10G OCM Planning

These are all the posts that I did for 10G OCM planning.

Starting Out

Saturday 02 December, 2006 - 21:24

I have just completed my 10G OCP upgrade, and I all ready to go for the 10G OCM. I have completed the 10G RAC course as well. This leaves me with one (1) other Oracle course to complete. At this stage, I am thinking of doing the 10G Data Guard course. The only one scheduled so far is in Canberra on 05-Feb-2007 for AUD3,169.

I have reviewed the Oracle Education page and found that there is no exam scheduled for Australia yet. So, I have no date to complete my preparations by. If I assume an exam sometime in the third quarter 2007, this would give me about seven (7) to ten (10) months to get ready.

Looking at the requirements for the OCM, I am going to learn how to install CRS, ASM, and Oracle in a RAC environment on Red Hat AS 3 (this may change to RHAS 4 by 2007).

The cheapest licence for RHAS4 is USD350.

I am planning to use VMWARE to simulate the RAC. The problem at this stage is how to simulate the shared storage. NFS is a possiblity but this would require three (3) VMWARE images to be running at the same time. Can ASM handle this? The alternative could be to buy the hardware.

RHAS

Sunday 03 December, 2006 - 07:42

Well, I made a mistake: Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES is USD349 while Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS starts at USD1499.

This OCM is getting pricey!

I have a free copy of RH Fedora Core 4. Choices!

At this stage, I am going to make a risky assumption: that for the purposes of the OCM, there is no significant difference between Fedora Core 4 and RHAS 4.

The next question is how will I recognise that this is a bad assumption. I could read other people's opinions.

RAC Design

Monday 04 December, 2006 - 21:14

I decided against using NFS for the basis of the cluster file system as it invloves setting up at least three (3) Linux hosts.

After reading Build Your Own Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 Cluster on Linux and iSCSI , I decided to buy some hardware to be the shared storage device.

I purchased LaCie Ethernet Disk mini - NAS - 250 GB - HD 250 GB x 1 - Ethernet 10/100 for AUD379.00 .

I salvaged a 100/10 NIC from an old computer and installed it into my WinXP machine. I was planning to set up a cross-over cable from WinXP to the NAS using a point-to-point Ethernet LAN. Unfortunately, the WinXP does recognise the new NIC. I brought a AUD20 NIC from DSE and plan to see if this solves the problem.

Timing

Saturday 13 January, 2007 - 15:09

Well, the two (2) biggest obstacles to progress on this quest for an OCM are:

Getting to an advanced Oracle course.
Allocating time to practice

The Oracle course I wanted to do has been rescheduled twice and then cancelled. A newer version was then posted without me being notified even though I had enrolled in the older version.

This rescheduling is difficult for me because I need to apply for leave at least a month in advance so that rosters can be sorted out.The other problem is that I am now involved in project work as well as on-call. This makes life fun. There is nothing like burning the candle at both ends.

I am going to have to set my sights on doing the OCM at the end of 2007 or early 2008.

Progress Report

Tuesday 20 February, 2007 - 18:32

Training

I have finally managed to get enrolled in an advanced training course. The problem seems to be that not enough people are interested in these courses, and the scheduled ones keep being cancelled due to lack of numbers.

Planning

I found a new article on setting up a RAC under VMWare: Install Oracle RAC 10g on Oracle Enterprise Linux Using VMware Server . This article shows how to use shared disk files instead of the network drive. If this works out, it means I have effectively wasted the money on the LaCie drive.

Time Allocation

Outside of this, I have not spent any time on setting up the RAC environment or preparing for the OCM. This means the OCM practium is out for 2007. I will have to plan for first quarter of 2008.

VMWare Clustering Road Block

Sunday 25 February, 2007 - 16:09

I found out from Clustering Virtual Machines , that I need the ESX version of WMWare to enable clustering. The quoted price is USD1,000.

The freeware competitor to VMWare is Xen .

