The article described in this newsletter is a comprehensive guide for installing Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) on the Oracle Linux 5 (OL5) operating environment using Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) and Oracle Restart.

Oracle ASM provides a virtualization layer between the database and storage so that multiple disks can be treated as a single disk group and disks can be dynamically added or removed while keeping databases online. The example database created in this guide will use Oracle ASM for all physical database file storage (data files, control files, online redo log files, Fast Recovery Area).

In previous releases, Oracle ASM was installed as part of the Oracle Database installation. With Oracle Database 11g Release 2, Oracle ASM is part of an Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation, either for a cluster, or for a standalone server. This guide demonstrates how to create a single instance (non-RAC) database using Oracle ASM and therefore will require Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server to be installed before the Oracle Database software.

Oracle Restart is another component of Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server that will be used in this guide.

Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2, the dbstart and dbshut scripts that were used to automate database startup and shutdown in previous Oracle versions are deprecated. Oracle now recommends to configure Oracle Database with the Oracle Restart feature to automatically restart the database, the listener, Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM), and other Oracle components after a hardware or software failure or when the database host computer restarts.

The full version of this article can be found at the following location.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Linux/LINUX_22.shtml

The following article provides a comprehensive overview and describes the steps necessary to install Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6) operating environment. Installing the Oracle Database software is not a difficult task by any means; however, critical prerequisite tasks and key decisions will be discussed during the setup and configuration in this guide that will have a great impact on your installation.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Linux/LINUX_23.shtml

This guide will include instructions for installing and configuring the Linux operating system, installing the Oracle Database software, creating an example database, managing Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control, automatically starting and stopping the instance through reboots, and further enhancing the Oracle environment by installing custom DBA management scripts.

Oracle sqlplus and rman are popular command-line interfaces that allow for quick and easy access to an Oracle instance. However, unlike most modern command-line tools like MySQL or PostgreSQL, Oracle's sqlplus and rman do not provide persistent command history or auto-completion functionality under Linux and Unix. For example, without command history, making a mistake when typing a long statement in sqlplus often means canceling out and re-entering it all over again.

Powerful interfaces like the Unix/Linux bash shell offer auto-completion of the text you are typing (by pressing TAB), access to a history of previous commands (up/down arrows, or CTRL-P/CTRL-N), incremental search on the command history (CTRL-R), moving the cursor and modifying statements within the current line (left/right arrows), and persisting the command history in between invocations. Nearly all these tools use the GNU readline library to provide these capabilities.

While not all command-line tools use the GNU readline library (like Oracle's sqlplus and rman), the good news is that these limitations can be easily overcome by using the rlwrap tool written by Hans Lub.

The following paper presents examples of how to enhance some of Oracle's command-line utilities like SQL*Plus and RMAN with command history and auto-complete functionality on the Unix/Linux platform.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/SQL_PLUS/SQLPLUS_8.shtml

After installing a Reporting Services instance and setting up a native mode default configuration, the next step would be to verify that the Report Server and Report Manager is functioning correctly. The virtual directories to use for the Report Server and Report Manager can be accessed from a Web browser as follows:

• SQL Server Default Instance

  For a default SQL Server instance, use http://ServerName/DirectoryName where ServerName is the host name or DNS name for the machine and DirectoryName is the name of the virtual directory for either the Report Server (ReportServer) or Report Manager (Reports). For example:

  http://vmwindows1/ReportServer
  http://vmwindows1/Reports

• SQL Server Named Instance

  For a named SQL Server instance, use http://ServerName/DirectoryName$InstanceName where ServerName is the host name or DNS name for the machine, DirectoryName is the name of the virtual directory for either the Report Server (ReportServer) or Report Manager (Reports), and InstanceName is the SQL Server instance name. For example:

  http://vmwindows1/ReportServer$WebApps01
  http://vmwindows1/Reports$WebApps01

After providing valid credentials, you will most likely receive the following error message when trying to access either the Report Manager or Report Server for the first time:

    User '\' does not have required permissions.
    Verify that sufficient permissions have been granted and Windows
    User Account Control (UAC) restrictions have been addressed.

The following article provides a solution to this common permissions error you may receive while attempting to authenticate to the Report Server or Report Manager.

Permissions Error Accessing Reporting Services - (SQL Server 2008 R2)

There are several scenarios that can occur in an Oracle Data Guard configuration which renders a physical standby database as either unusable or invalid. For example, an extended network failure can occur between the primary and standby machines which cause the standby database to fall significantly far behind the primary database. If the necessary archived redo log files needed to synchronize the physical standby database with the primary database are no longer available, log gap resolution will be unable to resolve the gap in the redo stream to catch up the standby.

