What is Oracle RAC One Node?

Oracle RAC one Node is a single instance running on one node of the cluster while the 2nd node is in
cold standby mode. If the instance fails for some reason then RAC one node detect it and restart the
instance on the same node or the instance is relocate to the 2nd node incase there is failure or fault in
1st node. The benefit of this feature is that it provides a cold failover solution and it automates the
instance relocation without any downtime and does not need a manual intervention. Oracle introduced
this feature with the release of 11gR2 (available with Enterprise Edition).
Real Application Clusters
Oracle RAC is a cluster database with a shared cache architecture that overcomes the limitations of
traditional shared-nothing and shared-disk approaches to provide a highly scalable and available
database solution for all your business applications. Oracle RAC provides the foundation for enterprise
grid computing.
Oracles Real Application Clusters (RAC) option supports the transparent deployment of a single
database across a cluster of servers, providing fault tolerance from hardware failures or planned
outages. Oracle RAC running on clusters provides Oracles highest level of capability in terms of
availability, scalability, and low-cost computing.
One DB opened by multipe instances so the the db ll be Highly Available if an instance crashes.
Cluster Software. Oracles Clusterware or products like Veritas Volume Manager are required to provide
the cluster support and allow each node to know which nodes belong to the cluster and are available
and with Oracle Cluterware to know which nodes have failed and to eject then from the cluster, so that
errors on that node can be cleared.
Oracle Clusterware has two key components Cluster Registry OCR and Voting Disk.
The cluster registry holds all information about nodes, instances, services and ASM storage if used, it
also contains state information ie they are available and up or similar.
The voting disk is used to determine if a node has failed, i.e. become separated from the majority. If a
node is deemed to no longer belong to the majority then it is forcibly rebooted and will after the reboot
add itself again the the surviving cluster nodes.
Advantages of RAC (Real Application Clusters)
Reliability if one node fails, the database wont fail
Availability nodes can be added or replaced without having to shutdown the database
Scalability more nodes can be added to the cluster as the workload increases
What is a virtual IP address or VIP?
A virtual IP address or VIP is an alternate IP address that the client connections use instead of the
standard public IP address. To configure VIP address, we need to reserve a spare IP address for each
node, and the IP addresses must use the same subnet as the public network.
What is the use of VIP?

If a node fails, then the nodes VIP address fails over to another node on which the VIP address can
accept TCP connections but it cannot accept Oracle connections.
Give situations under which VIP address failover happens:VIP addresses failover happens when the node on which the VIP address runs fails, all interfaces for
the VIP address fails, all interfaces for the VIP address are disconnected from the network.
Using virtual IP we can save our TCP/IP timeout problem because Oracle notification service maintains
communication between each nodes and listeners.
What is the significance of VIP address failover?
When a VIP address failover happens, Clients that attempt to connect to the VIP address receive a rapid
connection refused error .They dont have to wait for TCP connection timeout messages.
What is voting disk?
Voting Disk is a file that sits in the shared storage area and must be accessible by all nodes in the
cluster. All nodes in the cluster registers their heart-beat information in the voting disk, so as to confirm
that they are all operational. If heart-beat information of any node in the voting disk is not available
that node will be evicted from the cluster. The CSS (Cluster Synchronization Service) daemon in the
clusterware maintains the heart beat of all nodes to the voting disk. When any node is not able to send
heartbeat to voting disk, then it will reboot itself, thus help avoiding the split-brain syndrome.
For high availability, Oracle recommends that you have a minimum of three or odd number (3 or
greater) of votingdisks.
Voting Disk is file that resides on shared storage and Manages cluster members. Voting disk reassigns
cluster ownership between the nodes in case of failure.
The Voting Disk Files are used by Oracle Clusterware to determine which nodes are currently members
of the cluster. The voting disk files are also used in concert with other Cluster components such as CRS
to maintain the clusters integrity.
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 provides the ability to store the voting disks in ASM along with the
OCR. Oracle Clusterware can access the OCR and the voting disks present in ASM even if the ASM
instance is down. As a result CSS can continue to maintain the Oracle cluster even if the ASM instance
has failed.
How many voting disks are you maintaining ?
http://www.toadworld.com/KNOWLEDGE/KnowledgeXpertforOracle/tabid/648/TopicID/RACR2AR
C6/Default.aspx
By default Oracle will create 3 voting disk files in ASM.
Oracle expects that you will configure at least 3 voting disks for redundancy purposes. You should
always configure an odd number of voting disks >= 3. This is because loss of more than half your
voting disks will cause the entire cluster to fail.

