PRIMECLUSTER Installation and Administration Guide 4.1 (for Solaris(TM) Operating System)

14.1 Functional Overview

PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle is a software product that facilitates cluster operation management for Oracle operating on a PRIMECLUSTER system.

This is required for scalable operation and standby operation for a cold standby Oracle instance. The scalable operation requires Oracle9i Real Application Clusters (Oracle9i RAC). The standby operation does not require Oracle9i RAC, but requires Oracle cold standby instead.

Startup and stop control

In line with the state transition of the cluster system, scripts automatically start or stop an Oracle instance or an Oracle listener. These scripts first check and then start up the Oracle instance. If damage has occurred, the scripts automatically recover the Oracle instance. For example, if the Oracle instance fails during online backup, the scripts automatically execute "end backup" to start up the Oracle instance. (When the AutoRecover is set to "Yes".) When stopping the Oracle instance, the scripts stop it in the immediate mode (default). If this does not occur properly, the scripts stop the instance in the abort mode. This means operational node switchover can be performed at high-speed.

Monitoring

A detector monitors an Oracle instance and an Oracle listener. The detector connects itself to Oracle using system user. Then, this enables the detector periodically to create, update and delete a dummy table, which should be generated in the system user's default tablespace, by executing an SQL command. Consequently, a logical failure can be detected as well as the process of the Oracle instance being active or inactive. When the Oracle instance hangs, and if the SQL command is not returned within a specified time, the detector times out and notifies a user of the failure. The two types of monitoring of the Oracle listener are process detection and the "tnsping" command.

Environment setup

The environment setup tool provides an "ORACLE" Wizard that generates userApplications in the RMS configuration by executing the "hvw" command of PRIMECLUSTER RMS Wizard.