Another popular scenario exists when a DML or DDL operation is performed on the primary database using the NOLOGGING or UNRECOVERABLE clause and the FORCE LOGGING database option is not enabled on the primary. If the FORCE LOGGING database option is not enabled, then Oracle will not log the entire operation in the redo log and thus, never send the modified data to the standby database for recovery. While this doesn't necessarily render the entire standby database as unusable, it does invalidate the standby for those tables affected and may require substantial DBA administrative activities to repair. Although you can specify the ALTER DATABASE FORCE LOGGING statement on the primary database to override the NOLOGGING clause and prevent this type of damage to occur in the future, this statement will not repair a standby database that has already been invalidated.

In each of the scenarios listed above, one solution would be to simply delete and formally re-create the physical standby database to enter it back into the Data Guard configuration. Depending on the size of the database, rebuilding the standby database could be an expensive operation as it would potentially involve a lot of time and resources making this a nonviable option.

The following guide presents a quick and efficient alternative to rebuilding a physical standby database in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 by using RMAN incremental backups to roll forward and resynchronize a physical standby database with the primary database. Using the RMAN BACKUP INCREMENTAL FROM SCN command, you can create an incremental backup on the primary database that starts at the standby database's current SCN, which can then be used to roll the standby database forward in time.

Using RMAN Incremental Backups to Roll Forward a Physical Standby Database (Oracle 10g)

This guide will provide step-by-step recovery procedures which cover the following three scenarios:

• Physical Standby Database Lags Far Behind the Primary Database
• Physical Standby Database Has Nologging Changes On a Subset of Datafiles
• Physical Standby Database Has Widespread Nologging Changes

Oracle Data Guard (known as Oracle Standby Database prior to Oracle9i), forms an extension to the Oracle RDBMS and provides organizations with high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise databases. Oracle Data Guard provides the DBA with services for creating, maintaining, managing, and monitoring one or more standby databases. The functionality included with Oracle Data Guard enables enterprise data systems to survive both data corruption as well as major disasters.

The following article provides instructions for creating and configuring a logical standby database from a primary database using Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) operating in maximum performance protection mode:

Data Guard Configuration Example - (Oracle 10g, Logical Standby)

It should be noted that several different methods exist to create a logical standby database configuration and that this is just one of those ways. The methods outlined in this guide present a simple approach that should be easy to implement in most situations. In fact, if you break down the essential tasks required to build a logical standby database, you will see that it is essentially nothing more than creating an initial physical standby database, building a dictionary in the redo data for LogMiner, verifying supplemental logging is enabled on both the primary and standby, converting the physical standby database to a logical standby database, putting the logical standby database in managed recovery mode (SQL Apply), and starting remote archiving from the primary database (Redo Transport). Obviously there are a number of smaller steps I am leaving out which will all be discussed in more depth throughout this guide.

All configuration parameters related to the Oracle instance and networking will be discussed as well as how to place the standby database in Managed Recovery Mode.

I have been asked on several occasions about how to drop a datafile from a tablespace. Much of the confusion comes from the "ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE OFFLINE DROP" statement. This statement is not meant to allow you to remove a datafile. What the statement really means is that you are offlining the datafile with the intention of dropping the tablespace.

There are two reasons why a DBA would want to remove a datafile from a tablespace:

• The DBA may have mistakenly added a file to a tablespace, or perhaps made the file much larger than intended and now want to remove it.

• The DBA may be involved in a recovery scenario and the database won't start because a datafile is missing.

Until Oracle Database 10g Release 2, Oracle did not provide an interface for dropping datafiles in the same way you would drop a schema object such as a table or a user. Prior to 10gr2, once the DBA created a datafile for a tablespace, the datafile could not be removed. This article discusses several workarounds to this limitation as well as the new DROP DATAFILE / TEMPFILE statement introduced with Oracle 10g R2.