You should plan on allocating 280MB for each voting disk file. For example, if you are using ASM and
external redundancy then you will need to allocate 280MB of disk for the voting disk. If you are using
ASM and normal redundancy you will need 560MB.
Why we need to keep odd number of voting disks ?
Oracle expects that you will configure at least 3 voting disks for redundancy purposes. You should
always configure an odd number of voting disks >= 3. This is because loss of more than half your
voting disks will cause the entire cluster to fail.
What are Oracle RAC software components?
Oracle RAC is composed of two or more database instances. They are composed of Memory structures
and background processes same as the single instance database.Oracle RAC instances use two
processes GES(Global Enqueue Service), GCS(Global Cache Service) that enable cache fusion.Oracle
RAC instances are composed of following background processes:
ACMS Atomic Controlfile to Memory Service (ACMS)
GTX0-j Global Transaction Process
LMON Global Enqueue Service Monitor
LMD Global Enqueue Service Daemon
LMS Global Cache Service Process
LCK0 Instance Enqueue Process
RMSn Oracle RAC Management Processes (RMSn)
RSMN Remote Slave Monitor
What are Oracle Clusterware processes for 10g ?
Cluster Synchronization Services (ocssd) Manages cluster node membership and runs as the oracle
user; failure of this process results in cluster restart.
Cluster Ready Services (crsd) The crs process manages cluster resources (which could be a
database, an instance, a service, a Listener, a virtual IP (VIP) address, an application process, and so
on) based on the resources configuration information that is stored in the OCR. This includes start,
stop, monitor and failover operations. This process runs as the root user
Event manager daemon (evmd) A background process that publishes events that crs creates.
Process Monitor Daemon (OPROCD) This process monitor the cluster and provide I/O fencing.
OPROCD performs its check, stops running, and if the wake up is beyond the expected time, then
OPROCD resets the processor and reboots the node. An OPROCD failure results in Oracle Clusterware
restarting the node. OPROCD uses the hangcheck timer on Linux platforms.
RACG (racgmain, racgimon) Extends clusterware to support Oracle-specific requirements and
complex resources. Runs server callout scripts when FAN events occur.
What are Oracle database background processes specific to RAC?
LMSGlobal Cache Service Process
LMDGlobal Enqueue Service Daemon

LMONGlobal Enqueue Service Monitor

LCK0Instance Enqueue Process
Oracle RAC instances use two processes, the Global Cache Service (GCS) and the Global Enqueue
Service (GES). The GCS and GES maintain records of the statuses of each data file and each cached
block using a Global Resource Directory (GRD). The GRD contents are distributed across all of the
active instances.
What is Cache Fusion?
Transfor of data across instances through private interconnect is called cachefusion.Oracle RAC is
composed of two or more instances. When a block of data is read from datafile by an instance within
the cluster and another instance is in need of the same block,it is easy to get the block image from the
insatnce which has the block in its SGA rather than reading from the disk. To enable inter instance
communication Oracle RAC makes use of interconnects. The Global Enqueue Service(GES) monitors
and Instance enqueue process manages the cahce fusion
What is SCAN? (11gR2 feature)
Single Client Access Name (SCAN) is s a new Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) 11g Release 2
feature that provides a single name for clients to access an Oracle Database running in a cluster. The
benefit is clients using SCAN do not need to change if you add or remove nodes in the cluster.
SCAN provides a single domain name via (DNS), allowing and-users to address a RAC cluster as-if it
were a single IP address. SCAN works by replacing a hostname or IP list with virtual IP addresses
(VIP).
Single client access name (SCAN) is meant to facilitate single name for all Oracle clients to connect to
the cluster database, irrespective of number of nodes and node location. Until now, we have to keep
adding multiple address records in all clients tnsnames.ora, when a new node gets added to or deleted
from the cluster.
Single Client Access Name (SCAN) eliminates the need to change TNSNAMES entry when nodes are
added to or removed from the Cluster. RAC instances register to SCAN listeners as remote listeners.
Oracle recommends assigning 3 addresses to SCAN, which will create 3 SCAN listeners, though the
cluster has got dozens of nodes.. SCAN is a domain name registered to at least one and up to three IP
addresses, either in DNS (Domain Name Service) or GNS (Grid Naming Service). The SCAN must
resolve to at least one address on the public network. For high availability and scalability, Oracle
recommends configuring the SCAN to resolve to three addresses.
http://www.freeoraclehelp.com/2011/12/scan-setup-for-oracle-11g-release211gr2.html
What are SCAN components in a cluster?
1.SCAN Name
2.SCAN IPs (3)
3.SCAN Listeners (3)

