Changing Capacity On-Demand Core Count in Exadata We recently implemented an Exadata X6 at a one of client sites (yes, we don’t Oracle ACS, we do it ourselves). However, the client failed to tell us that they had licensed only a subset of the cores per compute, after we actually had implmeneted and *migrated* production … Continue reading
iptables save
When I was working with our sysadmin person, he freaked out that when we stop/restarted iptables service, and the iptables were gone. The iptables rules are lost upon shutdown on iptbles service or after system reboot. What I usually do is save off my iptables rules into a save file as follows: # iptables-save … Continue reading
Got Containers. Linux Containers Starter Kit
Got Containers? Container Starter Kit
Setting Round-Robin Multipathing Policy in VMware ESXi 6.0
Storage Array Type Plugins (SATP) and Path Selection Plugins (PSP) are part of the VMware APIs for Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA). The SATP has all the knowledge of the storage array to aggregate I/Os across multiple channels and has the intelligence to send failover commands when a path has failed. The Path Selection Policy can … Continue reading
What’s with MGTDB anyways
For those who have either upgraded or fresh-installed 12.1 (12c) Grid Infrastructure stack, will notice a new database instance (-MGMTDB) that was provisioned automagically. So what is this MGMTDB and why do I need this overhead. Si let’s recap what the DB is and what it does… Management Database is the central repository to store … Continue reading
New [rarely covered and rarely discussed] 12c features
With busy weeks of IOUG and other conferences coming up, we have little time to blog…. So, in the coming weeks, I’m just going to do some “baby” blogs; i.e., some quick tips and new features Here’s a new 12c new feature that simplifies snapshotting databases Snapshot Optimized Recovery There’s many of you that take … Continue reading
Setting Jumbo Frames – Portrait of a Large MTU size
There cases where we need to ensure that large packet “address-ability” exists. This is needed to verify configuration for non standard packet sizes, i.e, MTU of 9000. For example if we are deploying a NAS or backup server across the network. Setting the MTU can be done by editing the configuration script for the relevant … Continue reading
High Level Overview of 11204 ASM Rebalance in Async ARB0
High Level look at 11204 Rebalance with Plan Optimiation and Async ARB0 Drop disk SQL> alter diskgroup reco drop disk ‘ASM_NORM_DATA4’ rebalance power 12 here we issue the rebalance NOTE: requesting all-instance membership refresh for group=2 GMON querying group 2 at 120 for pid 19, osid 19030 GMON updating for reconfiguration, group 2 … Continue reading
Queryable Opatch and Datapatch
One of my Oracle Support Buddies mentioned to me a cool feature called Query-able Opatch. This new feature of 12c Oracle Database provides the capability to store, in-database, and query the patch inventory. Note this feature is specific to Database Home, it does fit into the for Grid Infrastructure or other Oracle Homes. I wasn’t … Continue reading
Oracle 12c Multitentant My Top Questions Part II
CDB / PDB Operations Q. How can I install and setup Pluggable Database ? A. Use runInstaller to install the Oracle Database software Use dbca to create databases. You can create many pluggable databases in a single operation. DBCA enables you to specify the number of PDBs in the CDB when it is created.After a … Continue reading
Oracle 12c Multitentant – My Top Ten PDB Questions PartI
Q. What are my options for connecting to a Pluggable Database ? A. Connect to root, then SQL> alter session set container = nisha; Database connection using easy connect Ex: CONNECT username/password@host[:port][/service_name][:server][/instance_name] $ sqlplus test1/test123@//localhost/nisha Need to define Database connection using a net service name Example TNSNAMES.ora: ======= LISTENER_CDB1 = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = … Continue reading
[Re-] Imaging Exadata with 12.1.2.1.1
[Re-] Imaging Exadata with 12.1.2.1.1 Introduction This document, based on Doc ID 1991376.1, specifically addresses re-imaging Exadata systems to 12.1.2.1.1, using standard (non-OVM) deployment via USB boot. In this scenario, a new Exadata system was delivered with the 12.1.2.1.0 image; however, client decided to implement the latest image (12.1.2.1.1) before OEDA was executed. Scenario The … Continue reading
Installing Oracle Linux 6.6, Prepping Linux OS for Oracle Database 12c Install, and Installing Oracle Database 12c