In the following article, I will attempt to erase the confusion surrounding this ALTER DATABASE statement and how to successfully drop a datafile from a tablespace:

How to Drop a Datafile from a Tablespace

The tasks involved in creating and managing a Data Guard configuration are fairly straightforward. Once the standby database is put into operation, you are happy, your customer is happy, management is happy - everyone is happy with the piece of mind that their data is being replicated to their disaster recovery site. But the time will eventually come where the inevitable will occur and the primary database becomes unavailable. You are now faced with failing over production activities to an available standby database. Other circumstances can also arise where scheduled maintenance needs to occur on the primary database and database operations need to be switched over to the standby database. In either case, the role of the primary database and the standby database will need to be changed. This is known as Role Transition and is the subject of the following article:

Activating the Standby Database - (Oracle 10g, Physical Standby)

It is assumed that a primary and one physical standby database is already configured in order to perform the role transition steps described in this guide. The examples used in this guide will make use of the Oracle Data Guard configuration described in the article:

Data Guard Configuration Example - (Oracle 10g, Physical Standby)

Oracle Data Guard (known as Oracle Standby Database prior to Oracle9i), forms an extension to the Oracle RDBMS and provides organizations with high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise databases. Oracle Data Guard provides the DBA with services for creating, maintaining, managing, and monitoring one or more standby databases. The functionality included with Oracle Data Guard enables enterprise data systems to survive both data corruption as well as major disasters.

The following article provides instructions for creating and configuring a physical standby database from a primary database using Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) operating in maximum performance protection mode:

Data Guard Configuration Example - (Oracle 10g, Physical Standby)

It should be noted that several different methods exist to create a physical standby database configuration and that this is just one of those ways. The methods outlined in this guide present a simple approach that should be easy to implement in most situations. In fact, if you break down the essential tasks required to build a standby database, you will see that it is essentially nothing more than taking a backup of the primary database, creating a standby controlfile, transferring the files to the standby host, mounting the standby database, putting the standby database in managed recovery mode (Redo Apply), and starting remote archiving from the primary database (Redo Transport). Obviously there are a number of smaller steps I am leaving out which will all be discussed in more depth throughout this guide.

All configuration parameters related to the Oracle instance and networking will be discussed as well as how to place the standby database in Managed Recovery Mode.

Using the Oracle ASM Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) on Linux Introduced with Oracle ASM 11g release 2, Oracle ASM Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) is a general purpose cluster file system implemented as part of Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM). Oracle ACFS extends the Oracle ASM architecture and is used to support many types of files which are typically maintained outside of the Oracle database. For example Oracle ACFS can be used to store BFILEs, database trace files, executables, report files and even general purpose files like image, text, video, and audio files. In addition, Oracle ACFS can be used as a shared file system for Oracle home binaries.

The features included with Oracle ACFS allow users to create, mount, and manage ACFS using familiar Linux commands. Oracle ACFS provides support for snapshots and the ability to dynamically resize existing file system online using Oracle ASM Dynamic Volume Manager (ADVM).

Oracle ACFS leverages Oracle ASM functionality that enables:

• Oracle ACFS dynamic file system resizing
• Maximized performance through direct access to Oracle ASM disk group storage
• Balanced distribution of Oracle ACFS across Oracle ASM disk group storage for increased I/O parallelism
• Data reliability through Oracle ASM mirroring protection mechanisms

My recent article on using the Oracle ASM Cluster File System provides a hands on approach to creating and managing ACFS and ADVM on the Linux operating system using the following methods:

• ASM Configuration Assistant (ASMCA)
• Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM)
• Command Line / SQL / ASMCMD

A full discussion on the different Oracle ACFS components will also be presented as well as snapshots, file system recovery, and management techniques.

Using the Oracle ASM Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) on Linux

Oracle RAC 11g release 2 allows DBA's to configure a clustered database solution with superior fault tolerance, load balancing, and scalability. However, DBA's who want to become more familiar with the features and benefits of database clustering will find the costs of configuring even a small RAC cluster costing in the range of US$10,000 to US$20,000. This cost would not even include the heart of a production RAC configuration, the shared storage. In most cases, this would be a Storage Area Network (SAN), which generally start at US$10,000.

Unfortunately, for many shops, the price of the hardware required for a typical RAC configuration exceeds most training budgets. For those who want to become familiar with Oracle RAC 11g without a major cash outlay, the following guide provides a low-cost alternative to configuring an Oracle RAC 11g release 2 system using commercial off-the-shelf components and downloadable software at an estimated cost of US$2,800.

This guide provides detailed instructions on how to build a two-node Oracle RAC system using low cost hardware and freely available software. A network storage server will be built using Openfiler 2.3 (Final) and iSCSI technology which will be used for all shared storage requirements. Powered by rPath Linux, Openfiler is a free browser-based network storage management utility that delivers file-based Network Attached Storage (NAS) and block-based Storage Area Networking (SAN) in a single framework. Openfiler supports CIFS, NFS, HTTP/DAV, FTP, however, I will only be making use of its iSCSI capabilities to implement an inexpensive SAN for the shared storage component required by Oracle RAC 11g.

