Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials

Table of Contents

Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code for this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. High Availability

High availability concepts

Planned versus unplanned downtime

Service Level Agreements for high availability

High availability interpretations

Recovery time and high availability

System design for high availability

Business Continuity and high availability

Disaster Recovery

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery guidelines

Fault-tolerant systems and high availability

Requirements for implementing fault tolerance

Fault tolerance and replication

High availability solutions for Oracle

Oracle Data Guard

Oracle Streams

Oracle Application Server Clustering

High availability: Oracle 11g R1 Real Application Clusters (RAC)

High availability: Oracle 11g R2 Real Application Clusters (RAC)

Summary

2. Oracle 11g RAC Architecture

Oracle 11g RAC architecture

Certification matrix for Oracle 11g RAC architecture

Hardware architecture for Oracle 11g RAC

Server configurations for Oracle 11g RAC

CPU processors

Choosing between 32-bit and 64-bit CPU architectures

Dual core and multicore processors

Network architecture for Oracle 11g RAC

The private network and the Oracle 11g RAC interconnect

Choices for private interconnect and 11g RAC

Ethernet choices for 11g RAC interconnect

Alternatives to Gigabit Ethernet for the interconnect (Infiniband)

Interconnect choices for 11g RAC—how to decide?

Redundancy for Ethernet interconnects with 11g RAC

Network bonding (NIC teaming)

Storage architecture for Oracle 11g RAC

RAID configurations for Oracle 11g RAC

RAID 0 (striping)

RAID 1 (mirroring)

RAID 5 (striped with parity)

RAID 10 (striped mirrors)

Differences between RAID 10 and RAID 0+1

Third-party RAID implementations

IBM AIX LPAR disk volume management for RAID

Linux volume management for RAID configuration

Storage protocols for RAC

SCSI

Fibre Channel

Point-to-Point (FC-P2P)

Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL)

Fibre Channel Switched Fabric (FC-SW)

Which Fibre Channel topology is best?

Fibre Channel Ports

Fibre Channel Generic Node Ports

iSCSI

Which storage protocol is best for RAC?

Asynchronous I/O versus Direct I/O for Oracle 11g RAC

Oracle 11g RAC components

Voting Disk

Oracle Cluster Registry

Oracle 11g R1 RAC background processes

ACMS Atomic Controlfile to Memory Service

GTX0-j Global Transaction Process

LMON Global Enqueue Service Monitor

LMD Global Enqueue Service Daemon

LMS Global Cache Service Process

LCK0 Instance Enqueue Process

RMSn Oracle RAC Management Processes

RSMN Remote Slave Monitor

Oracle 11g R2 RAC background processes

Grid Plug and Play

Grid Interprocess Communication

Multicast Domain Name Service

Oracle Grid Naming Service

How RAC differs from Oracle 11g single-instance implementations

New ASM features and RAC

New SYSASM privilege for Oracle 11g R1 ASM

Oracle 11g R2 ASM features

OCR and Voting Disk stored in ASM

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster Filesystem (Oracle ACFS)

New Oracle 11g ASM Disk Group compatibility features

Summary

3. Clusterware Installation

Preparing for a cluster installation

Server (node) requirements

Network requirements

Kernel parameters

Operating system packages

OS groups and users

OS user settings

Configuring Secure Shell (SSH)

Verifying prerequisites with the CLUVFY utility

Oracle 11g R1 Clusterware installation

Initiating Oracle Universal Installer for Oracle 11g R1 Clusterware

What happens when orainstRoot.sh and root.sh is run?

Oracle 11g R1 Clusterware post-installation checks

Installing Oracle 11g R1 RAC software

Initiating Oracle Universal Installer for Oracle 11g R1 RAC software

Post-installation tasks

Oracle 11g R2 Clusterware installation

Initiating Oracle Universal Installer for 11g R2 Clusterware

What happens when the root.sh is run?