Installing Oracle Linux 6.6, Prepping Linux OS for Oracle Database 12c Install, and Installing Oracle Database 12c I know it seems simple to install Linux and Oracle Dtaabase. But I felt a need to standardize on how we do it internally at Viscosity. So I provided this little note to our DBA team to build … Continue reading
Apply 12102 PSU1 (19392646) on a Standalone Cluster
We are about to apply 12102 PSU1 (19392646) on a Standalone Cluster. This patch applies the patch to RDBMS home as part of opatchauto. Here’s the output in case anyone wants to compare: [root@ol64afd OPatch]# ./opatchauto apply -analyze /mnt/hgfs/12cGridSoftware/12102-PSU1/19392646 -ocmrf ocm/bin/ocm.rsp OPatch Automation Tool Copyright (c) 2014, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. OPatchauto version : … Continue reading
Adding Physical disks to Windows 2012 Server
Since I have a terrible memory for such things, I have to keep notes for myself on How-Tos. A video is at the bottom that illustrates the process (if I can’t read it, at least I’ll see it) 🙂 This blog will walk through the process flow of adding Physical disks to Windows 2012 Server. … Continue reading
Data Domain discussion and Notes
The following are notes from our discussions w/ EMC on deploying Data Domain w/ RMAN at client site: Process flow is as follows – Clients -> eth -> Media/Master Server ((includes OST)-> SAN -> DD The OST plugin first sends a request to the DD server/appliance to validate the hash of the data packet. DD … Continue reading
What should you ask your All Flash Array Vendor
I was just traveling back from a client, where the customer just bought into the concept of an all flash array for their database and VDI workloads. They had asked me to help out where I can. So I started pondering the things this customer (or any customers/buyers) should think through….. At first I was going … Continue reading
OVCA Network specs – discussion with Oracle
Notes from meeting w/ Oracle on OVCA: The most current version of Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance (VCA or OVCA) is X4-2 VCA consists of the following: Infiniband (IB) QDR links operating at 40Gb/s bandwidth (raw fabric bit rate); effective maximum network throughput possible is in the order of 32Gb/s for data (due in part b/c … Continue reading
blktrace basics
Life of an I/O Once a user issues an I/O request, this I/O enters block layer…then the magic begins… 1. IO request is remapped atop underlying logical/aggregated device device (MD, DM). Depending on alignment, size, …, requests are split into 2 separate I/Os 2. Requests added to the request queue 3. Merged with a previous … Continue reading
The Add Roles to Windows2012 Server
There are two methods to add roles/features to a Windows 2012 Server. One is using the Add Roles Wizard and the other is using the cmdlet. The Add Roles Wizard simplifies how you install roles on the server. This is quite different from the way it was done in Windows 2008 Server where admins had … Continue reading
VMware Fusion vmx conversion to OVA for VM appliance shipments
As in the earlier post on VMware VM appliance shipments, there are occasions that we need to build VM appliances for our clients. Depending on the scenarios, requirements, or convenience, we will build VMs in VMware Fusion and convert them to OVA files so our clients can simply import them (“Deploy a OVF Template”). In … Continue reading
Convert VMware Fusion VM to ESXi based VM
There are occasions that we need to create custom built Linux VMs on behalf of our clients. Forexample, we may build a Linux VM that has all the best practices for 12c Oracle database or a 12c Weblogic Server. We sometimes do this in VMware Fusion or in vSphere/ESXi config. In this example we will … Continue reading
Oracle Inventory and what it means to
Whilst presenting on Exadata patching, an interesting question about “What is the Inventory”, came up at break. This individual was new to Oracle, so I spent some time going over what the Oracle Inventory is. Here is the brain dump captured 🙂 The Oracle [Software] Inventory is the mechanism that manages the software library on … Continue reading
Exadata Monitoring and Agents – EM Plugin
To those who attended our Exadata Monitoring and Agents. Here’s some Answers and followup from the Chat room The primary goal of the Exadata Pluigin is to digest the schematic file and validate database.xml and catalog.xml files. If the pre-check runs w/o failure then Discovery can be executed. Agent only runs on compute nodes and … Continue reading
Do I know all the background processes for ASM and RAC, surely ya jest !!