The new article can be found at:

Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 11g R2 on Linux - (RHEL 5.5)

A common question among developers is how to flush the Oracle data buffer cache. During performance testing, it is important to replicate a real-world production environment as closely as possible; especially when it involves reducing physical I/O (disk reads). Developers need the ability to test the effects of changing execution paths without getting accidental benefits from the buffered data in the database buffer cache. Having the ability to flush the data buffer cache is essential throughout this phase of the SQL tuning process.

The following note provides several methods used to flush the Oracle data buffer cache depending on the release of Oracle.

Flushing the Oracle Data Buffer Cache During Performance Testing

If you are a system administrator or DBA, you know the importance of scripting. For many administrators, the choice is Perl. Given the fact that Perl is open source, available on almost all O/S platforms and extremely modular, many popular modules have been developed to extend the language. DBAs for example, have enjoyed the ease of scripting database functions using the "Database independent interface for Perl" or better known as DBI.

The DBI is a database access module for the Perl programming language. It defines a set of methods, variables, and conventions that provide a consistent database interface, independent of the actual database being used.

The following article describes how to access Microsoft SQL Server 2008 from a Linux server using the Perl DBD::Sybase driver module (this is the Sybase driver for the Perl DBI) combined with FreeTDS. FreeTDS is a set of libraries for Unix and Linux that allows your programs to natively talk to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Sybase databases.

The full article can be found at:

Connect to SQL Server 2008 from Linux using Perl DBI

To facilitate the new SQL Server articles and scripts on the iDevelopment.info website, all of the examples are based on the AdventureWorks 2008R2 sample databases. These sample databases are part of the "AdventureWorks Community Sample Databases".

The following sample databases are available as part of the AdventureWorks Community Sample Databases for SQL Server 2008 R2:

• AdventureWorks OLTP 2008R2
• AdventureWorks Data Warehouse 2008R2
• AdventureWorks LT 2008R2

Starting with SQL Server 2005, the sample databases are not installed by default due to security concerns. Users are now required to download and manually install the sample databases after successfully setting up SQL Server.

The following article presents the steps required to download and install all sample database found in the AdventureWorks Community Sample Databases package for SQL Server 2008 R2.

The full article can be found at:

Install AdventureWorks Sample Databases - (SQL Server 2008 R2)

An article describing the steps necessary to establish a secure URL connection (SSL) using the UTL_HTTP Oracle PL/SQL package and an Oracle Wallet. In order to fully demonstrate the required steps, I will be establishing a secure URL connection to the web site https://www.centos.org/ from within PL/SQL.

In order to establish a connection to a secure URL from an Oracle database server, the following tasks will need to be performed:

• Capture all required certificates from the SSL site
• Create an Oracle Wallet that is accessible on the database server
• Import the required certificate(s) of the SSL site into the Oracle Wallet
• Use the UTL_HTTP.SET_WALLET PL/SQL procedure before attempting to access the secure URL

The full article can be found at:

Using UTL_HTTP and an Oracle Wallet to Establish a Secure URL Connection (SSL)

Differences in df and du on Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2) and Orphan Files Recently, it was noticed that the "df" and "du" commands were displaying different results from several nodes on two OCFS2 file systems. The cluster file systems were being used as shared storage for an Oracle RAC 10g configuration (Clusterware shared files and the Flash Recovery Area).

Researching this problem yielded a bug with the OCFS2 kernel driver (1.4.2-1) that was apparently leaving deleted files in the orphan directory (the //orphan_dir name space in OCFS2) after being deleted from the disk.

When an object (file and/or directory) is deleted from an OCFS2 cluster file system, the file system unlinks the object entry from the existing directory and links it as an entry against that cluster node's orphan directory (the //orphan_dir name space in OCFS2). When the object is eventually no longer used across the cluster, the file system frees it's inode including all disk space associated with it.

It was determined that orphan files on the OCFS2 cluster file system were responsible for the significant difference between the df and du commands. OCFS2 was leaving some deleted files in the orphan directory (the //orphan_dir name space in OCFS2) after being deleted.

The following article highlights the steps involved in troubleshooting disk space usage on an OCFS2 cluster file system and how to resolve the discrepancy between the df and du commands.

