I am planning for building a new database server using AIX 6.1 and Oracle 11.2 using ASM.
As i have learned starting with Oracle 11.2 ASM can only be used in conjunction with Clusterware, which is Oracles HA-software. As is the companies policy we do intend to use PowerHA as HA-solution instead so that we will have these two HA-softwares running on the same system.
Searching the net i found indications that such a setup is possible*) and even certified*), but i nowhere found any information about how the interoperation of the two HA-software-packages is actually effected. Further I'd like to know if anybody has already done this and could share his/her experiences.
Many thanks.
bakunin
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*) for instance: Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle RAC 11g Release 2 on IBM AIX - Tips and Considerations or the Oracle MetaLink note 404474.1.
Having worked for some time on this issue I'd like to share my findings.
The initial issue was a system not being able to boot after Clusterware was installed. We found the following:
Clusterware installs a cluster daemon "ohasd" which is started in /etc/inittab in runlevel 2. Unfortunately the starting script never comes back if anything goes wrong.
As it is with usual HACMP-installations the Oracle binaries are being installed on a VG which is itself part of a HACMP-Resource group. Therefore the filesystem where the ohasd daemon is expected to be will not be there at system start (but only after cluster start and activation of the resource group).
The solution was to take the start routines and everything else installed by Oracle out of the systems start routines (inittab, rc-scripts) and put it in the start-scripts of the resource group. I will provide you with a list of what exactly we did when time permits. Still, ohasd, which effectively prevented system boot, was the biggest issue we encountered.
I hope this helps someone.
bakunin