Oracle 11g R2 Clusterware post-installation checks

Installing Oracle 11g R2 RAC software

Initiating Oracle Universal Installer for Oracle 11g R2 RAC software

Post-installation tasks

Oracle 11g R2 Clusterware new features highlights

Removing/Reconfiguring a Grid Infrastructure configuration

Removing a successful Grid Infrastructure configuration

Reconfiguring a failed Grid Infrastructure configuration

Summary

4. Automatic Storage Management

Overview of Automatic Storage Management (ASM)

Filesystem versus ASM storage architecture

ASM disk

ASM disk group

ASM instance configuration and management

ASM initialization parameters

Creating an ASM instance

Initializing DBCA

ASM background processes

ASM dynamic views

V$ASM_DISK

V$ASM_DISKGROUP

V$ASM_OPERATION

V$ASM_DISK_STAT

V$ASM_DISKGROUP_STAT

V$ASM_CLIENT

ASM instance startup/shutdown

ASM disk group administration

Creating a disk group

Altering a disk group

Dropping a disk group

Overview of ASMCMD

ASMCMD in action

ASM 11g R1 new features

ASM fast mirror resync

ASM preferred mirror read

ASM fast rebalance

ASM disk group compatibility attributes

ASM performance enhancements

New SYSASM role

ASM 11g R2 new features

Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant (ASMCA)

Initiating ASMCA

Configuring a new ASM instance

Managing an ASM instance

Managing an ASM disk group

Creating an ASM disk group

Creating an ASM disk group in silent mode

Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager (ADVM)

ADVM volume trivia

Creating ASM volumes

Creating an ASM volume with ASMCA

Creating an ASM Volume with ASMCMD

Creating an ASM volume with the ALTER DISKGROUP SQL statement

Querying V$ASM views to obtain information about ASM volumes

Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (ACFS)

Using ACFS as Oracle database home

Oracle ACFS drivers

Prerequisites for creating ACFS

ACFS creation methods

Creating an ACFS filesystem using ASMCA

Creating ACFS for Oracle Binaries with ASMCA

Creating an ACFS filesystem with ASMCMD

ACFS mount registry

Managing ACFS

Acfsutil utility

ASM new background processes to support ACFS

Volume Driver Background (VDBG)

Volume Background process (VBGn)

ACFS Background process (ACFS)

Volume Membership Background processes (VMB0)

Querying V$ASM views to obtain information about ACFS

ACFS snapshots

Creating a snapshot

Removing a snapshot

ASM Intelligent Data Placement (IDP)

Managing IDP settings

Finding IDP setting information

ASMCMD enhancements

ASM backup strategies

md_backup and md_restore commands

Summary

5. Managing and Troubleshooting Oracle 11g Clusterware

Oracle 11g RAC Clusterware administration

About Oracle Clusterware

Oracle 11g Clusterware concepts

Oracle Cluster Registry

Voting disk

Initialization and shutdown scripts for Clusterware

Oracle 11g Clusterware background processes

Cluster Ready Services Daemon

Oracle Cluster Synchronization Services Daemon

Cluster Synchronization Services Daemon

Event Monitor Daemon

Additional background processes for Oracle 11g Clusterware

Oracle Clusterware Process Monitor Daemon OPROCD

OCLSVMON

OCLSOMON

DISKMON

OCLSKD

RACG

Fatal Clusterware processes and Oracle 11g RAC

Managing Oracle 11g Clusterware utilities

CRSCTL

CRS_STAT

OCRCHECK

OCRCONFIG

CLSCFG

CLUVFY

Troubleshooting Oracle 11g Clusterware

Failed, missing, or offline 11g Clusterware resources

Offline Clusterware resources for Oracle 11g RAC

Problems with the Voting disk and OCR

Vote disk issues with 11g Clusterware resources

Failed or corrupted Vote Disks

Failed or corrupted OCR

How to recover the OCR from backup

Steps to perform recovery of lost and/or corrupted OCR

Check status 11g RAC Clusterware

Root cause analysis 11g RAC

Oracle 11g Clusterware log file analysis

Oracle 11g RAC node reboot issues

Oracle 11g RAC Clusterware processes—node reboot issues

Oracle Process Daemon

OCLSOMON

Root cause analysis for solving node reboots with 11g RAC

Oracle 11g RAC log files for troubleshooting

OCSSD Reboots and 11g RAC

OPROCD failure and node reboots

OCLSOMON-RAC node reboot

Hardware, storage, and network problems with RAC

Hardware, storage, and network resolutions

New features in Oracle 11g R2 Clusterware

Oracle Real Application Clusters one node (Oracle RAC one node)

