Oracle RAC

Overview of Real Application

Clustering Features and
Functionality
Overview
 What is RAC?
 Cache Fusion
 Failover and Load-balancing
 Transparent Application Failover
(TAF)
 Other RAC Features
RAC – What is it?
 Multiple instances of Oracle running on up
to 8 nodes
 Multiple instances share a single physical
database
 All instances can simultaneously execute
transactions against the single database
 Caches are synchronized using Oracle’s
Global Cache Management technology
(Cache Fusion)
History of Oracle RAC

 Previous Oracle Clustering Products

 Oracle FailSafe on Windows
 OPS (Oracle Parallel Server) on multiple
platforms
 OPS to RAC: 7.3 OPS  8i OPS  9i RAC 
10g RAC
 The clustering mechanism used to
be more dependent on the
Operating System.
 With 10g RAC, clustered database is
built into Oracle
Oracle RAC Features
 Full Cache Fusion
 Enhanced coordination of cache
management and distributed lock
manager (DLM)
 Lock simplification and automation
 Global Cache Service coordinates local
buffer cache and remote block transfers
 Enhanced IPC
 Resource configuration simplification and
automation
 Improved cluster aware tools
 Enhanced DBCA
 Oracle Enterprise Manager and Grid
RAC uses “Shared
Everything”

Users

Server Server Server Server

Database
How RAC clustering is
done
 One set of data
 All nodes in the cluster see the same
set of data
 All nodes have access
 Any node can update the data
Increased Manageability
 One virtual system to configure and
manage
 Single Oracle Database
 Single management console
 Single system image for the database
integrated with the cluster
 Cluster-wide monitoring and diagnostics
 Oracle Enterprise Manager Integration (9i)
 Oracle DBConsole and Grid Control
Integration (10g)
What’s shared; What’s not
 Shared
 Disk access
 Resources that manage data
 All instances have common data & controls
files
 Not Shared
 Each node has its own dedicated:
 System memory
 Operating system
 Database instance
 Application software
 Each instance has individual
 Log files and
 Rollback segments
RAC can perform
 Load-balancing
 Failover
Load-Balancing through the
Listener
Client

r Lis
ne t en
er

t e

L is
s er
en

Li
st

t en
Li

er
Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4

Database
How workload is balanced
 Nodes report
CPU usage to
listeners Node 1

Database
Client

Node 2
How workload is balanced
 Listeners choose
least busy node
when request
comes in from Node 1

client

Client Database

Node 2
Load-Balancing

Users

Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4

Database
Failover

 If a node in the shared disk cluster fails, the

system dynamically redistributes the workload
among the surviving cluster nodes.
 RAC checks to detect node and network failures.
A disk-based heartbeat mechanism uses the
control file to monitor node membership and the
cluster interconnect is regularly checked to
determine correct operation.
 Reduced time to recovery with concurrent
resource configuration and instance (cache)
recovery
 Enhanced failover reliability in 10g with the use
of Virtual IP addresses (VIPs)
Failover

Users

XServer Server Server Server

Database
Transparent Application
Failover
 Masks failures to end users; they don’t
need to log back into the system
 Applications and users are transparently
reconnected to another node
 Applications and queries continue
uninterrupted
 Transactions can failover and replay
 Login context maintained
 DML transactions are rolled back
RAC Improvements for
Oracle 9i
 Full Cache Fusion
 Enhanced coordination of cache
management and distributed lock
manager (DLM)
 Lock simplification and automation
 Global Cache Service coordinates local
buffer cache and remote block transfers
 Enhanced IPC (InterProcess
Communication)
 Resource configuration simplification and
automation
Oracle 10g RAC New
Features
 Integrated Clusterware Management
 No third-party clusterware software required
 Automatic Workload Management
 Application workloads can be managed through named
services
 Single System Image Management
 Enterprise Manager manages RAC instances as a single image
 Fast Connection Failover
 Fast recovery between the database and mid-tier applications
 Performance Improvements
 Reduced message traffic, memory usage, and other resources
 Zero Downtime Patching
 Patches may be applied one node at a time without downtime
 Cluster Verification and Improved Diagnostic Tools
 New cluster diagnostic tool and improved diagnostic tools
Full Cache Fusion
 Is a major feature of RAC starting with 9i
 The underlying technology that enables
RAC
 Protocol that allows instances to combine
their data caches into a shared global
cache
 Allows any node to get the most up-to-
date data information from the cache of
any other node in the cluster without
having to access the disk drives again.
 Improved performance with 10g
What is Cache Fusion?
When do I care about it?
 “Dirty” block of data is created
 Data from disk is read into memory on a
node
 Data is updated on that node
 Data hasn’t been written to disk yet.
 Another node requests the data
“ABC” block of data written
to the disk drives in the
database

Node A Node B

ABC Data
“ABC” block of data read
into memory on Node A

Node A Node B

ABC Data

ABC Data
“ABC” updated to “XYZ” in
cache

Node A Node B

ABC Data
XYZ Data

ABC Data
Node B requests data
block
I want
data!
Gimm
Node A Node B e!
ABC Data Gimm
XYZ Data
e!

ABC Data
Node A must write data
block to disk drive
I want
data!
Gimm
Node A Node B e!
ABC Data
XYZ Data
Gimm
A C
e!
i R
o 9
s t
wr

o u
ite

e vi
ABC Data
XYZ Data P r
Node B must read data block
from disk drive

Node A Node B

ABC Data
XYZ Data XYZ Data
A C
i R
o 9
s t
u
ad

vi o
re

r e
ABC Data
XYZ Data P
Now with RAC Cache
Fusion
I want
data!
Gimm
Node A Node B e!
ABC Data
XYZ Data
Gimm
XYZ Data
e!
 Data is transferred
immediately via the
interconnect
 Shared cache minimizes
slow I/O

ABC Data
Shared Cache Across
Nodes

Users

Server Server Server Server

Database
Resource Simplification and
Automation
 No init.ora parameters required
 Resource affinity
 to move the location of the resource masters
for a database file to the instance where block
operations are most frequently occurring. This
optimizes
 Dynamic resource remastering
 Ability to move the ownership of a resource
between instances of Real Application
Clusters.
 Dynamic resource remastering is used to
implement resource affinity for increased
Review
 What does cache fusion avoid that was
mandatory in previous versions of Oracle
Parallel Server?
 Which Oracle process is most important
in managing user session failover?
 If the purpose of the interconnect is NOT
to serve as a “heartbeat”, where is the
heartbeat?
Summary
 New Features
 Shared Everything Clustering
 Cache Fusion
 RAC Clustering failover & load-
balancing