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The following section provides details on setting up Oracle Linux KVM and installing a 3-node Oracle RAC 21c database.
The following table describes the hardware and software components of the infrastructure used for the solution. Both the PowerFlex (storage-only) nodes and those used for Oracle Linux KVM (compute-only) are the same:
Table 5. Hardware and software configuration
Components | Source domain |
Server model | Dell R650 |
Number of compute-only nodes | 3 |
Number of storage-only nodes | 4 |
CPU | Intel® Xeon® Gold 6336Y CPU @ 2.40 GHz |
Sockets and cores | 2 socket 24 cores |
Hyperthreading | Enabled |
Memory | 512 GB per host |
Storage | 2 x 447.13 GB (SATA SSD) 10 x 1490.42 GB (SAS SSD) |
PCIe | Mellanox ConnectX-5 EN 25 GbE SFP28 Adapter (2 ports) |
NVDIMM | 2 x 16 GB, 2933 MT/s NVDIMM-N DDR-4 |
PowerFlex | R4_6 |
PowerFlex Manager | Version 4.6.0 |
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager | 4.5.4-1.0.31.el8 |
Oracle Linux | Release 8 Update 9 |
Oracle Database version | 21.3.0.0.0 |
VM OS - Oracle Linux | Release 8 Update 9 |
Number of VMs | 3 |
VM configuration | 16 vCPU, 24 GB Memory |
VM nodes | austin170, austin171, austin172 |
Database name | orcl |
Instance names | orcl1, orcl2, orcl3 |
ASM disk groups | CONFIG, DATA, REDO, FRA |
Concurrent to installing the Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager on its own host, users need to prepare the Oracle Linux KVM hosts which will also serve as the PowerFlex compute nodes.
Take the following steps to install an Oracle Linux KVM host for the Oracle RAC environment:
dnf config-manager --enable ol8_baseos_latest
dnf install oracle-ovirt-release-45-el8 -y
dnf clean all
dnf repolist
To install Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager, perform the following steps:
dnf config-manager --enable ol8_baseos_latest
dnf install oracle-ovirt-release-45-el8 -y
dnf clean all
dnf repolist
dnf install ovirt-engine
engine-setup
The following table provides details of storage domains created from PowerFlex and mapped to the Oracle Linux KVM required for Oracle ASM disks. PowerFlex volumes must be sized in factors of 8.
Table 6. Storage domains used for the Oracle RAC database
Storage domain | Size | Description |
Oracle_Homes | 504 GB | To be used for OS file system for VM as well as the Oracle software |
ORA_CONFIG | 56 GB | To be used for CONFIG ASM disk group |
ORA_REDO_1 | 56 GB | To be used for REDO ASM disk group |
ORA_REDO_2 | 56 GB | To be used for REDO ASM disk group |
ORA_REDO_3 | 56 GB | To be used for REDO ASM disk group |
ORA_DATA_1 | 504 GB | To be used for DATA ASM disk group |
ORA_DATA_2 | 504 GB | To be used for DATA ASM disk group |
ORA_DATA_3 | 504 GB | To be used for DATA ASM disk group |
ORA_FRA_1 | 504 GB | To be used for FRA ASM disk group |
ORA_FRA_2 | 504 GB | To be used for FRA ASM disk group |
ORA_FRA_3 | 504 GB | To be used for FRA ASM disk group |
The following steps were used in this configuration to set up the 3-node Oracle RAC database with Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager running on PowerFlex:
Figure 35. Disk being made bootable for OS Installation
Table 7. ASM disks from storage domains
ASM disk groups | Size | From storage domain |
CONFIG | 1 x ~50 GB | ORA_CONFIG |
OCR | 3 x ~50 GB | ORA_REDO_1, ORA_REDO_2, ORA_REDO_3 |
DATA | 3 x ~500 GB | ORA_DATA_1, ORA_ DATA _2, ORA_ DATA _3 |
FRA | 3 x ~500 GB | ORA_FRA_1, ORA_ FRA _2, ORA_ FRA _3 |
Figure 36. ASM disks being made shareable for Oracle RAC database installation
Standard interface connecting to storage devices. In terms of performance, it is slightly slower than VirtIO or VirtIO-SCSI
A para-virtualized driver offers increased I/O performance over emulated devices, for example IDE, by optimizing the coordination and communication between the virtual machine and the hypervisor.
A newer para-virtualized SCSI controller device. This driver offers similar functionality to virtIO devices with some additional enhancements such as improved scalability, a standard command set, and SCSI device passthrough. Specifically, it supports adding hundreds of devices and the naming of those devices using the standard SCSI device naming scheme.
Note: The configuration in the lab used VirtIO-SCSI devices since it is recommended for better I/O performance.
Note: For additional information about high performance settings, see Configuring High-Performance Virtual Machines.
Figure 37. Virtual Machines configuration displaying high performance
Figure 38. Additional networking for Oracle interconnect
Figure 39. Disabling headless mode for VM
Figure 40. Selection for VM to run on specific host in the cluster