Differences in df and du on Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2) and Orphan Files

An article describing the steps necessary to upgrade an installation of Oracle Cluster File System 2 (OCFS2) 1.4 on the Linux platform. More specifically, the OCFS2 kernel driver will be upgraded from version 1.4.4-1 to the latest release which at the time of this writing is 1.4.7-1.

In addition, the OCFS2 Tools and Console will be upgraded from version 1.4.3-1 to version 1.4.4-1.

For the purpose of this article, a single OCFS2 file system is configured on a two node Oracle RAC 10g environment to support a shared file system required by Oracle Clusterware (the Oracle cluster registry file and the voting disk).

The full article can be found at:

Upgrading OCFS2 - 1.4

During the installation of Oracle Clusterware, you are asked to specify a name for the cluster. If you're like me, you may opt to keep the CRS Cluster Name set to its default value of "crs". Even when configuring a second or third Oracle RAC within an organization, we many times simply leave the cluster name for the new clusters set to their default value of crs. Although I believe it is bad practice to configure multiple Oracle RAC clusters with the same CRS cluster name, it doesn't necessarily cause any conflicts given these clusters don't interact with each other. The clustered databases work independently from each other without incident. That is, until you register multiple clustered databases with the same CRS cluster name in Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control!

An issue can arise when multiple Oracle RAC clusters with the same CRS cluster name are registered as targets in EM Grid Control. While not causing a problem with the cluster itself, it does cause EM Grid Control to think both clusters are the same.

The following article will explain the steps used to change the EM cluster target name(s) in Grid Control from their default name of "crs" to avoid conflict with other cluster targets. In this article, a new EM cluster target name will be created in EM Grid Control for two Oracle RAC database environments that were registered in EM Grid Control with the same EM cluster target name.

Resolve Duplicate CRS Cluster Name in EM Grid Control - (Grid Control 10g)

Recover Corrupt/Missing Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) with No Backup - (Oracle 10g) It happens. Not very often, but it can happen. You are faced with a corrupt or missing Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) and have no backup to recover from. So, how can something like this occur? We know that the CRSD process is responsible for creating backup copies of the OCR every 4 hours from the master node in the CRS_home/cdata directory. These backups are meant to be used to recoverthe OCR from a lost or corrupt OCR file using the ocrconfig -restore command, so how is it possible to be in a situation where the OCR needs to be recovered and you have no viable backup?

Well, consider a scenario where you add a node to the cluster and before the next backup (before 4 hours) you find the OCR has been corrupted. You may have forgotten to create a logical export of the OCR before adding the new node or worse yet, the logical export you took is also corrupt. In either case, you are left with a corrupt OCR and no recent backup. Talk about a bad day! Another possible scenario could be a shell script that wrongly deletes all available backups. Talk about an even worse day.

In the event the OCR is corrupt on one node and all options to recover it have failed, one safe way to re-create the OCR (and consequently the voting disk) is to reinstall the Oracle Clusterware software. In order to accomplish this, a complete outage is required for the entire cluster throughout the duration of the re-install. The Oracle Clusterware software will need to be fully removed, the OCR and voting disks reformatted, all virtual IP addresses (VIPs) de-installed, and a complete reinstall of the Oracle Clusterware software will need to be performed. It should also be noted that any patches that were applied to the original clusterware install will need to be re-applied. As you can see, having a backup of the OCR and voting disk can dramatically simplify the recovery of your system!

A second and much more efficient method used to re-create the OCR (and consequently the voting disk as well) is to re-run the root.sh script from the primary node in the cluster. This is described in Doc ID: 399482.1 on the My Oracle Support web site. The procedures actually call for running the rootdelete.sh and rootdeinstall.sh on all nodes in the cluster before running root.sh. In my opinion, this method is quicker and much less intrusive than reinstalling Oracle Clusterware and the one described in the following article:

Recover Corrupt/Missing Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) with No Backup - (Oracle 10g)

Oracle Clusterware 10g, formerly known as Cluster Ready Services (CRS) is portable cluster software that allows clustering of single servers so that they cooperate as a single system. This infrastructure simplifies the requirement for an Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) database by providing cluster software that is tightly integrated with the Oracle Database.

The Oracle Clusterware requires two critical clusterware components: a voting disk to record node membership information and the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) to record cluster configuration information. Both components play an extremely important role in the overall health and availability of the cluster.

