Oracle RAC(Real Application Cluster) DBA Interview Questions What is RAC? RAC stands for Real Application cluster.

It is a clustering solution from Oracle Corporation that ensures high availability of databases by providing instance failover, media failover features. Mention the Oracle RAC software components:Oracle RAC is composed of two or more database instances. They are composed of M emory structures and background processes same as the single instance [Link] RAC instances use two processes GES(Global Enqueue Serv ice), GCS(Global Cache Service) that enable cache [Link] RAC instances are composed of following background processes: ACMS Atomic Controlfile to Memory Service (ACMS) GTX0-j Global Transaction Process LMON Global Enqueue Service Monitor LMD Global Enqueue Service Daemon LMS Global Cache Service Process LCK0 Instance Enqueue Process RMSn Oracle RAC Management Processes (RMSn) RSMN Remote Slave Monitor What is GRD? GRD stands for Global Resource Directory. The GES and GCS maintains records of t he statuses of each datafile and each cahed block using global resource [Link] process is referred to as cache fusion and helps in data integrit y. Give Details on Cache Fusion:Oracle RAC is composed of two or more instances. When a block of data is read fr om datafile by an instance within the cluster and another instance is in need of the same block,it is easy to get the block image from the insatnce which has the block in its SGA rather than reading from the disk. To enable inter instance communication Oracle RAC makes use of interconnects. The Global E nqueue Service(GES) monitors and Instance enqueue process manages the cahce fusion. Give Details on ACMS:ACMS stands for Atomic Controlfile Memory [Link] an Oracle RAC environment A CMS is an agent that ensures a distributed SGA memory update(ie)SGA updates are globally committed on success or globally aborted in event of a failure. Give details on GTX0-j :The process provides transparent support for XA global transactions in a RAC env [Link] database autotunes the number of these processes based on the workload of XA global transactions. Give details on LMON:This process monitors global enques and resources across the cluster and perform s global enqueue recovery [Link] is called as Global Enqueue Service Monitor. Give details on LMD:This process is called as global enqueue service daemon. This process manages i ncoming remote resource requests within each instance. Give details on LMS:This process is called as Global Cache service [Link] process maintains st atuses of datafiles and each cahed block by recording information in a Global Resource Dectory(GRD).This process also controls the flow of messages to remote instances and manages global data block access and transmits block images between the buffer caches of different [Link] processing is a par t of cache fusion feature. Give details on LCK0:This process is called as Instance enqueue [Link] process manages non-cach e fusion resource requests such as libry and row cache requests. Give details on RMSn:This process is called as Oracle RAC management [Link] pocesses perform m anagability tasks for Oracle [Link] include creation of resources related

Oracle RAC when new instances are added to the cluster. Give details on RSMN:This process is called as Remote Slave [Link] process manages background s lave process creation andd communication on remote instances. This is a background slave [Link] process performs tasks on behalf of a co-ordinatin g process running in another instance. What components in RAC must reside in shared storage? All datafiles, controlfiles, SPFIles, redo log files must reside on cluster-awar e shred storage. What is the significance of using cluster-aware shared storage in an Oracle RAC environment? All instances of an Oracle RAC can access all the datafiles,control files, SPFIL E's, redolog files when these files are hosted out of cluster-aware shared storage which are group of shared disks. Give few examples for solutions that support cluster storage:ASM(automatic storage management),raw disk devices,network file system(NFS), OCF S2 and OCFS(Oracle Cluster Fie systems). What is an interconnect network? an interconnect network is a private network that connects all of the servers in a cluster. The interconnect network uses a switch/multiple switches that only the nodes in the cluster can access. How can we configure the cluster interconnect? Configure User Datagram Protocol(UDP) on Gigabit ethernet for cluster interconn [Link] unia and linux systems we use UDP and RDS(Reliable data socket) protocols to be used by Oracle [Link] clusters use the TCP protocol . Can we use crossover cables with Oracle Clusterware interconnects? No, crossover cables are not supported with Oracle Clusterware intercnects. What is the use of cluster interconnect? Cluster interconnect is used by the Cache fusion for inter instance communicatio n. How do users connect to database in an Oracle RAC environment? Users can access a RAC database using a client/server configuration or through o ne or more middle tiers ,with or without connection [Link] can use oracle services feature to connect to database. What is the use of a service in Oracle RAC environemnt? Applications should use the services feature to connect to the Oracle database.S ervices enable us to define rules and characteristics to control how users and applications connect to database instances. What are the characteriscs controlled by Oracle services feature? The charateristics include a unique name, workload balancing and failover option s,and high availability characteristics. Which enable the load balancing of applications in RAC? Oracle Net Services enable the load balancing of application connections across all of the instances in an Oracle RAC database. What is a virtual IP address or VIP? A virtl IP address or VIP is an alternate IP address that the client connectins use instead of the standard public IP address. To configureVIP address, we need to reserve a spare IP address for each node, and the IP addresses must u se the same subnet as the public network. What is the use of VIP? If a node fails, then the node's VIP address fails over to another node on which the VIP address can accept TCP connections but it cannot accept Oracle connections. Give situations under which VIP address failover happens:VIP addresses failover happens when the node on which the VIP address runs fails , all interfaces for the VIP address fails, all interfaces for the VIP address are disconnected from the network. What is the significance of VIP address failover? When a VIP address failover happens, Clients that attempt to connect to the VIP

