Procedure
Cloned the VMWare image, RHEL5.4 Base , as Panania1 , and made the following edits:
- Increased memory from 1GB to 2.1GB
- Changed Network Adapter from Host-only to Bridged
- Added two (2) Network adapters as Bridged
- Added a SCSI Hard Disk of 10GB (File name is Panania1_u00.vmdk )
Design Decisions
Choice of Operating System
In Oracle® Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Linux , the section, 3.1.1 Overview of Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC Storage Options :
For Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) 11g release 2 (11.2) for Linux, Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) and Oracle ASM Dynamic Volume Manager (Oracle ADVM) are only supported in the following environments:
- Red Hat and Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, 32-bit
- Red Hat and Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, 64-bit
For OVM environments, Red Hat and Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 4 or later is required.
Since I had installed RHEL5.4 as part of the 11G OCM Exam practice, I will go with the current OS and get the advantage of ACFS and ADVM.
Choice of Memory Size
In Oracle® Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Linux , the section, Checking the Hardware Requirements , says that:
At least 1.5 GB of physical RAM for grid infrastructure for a cluster installations without Oracle RAC; at least 2.5 GB of physical RAM if you plan to install Oracle RAC after installing grid infrastructure for a cluster.
So, I would aim for 2.5GB in memory but VMWare Workstation 8 advises that the maximum recommended memory is 2.1GB otherwise excessiove paging may be experienced. I went with the VMWare recommendation.
Network Interfaces
In Oracle® Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Linux , the section, 2.8.1 Network Hardware Requirements , says that:
Each node must have at least two network adapters or network interface cards (NICs): one for the public network interface, and one for the private network interface (the interconnect).
The section, 2.8.6 Network Interface Configuration Options , says that:
If certified Network-attached Storage (NAS) is used for Oracle RAC and this storage is connected through Ethernet-based networks, then you must have a third network interface for NAS I/O. Failing to provide three separate interfaces in this case can cause performance and stability problems under load.
Since I am planning to use NAS as the basis for the shared file system, I would need three (3) NICs.
Disk Space Requirements
In Oracle® Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Linux , the section, Checking the Hardware Requirements :
- 4.5 GB of space for the grid infrastructure for a cluster home (Grid home) This includes Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) files and log files.
- On Linux x86, if you intend to install Oracle Database, then allocate 4 GB of space for Oracle base.
I allocated a hard disk of 10GB to accommodate both grid infrastructure and Oracle database.