Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

Oracle10g Grid Computing with RAC
Chapter 15 - RAC Migration Topics

Moving HA Cluster to a RAC Cluster

Many enterprises currently have the HA clusters in their data centers. For example, we may have a two node VCS based failover cluster. It is an Oracle single instance that is a part of one of the VCS Service groups. In this section, we will examine briefly the issues and procedures involved in moving a HA based Oracle instance to multi-node RAC parallel database.

Procedure to Move the VCS to Veritas DBE/AC RAC

Let us assume that we currently have a HA cluster (or so called Failover Cluster) supporting Oracle 9i Standalone Database. The Single Instance is implemented with VCS cluster framework. This is currently in an Active/Passive configuration.

To take advantage of the multi-node, scalable architecture of the parallel database (10g RAC), we have decided to migrate it to the Oracle Database 10g RAC using the Veritas DBE/Advance Cluster software.

Let us examine the procedure to undertake such migration.

A look at the current environment shows that there are two servers currently supporting a two-node HA cluster. All the Oracle Database Files are already on shared storage volumes. The database files are file system based files. Optionally, they may have been using the Quick I/O facility.

Migration Features

1. If the necessary hardware in terms of nodes, interconnect, and storage arrays, etc., is already available, we are going to use the same infrastructure.
    

2. We should keep in mind that 9i-RAC implementation with Veritas Advance Cluster requires that the shared storage support the SCSI-3 PR. We need to ensure that the supporting storage array is used.
    

3. The utility vxfentsthdw  can be used to verify that shared storage arrays support SCSI-3 persistent reservations and I/O fencing. The utility can be used to test one disk at a time, a set of disks specified in a file, or a disk group.

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