HP Serviceguard Extension for RAC (SGeRAC) Introduction, SG/SGeRAC Support for ASM on HP-UX 11i

3 Support of Oracle RAC ASM with SGeRAC

Introduction

This chapter discusses the use of the Oracle 10g Release 2 (10g R2) and11g Release 1 (11g R1) database server feature called Automatic Storage Management (ASM) in configurations of HP Serviceguard Extension for Real Application Clusters (SGeRAC).

We begin with a brief review of ASM—functionality, pros, cons, and method of operation. Then, we look in detail at how we configure ASM with SGeRAC (version A.11.17 or later is required).

SG/SGeRAC Support for ASM on HP-UX 11i v2

Overview

Support for ASM with SG/SGeRAC commences with SGeRAC A.11.17. However, please note that it has been possible to set up Oracle databases using ASM on HP-UX from the time Oracle 10g became available on HP-UX, using the following configurations that do not require SG/SGeRAC:

•Non-clustered single instance Oracle

•Oracle single instance and RAC databases running in a pure Oracle clusterware environment

The following requirements/restrictions apply to SG/SGeRAC (A.11.17 or later) support of ASM (and are summarized in Table 3):

Table 3 ASM support with SG/SGeRAC A.11.17 or later

Supported

Oracle RAC database

SLVM Logical Volumes as ASM Disk Group Members

ASM configurations on SGeRAC using SGeRAC A.11.17 or later, and Oracle 10g R2 RAC

ASM configurations on SGeRAC using SGeRAC A.11.17 or later, and Oracle 11g R1

Maximum SGeRAC cluster size for ASM configurations is 16

SGeRAC Toolkit framework based on Multi-Node Package (MNP) /Simple Package Dependency to manage ASM configurations on SGeRAC up to a maximum cluster size of 16

Not Supported

Oracle single instance database, with or without Oracle clusterware

Raw disks/LUs or CVM Logical Volumes as ASM Disk Group Members

ASM configurations on SGeRAC using SGeRAC 11.16, Oracle 10g R1 RAC or HP-UX 11i v1

Single instance Oracle database with ASM managed storage running in Serviceguard cluster

Single instance Oracle database with ASM-managed storage in SGeRAC configuration wherein SGeRAC provides node membership to Oracle Clusterware

Why ASM over SLVM?

As mentioned above, we require ASM disk group members in SGeRAC A.11.17 (or later) configurations to be raw logical volumes managed by SLVM.

The main reason for this requirement is to expedite ASM support with SGeRAC. We leverage existing HP-UX capabilities to provide multipathing for SLVM logical volumes, using either the PV Links feature, or separate products such as HP StorageWorks Secure Path that provide multipathing

Introduction 69