ASM Part 1: Basics & Configuring 10gR2 ASM

Objective:
To understand the ASM Basics and to configure ASM 10gR2 on OEL 4.8 using VMWARE
Introduction:
ASM (Automatic Storage Management) was introduced in Oracle 10g. ASM provides both File System and
Volume Management capabilities and simplifies the storage management for DBAs.
Terminology:
ASM Instance:
An ASM Instance is built on the same technology as an Oracle Database Instance with its own SGA and
Background Processes. However, an Oracle Database Instance is responsible for processing the user
database requests and an ASM Instance mounts the Disk Groups it manages and makes the ASM Files
available to the Database Instances.
ASM Disks:
ASM Disks are storage devices like a Disk or a partition or a logical volume etc.
ASM Disk Group:
A Disk Group consists of multiple disks and is the fundamental object that ASM
manages.
ASM Files:
These are the files that are stored in ASM Disk Groups. Each ASM file is contained within a single ASM
disk group. Some of the examples of ASM Files are Datafiles, Control Files, SPFILE, RMAN Backup Files,
Online Redo Logs, Archive logs etc


Ok.. Lets take a simple example. Have a look at the picture:
In the image, there is an ASM Instance which is being used by 3 Databases. The files(Can a Data File,
Controlfile, Backups etc) related to the 3 databases will be stored in the 2 Disk Groups A and B. Disk
Group A has 3 Disks where as B has only 2 Disks.

Key Points:
1. Each node(Physical Machine) can have only 1 ASM Instance.
2. Several RDBMS Instance(Database) can you use a single ASM Instance on the node
3. In case of RAC, each node of the cluster should have its own ASM Instance
4. ASM Instance should always be started 1st before starting databases that use ASM Storage
5. Mirroring can be achieved by using Normal and High redundancy levels

Advantages:
Oracle proprietary solution addressing both File System and Volume Manager Requirements thereby
reducing the dependency on various other File Systems and 3rd party volume managers.
ASM Disk and Disk Group management (Storage Management) can be done by even Oracle DBAs with
minimum knowledge on storage using ASMCMD, Enterprise Manager and even simple SQL Statements
thereby reducing the dependency on dedicated storage administrators.
As a Volume Management solution, it provides Striping and Mirroring features for better performance
and redundancy respectively.
Compatible and certified with Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) and RMAN.
Configuring ASM 10gR2 on OEL 4.8 using VMWARE:

I recommend you to have a look at the video as well as it clearly shows you every step. The steps you need
to perform to configure ASM 10gR2 are below:

1. Perform all the OS Preparation steps that you perform to install Oracle Database like editing /etc/hosts,
/etc/sysctl.conf, Installaing RPMs etc

2. Create required OS Groups and Users
groupadd dba
useradd -g dba -d /u01/oracle oracle

3. Install the following RPMs related to ASM:
oracleasm-2.6.9-89.0.0.0.1.EL-2.0.5-1.el4.i686.rpm
oracleasmlib-2.0.4-1.el4.i386.rpm
oracleasm-support-2.1.3-1.el4.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh oracleasm*
4. Shutdown the OS. Add 4 Disks from VMWARE "Edit Virtual Machines settings" option.

5. Start the OS. Format the disks using fdisk as below:
fdisk /dev/sdb
Answer with the below prompts:
n
p
1
1
Enter
w
Similarly partition /dev/sdc,/dev/sdd,/dev/sde

6. Configure ASM Interface
/etc/init.d/oracleasm configure
Answer with the below prompts:
oracle
dba
y
y

7. /etc/init.d/oracleasm enable

8. Create ASM Disks:
/etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk DF1 /dev/sdb1
/etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk DF2 /dev/sdc1
/etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk DF3 /dev/sdd1
/etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk DF4 /dev/sde1

9. /etc/init.d/oracleasm listdisks
The above command should show the ASM Disks you created like this:
DF1
DF2
DF3
DF4

10. Run xhost + as root

11. Install 10.2.0.1 Software(Select Advanced installation and select only software)
su - oracle
unzip 10201*.zip
cd database
./runInstallter

12. Now keep the following parameters in .bash_profile of oracle user:
export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
export PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin

13. Run dbca
Select "Configure Automatic Storage Management"
Create DATA and FRA DiskGroups

14. Now create a database using DBCA and select "ASM" as storage option

15. Checking the diskgroups:
There are several ways in which you can administer ASM which we will see in further parts. I would like to
throw a little light on this as of now:
export ORACLE_SID=+ASM
sqlplus '/as sysdba'
select name,free_mb from v$asm_diskgroup;
or
You can ASMCMD command line interface to see disk groups and contents pretty easily with decent
navigation commands of linux like ls, cd etc