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 Oracles 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 Control Integration Enhancements

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)

Whats shared; Whats not

Shared

Disk access Resources that manage data All instances have common data & controls files Each node has its own dedicated:

Not Shared

System memory Operating system Database instance Application software Log files and Rollback segments

Each instance has individual

RAC can perform

Load-balancing Failover

Load-Balancing through the Listener

Client

Node 1

Node 2

Node 3

Node 4

Database

How workload is balanced

Nodes report CPU usage to listeners

Node 1

Client

Database

Node 2

How workload is balanced

Listeners choose least busy node when request comes in from client

Node 1

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

X
Server

Server

Server

Server

Database

Transparent Application Failover

Masks failures to end users; they dont 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 Application workloads can be managed through named services Enterprise Manager manages RAC instances as a single image Fast recovery between the database and mid-tier applications Reduced message traffic, memory usage, and other resources

Automatic Workload Management

Single System Image Management

Fast Connection Failover

Performance Improvements

Zero Downtime Patching

Patches may be applied one node at a time without downtime

New cluster diagnostic tool and improved diagnostic tools

Cluster Verification 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 hasnt 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 ABC Data XYZ Data

Node B

ABC Data

Node B requests data block

I want data! Gimme! Gimme!

Node A ABC Data XYZ Data

Node B

ABC Data

Node A must write data block to disk drive

I want data! Gimme! Gimme!

Node A ABC Data XYZ Data

Node B

ABC Data XYZ Data

Node B must read data block from disk drive

Node A ABC Data XYZ Data

Node B

XYZ Data

ABC Data XYZ Data

Now with RAC Cache Fusion

I want data! Gimme! Gimme!

Node A ABC Data XYZ Data

Node B

XYZ Data

ABC Data

Data is transferred immediately via the interconnect Shared cache minimizes slow I/O

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 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 performance.

Dynamic resource remastering

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