Several folks asked me if I knew all the background processes for ASM and RAC….surely you must be kidding, but I have a list of them, and it changes per release. Below is ASM and RAC background processes, I have listed the ones that are new to 12c, and some are specific to Exadata (I … Continue reading
ASM Check script
Here’s a little script from @racdba that does ASM check when we go onsite #!/bin/ksh HOST=`hostname` ASM_OS_DEV_NM=/tmp/asmdevicenames.log ASMVOTEDSK=/tmp/asm_votingdisks.log GRID_HOME=`cat /etc/oratab |grep “+ASM” |awk -F “:” ‘{print $2}’` ORACLE_HOME=$GRID_HOME PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH: export GAWK=/bin/gawk # # do_pipe () { SQLP=”$GRID_HOME/bin/sqlplus -s / as sysdba”; $SQLP |& # Open a pipe to SQL*Plus print -p — ‘set feed off … Continue reading
iSCSI and enable disks for ASM
Helpful tips for my iSCSI storage buds that want to enable/provision disks for ASM # get initiator name of host or hosts cat /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi # create volume on san and present to host login to san, create volume, add initator(s) to access # get wwid for each disk and update alias in multipath.conf multipath -ll … Continue reading
These questions keep coming up, so for quick reference, here’s a terminology re-cap!! ZFS Snapshots and Clones Snapshots A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of a filesystem or LUN. Snapshots can be created manually or by setting up an automatic schedule. Snapshots initially consume no additional space, but as the active share changes, previously unreferenced … Continue reading
Want to modify ports on SCAN and Node Listeners,think again
Consideration for setting Parameters for Scan and Node Listeners on RAC, Queuesize, SDU, Ports, etc TNS listener information held in a listener.ora for releases >= 11.2 on RAC should not be modified. That is the IPC endpoint information for a node listener should not be changed. Global listener parameters can be set in the file, … Continue reading
iSCSI vs FcoE – a basic review and load test for Database Workloads
We were invited to visit w/ a client to help them migrate their 11.2 database to newer hardware. Since they were re-platforming, this was a good time for them to re-think their storage platform too. From a storage perspective, that had already had iSCSI implanted in their environment. When they asked what I thought about … Continue reading
Rarely discussed 12c New Features Part 3 – Oracle Net Listener Registration
In Oracle Database 12c there were some minor Oracle Net Services features. This blog post covers some of the changes. In the next part I’ll review some of Dead Connection Detection changes as well as some of the smaller new features. This change is neither sexy nor fun, but as an devoted RAC dev guy, … Continue reading
ASM vs Filesystem
ASM vs Filesystem ASM vs filesystem performance.pdf Quick Overview on comparing ASM and filesystem (any filesystem) from an administrative and performance prespective
FlexASM Deep Dive – Show Me the Output!!!
If you saw the first FlexASM blog you know we installed and configured FlexASM and a CDB plus a couple of PDBs. Also, this was Policy Managed with a cardinality of 2. Now let’s see what the configuration looks like, and we can break it down using the wonderful crsctl and srvctl tools First let’s … Continue reading
Creating PDBs part 3
Due to so many people asking me other methods besides SQLplus for provisioning PDBs; such as OEM, DBCA, etc. In this blog entry I’ll DBCA, just because its simple to show. As I mentioned in my last PDB blog, the installer DBCA (initial DBA invocation) looks different than the subsequent (post initial db creation). The … Continue reading
Creating PDB’s part 2
Once we have installed 12.1 Database Software, we can create the Container Database and the Pluggable Databases. In my case I did a software only install then manually executed DBCA In this blog entry I’ll show the screens that walk-thru the configuration of the “first” database. I noticed that once DBCA is used to create … Continue reading
Creating PDBs
Consolidate where possible …Isolate where necessary In the last blog I mentioned the benefits of schema consolidation and how it dove tails directly into a 12c Oracle Database PDB implementation. In this part 2 of the PDB blog, we will get a little more detailed and do a basic walk-through, from “cradle to grave” of … Continue reading
12c PDB Multitenancy, Schema Consolidation, and whatever
Many of you have probably have heard me speak over the years (at OOW, local user groups and at the local bars) about the virtues of simplification, rationalization, and consolidation. I mentioned the different database consolidation and multi-tenancy models: Virtualization based, Database Instance and Schema consolidation. The following papers I wrote [when I was at … Continue reading
How to recover from an aborted GI Standalone Clusterware config …and live to tell about it
I generally don’t get time to play with single instance ASM since I in live the RAC world so much. But I needed to quickly create a 12c PDB configuration over ASM. If you recall from the 11gR2 tho is straightforward install and configuration of Grid Infrustructure. However, there are cases where the install/config doesn’t … Continue reading
A 12c Flex Cluster Installation Walk-thru
Let’s start the 12c Flex install, with the execution of the traditional runInstaller script Let’s choose Install 12c Flex Cluster And yes we picking English… since we live in English-land Now let’s specify the Scan information and yes, we’ll need to define GNS and since we have to use GNS, we’ll need to get DNS … Continue reading
12C ASM – THE NEW ASM FRONTIER
Even though Nitin presented a session on Oracle 12c ASM New Features at IOUG Collaborate 2013, he was not allowed to submit any documentation since Oracle 12c was not GA yet. Here’s his paper on ASM 12c New Features – The New ASM Frontier Posted by Nitin Vengurlekar, Viscosity North America, CTO