Improved Oracle Clusterware resource modeling

Policy-based cluster and capacity management

Cluster time synchronization service

Oracle Cluster Registry and voting disks within Oracle ASM

New features for upgrading to Oracle 11g Clusterware

Oracle 11g R2 Cluster Verification Utility new features

Zero downtime patching for Oracle Clusterware

Summary

6. RAC Database Administration and Workload Management

RAC database configuration and creation

Creating a database using DBCA

Choosing database storage options

We have created a database using DBCA—now what?

What's new in Oracle 11g R1 and R2 databases?

Automatic Memory Management

New AMM dynamic performance V$ views

Tuning AMM

Special considerations on Linux

/dev/shm sizing issues

Database Smart Flash Cache

Configuring Smart Flash Cache

Instance caging

New background processes in Oracle 11g

Finding the alert.log file location in Oracle 11g

Automatic Diagnostic Repository

Managing ADR using the Automatic Diagnostic Repository Command Interface tool

V$DIAG_INFO view

RAC database administration

Using the Server Control Utility

Automatic Workload Management

Overview of services

Creating and managing services

Creating services with the SRVCTL utility

SRVCTL ADD SERVICE syntax and options

Configuring a TNS entry with a service

DBMS_SERVICE PL/SQL package

Database internal default services

Service performance views

Services' characteristics

What's new in Oracle 11g services' behavior?

Scalability (Load Balancing)

Client Side Connect Time Load Balance

Configuring Client Side Connect Time Load Balancing

Server Side Listener Connection Load Balance

Configuring Server Side Listener Connection Load Balancing

Transparent Application Failover

Configuring Transparent Application Failover

FAILOVER_MODE parameters

Fast Connection Failover

Configuring Fast Connection Failover

Configuring Fast Connection Failover in the client environment

Summary

7. Backup and Recovery

An overview of backup and recovery

An overview of Recovery Manager (RMAN)

RMAN architecture

RMAN performance tuning tips

Backup types and methods

Logical backup

Physical backup

ONLINE RMAN backups

OFFLINE RMAN backups

RMAN new features in 11g R1 and 11g R2

Database Recovery Advisor

Multisection backups for very large datafiles

Undo tablespace backup optimization

Faster backup compression

Active database duplication

Active database duplication enhancements

Archivelog deletion policy enhancements

Automatic Block Recovery (ABR)

