Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

Oracle10g Grid Computing with RAC
Chapter 5 - Preparing Shared Storage

Configure PolyServe Cluster File System for Linux

The PolyServe Matrix Server software provides a comprehensive infrastructure that allows users to build database clusters with Oracle RAC on a Linux platform. The PolyServe SAN File System (PSFS) is part of the Matrix Server, and it provides the shared file system for the use of Oracle RAC. For building RAC on Linux clusters, the PolyServe matrix server (MxS) offers an alternative to the OCFS as well as the ASM facility.

MxS consists of two main products. The first one is the Matrix HA component, which provides manageability and high availability for applications running on groups of servers. The product supports virtual hosts, standard IP service and device monitoring, custom service and device monitoring, data replication, and administrative event notification. The second component is the PolyServe SAN File System (PSFS). The PolyServe SAN File System (PSFS) provides a flexible and easy way to manage the RAC database. PSFS is designed to complement the Oracle RAC architecture and to scale out with Oracle9i RAC running on top of it. PSFS supports the Oracle Disk Manager (ODM) and is tightly coupled with Oracle9i RAC. PSFS supports shared block access with full data integrity and cache coherency. It offers direct I/O and normal page-cache buffered I/O. PSFS allows Oracle RAC to perform direct I/O against the disk and do distributed lock management at the database level where system-wide performance can best be optimized.

The Matrix Server has an important component that deals with SAN management. It is called SCL - Storage Control Layer. It operates as a daemon running on each member of the cluster. It helps perform the I/O fencing.