Using Serviceguard Extension for RAC, 7th Edition, September 2008

This timeout is configurable with Oracle tools and should not be changed without ensuring that
the CSS timeout allows enough time for Serviceguard Extension for RAC (SGeRAC)
reconfiguration and to allow multipath (if configured) reconfiguration to complete.
On a single point of failure, for example, node failure, Serviceguard reconfigures first and SGeRAC
delivers the new group membership to CSS via NMAPI2. If there is a change in group
membership, SGeRAC updates the members of the new membership. After receiving the new
group membership, CSS in turn initiates its own recovery action as needed and propagates the
new group membership to the RAC instances.
NOTE: As a general guideline, the CSS TIMEOUT should be greater of either 180 seconds or
25 times the Serviceguard NODE_TIMEOUT.
RAC IMR Timeout
RAC instance IMR timeout is configurable. RAC IMR expects group membership changes to
occur within this time or IMR will begin evicting group members. The IMR timeout must be
above the SGeRAC reconfiguration time and adhere to any Oracle-specified relation to CSS
reconfiguration time.
Oracle Cluster Software
Oracle Cluster Software should be started after activating its required shared storage resources.
Shared storage resources can be activated after SGeRAC completes startup. Oracle Cluster
Software should not activate any shared storage. Similarly, for halting SGeRAC at run level 3
and removing shared storage resources from Oracle Cluster Software, Oracle Cluster Software
must be halted first.
Automated Oracle Cluster Software Startup and Shutdown
The preferred mechanism that allows Serviceguard to notify Oracle Cluster Software to start and
to request Oracle Cluster Software to shutdown is the use of Serviceguard packages.
Monitoring
Oracle Cluster Software daemon monitoring is performed through programs initiated by the
HP-UX init process. SGeRAC monitors Oracle Cluster Software to the extent that CSS is a NMAPI2
group membership client and group member. SGeRAC provides group membership notification
to the remaining group members when CSS enters and leaves the group membership.
Allowed Characters for Oracle 10g RAC Cluster Names
Oracle Clusterware uses SGeRAC Group Membership Service to get the node status, it registers
a group in SGeRAC cmgmsd daemon with Oracle cluster name. Since the valid group name in
SGeRAC only allows alpha letter (a-z, A-Z), decimal digital (0-9), underscore (_), dollar sign ($)
and number sign(#), only these characters are allowed in Oracle 10g Clusterware cluster name.
Shared Storage
SGeRAC supports shared storage using HP Shared Logical Volume Manager (SLVM), Cluster
File System (CFS) and Cluster Volume Manager (CVM); CFS and CVM are not supported on all
versions of HP-UX (on HP-UX releases that support them; see “About Veritas CFS and CVM
from Symantec” (page 18)).
The file /var/opt/oracle/oravg.conf must not be present so Oracle Cluster Software will
not activate or deactivate any shared storage.
28 Serviceguard Configuration for Oracle 10g RAC