Tablespace point-in-time recovery enhancements

RMAN best practices for RAC

Configuring the Flash Recovery Area for a RAC database

Instance recovery versus Crash recovery in RAC

Parallelism for backup and recovery in RAC

Backing up a RAC database with RMAN

Configuring multiple channels

OCR and Voting disk backup and recovery strategies

Adding a Mirror location for the OCR and Voting disk

OCR automatic backups

Performing OCR manual backups

Voting disk manual backups

Restoring OCR

Restoring the Voting disk

Summary

8. Performance Tuning

Tuning differences: single instance versus RAC

Oracle 11g single instance database

Oracle RAC 11g database

New Oracle 11g performance tuning features

Database Replay

SQL Performance Analyzer

Database Health Monitor

PL/SQL Native Compilation

Server Result Cache

Client Side Result Cache

SQL Tuning Advisor

New performance features in Oracle 11gR2

In-Memory Parallel Execution

Analyzing the Cache Fusion impact on RAC performance

Cache Fusion

Latency statistics

RAC wait events

Monitoring RAC cluster interconnect performance

Oracle cluster interconnects

Monitoring RAC wait events

Summary

9. Oracle 11g Clusterware Upgrade

Overview of an upgrade

Upgrade sequence

Upgrading Oracle 10g R2 Clusterware to Oracle 11g R1

Kernel parameter values

Packages required on Linux 5

Oracle 11g R1 Clusterware upgrade steps

Performing preinstallation checks with cluvfy

Executing runInstaller.sh script

Post-upgrade steps for 11g R1 Clusterware

Upgrading to Oracle 11g R2 Clusterware

Overview of our environment

Upgrading nodes

11g R2 upgrade changes and restrictions

Kernel parameter values

Packages required on Linux 5

Performing preinstallation checks with cluvfy

Oracle 11g R2 Clusterware upgrade steps

Executing the runInstaller.sh script

Post-upgrade checks for 11g R2 Clusterware

Post-upgrade steps for 11g R2 Clusterware

Downgrading Oracle Clusterware after an upgrade

Summary

10. Real-world Scenarios

Adding a new node to an existing cluster

Performing prechecks with the cluvfy utility

addNode.sh

Adding a node in silent mode in Oracle 11g R2

Post-installation status checks for Clusterware

OCR file manual backup syntax

Voting Disk backup syntax

Installing ASM and RDBMS software using addNode.sh script

Cloning ASM software using addNode.sh script on Oracle 11g R1

Post-node addition steps

Removing a node from the cluster

Adding an RAC database instance

Adding a new instance using DBCA

We have added an instance—what next?

