Tag: rac

Oracle Database 12c Virtual RAC Installation on Oracle Linux 6

I finally got my server problems sorted out yesterday, so I was able to do a 12c virtual RAC installation. You can see what I did here:

The setup is pretty much the same as the 11gR2 setup. So there’s no real drama at all.

With the basic installation articles out of the way I can start having a play with the functionality.

I’ve now got 12c running under VirtualBox on my server (Oracle Linux), desktop (Fedora 18), laptop (OS X) and desktop at work (Windows 7). If I can just get it running on my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

 

My Plans for Oracle 12c RAC Thwarted…

My initial batch of 12c installations resulted in these two articles.

Judging by my web stats, they’ve proved very popular. According to Google Analytics, there are 3-4 active visitors on them pretty much 24×7.

My progress from there has been thwarted somewhat by technical issues. The server I normally use for my Virtual RAC installations is being a little funky at the moment. Rather than mess about I figured I would just reinstall the base OS. Initially it was running Fedora 18, but I decided to go for Oracle Linux instead. This server is used entirely for running VirtualBox VMs, so stability is more important than being bleeding edge. My desktop is still Fedora though.

The Oracle Linux install was fine. The 6.4 spin of Oracle Linux detected all my hardware, including the RAID stuff, and it installed with no worries. The problem is getting all the VMs back on to it from my backups. It’s taking an age! 🙂

Hopefully tonight, or tomorrow I can get back on the case with the 12c RAC installation. Yury from Pythian has already done a run through, which you can see here. There doesn’t seem to be much difference to the infrastructure setup compared 11gR2 RAC, which is good.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle 11gR2 RAC Installation on Oracle Linux 5

As promised in a recent post, I’ve updated the Oracle 11gR2 RAC on Oracle Linux 5 article. It now uses VirtualBox 4.2.6, rather than 3.2.8 as it was before, and Oracle Linux 5.8.

I’ve purposely left it as an 11.2.0.1 installation as you can get this from OTN without needing access to My Oracle Support (MOS). The process works just as well for 11.2.0.3 and I would recommend you use that if you do have access to MOS. Remember, if you are doing the RAC installation on Oracle Linux 6 you are going to need 11.2.0.3, so OL5 might be the right option if you are playing around with this at home with no access to MOS.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle 11gR2 RAC Installation on Oracle Linux 6

I spent today updating my Oracle 11gR2 RAC installation on OL6 article. The original article used an older version of VirtualBox , which meant some of the screen shots looked a little dated. It’s now updated to VirtualBox 4.2.6, so it should be a little less confusing for anyone who is new to VirtualBox.

I’ll probably update the OL5 RAC article some time this next week, since that article uses VirtualBox 3.2.8, which is pretty much ancient history now. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Virtualized Oracle RAC and more…

Followers of my blog know I like doing virtual RAC installations.When I do these I’m focusing very much on the Oracle side of things, leaving the virtualization tool to handle the hardware virtualization, like networking and shared disk.

A few weeks ago Gilbert Standen contacted me to say he had done a virtual RAC installation using OpenvSwitch to virtualize the network components. He posted some basic tips. When I mentioned it on G+ and twitter, it generated some interest, so I suggested he write it up with a little more detail. That process has started now on his blog. You can see the first couple of articles here:

He tells me he’ll be adding more details to the posts when time permits.

If you are more focused on the network side of the infrastructure stack I think this is a really interesting proposition and well worth a read.

Cheers

Tim…

DNS Config for RAC SCAN… Again…

Some time ago I wrote an article about configuring DNS for the SCAN address in Oracle 11gR2 RAC.

Over the last couple of days one of the Oakies has given me some feedback on the article based on his experiences with Oracle Linux 5.

For my virtual RAC installations I typically do the DNS configuration on the host machine, which is running Fedora. It seems Oracle Linux 5 is a little different. Just to make sure I ran through the setup on Oracle Linux 5 and 6 to see what the score was.

Oracle Linux 6 is pretty much the same as Fedora as far as installation and configuration of BIND is concerned. Oracle Linux 5 (and also RHEL5 I assume) is a little funky in that it doesn’t create the default config files automatically. There are sample files you can use, but they contain a load of crap you don’t need and are missing some stuff you do. The easiest way to get it configured is to install the “system-config-bind” package and start the GUI. This notices you have no config and sets it up for you. You can then exit the GUI and do the manual config as described in the article. Very odd.

I’ve made a note about this in the article, so it shouldn’t trip anyone else up. I’ve also given some examples of the manually adjusted default named.conf files for each distro.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Database on Oracle Linux 6.1…

I mentioned the day before Open World I put a Virtual RAC on Oracle Linux 6.1 article live. Although the procedure was complete, some of the screen shots were from an old article as I didn’t have time to redo them before my flight. 🙂 I’ve just run through the procedure again and taken new screen shots. As a result, I’ve allowed the article to display on the front page of the website, which is why you will see it listed as a new article there.

This kinda rounds out the whole Oracle on 6.1 stuff as there has been a single instance installation guide out for ages and more recently the Cloud Control installation, which references it.

Remember, it’s still not certified yet, but it’s coming.

Cheers

Tim…

Update: It’s finally certified. See here.

Oracle 11gR2 RAC on Oracle Linux 6.1 using VirtualBox…

It’s all a bit last minute, but today I decided to do an Oracle 11gR2 (11.2.0.3) RAC installation on Oracle Linux 6.1 using VirtualBox. The 11.2.0.3 patch has fixed all of the installation issues related to RAC on OL6.1, so it was pretty smooth. The procedure can be seen here.

As noted in the article, the screen shots of the GI and DB installers are from an 11.2.0.1 article. I’ll update these screen shots when I get back from OpenWorld. Like I said, it was all a bit last minute. 🙂 Normally I wouldn’t put an article like this live (and you can see it’s not on the homepage yet), but I get lots of questions about this subject, so I thought I would make it available to make my life easier.

Cheers

Tim..

PS. There is no suitable oracle-validated package available for this at the moment, so the prerequisites have to be done manually.

11gR2 RAC on Windows 2008 using VirtualBox…

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve kinda ignored the fact that any operating system other than Linux (specifically Oracle Linux) exists. It’s quite easy to do when you are working with Oracle products and you get to choose your own environment. 🙂

As a vague nod to the fact that Windows does actually exist, I’ve finally got round to updating my Windows virtual RAC article.

Windows 2008 is an unusual operating system in some respects. The RAC installation is pretty simple really, but finding some of the config dialogs is a complete nightmare. Chains of menus, dialogs, buttons and hyperlinks to get you to the dialog you need. What’s worse, some of the menus are hidden unless you remember to “Alt” or “Alt+N”. Crazy! If I was using Windows on a regular basis I think I would just memorize all the dialog program names and start them directly from the Run menu. It’s got to be easier than traversing that nightmare. I remember when Windows was considered the easy option. It doesn’t feel like the case anymore. 🙂

In related news, yesterday I got an invite from Jeremy Schneider to help out at RAC Attack at OOW 2011. That should be fun. See you there! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle RAC on VirtualBox…

With the recent news that the latest version of VirtualBox now supports shared disks, I thought I better give it a go and see if I could do a RAC installation on it. The good news is it worked as expected. You can see a quick run through here:

This is pretty good news as that was the last feature that tied me to VMware Server. I’ve now moved pretty much everything I do at home on to VirtualBox and it’s working fine.

It’s worth taking a little time looking at the VBoxManage command line. Some of the operations, like creating the shared disks, have to be done from the command line at the moment. It’s also handy for running VMs in headless mode if you don’t want the GUI screen visible all the time.

Cheers

Tim…