SCAN Setup for Oracle 11g Release2(11gR2) RAC implementation

Single client access name (SCAN) is introduced in Oracle 11g R2 Cluster Ready Software(CRS) to simplify the database connection strings that an Oracle Client uses to connect to an Oracle Cluster Database. I have received a few emails about SCAN setup issues and I have promised that I would come up with an article addressing the following questions:

Oracle Applications(Apps) R12 (12.1.1) Installation on Linux

Step by Step instructions to install Oracle Applications R12(12.1.1) on Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 or RHEL 4 are described in this article. This is a single node installation, meaning that the database, all product directories and AD core directories, and all servers (concurrent processing, forms, and Web) are installed on a single node under one common APPL_TOP.

Rapid Install installs the Java Development Kit (JDK) 5.0 automatically. Oracle Applications Software from Oracle eDelivery is already staged. If you have got the CDs, Stage them using $ perl /mnt/cdrom/Disk1/rapidwiz/adautostg.pl

Here is the environment I have used in the installation process:

OS	OEL 4 Update 8
Memory	12GB
Disk Space	100GB Disk (73GB required for fresh install ; 161GB for Vision)
Server Name	erp.freeoraclehelp.com
Installation Type	Single Node installation & Fresh database
Applmgr user	oracle
DB Tier Base	/oracle/erp/R12
Apps Tier Base	/oracle/erp/R12
ORACLE_HOME	/oracle/erp/R12/db/tech_st/11.1.0
ORADATA Location	/oracle/erp/R12/db/apps_st/data
DATABASE SID	ERPR12
Port pool	0

Oracle Applications (Apps) 11i (11.5.10.2) Installation on Linux (OEL4/RHEL4)

Step by Step instructions to install Oracle Applications 11i (11.5.10.2) on Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 or RHEL 4 are described in this article. This is a single node installation, meaning that the database, all product directories and AD core directories, and all servers (concurrent processing, forms, and Web) are installed on a single node under one common APPL_TOP.

Rapid Install installs the Java 2 Standard Edition 1.4.2 automatically for systems running on Solaris, Linux, or Windows operating systems. Rapid Install automatically installs and configures the required technology stack components (listed below) for both the database tier and the application tier:

Oracle9i version 9.2.0 ORACLE_HOME
Oracle Internet Application Server iAS 1.0.2.2.2 . includes Oracle HTTP Server
8.0.6 ORACLE_HOME (RDBMS)
Oracle Developer6i (6.0.8.25):
Oracle Forms
Oracle Reports
Oracle Graphics
Discoverer (4.1.48)
JInitiator (1.3.1.21)

Here is the environment I have used in the installation process:

OS	OEL 4 Update 8
Memory	12GB
Disk Space	100GB Disk (60GB required for fresh install ; 100GB for Vision)
Server Name	erp.freeoraclehelp.com
Installation Type	Single Node installation & Fresh database
Applmgr user	oracle
APPL_TOP	/oracle/erp/11i/appl
Base Install Directory	/oracle/erp/11i
ORACLE_HOME	/oracle/erp/11i/database/product/9.2.0
ORADATA Location	/oracle/erp/11i/database/oradata/erp11i
DATABASE SID	ERP11I
Port pool	10

Oracle 11gR2 RAC Installation with GNS, without SCAN

Step by step procedure for installing Oracle 11g (11gR2, 11.2.0.2) Real Application Clusters (RAC) on Linux (OEL 5.5) without SCAN, DNS,NTP setup and with GNS and CTSS is describe here. You can pretty much run this installation on a desktop pc at home. I have used Oracle VM linux guests in this exercise. As always, do let me know any questions or comments you might have.

• Introduction
• Pre-install tasks
• Install grid infrastructure
• Install database software and create database
• Oracle Enterprise Manager (dbconsole)

Introduction

Oracle 11gR2 has brought in a few new features. Couple of interesting new features and notes about 11g grid infrastructure:

• Patch set installation: Starting with 11.2.0, direct upgrades to the most recent patch set are supported, meaning you don’t have to install 11.2.0 and apply patch set to get it to 11.2.0.2. You can directly perform the 11.2.0.2 installation. Download the installable from patch 10098816 in My Oracle Support.
• Out-of-place upgrades for CRS/Grid home are supported. CRS/Grid goes into a seperate , new oracle home, instead of same CRS home as before.
• Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) is introduced. We know that ASMLib is integrated with OS kernel. ACFS is one step further, offering ASM disks as OS cluster file system. Regular file systems are needed for Oracle binaries, needing another LVM for these regular file systems. With ACFS, you do not need any other LVM to manage oracle storage (let it be binaries, data files, etc..)
• ASM and CRS are delivered into the same home, now called Grid Home

Tuning Oracle VM for Oracle 10g / 11g RAC

Best practices to run Oracle 10g/11g RAC on Oracle VM 2.2 are posted in this article.  Virtualization is one of the hot topics in Oracle world too. Now that they are multiple virtual solutions, the question of comparison obviously raises.  Out of VMware Server, VMware ESXi (Hypervisor), Oracle Virtual Box, and Oracle VM, I found Oracle VM suites best for my requirements (performance is key for me).  I am pretty impressed with Oracle VM Performance.   Comparing or benchmarking performance of these virtual solutions isn’t my topic now.

I have observed a few problems with node evictions on Oracle VM Guests. So, it took some tuning in Oracle VM to get the stability with RAC and avoid node evictions. Only tuning is covered here.. Step by step installation of Oracle 10gR2 RAC on Oracle VM Server is available Here

The following are the server names:
Oracle VM Server (Dom-0): ovm.freeoraclehelp.com
Oracle RAC Node1 (VM Guest): rac1.freeoraclehelp.com
Oracle RAC Node2 (VM Guest): rac2.freeoraclehelp.com

Network Requirements
Oracle RAC Servers (VM Guests) needs at least two network interfaces. Of course, you may want to bond multiple interfaces in real/production scenario.  One for public network, which drives almost all traffic to your server (ie. connections to server, VIP, and SCAN) and another for private interconnection, which is exclusively used by Oracle RAC for inter communication traffic.

Oracle VM builds XENBridges on physical interfaces and these bridges can be used in VM guests. So, to support two interfaces at guest, we need at least two bridges on Oracle VM Server. Oracle VM Server installation creates multiple network bridges based on physical network interfaces present in the server. My server has got two network interfaces, so Oracle VM created two network bridges(xenbr0 & xenbr1) by default.