Verifying new instance status

Using DBCA in silent mode to add an instance

Post-add instance steps

Deleting an RAC database instance

Using DBCA in silent mode to delete an instance

Converting a single-instance database to an RAC database

Overview of RCONFIG command-line tool

What you need to accomplish the conversion task

Sample of a modified ConvertToRAC.xml input file

How to test a conversion without actually performing the conversion

Converting a single-instance database to an RAC database

How to resume a failed rconfig operation

Checking log files

How to optimize rconfig to run faster

Post-conversion steps

Relocating an RAC database and instances across nodes

Relocating the instance

Adding the instance example

Workaround when a database and instance are configured on the same node

Adding the database example

Post-relocation steps

Summary

11. Enabling RAC for EBS

EBS architecture

Oracle 11g RAC suitability

Installing EBS 12.1.1

EBS implementation on Oracle 11g RAC

RAC-enabling EBS 12.1.1

Configuration prerequisites

ASM and RAC-enabling the EBS database with the rconfig utility

Running AutoConfig

Copying AutoConfig to the new RDBMS ORACLE_HOME for Oracle 11g R1 11.1.0.7

Generating your database context file

Preparing for AutoConfig by completing the following AutoConfig steps

Generating and applying AutoConfig configuration files

Executing AutoConfig on all database nodes in the cluster

Performing Init file, tnsnames, and listener file activities

Establishing applications environment for Oracle RAC

Setting up load balancing

Configuring Parallel Concurrent Processing

Prerequisites for setting up Parallel Concurrent Processing

Cloning EBS concepts in brief

Preparing the source system

Copying the source system

Configuring the target system

Adding a new node to an existing EBS system

Setting up Parallel Concurrent Processing

Setting up Transaction Managers

Setting up load balancing on concurrent processing nodes

Summary

12. Maximum Availability

Oracle 11g Streams for RAC

Oracle 11g Streams architecture for RAC

Capture

Staging

Propagation

Consumption

Default apply

User-defined function apply

Explicit de-queue

Understanding Oracle Streams rules

Transformations and Streams

Capture and Apply processes in an RAC instance

Streams in the RAC environment

New features in Oracle 11g Streams

Synchronous Capture

Splitting and merging of a Stream Destination

Tracking LCRs through a Stream

Streams Topology and Performance Advisor

Combined Capture and Apply

Best practices for Streams in an RAC environment

Additional configuration of RAC environments for a Source Database

Queue ownership

Propagation restart

Changing the GLOBAL_NAME of the source database

Additional configuration for RAC environments for the Apply Database

Changing the GLOBAL_NAME of the Target Database

New features for Streams in Oracle 11g R2

XStream

Statement DML Handlers

Ability to record table changes

SQL generation

Support for compressed tables

Support for SecureFile LOBs

Automatic splitting and merging

New Apply process parameter

Monitoring jobs

New 11g R2 Oracle Streams view

Oracle 11g Data Guard and RAC

New features for Oracle 11g Data Guard

Active Data Guard

Snapshot Standby

Configuring Data Guard Physical Standby for 11g RAC

Configuring Oracle RAC primary database to send redo data

Design considerations in an Oracle RAC environment

Format for archived redo log filenames

Switchover considerations for 11g RAC and Data Guard

Troubleshooting Oracle 11g Data Guard and RAC

Switchover fails in an Oracle 11g RAC configuration

How to recover from corrupt datafile on standby

How to recover from a corrupt block on standby

Automatic repairing of corrupt data blocks

New features for Data Guard in Oracle 11g R2

New Oracle Data Guard 11g R2 features for Redo Apply

New Oracle 11g R2 Data Guard features for SQL Apply

Summary

A. Additional Resources and Tools for the Oracle RAC Professional

Sample configurations

Reviewing and resolving manual configuration changes

adchkcfg utility

Oracle RAC commands and tips

Cluster deconfig tool for Oracle RAC

Using the cluster deconfig tool

Limitations of the cluster deconfig tool

Problems and limitations of the cluster deconfig tool

Starting the cluster deconfig tool

Silent mode operations using cluster deconfig

Manual cleanup for RAC

Repairing the RAC environment without reinstalling

Reinitializing OCR and Voting Disks without reinstalling RAC

Using ROOTDELETE.SH in debug mode

Using rootdeinstall.sh

Reinstalling CRS on the same cluster in another CRS_HOME

Stopping CRS processes

Reinstalling CRS on same cluster in another CRS_HOME

Oracle 11g R2 cluster removal tools for RAC

Tracing RAC issues with Oradebug

Using Oradebug to trace Oracle 11g Clusterware

Server Control Utility

Oracle 11g R2 SRVCTL commands

Managing Oracle Clusterware with the CRSCTL utility

Differences between 11g R1 and 11g R2 syntax for CRSCTL

CRS_STAT

The kernel file OSM discovery tool

Operating system-level commands for tuning and diagnosis

Strace

Truss

GDB

Additional references and tips

Clusterware startup sequence for Oracle 11g R2

Log file locations for Oracle 11g RAC and ASM

Index

Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials

Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials

Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing

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First published: May 2011

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Credits

Authors

Ben Prusinski

Syed Jaffer Hussain

Reviewers

Robert de Laat

Ann L. R. McKinnell

Fairlie Rego

Ronald Rood

Acquisition Editor

Kerry George

Development Editor

Meeta Rajani

Technical Editors

Conrad Sardinha

Azharuddin Sheikh

Project Coordinator

Zainab Bagasrawala

Proofreaders

Sandra Hopper

Bernadette Watkins

Chris Smith

Indexer

Rekha Nair

Graphics

Geetanjali Sawant

Nilesh Mohite

Production Coordinator

Arvindkumar Gupta

Cover Work

Arvindkumar Gupta

About the Authors

Ben Prusinski is an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) and database architect with more than 14 years of experience with Oracle data warehouse and Oracle E-Business applications. As a corporate database consultant, Ben has provided services to dozens of Fortune 500 clients. He is an internationally recognized expert in Oracle high availability, performance tuning, database security, and ERP implementations. As a top Oracle expert, Ben received the prestigious Oracle ACE award in 2009 in recognition of his contributions to the Oracle community. As an Oracle RAC Certified Expert (OCE), Ben is also a popular speaker at major conferences such as Oracle OpenWorld, CLOUG in Latin America, IOUG, and Oracle Collaborate OAUG (Oracle Applications User Group). Ben is also a polyglot, being fluent in several languages (Spanish, French, Korean, and English) and enjoys traveling to exotic places. In his free time, he enjoys racing in autocross events, golf, martial arts, reading, and cooking.

