Install guide

see the kbase article “Red Hat Support for Oracle Enterprise Edition and Cold Failover Cluster Suite

configurations”: http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-21631.

1.1.2. Oracle Real Application Clusters for Red Hat Cluster Suite and GFS

Oracle Enterprise Edition has a separately priced option called Real Application Clusters (RAC), and this

does provide for shared access, or multi-instance, shared operation. Red Hat Cluster Suite Oracle RAC

is certified only for use with GFS shared volumes.

Although Oracle RAC supports more than eight nodes, most customer deployments are typically four to

eight nodes. T he mechanics of a multi-node RAC installation can be demonstrated with the same two-

node cluster that can be used for Enterprise Edition HA. This provides an equivalent configuration for

comparison and to determine which option is best for your requirements.

Oracle RAC has very specific certification requirements that include a minimal update release level of

RHEL and a patchset specific version of the Oracle RDBMS RAC kernel. Certified configurations of

Oracle RAC with GFS can be found in the Oracle Support document ID 329530.1.

In the RAC configuration described in this document, there are two servers licensed to run Oracle

Enterprise Edition simultaneously. This is referred to as shared disk architecture. T he database files,

online redo logs, and control files for the database must be accessible to each node in the cluster. Red

Hat Cluster Suite and Oracle Clusterware work together to ensure the health of the cluster is optimal.

1.2. Sample Two-Node Cluster

The sample two-node cluster that will be used for this configuration is a simple cluster that can be

configured for either of the two install types. Tips and Notes will be provided to help with the process of

customizing the install to a particular set of business requirements.

Figure 1.1, “Sample Two-Node Oracle Cluster” shows a generalized overview of the configuration this

installation yields. In this configuration, there are two nodes, each with a fencing agent and each

connected to shared storage. A quorum disk has been configured. There is also an application tier

network that accesses the nodes.

Chapter 1. Overview