Oracle Grid Infrastructure and RAC using Oracle Database 19c

Explore grid infrastructure basics, including cluster concepts, high availability, and scalability with clusterware and ASM in Oracle 19c. Learn how clusterware underpins flex clusters and RAC deployments.

Explore four grid infrastructure cluster architectures, focusing on standalone clusters with three nodes, extended clusters across sites, domain services clusters, and member clusters for databases or applications.

Describe how grid infrastructure uses a network heartbeat and a voting disk in shared storage to keep nodes in sync and prevent split brain.

Understand how hostnames and VIP addresses work in a grid infrastructure RAC, including public and private networks, DNS usage, and VIP failover to ensure seamless client connectivity.

Explore how the grid naming service (GNS) provides a localized DNS for grid infrastructure, auto-allocating hostnames and IPs via the GNS VIP, while restricting to GNS and MDNS on nodes.

Explore why scan, or single client access naming, emerged with 11g release 2 to consolidate databases in a large grid infrastructure and streamline cross-host service connections.

Explore a practical lab environment setup for Oracle grid infrastructure and RAC, including minimum hardware, SSD-based storage, multiple VMs, shared storage with ASM, and DNS-driven scan resolution.

Sign in to oracle.com and download the Oracle Linux 7.9 complete ISO (4.5 GB) from developer downloads, then use a Linux host and VirtualBox to set up the RAC environment.

Use VirtualBox to create multiple VMs for Oracle grid infrastructure and RAC, set VM file locations, and configure SSD storage for reliable course demonstrations.

Create a VirtualBox VM from the downloaded iso, allocate 8 gb memory and 2 cores, reserve a 150 gb disk for os and binaries, and skip unattended install for customization.

Start the vm to install linux from the iso, validate it, set language and Asia Kolkata time zone, configure partitioning and software options, then install, set root password, and reboot.

Configure post install settings by selecting language, time zone, and creating a learner user, then access the desktop and install virtual box guest additions for enhanced features.

Log in as root, install Linux guest additions for seamless mouse and larger screen, then export the base VM as an OVA backup for easy future imports.

Install the Oracle 19c preinstall rpm, enable ASM support, and configure sysctl on a VM. Then perform a yum update, restart, and export the updated VM for reuse.

Import and configure a DNS virtual machine to support Oracle RAC with scan, including setting hostnames, installing bind tools, and editing named.conf, local domain zone, and reverse records.

Configure DNS for Oracle grid infrastructure by setting a host-only network in VirtualBox, assigning static 192.168.56.160 IP with netmask 255.255.255.0 and gateway 192.168.56.1, then start the named service.

Import RAC1 and configure a host-only network with a unique MAC address, assign 192.168.56.101, and set up DNS resolution using 192.168.56.160 to verify RAC1, RAC2, RAC3, and VIP names.

Configure Oracle user on the rac1 host; apply RPM prerequisites, add ASM DBA, ASM oper, and ASM admin groups, and set up grid and db environment scripts in bash profile.

Disable firewalld on the rac1 host and prevent startup, set selinux to permissive, and stop and disable the avahi daemon to ensure dns resolution and rac readiness.

Set up ntp on the dns host with internet access and configure crony on the rac1 host to synchronize time from that dns server.

Configure a private network for Oracle grid infrastructure by adding a second, internal network adapter to RAC1, setting a 192.168.10.101 IP, validating DNS resolution, and exporting the appliance for backup.

Create rac2 from rac1 by refreshing adapters for new macs, update hostname and hosts, then export rac2 while validating dns, ntp, and grid and database settings (orcl2, asm2).

Create RAC3 host in Oracle Grid Infrastructure by cloning RAC2, configuring unique MAC addresses and IPs, updating hosts and environment files (db, grid, asm), and exporting the RAC3 VM.

Export the DNS with NTP configuration by shutting down the DNS host and saving it to the same destination as the other components, creating DNS with NTP for RAC labs.

Import and validate the three rac vms, and start the dns and rac nodes. Verify name resolution and inter-node connectivity with nslookup and ping.

Identify and correct mismatched db home paths in bash profiles across RAC nodes, aligning db-home values with the actual oracle-product-19c-db-home directory to prevent configuration errors.

Export all three RAC vms for future reinstallation; export RAC 2 and RAC 3 now, while RAC 1 downloads grid infrastructure and database home software and configures networking.

Configure shared storage for ASM disk groups in a three-node RAC setup using VirtualBox. Attach ten disks (five data, five record) to all VMs with Linux and Windows scripts.

Create ten 20 GB disks with a Linux script, attach five to RAC1 for data and five for recod is group, and mark them shareable for ASM.

Configure ten disks on RAC 1 with fdisk, then initialize the Oracle ASM lib and stamp disks as data and recall, followed by ASM disk scanning.

Attach ten disks to RAC2 and RAC3 nodes, configure ASMLib and ASM, initialize and scan disks on each node to verify shared storage for grid infrastructure.

Learn the grid infrastructure installation overview, including setting environment variables and preparing shared storage. Explore prerequisites, such as cluster verify and pre-install RPM, plus network, scan, and root script execution.

Extract the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software on the selected node, set grid home, and unzip the grid home zip to prepare an image-based installation for Oracle Grid Infrastructure in RAC.

Install and configure a two-node grid infrastructure cluster using Oracle Universal Installer, standalone mode, ASM storage, OCR voting disks, two networks and DNS/scan, plus passwordless SSH; verify with CRSCTL.

Explore the grid infrastructure cluster architecture, detailing the lower and upper stacks and their key services, and introduce management tools such as crsctl, srvctl, and ocr utilities.

Explore how grid infrastructure starts key processes across RAC nodes, including ohasd, CRS daemon, asm listener, scan listeners, and osysmond, verified via ps and CRSctl.

Discover where diagnostic data resides in Oracle grid infrastructure. Explore the grid base, diag, CRS data, and ASM directories across RAC1 and RAC2 to map diagnostic files.

Understand voting disks as the cluster heartbeat that prevents split brain, stored in ASM or shared storage, with three disks across three failure groups checked via crsctl query vote disk.

Run crsctl check cluster -all to verify services across nodes, then review OCR and OLR; OCR tracks resources and hosting nodes, while OLR remains a per-node local copy.

Create a new recovery disk group in asm using the grid infrastructure gui and cli, verify data and Rico disk groups across rac1 and rac2, and review management commands.

Explore how RAC provides high availability and scalability with two or more nodes and unique instance names, using grid infrastructure, interconnect, and cache fusion for continuous access.

Explore four Oracle database high-availability options: standard edition high availability, Oracle Restart, RAC, and RAC OneNode; compare active-passive failover, online relocation, and scalability.

Explore the RAC architecture overview, including one instance per node, shared storage, and multiple databases in a cluster. Discover how grid infrastructure and instance naming support high availability across nodes.