Using Serviceguard Extension for RAC, 6th Edition, April 2008

of RAC each on Node 3 and Node 4. The RAC processes accessing the Sales database
constitute one group, and the RAC processes accessing the HR database constitute
another group.
Figure 1-2 Group Membership Services
Using Packages in a Cluster
In order to make other important applications highly available (in addition to the Oracle
Real Application Cluster), you can configure your RAC cluster to use packages. Packages
group applications and services together; in the event of a service, node, or network
failure, Serviceguard Extension for RAC can automatically transfer control of all system
resources in a designated package to another node within the cluster, allowing your
applications to remain available with minimal interruption.
There are failover packages, system multi-node packages, and multi-node packages:
The typical high availability package is a failover package. It usually is configured to
run on several nodes in the cluster, and runs on one at a time. If a service, node, network,
or other package resource fails on the node where it is running, Serviceguard can
automatically transfer control of the package to another cluster node, allowing services
to remain available with minimal interruption.
There are also packages that run on several cluster nodes at once, and do not fail over.
These are called system multi-node packages and multi-node packages. As of
Serviceguard Extension for RAC A.11.17, the only non-failover packages that are
supported are those specified by Hewlett-Packard, for example the packages HP supplies
What is a Serviceguard Extension for RAC Cluster? 23