address receive a rapid connection refused error .They don't have to wait for TCP connection timeout messages. What are the administrative tools used for Oracle RAC environments? Oracle RAC cluster can be administered as a single image using OEM(Enterprise Ma nager),SQL*PLUS,Servercontrol(SRVCTL),clusterverificationutility(cvu), DBCA,NETCA How do we verify that RAC instances are running? Issue the following query from any one node connecting through SQL*PLUS. $connect sys/sys as sysdba SQL>select * from V$ACTIVE_INSTANCES; The query gives the instance number under INST_NUMBER column,host_:instancename under INST_NAME column. What is FAN? Fast application Notification as it abbreviates to FAN relates to the events rel ated to instances,services and [Link] is a notification mechanism that Oracle RAc uses to notify other processes about the configuration and service le vel information that includes service status changes such as,UP or DOWN [Link] can respond to FAN events and take immediate action. Where can we apply FAN UP and DOWN events? FAN UP and FAN DOWN events can be applied to instances,services and nodes. State the use of FAN events in case of a cluster configuration change? During times of cluster configuration changes,Oracle RAC high availability frame work publishes a FAN event immediately when a state change occurs in the [Link] applications can receive FAN events and react [Link] preven ts applications from polling database and detecting a problem after such a state change. Why should we have seperate homes for ASm instance? It is a good practice to have ASM home seperate from the database hom(ORACLE_HOM E).This helps in upgrading and patching ASM and the Oracle database software independent of each [Link],we can deinstall the Oracle database software in dependent of the ASM instance. What is the advantage of using ASM? Having ASM is the Oracle recommended storage option for RAC databases as the ASM maximizes performance by managing the storage configuration across the [Link] does this by distributing the database file across all of the availabl e storage within our cluster database environment. What is rolling upgrade? It is a new ASM feature from Database [Link] instances in Oracle database 11g r elease(from 11.1) can be upgraded or patched using rolling upgrade feature. This enables us to patch or upgrade ASM nodes in a clustered environment without affecting database [Link] a rolling upgrade we can maintain a functional cluster while one or more of the nodes in the cluster are running in different software versions. Can rolling upgrade be used to upgrade from 10g to 11g database? No,it can be used only for Oracle database 11g releases(from 11.1). State the initialization parameters that must have same value for every instance in an Oracle RAC database:Some initialization parameters are critical at the database creation time and mu st have same [Link] value must be specified in SPFILE or PFILE for every [Link] list of parameters that must be identical on every instance a re given below: ACTIVE_INSTANCE_COUNT ARCHIVE_LAG_TARGET COMPATIBLE CLUSTER_DATABASE CLUSTER_DATABASE_INSTANCE CONTROL_FILES DB_BLOCK_SIZE DB_DOMAIN DB_FILES