I searched Google for Xen and Clustering to get the following series of articles:

At this stage, my options are:

Buy WMWare ESX
Use the LaCie NAS drive as the clustered storage
Install Xen and use it instead of WMWare

Option 1 is the last resort. (An evaluation copy is only usable for 30 days.) Option 3 means I have to learn a new technology - although this could be benefical in the long term. Option 2 means that I use the existing hardware and software.

A tentative plan is to:

Use external NAS drive for shared storage
If this fails, use Xen clustering
If this fails, spring for VMWare ESX

More Delays Expected

Monday 05 March, 2007 - 18:41

The on-call last week has knocked my OCM schedule around somewhat.

Now, my employer has sent me on a MySQL DBA course in order to support MySQL. And since MySQL is offering free certification exams up until the end of May 2007, I think this is good move on my part.

The bad news is that this would put my OCM schedule a month further behind schedule (such as it was).

OCM Test Scheduled

Thursday 15 March, 2007 - 20:33

An OCM test has been scheduled for the middle of April 2007. I believe the OCM test for 2006 was in June/July.

I am definitely not ready to take the test in April. I should plan to be ready to take the test by March 2008.

Major Milestone Achieved

Friday 13 April, 2007 - 20:47

I have just completed my second advanced 10G training course (10G Data Guard Administration) and registered my attendance with Prometric. Now I have completed all of the 10G OCM prerequisites.

The second MySQL DBA examination is scheduled for tomorrow (14 April). I have already passed the first one in this series. If the second one is successful, then I should be back on track to resume building my RAC at home.

XEN Investigation

Wednesday 30 May, 2007 - 19:55

I have finally decided not to pursue the Xen option as a replacement for VMWare. I will persist with VMWare

The XenSource Products shows the three (3) types of Xen offerings:

Feature	Xen Enterprise™	Xen Server™	Xen Express™
Shared storage	Mid-2007	N/A	N/A
Price	$750 perpetual per dual socket; $488 annual subscription per dual socket	$99 annual subscription	FREE

I assume that Shared Storage refers to using disk files to simulate shared disks between clusters. The site is not clear on what term means.

In other words, the option of using Xen to simulate shared disk is not available yet.

I will pursue the use of LaCie as NFS.

May Progress Report

Thursday 31 May, 2007 - 21:00

The LaCie Saga Ends

I need to get myself more focused on the RAC. I have been diving in without doing deep research.

The LaCie d2 Ethernet Disk mini does not appear to allow the establishment of a Linux share. The exterior of the box says that the disk is compatible with Linux 2.4 and higher. There is also a diagram showing the connection over a lan between the mini disk and a Linux host. I would assume this means using one of SAMBA, HTTP, or FTP. I have been spending too much time trying to get this to work.

Possible OCM Scenario - Conversion from Single Node to RAC

Vincent Chan explains how to Convert a Single Instance Database to Oracle RAC 10g on RHEL3 . This is probably a good OCM scenario. The hardware consists of physical devices.

I will keep this scenario in mind because it also involves ASM migration as well. It is better to continue on with the RAC installation without ASM. This allows me to sort out shared storage without introducing too many complications.

RAC Research

I have been reading Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Installation Guide for Linux . Thjs is going to take some time to digest, but given all of the dead ends I have encountered, there is no way around.

June Progress Report

Wednesday 13 June, 2007 - 20:29

It is seven (7) months since I started this quest to become an OCM and I have not built my first Oracle Database yet!

And today, I receive an e-mail from Oracle University about new expert certifications at http://www.oracle.com/global/us/education/certification/expert.html

Of special interest are the "Oracle Database 10g: Managing Oracle on Linux Certified Expert" and "Oracle Database 10g: Real Applications Clusters Administrator Certified Expert". These could be useful intermediate steps towards an OCM.

The test objectives cover parts of the OCM knowledge base. They could be useful in gauging my knowledge in the critical areas of Linux installation and RAC management.

They would also provide useful milestones in the road to OCM.