Create Oracle ASM diskgroups with Dell PowerMax and PowerPath

In this post I am going to explore adding a new ASM diskgroup to an Oracle 19c RAC using PowerMax storage.

We will follow best practices as laid out in H17390 Deployment Best Practices Guide for Oracle with Powermax. This post is a companion to the video Create Oracle ASM diskgroups with Dell PowerMax and PowerPath.

This blog post assumes some basic knowledge of PowerMax storage concepts. If you need a basic introduction please check out my PowerMax basics video.

These examples will use the Solutions Enabler command line method of managing the PowerMax, unlike the video which uses the Unisphere graphical interface.

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ORA-12637: Packet receive failed

I recently installed the Oracle Instant Client 21c on a Linux host.

I then tried to access an Oracle 19c RAC database on another host:

connect soe/soe@racn1.rrcsc.pmax.local:1521/metrodb.rrcsc.pmax.local
ORA-12637: Packet receive failed

Numerous blog posts on this error, but in this case I needed to add the directive DISABLE_OOB=ON to my SQLNET.ORA.

Normally this would be in $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin, but on the Instant Client, it is located in:

[root@MYLINUX01 ~]# cat /lib/oracle/21/client64/lib/network/admin/sqlnet.ora

DISABLE_OOB=ON

Powerpath will not remove paths after ASM volumes are removed

You’ve unmounted the ASM diskgroup, disabled it, removed the volumes from the masking view and you’ve rescanned the SCSI bus.. yet Powerpath still will not remove the paths…

One of my ASM nodes is missing…

I recently added two new nodes to an existing 2-node RAC cluster, bringing the total nodes to 4.

After the installer completed, with more than a few errors along the way I might add, I had ASM running on just 3 nodes….

Solving INS-06006: Passwordless SSH connectivity during Oracle 19c RAC install

I was recently installing Oracle 19c RAC on a pair of servers running OEL8 UEK.

During the install of Grid Infrastructure the installer repeatedly failed the verification check stating that:

“[INS-06006] Passwordless SSH connectivity not set up between the following nodes(s)”

It is worth remembering that Oracle offers a relatively simple method to set up passwordless ssh connections between machines, which I had used prior to trying to install RAC:

In the Grid Infrastructure directory there is a script called sshUserSetup.sh

Powerstore Protection Policies and protecting Oracle ASM diskgroups

This is a quick post to demonstrate how Protection Policies can be used with Volume Groups to protect Oracle databases on Powerstore.

A Protection Policy is a powerful tool that the Powerstore storage array offers to protect application data, by automatically replicating the data to a second Powerstore which might be across the data center, or across the country.   And it can also protect the application data by generating snapshot copies of the data at a pre-determined time, or on a routine schedule.   

Such copies can then be set to auto-expire after a given amount of time.

Deleting an Oracle clone based on a Powerstore snapshot

In a few recent posts and videos I’ve walked through creating a thin clone of an Oracle database using a Dell Technologies Powerstore.

In this post, we’ll walk through how to safely delete an Oracle database that was created using a Powerstore snapshot or thin-clone.

There is a video for this blog.

Mounting and Opening an Oracle database created with a thin clone snapshot on Powerstore

In my last blog post I created a thin clone of my Swingbench database on my Oracle1 server, and mounted that thin clone to my Oracle2 server.

I also renamed the cloned ASM diskgroups SWINGDATA and FRA, to CLONESWINGDATA and CLONEFRA, as I already had ASM diskgroups with those names on Oracle2 already. As a final step I renamed the individual ASM disks within each of the cloned ASM diskgroups.

In this blog post I am going to mount and open the clone on Oracle2.

Note: There is a video for this post

Creating a Storage Snapshot of an Oracle database using Dell Powerstore

Storage level snapshot are an incredibly fast and space efficient method to create usable clones of an Oracle database. In this post we’ll create a storage-level snapshot of a Oracle database using a Dell Powerstore storage array. Our database spans two ASM diskgroups, and will be mounted to a second server.

Note: There is a video of this post.

Create ASM diskgroups with Dell Powerstore

I recently got an opportunity to do some testing with a Dell Powerstore 5000T all-flash storage array, so I thought I would share some of the notes I made during my testing, for the benefit of any DBAs who might be using one to deliver ASM disks to their Oracle databases.

This will be part of a series of posts that focus on the management of Oracle and ASM with Powerstore, so consider this post as a foundational topic. Nothing especially earth shattering, but some solid points nonetheless.

Oh, and there’s a video too