Tag: nfs

Oracle 12c RAC on Oracle Linux 6 and 7 using NFS

linux-tuxFollowing on from the last post, I’ve brought my NFS RAC stuff up to date also.

I noticed I had not done a RAC install using NFS on Oracle Linux 6, so I threw that in for good measure too. 🙂

Just as a little history to this… I was doing the desktop Oracle RAC thing (using VMware then VirtualBox) for a while, when I started reading some blog posts by Kevin Closson about NFS. At the time, NFS filers were considered the poor relation to SANs, which was obvious or they wouldn’t be so cheap in comparison right? In those articles Kevin pointed out that most people’s systems at the time probably weren’t capable of maxing out a decent filer if it were set up correctly. Since NFS is a cluster file system, that got me thinking I should try RAC on it to see how easy it was. That was in the Oracle 10g days. How time flies when you are having fun… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Using NFS with ASM…

Combining NFS with ASM has come up in several conversations I’ve had recently, both online and real world. Since I no longer believe in coincidence I figured it was a message that I should take a look at it.

Anyone who has ever faked ASM disks using “dd” will recognize the approach. It works OK, and solves one of my issue with VirtualBox not supporting shared disks.

Please, please, please don’t think I’m recommending this. I’m not. NFS works just fine on it’s own. It’s just useful for me as a some time Mac user because VirtualBox and VMware Fusion don’t do shared disks, so RAC with ASM is a pain on them.

Articles and stuff…

Articles:

I think I’m finally getting myself back on track. It’s been an unusual few weeks though.

I spent quite some time complaining that I couldn’t think of anything to write about and hoping 11g would inspire me. Since the release of 11g and the inevitable installation articles, I’ve felt rather lethargic again. Getting into a new version of the database is always a bit odd. For me it’s a combination of excitement and denial… 🙂

Well, I’ve finally updated the VMware RAC article for 11g, which was dependent on a RAM upgrade. It works fine, but very slow. Unless you want the ASM experience, I think the NFS RAC method is a lot cleaner and easier.

I’ve also started to plug through the DB new features. The first thing I played around with was Partitioning. I’m hoping I can keep up the momentum for a while. I wanted to sit the 11g beta OCP exam, but I know so little about 11g at the moment it seems really unlikely I’ll get to grips with it before the beta exam closes. It’s a shame really because it’s nice to be involved in the process.

Stuff:

I finished reading Vittorio the Vampire. Of all the Anne Rice books I’ve read I think it’s the weakest. It’s all a bit flowery and “mills and boon”. Not my cup of tea.

On a more serious note, my 5 year old nephew was in A&E last night with pneumonia. I was with him all day yesterday and although he wasn’t well, we didn’t suspect something so serious. A bit of Calpol and he was up attacking a balloon octopus with a plastic sword… Things got worse through the night which resulted in the A&E visit and the diagnosis. The doctor was surprised he was so active and chirpy considering. Tough as old boots! 🙂 He’s back at home now and all looks good, but it’s very unnerving. I suspect within a couple of days he will be back in full effect.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle 11g RAC on NFS…

As a follow-on from my 10g RAC on NFS article, I thought it would be nice to have an 11g RAC on NFS article. The process is very similar, with a couple of exceptions:

  • The Virtual IP Configuration Assistant (vipca) runs in silent mode without any problems now. Under 10g, you had to use a “real” public IP address for this to work. Under 11g it now works with private IPs like “192.168.x.x” etc.
  • Oracle 11g includes a Direct NFS Client for “optimized” Oracle over NFS performance. I don’t have the relevant kit to do a performance comparison, so I don’t know if it’s worth it or not. If someone has some figures for this I would be interested to hear them.

Cheers

Tim…

Update: For information on Direct NFS Client performance look here.

Oracle 10g RAC using NFS…

I’ve mentioned it before, but I really like Kevin Closson‘s blog. For some time he’s been evangelizing about Oracle RAC over NFS, so I thought I would give it a go to see what it’s all about and here is the result.

Oracle 10g RAC On Linux Using NFS

I was only using two machines, and I didn’t have access to a NAS that supported NFS, so I was forced to use one of the RAC nodes as my NFS server. I know it’s a dumb idea, but it proves the technology.

If you are just playing about, the nice thing about this solution is you don’t need to worry about “real” shared storage. I prefer it to the VMware approach because you don’t need a single server with loads of memory to fake two virtual machines and the shared storage. Finding two poor machines is always easier than 1 good one. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…