The following article provides a detailed look at how to administer the OCR and voting disk using illustrative examples and instructions on how to create a robust backup and recovery strategy. It is intended for DBAs, System Administrators, and Support Engineers tasked with supporting an Oracle RAC 10g environment. The examples described in this guide were tested with Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4) on the Linux x86 platform.

OCR File and Voting Disk Administration by Example - (Oracle 10g)

Reclaiming Unused LOB Space in Oracle Manually reclaiming unused space in a normal Oracle table is a fairly simple process and can be performed online starting with Oracle 10g R1.

What if, however, the table contains a LOB column that contains significant unused space? Starting with Oracle 10g R2, Oracle provides a solution that allows users to reclaim LOB space (LOB data and LOB index) and that is the topic of the following recently published article:

Reclaiming Unused LOB Space in Oracle

Starting with Oracle 11g, Fast Application Notification (FAN) can be used with SQL*Plus. With Oracle RAC 11g, you can specify the -F (FAILOVER) option to the sqlplus command. This enabled SQL*Plus to interact with the OCI failover mode in a Real Application Cluster (RAC) environment. In this mode, a service or instance failure is transparently handled with transaction status messages if applicable.

For an in-depth working example that describes the Fast Connection Failover (FCF) mechanism, please consult the following JDBC Java application:

Using FAN with SQL*Plus in Oracle 11g

Adding a Node to an Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 Cluster on Linux - (CentOS 5.3 / iSCSI) As your organization grows so too does your need for more application and database resources to support the company's IT systems. Oracle RAC 10g provides a scalable framework which allows DBA's to effortlessly extend the database tier to support this increased demand. As the number of users and transactions increase, additional Oracle instances can be added to the Oracle database cluster to distribute the extra load.

I recently published an extension to my article "Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 5.3 / iSCSI)". Contained in this new article are the steps required to add a single node to an already running and configured two-node Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 environment on the CentOS 32-bit (x86) platform. Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 5.3 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Update 3.

The new article can be accessed using the following link:

Add a Node to an Existing Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 Cluster on Linux - (CentOS 5.3 / iSCSI)

This week I published the latest in a series of articles on how to build an inexpensive Oracle RAC system. This article focuses on Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.1.0) as well as the latest version of CentOS (version 5.3).

As with its predecessor, this article provides detailed instructions on how to build a two-node Oracle RAC system using low cost hardware and freely available software. A network storage server will be built using Openfiler 2.3 (Final) and iSCSI technology which will be used for all shared storage requirements. Powered by rPath Linux, Openfiler is a free browser-based network storage management utility that delivers file-based Network Attached Storage (NAS) and block-based Storage Area Networking (SAN) in a single framework. Openfiler supports CIFS, NFS, HTTP/DAV, FTP, however, I will only be making use of its iSCSI capabilities to implement an inexpensive SAN for the shared storage component required by Oracle RAC 10g.

The newly updated Oracle RAC 10g / iSCSI article can be found at:

Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 5.3 / iSCSI)

In a follow-up to my recently published article "Installing Grid Control (10.2.0.5) on RHEL 5 with 11g Database Repository", I now provide a supplement to this guide on how to install and configure the Grid Control Management Agent (10.2.0.5). This new article provides one approach (out of several available) used to install and configure the Oracle Management Agent (10.2.0.5) on an Oracle database server node running the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system.

This guide assumes you have a working Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 5 environment in place and running.

The new guide can be found at:

Installing Grid Control Management Agent (10.2.0.5)

I recently created an example JDBC class that provides a convenient template which demonstrates some of the more helpful JDBC API calls while using an Oracle Database. The methods defined in this class will be used to create a test table in the SCOTT schema named JDBC_EXAMPLE. A set of random values will then be inserted into the new table and then queried back using basic JDBC calls. The random values being used to populate the test table will come from the dictionary view ALL_OBJECTS.

This class is useful in demonstrating how to fetch integers, floating-point numbers, strings, and dates from a result set and furthermore, how to manipulate and print the data from the database. The example class also demonstrates how to calculate the run time of queries and DML calls (in milliseconds), format dates, and basic exception handling.

The class concludes by dropping the test table and then logging off from the database.

This new Java class can be accessed from the "Java Programming Examples" page which includes many other example Java classes.

From the left topics menu, select "Programming -> Java" and then from the "Java Programming Examples" page, scroll down to "JDBC -> JDBC Example".