DB_NAME DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE DB_UNIQUE_NAME INSTANCE_TYPE (RDBMS or ASM) PARALLEL_MAX_SERVERS REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORD_FILE UNDO_MANAGEMENT Can the DML_LOCKS and RESULT_CACHE_MAX_SIZE be identical on all instances? These parameters can be identical on all instances only if these parameter value s are set to zero. What two parameters must be set at the time of starting up an ASM instance in a RAC environment?The parameters CLUSTER_DATABASE and INSTANCE_TYPE must be set. Mention the components of Oracle clusterware:Oracle clusterware is made up of components like voting disk and Oracle Cluster Registry(OCR). What is a CRS resource? Oracle clusterware is used to manage high-availability operations in a cluster.A nything that Oracle Clusterware manages is known as a CRS [Link] examples of CRS resources are database,an instance,a service,a listener,a VIP ad dress,an application process etc. What is the use of OCR? Oracle clusterware manages CRS resources based on the configuration information of CRS resources stored in OCR(Oracle Cluster Registry). How does a Oracle Clusterware manage CRS resources? Oracle clusterware manages CRS resources based on the configuration information of CRS resources stored in OCR(Oracle Cluster Registry). Name some Oracle clusterware tools and their uses? OIFCFG - allocating and deallocating network interfaces OCRCONFIG - Command-line tool for managing Oracle Cluster Registry OCRDUMP - Identify the interconnect being used CVU - Cluster verification utility to get status of CRS resources What are the modes of deleting instances from ORacle Real Application cluster Da tabases? We can delete instances using silent mode or interactive mode using DBCA(Databas e Configuration Assistant). How do we remove ASM from a Oracle RAC environment? We need to stop and delete the instance in the node first in interactive or sile nt [Link] that asm can be removed using srvctl tool as follows: srvctl stop asm -n node_name srvctl remove asm -n node_name We can verify if ASM has been removed by issuing the following command: srvctl config asm -n node_name How do we verify that an instance has been removed from OCR after deleting an in stance? Issue the following srvctl command: srvctl config database -d database_name cd CRS_HOME/bin ./crs_stat How do we verify an existing current backup of OCR? We can verify the current backup of OCR using the following command : ocrconfig -showbackup What are the performance views in an Oracle RAC environment? We have v$ views that are instance specific. In addition we have GV$ views calle d as global views that has an INST_ID column of numeric data [Link]$ views obtain information from individual V$ views. What are the types of connection load-balancing? There are two types of connection load-balancing:server-side load balancing and client-side load balancing. What is the differnece between server-side and client-side connection load balan

cing? Client-side balancing happens at client side where load balancing is done using [Link] case of server-side load balancing listener uses a load-balancing advisory to redirect connections to the instance providing best s ervice. Give the usage of srvctl:srvctl start instance -d db_name -i "inst_name_list" [-o start_options]srvctl st op instance -d name -i "inst_name_list" [-o stop_options]srvctl stop instance -d orcl -i "orcl3,orcl4" -o immediatesrvctl start database -d name [-o start_options]srvctl stop database -d name [-o stop_options]srvctl start database -d orcl -o mount ******************************************************* Oracle RAC Interview questions and answers What are Oracle Clusterware processes for 10g on Unix and Linux Cluster Synchronization Services (ocssd) Manages cluster node membership and run s as the oracle user; failure of this process results in cluster restart. Cluster Ready Services (crsd) The crs process manages cluster resources (which c ould be a database, an instance, a service, a Listener, a virtual IP (VIP) addre ss, an application process, and so on) based on the resource's configuration inf ormation that is stored in the OCR. This includes start, stop, monitor and failo ver operations. This process runs as the root user Event manager daemon (evmd) reates. A background process that publishes events that crs c

Process Monitor Daemon (OPROCD) This process monitor the cluster and provide I/O fencing. OPROCD performs its check, stops running, and if the wake up is beyond the expected time, then OPROCD resets the processor and reboots the node. An OPROCD failure results in Oracle Clusterware restarting the node. OPROCD uses the hangcheck timer on Linux platforms. RACG (racgmain, racgimon) Extends clusterware to support Oracle-specific requirem ents and complex resources. Runs server callout scripts when FAN events occur. What are Oracle database background processes specific to RAC LMS Global Cache Service Process LMD Global Enqueue Service Daemon LMON Global Enqueue Service Monitor LCK0 Instance Enqueue Process To ensure that each Oracle RAC database instance obtains the block that it needs to satisfy a query or transaction, Oracle RAC instances use two processes, the Global Cache Service (GCS) and the Global Enqueue Service (GES). The GCS and GES maintain records of the statuses of each data file and each cached block using a Global Resource Directory (GRD). The GRD contents are distributed across all of the active instances. What are Oracle Clusterware Components Voting Disk Oracle RAC uses the voting disk to manage cluster membership by way

