How to Install Oracle 11g Release 2 on OEL 5.4 on VirtualBox: Managing ASM with ASMCA
In the previous post, I have tried to explain how to install Grid Infrastructure on your VirtualBox instance. In this post, before moving to the next post in which I will be explaining RDBMS 11g Release 2 configuration, I wish to look at a new tool shipped with Grid Infrastructure, namely ASMCA(ASM Configuration Assistant).
We will not be going deep with ASMCA in this post but rather it will be just like a first contact with aliens. ASMCA is a very capable and accompanying tool with the new capabilities of ASM like ADVM or ACFS.
Starting with ASMCA
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Starting ASMCA is simple. Go to your GRID_HOME set ORACLE_SID to +ASM and run asmca binary.
As you will notice there is already one disk group namely DATA listed under Disk Gruops pane. This is the one created during Grid Infrastructure installation. |
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As you click on Create button a new dialog to create your new disk group will appear. Enter FRA for Disk Group Name textbox. Choose External(None) radio button to choose external ASM redundancy. Notice that not all disks (asm disks) are available for your use (this controlled by two radio buttons in Select Member Disks pane) Select all three disks for FRA. Now click on Show Advanced Options button to see RDBMS and ASM compatibilities. |
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Notice that ASM and Database Compatibility fields are both set to 11.2.0.0.0 This means ASM instance will allow you to use all new features introduced in 11.2 for this diskgroup but the minimum RDMS instance can use this diskgroup should be in 11.2 release. Click on Hide Advance Options button and then OK to complete diskgroup creation. |
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ASM will do the necessary initializations to create FRA diskgroup and switch back to initial screen after it is done. | |
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As you see FRA is created and mounted by your ASM instance. | |
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Now right click on your DATA diskgroup. In the list ASMCA allows you to
Choose Edit Attributes from the list to see attributes of DATA diskgroup. |
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As you see ASMCA enables the attribute fields those are possible to modify and disables the static ones (the ones fixed in creation of diskgroup). Click X to close this window. |
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Click on Exit button to leave ASMCA. |
ASMCA is the youngest member of Oracle *CA family. It seems that ASM users will be using it actively for management by the new features in 11g Release 2. Such as,
- ASM Volume (ADVM) Management
- ASM File System (ACFS) Management
- Read-only snapshot management
Posted on November 21, 2009, in Oracle and tagged 11g Release 2, ASM, Oracle. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
The great grandson of Husnu Sensoy 
Hi,
REally nice content you have putup here. I have also one question regrading ASM. I want to install RAC on Solaris sparc box. When start the grid installation I made a selection for Advance option because want to configure RAC on 2 nodes. when select the ASM for the “storage option information screen” (steps 7 out of 15) and then click next.There were no disks I can see, where I have already shared few partition. Do you have any idea why is it so?
If you refer to my previous post on Grid Infrastructure installation at ASM diskgroup creation step you will see on the bottom of the screen that you can modify “Change Discovery Path”. Ensure that the regular expression in this string match with your ASM devices. The second point is that please ensure that the ownership of those devices belong to Grid Infrastructure user (oracle/grid) and mode of those devices are at least 660. The final point is that if you are using multipath devices there are some sharp edge issues with some multipath devices:
For example on solaris I remember that if you are not skip first 1M of the device and then label devices with EMC powerpath ASM discovery will fail event that the above issues are solved. For more please refer to Multipath tutorial of your vendor.
Wonderful article about ASM with proper screenshots. Thanks a lot for sharing.
All ASM commands at one place : http://chandu208.blogspot.com/2011/04/asm.html