You can also use the following URL to access the new Java class directly:

JdbcExample.java

Installing and configuring Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control has never been a straightforward task. The product itself is an overly complex and fragile web application with a considerable number of bugs. What makes matters worse is that the documentation for installing Enterprise Manager Grid Control is truly lacking. For many, the installation will consist of scattered bits and pieces found on My Oracle Support and from performing numerous Google searches.

In an attempt to put all of the pieces together to successfully install and configure the latest release of Grid Control (10.2.0.5), I published a step-by-step instruction guide. This guide will walk the reader through setting up the Linux O/S, performing pre-requisite tasks, downloading the required software, installing and patching Grid Control, configuring the newly installed Grid Control environment, and finally how to verify the Grid Control components are working properly.

The configuration will consist of the following components:

• Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 5 - (10.2.0.5)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 - (CentOS 5.3)
• Using an Existing 11g Database for the Management Repository

The newly published article can be found at:

Installing Grid Control (10.2.0.5) on RHEL 5 with 11g Database Repository

Back in January 2008, I published a comprehensive guide for installing Oracle Database 11g R1 on the Linux platform (RHEL 5). I recently updated this article to include a new section on how to download and install the most recent 11g Database Patch Set (11.1.0.7.0).

The updated article can be found at:

Installing Oracle Database 11g Release 1 on Linux - (RHEL 5)

Oracle Secure Backup (OSB) provides a reliable, centralized tape backup management solution which can be used to protect file system data as well as Oracle Database files. For Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) users, the Oracle Secure Backup SBT interface enables you to use the RMAN to back up and restore Oracle Database files to and from tape. Oracle Secure Backup supports nearly all tape drives and tape libraries in Storage Area Network (SAN) and Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) environments.

Oracle Secure Backup provides the ability to perform automatic tape drive cleaning as well as the option to manually clean a tape drive. The following article provides a brief overview of the tape cleaning functionality built into OSB.

Cleaning a Tape Drive using Oracle Secure Backup

Expect more article in the near future on the topic of Oracle Secure Backup. Namely installation and configuration steps in OSB as well as implementing RMAN backup and recovery strategies using the SBT interface of OSB.

iSCSI technology continues to gain strength in the database community. With its low entry cost, simple configuration, and rapidly growing support, many organizations are seeking to take advantage of their high-speed IP backbone over that of a Fibre Channel (FC) network.

To gain a better understanding of how an Oracle database server can make use of an iSCSI target for storage, I put together a brief introduction on how to install and configure an iSCSI Target and an iSCSI Initiator on the Solaris platform.

The iSCSI Initiator software is a built-in package included with the Solaris 10 Operating System. This article will also include instructions on how to configure an iSCSI Target using Openfiler.

The article can be found at:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Unix/Solaris/SOLARIS_ConnectingToAniSCSITargetWithOpen-iSCSIInitiatorUsingSolaris.shtml

iSCSI technology continues to gain strength in the database community. With its low entry cost, simple configuration, and rapidly growing support, many organizations are seeking to take advantage of their high-speed IP backbone over that of a Fibre Channel (FC) network.

To gain a better understanding of how an Oracle database server can make use of an iSCSI target for storage, I put together a brief introduction on how to install and configure an iSCSI Target and an iSCSI Initiator (Open-iSCSI) on the Linux platform.

The Linux Open-iSCSI Initiator is a built-in package included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or later. This article will also include instructions on how to configure an iSCSI Target using Openfiler.

The article can be found at:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Unix/Linux/LINUX_ConnectingToAniSCSITargetWithOpen-iSCSIInitiatorUsingLinux.shtml

Within the next several weeks, I will also publish this same article for configuring the iSCSI Initiator on the Solaris platform.

DBA's rely on Oracle's data dictionary views and dynamic performance views in order to support and better manage their databases. Although these views provide a simple and easy mechanism to query critical information regarding the database, it helps to have a collection of accurate and readily available SQL scripts to query these views.

Over the years, I have published a vast array of Oracle DBA scripts that can be used to manage many aspects of the database including space management, performance, backups, security, and session management. Once the scripts have been put in place, they can be easily run from within SQL*Plus while logged in as a DBA user.

The following article provides a new approach to SQL scripting that allows the Oracle DBA to collect a wide array of metrics and statistics using a single script. This "Snapshot Database" script will contain a collection of useful queries that run as a whole and produce an eye-catching HTML report. The report will contain critical database information including installed options, storage, performance data, and security.