In addition to Oracle consulting for clients, Ben regularly updates his Oracle blog at http://oracle-magician.blogspot.com with the latest database technology tips and information to share with the Oracle community. He frequently contributes to answering questions from Oracle users on the Oracle OTN forums. He can be contacted via e-mail at .

I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation, first of all to my fellow co-author Mr. Syed Jaffer Hussain who was great to work with on this book. I would also like to thank everyone at Packt who made tremendous efforts for their patience and help in the editorial process. Last but not least, my heartfelt appreciation goes out to our fantastic technical review team of Oracle experts — Fairlie Rogo, Ronald Rood, and Ann L.R. Mckinnell — who provided tons of great feedback to ensure technical accuracy and quality. I also would like to dedicate this book to all fellow Oracle DBAs and consultants who work in the trenches to solve real world Oracle issues.

I also would like to thank the many Oracle professionals who have helped me as an Oracle professional over the years to make such a book like this possible, including Julian Dyke (Oracle RAC master extraordinaire), Alex Gorbachev, Doug Hahn, Tanel Poder, Arup Nanda, Robert Freeman, Tim Hall, and all of my current and past clients who allowed me to help them with their Oracle database challenges.

Syed Jaffer Hussain is the Database Support Manager at AlInma Bank (Saudi Arabia) who has over 18 years of hands-on Information Technology (IT) experience, which also includes over 10 years as a Production Oracle DBA. Apparently he is the first person in the Middle East to be awarded the prestigious Oracle ACE award. He holds several industry recognized Oracle certifications, including Oracle 10g Certified Master (OCM), OCP DBA (v8i, 9i, 10g, and 11g), and Oracle 10g RAC Certified Expert. With broad knowledge in Oracle technologies such as RAC, DataGuard, RMAN, and Performance Tuning, he has completed several successful RAC implementations, Clusterware upgrades, and has set up disaster recovery solutions for many business-critical databases. Jaffer is a noted speaker at BrainSurface.com, and occasionally presents Oracle University five-day courses and one-day celebrity seminars on behalf of Oracle EMEA. He has also worked for a couple of multinational banks in Saudi Arabia.

Jaffer frequently contributes at Oracle OTN forums and many other Oracle-related forums. He regularly updates his Oracle technology-related blog, (http://jaffardba.blogspot.com) and he is reachable at .

First and foremost, I owe a very big thank you to my wife Ayesha and my three sons (Ashfaq, Arfan, and Aahil) for sacrificing their invaluable time and allowing me to concentrate on the book. I am also thankful to Alinma Bank management; in particular Ahmed Darwish and my immediate boss Mr. Majed Saleh AlShuaibi for their constant encouragement and continuous support. My special thanks goes to my younger brother Sabdar and my friend Khusro Mohammed Khan (who are also Oracle DBAs) for preparing required platforms, testing codes and doing initial review of the chapters. I also want to thank all my colleagues, Mohammed Farooqui, Zaheer, Khaja Mainuddin, Shaukat Ali, Naresh Kumar Markapuram, Hussain AlKalifah, Faisal Bakhashwain, Naser Ali AlEssa, Mohammed Alsalahi, Wayne Philips, Chand Basha, Rizwan Siddiqi, Sadak, Anees, Shakir, Angelo G Train, Mohammed Khidir, Asad Khan, Ibrahim Ali, Rajesh Ankuru, Sandeep, Mohammad AlHiary, Ahmed Khanj, Ahmed Bakheet, Mohammed Azar, and other friends for their encouragement and motivation.

I thank all the staff at Packt Publishing who were involved with this book and special mention to James Lumsden, Kerry George, Meeta Rajani, Zainab Bagasrawala, and Azharuddin Sheikh for being patient with me during the course of this book.