What is FAN?
Fast application Notification as it abbreviates to FAN relates to the events related to instances,services
and nodes.This is a notification mechanism that Oracle RAc uses to notify other processes about the
configuration and service level information that includes service status changes such as,UP or DOWN
events.Applications can respond to FAN events and take immediate action.
What is TAF?
TAF (Transparent Application Failover) is a configuration that allows session fail-over between
different nodes of a RAC database cluster.
Transparent Application Failover (TAF). If a communication link failure occurs after a connection is
established, the connection fails over to another active node. Any disrupted transactions are rolled back,
and session properties and server-side program variables are lost. In some cases, if the statement
executing at the time of the failover is a Select statement, that statement may be automatically reexecuted on the new connection with the cursor positioned on the row on which it was positioned prior
to the failover.
After an Oracle RAC node crashesusually from a hardware failureall new application transactions
are automatically rerouted to a specified backup node. The challenge in rerouting is to not lose
transactions that were in flight at the exact moment of the crash. One of the requirements of
continuous availability is the ability to restart in-flight application transactions, allowing a failed node
to resume processing on another server without interruption. Oracles answer to application failover is a
new Oracle Net mechanism dubbed Transparent Application Failover. TAF allows the DBA to
configure the type and method of failover for each Oracle Net client.
TAF architecture offers the ability to restart transactions at either the transaction (SELECT) or session
level.
What are the requirements for Oracle Clusterware?
1. External Shared Disk to store Oracle Cluster ware file (Voting Disk and Oracle Cluster Registry
OCR)
2. Two netwrok cards on each cluster ware node (and three set of IP address)
Network Card 1 (with IP address set 1) for public network
Network Card 2 (with IP address set 2) for private network (for inter node communication between rac
nodes used by clusterware and rac database)
IP address set 3 for Virtual IP (VIP) (used as Virtual IP address for client connection and for connection
failover)
3. Storage Option for OCR and Voting Disk RAW, OCFS2 (Oracle Cluster File System), NFS, ..
Which enable the load balancing of applications in RAC?
Oracle Net Services enable the load balancing of application connections across all of the instances in
an Oracle RAC database.
How to find location of OCR file when CRS is down?

If you need to find the location of OCR (Oracle Cluster Registry) but your CRS is down.
When the CRS is down:
Look into ocr.loc file, location of this file changes depending on the OS:
On Linux: /etc/oracle/ocr.loc
On Solaris: /var/opt/oracle/ocr.loc
When CRS is UP:
Set ASM environment or CRS environment then run the below command:
ocrcheck
In 2 node RAC, how many NICs are r using ?
2 network cards on each clusterware node
Network Card 1 (with IP address set 1) for public network
Network Card 2 (with IP address set 2) for private network (for inter node communication between rac
nodes used by clusterware and rac database)
In 2 node RAC, how many IPs are r using ?
6 3 set of IP address
## eth1-Public: 2
## eth0-Private: 2
## VIP: 2
How to find IPs information in RAC ?
Edit the /etc/hosts file as shown below:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that requires network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
## Public Node names
192.168.10.11 node1-pub.hingu.net node1-pub
192.168.10.22 node2-pub.hingu.net node2-pub
## Private Network (Interconnect)
192.168.0.11 node1-prv node1-prv
192.168.0.22 node2-prv node2-prv
## Private Network (Network Area storage)
192.168.1.11 node1-nas node1-nas
192.168.1.22 node2-nas node2-nas
192.168.1.33 nas-server nas-server
## Virtual IPs
192.168.10.111 node1-vip.hingu.net node1-vip
192.168.10.222 node2-vip.hingu.net node2-vip
What is difference between RAC ip addresses ?

Public IP adress is the normal IP address typically used by DBA and SA to manage storage, system and
database. Public IP addresses are reserved for the Internet.
Private IP address is used only for internal clustering processing (Cache Fusion) (aka as interconnect).
Private IP addresses are reserved for private networks.
VIP is used by database applications to enable fail over when one cluster node fails. The purpose for
having VIP is so client connection can be failover to surviving nodes in case there is failure
Can application developer access the private ip ?
No. private IP address is used only for internal clustering processing (Cache Fusion) (aka as
interconnect)