBAs who waited for that certification can use RAC and ASM in any order today.
Comments (9)
Hi,
Good article. Please let me know where is the document about administration of EBiz+RAC? I need cloning docs for this EBiz+RAC...
Thanks.
Frado Sibarani
Singapore
Posted by Frado Sibarani | August 19, 2008 8:08 PM
Posted on August 19, 2008 20:08
Frado,
Feel free to click on any of the links in the article: they link directly to the RAC documentation for a given configuration. For example, the 10gR2 RAC & ASM link points to:
http://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/ml2_documents.showNOT?p_id=362135.1
Regards,
Steven
Posted by Steven Chan | August 25, 2008 9:45 AM
Posted on August 25, 2008 09:45
Hi
Do we require additional license for RAC database on Oracle HRMS Applications.
Thanks.
Souhail
Posted by Souhail Assaad | September 9, 2008 12:53 PM
Posted on September 9, 2008 12:53
Hi, Souhail,
Yes, any use of RAC in an EBS environment requires additional licencing for RAC.
Regards,
Steven
Posted by Steven Chan | September 10, 2008 8:19 AM
Posted on September 10, 2008 08:19
Schan,
I am doing this configuration, and to our disapointment when we got to the last part (Configure PCP), there are itens that require a shared filesystem.
What is the point of supporting ASM if I still need a shared filesystem for the concurrent to work? I dont like the idea of pointing the areas to a NFS share on one of the servers since this will create a single point of failure, and since we are using ASM, we didnt forsee the need for a NAS device or a Cluster File System.
Is there any way around this?
Regards,
Luis
Posted by Luis Freitas | November 12, 2008 6:19 AM
Posted on November 12, 2008 06:19
Hi, Luis,
Looking into this now; I'l post an update here as soon as possible.
Regards,
Steven
Posted by Steven Chan | November 13, 2008 4:09 PM
Posted on November 13, 2008 16:09
Hi, Luis,
Our team has confirmed that the CP processes need access to the directories for temp/log files. There's no way to circumvent this requirement in Release 11i, I'm afraid.
I hope the remainder of your RAC implementation goes smoothly.
Regards,
Steven
Posted by Steven Chan | November 14, 2008 10:09 AM
Posted on November 14, 2008 10:09
Hi Steve,
We are implementing RAC with E-Business suite.Now, we are stuck up with Oracle clusterware installation.When we run cluvfy utility It's was not able to regnoise the raw devices for OCR and VD. Please can you provide us a document, which has a clear picture of configuring raw devices for Oracle clusterware on sun solaris 10(sparc).
Looking forward for your reply.
Thanks & Regards,
Janakiram
Posted by janakiram | June 18, 2009 2:08 AM
Posted on June 18, 2009 02:08
Hi, Janakiram,
Glad to hear that you're implementing RAC, but I'm sorry to hear that you've encountered an issue.
Your best bet would be to log a formal Service Request via My Oracle Support (formerly Metalink) to get one of our specialists engaged.
Please feel free to forward your Service Request number to me if it gets stuck in the support process for some reason.
Regards,
Steven
Posted by Steven Chan | June 18, 2009 1:29 PM
Posted on June 18, 2009 13:29