of a health check and arbitrates cluster ownership among the instances in case of network failures. The voting disk must reside on shared disk. Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) Maintains cluster configuration information as wel l as configuration information about any cluster database within the cluster. The OCR must reside on shared disk that is accessible by all of the nod es in your cluster How do you troubleshoot node reboot Please check metalink ... Note 265769.1 Troubleshooting CRS Reboots Note.559365.1 Using Diagwait as a diagnostic to get more information for diagnos ing Oracle Clusterware Node evictions. How do you backup the OCR There is an automatic backup mechanism for OCR. The default location is : $ORA_C RS_HOME\cdata\"clustername"\ To display #ocrconfig To restore #ocrconfig backups : -showbackup a backup : -restore

With Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 or later, you can also use the export command: #ocrconfig -export -s online, and use -import option to restore the contents bac k. With Oracle RAC 11g Release 1, you can do a manaual backup of the OCR with the c ommand: # ocrconfig -manualbackup How do you backup voting disk #dd if=voting_disk_name of=backup_file_name How do I identify the voting disk location #crsctl query css votedisk How do I identify the OCR file location check /var/opt/oracle/[Link] or /etc/[Link] ( depends upon platform) or #ocrcheck Is ssh required for normal Oracle RAC operation ? "ssh" are not required for normal Oracle RAC operation. However "ssh" should be enabled for Oracle RAC and patchset installation. What is SCAN? Single Client Access Name (SCAN) is s a new Oracle Real Application Clusters (RA C) 11g Release 2 feature that provides a single name for clients to access an Oracle Database running in a cluster. The benefit is clients using SCAN do no t need to change if you add or remove nodes in the cluster. Click here for more details from Oracle

What is the purpose of Private Interconnect ? Clusterware uses the private interconnect for cluster synchronization (network h eartbeat) and daemon communication between the the clustered nodes. This communication is based on the TCP protocol. RAC uses the interconnect for cache fusion (UDP) and inter-process communication (TCP). Cache Fusion is the remote memory mapping of Oracle buffers, shared between the caches of participating nodes in the cluster. Why do we have a Virtual IP (VIP) in Oracle RAC? Without using VIPs or FAN, clients connected to a node that died will often wait for a TCP timeout period (which can be up to 10 min) before getting an error. As a result, you don't really have a good HA solution without using VIPs. When a node fails, the VIP associated with it is automatically failed over to so me other node and new node re-arps the world indicating a new MAC address for the IP. Subsequent packets sent to the VIP go to the new node, which will se nd error RST packets back to the clients. This results in the clients getting errors immediately. What do you do if you see GC CR BLOCK LOST in top 5 Timed Events in AWR Report? This is most likely due to a fault in interconnect network. Check netstat -s if you see "fragments dropped" or "packet reassemblies failed" , Work with your system administrator find the fault with network. How many nodes are supported in a RAC Database? 10g Release 2, support 100 nodes in a cluster using Oracle Clusterware, and 100 instances in a RAC database. Srvctl cannot start instance, I get the following error PRKP-1001 CRS-0215, howe ver sqlplus can start it on both nodes? How do you identify the problem? Set the environmental variable SRVM_TRACE to true.. And start the instance with srvctl. Now you will get detailed error stack. what is the purpose of the ONS daemon? The Oracle Notification Service (ONS) daemon is an daemon started by the CRS clu sterware as part of the nodeapps. There is one ons daemon started per clustered node. The Oracle Notification Service daemon receive a subset of published clusterware events via the local evmd and racgimon clusterware daemons and forward those events to application subscribers and to the local listeners. This in order to facilitate: a. the FAN or Fast Application Notification feature or allowing applications to respond to database state changes. b. the 10gR2 Load Balancing Advisory, the feature that permit load balancing acc ross different rac nodes dependent of the load on the different nodes. The rdbms MMON is creating an advisory for distribution of work every 30seconds and forward it via racgimon and ONS to listeners and applications.