The featured "Snapshot Database" article is available at:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Database_Administration/DBA_50.shtml

Currently, I have three separate Snapshot Database scripts available for each major Oracle release (8i, 9i, and 10g). The release for Oracle Database 11g will be released soon.

Although not as exciting as building an Oracle RAC or adding a new node and instance to a clustered database; removing a node from a clustered environment is just as important to understand for a DBA managing Oracle RAC 10g. While it is true that most of the attention in a clustered database environment is focused on extending the database tier to support increased demand, the exact opposite is just as likely to be encountered where the DBA needs to remove a node from an existing RAC environment. It may be that a server is being underutilized in the database cluster and could be better served in another business unit. Another scenario is a node failure. In this case, a node can be removed from the cluster while the remaining nodes continue to service ongoing requests.

I recently published an extension to two of my articles:

"Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 4.5 / iSCSI)"

and

"Adding a Node to an Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 Cluster on Linux - (CentOS 4.5 / iSCSI)".

Contained in this new article are the steps required to remove a single node from an already running and configured three-node Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 environment on the CentOS 32-bit (x86) platform. The node being removed is the third node I added in the second article. Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 4.5 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 5.

As your organization grows so too does your need for more application and database resources to support the company's IT systems. Oracle RAC 10g provides a scalable framework which allows DBA's to effortlessly extend the database tier to support this increased demand. As the number of users and transactions increase, additional Oracle instances can be added to the Oracle database cluster to distribute the extra load.

I recently published an extension to my article "Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 4.5 / iSCSI)". Contained in this new article are the steps required to add a single node to an already running and configured two-node Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 environment on the CentOS 32-bit (x86) platform. Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 4.5 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 5.

By default, the Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) does not configure the TNS listener to accept client requests to an ASM instance running from a different node. Access will be denied for clients like SQL*Plus, Perl DBI:DBD, and JDBC when attempting to connect to an ASM instance from a node other than the node running the ASM instance. When the service is created for an ASM instance, its status is BLOCKED:

[oracle@linux1 ~]$ lsnrctl status LISTENER_LINUX1 | grep ASM
Service "+ASM" has 1 instance(s).
  Instance "+ASM1", status BLOCKED, has 1 handler(s) for this service...
Service "+ASM_XPT" has 1 instance(s).
  Instance "+ASM1", status BLOCKED, has 1 handler(s) for this service...

This limitation puts restrictions on scripts and other client tools that want to monitor and manage an ASM instance from a different node. Getting around this restriction, however, is an easy task that involves manually creating a service name for the ASM instance.

This article presents the steps required to access an ASM instance through the TNS listener from a client desktop. The database used in this article is a two-node Oracle RAC 10g clustered database where in fact there will two ASM instances (one ASM instance for each Oracle instance in the cluster). The database version is Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.3.0) running on CentOS 4.5 (or RHEL 4.5).

Comprehensive article on installing Oracle Database 11g Release 1 on Linux - (CentOS 5.1). This article should also work unchanged with the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1.

Included in the article are detailed instructions for installing and configuring the Linux operating system to host the Oracle Database 11g Release 1 software and database. I also incorporated many tips that go beyond just simply installing the software to help newcomers to Oracle Database 11g better manage their database environment.

Comprehensive article on installing Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 5.1). This article should also work unchanged with the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1.

Included in the article are detailed instructions for installing and configuring the Linux operating system to host the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 software and database. I also incorporated many tips that go beyond just simply installing the software to help newcomers to Oracle Database 10g better manage their database environment.

Learn how to configure an inexpensive Oracle RAC 11g environment on Linux using iSCSI technologies from Openfiler.

(For educational purposes only!)

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Learn how to configure an inexpensive Oracle10g RAC environment using VMware Workstation 5.5.3 and Red Hat 4 Update 4.

(For educational purposes only!)

Written by Dominic Giles, Swingbench is a free load generator (and benchmarks) designed to stress test an Oracle database (9i or 10g)

SwingBench consists of a load generator, a coordinator and a cluster \ overview. The software enables a load to be generated and the transactions/response times to be charted.

The essential step-by-step Oracle10g new features course for experienced Developers and Database Administrators.

This course book presents - in a succinct and practical fashion - an introduction to more than 120 new features introduced with Oracle Database 10g.

Release 1 and Release 2 features are covered.

Learn how to configure an inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g environment on Linux using iSCSI technologies from Openfiler.

(For educational purposes only!)

Learn how to configure an inexpensive Oracle10g RAC environment using FireWire 800 for shared storage.

(For educational purposes only!)