Last but not the least, I also thank other RAC Book authors (not in any particular order), Murali Vallath, K. Gopalakrishnan, Nitin Vengulkar, Julian Dyke, Sandesh Rao, Arup Nanda, Bert Scalzo, Riyaj Shamsudeen, Tariq Farooq, and other Oracle experts worldwide for being my inspiration.

About the Reviewers

Robert de Laat is an experienced DBA, working with Oracle products for 12 years, primarily in large, complex environments where high availability is mandatory. With a background as an Unix administrator, he is skilled in system design, high availability, and getting the most out of an environment. Robert has been working with every version of RAC, primarily on Unix/Linux platforms. He has skills in many scripting languages, such as Perl, Python, Shell, and so on. He also knows his way in PL/SQL.

Currently Robert is a senior consultant, working for Ciber in The Netherlands, where he cooperates in many complex projects for large companies where high availability is a key to the customers' success. Ciber (CBR) is an Oracle Platinum Partner and committed to the limit.

Besides spending time with Oracle, Robert enjoys woodworking and jewellery. Creating things gives him great pleasure, in his work and in his personal life. He also maintains his own website at www.dutchdba.nl, where he writes about technical stuff such as Oracle, Linux, Scripting, and so on.

I would like to thank my wife, Jose for having the patience while I spend many hours in my test lab. You truly are the light of my life.

Ann L. R. McKinnell has been an OCP since Oracle 7.3.4, with over eight years experience as a senior technical member of Oracle Global Support, specializing in Database Server technologies. Ann has trained Oracle Support and Consulting personnel from many countries in Database Internals and Problem Solving techniques. She has served as a technical reviewer for Oracle University course material, numerous My Oracle Support (previously Metalink) notes and whitepapers, and various Oracle Database Administration user manuals. Ann is also a co-author of Packt Publishing’s Oracle 11g Streams Implementer’s Guide. With over 16 years in the IT industry, Ann continues to specialize in practical implementation strategies and the development of distributed Oracle database systems, and database architecture, along with software and database design, integration, and engineering.

Fairlie Rego is a senior Oracle Database Consultant with over 10 years of experience in Oracle Database Technologies. He has worked on mission-critical, highly available systems built around the Maximum Availability architecture propounded by Oracle.

He has worked extensively in the financial, telecom, and educational sectors and has been fortunate to work in challenging environments that make use of state-of-the-art technologies.

I would like to thank my parents who have always encouraged me in my endeavors. I would also like to acknowledge my wife, Abigail for demonstrating extreme patience, given my very hectic work schedule.

Ronald Rood is an innovative Oracle DBA with over 20 years of IT experience. He has built and managed cluster databases on about each and every platform that Oracle ever supported, from the famous OPS databases in version 7 to the latest RAC releases, currently being 11g. Ronald is constantly looking for ways to get the most out of the database to make the investment for the customers even more valuable. He has a great knowledge of how to handle the power of the rich Unix environment, which makes him a first class troubleshooter and solution architect. Next to his many spoken languages such as Dutch, English, German, and French, he also writes fluently in many scripting languages.

Currently Ronald is a principal consultant working for Ciber in The Netherlands where he cooperates in many complex projects for large companies where downtime is not an option. Ciber (CBR) is one of the few Oracle Partners on the Diamond level.

Ronald often replies on the Oracle forums, writes his own blog (http://ronr.blogspot.com) called 'from errors we learn', and writes for various Oracle-related magazines. He has also authored a book, Mastering Oracle Scheduler in Oracle 11g Databases, where he fills the gap between the Oracle Documentation and the customers' questions.

Ronald has lots of certifications, among them:

Oracle Certified Master

Oracle Certified Professional

Oracle Database 11g Tuning Specialist

Oracle Database 11g Data Warehouse Certified Implementation Specialist

Ronald fills his time with Oracle, his family, sky-diving, radio-controlled model airplane flying, running a scouting group, and having a lot of fun.

His quote is: a problem is merely a challenge that might take a little time to solve.

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