Think outside the box with Oracle Linux, Oracle Clusterware and Oracle SE2 Database

With Oracle Linux support you get an extra option available to you at no additional cost - Oracle Clusterware! This is amazing software at your fingertips just because you have an Oracle Linux paid support agreement, nice!

Make The Most Of Your Oracle Linux Support

I started this blog a while ago, and before I knew it, it became so big that we ended up turning it into part of our documentation going into a lot more detail. Now that the section in the documentation is available online I can use it as a reference for this blog and keep it a little shorter.

There are a number of Linux operating systems that support the Oracle Database, and they are all excellent in their own right. I have always favoured using Oracle Linux and over the years it has become easier and easier to install and configure complex database configurations on Oracle Linux with minimum effort.

Oracle Linux and Oracle Clusterware

With this excellent option, let's start thinking outside the box, explore how you can get more out of your investment - there is a lot you can do here. Many companies nowadays are looking at more highly available solutions, and with Oracle Linux and Oracle Clusterware, you have something extra in your arsenal that you can use to help you achieve this. Using these two components you can create a cluster configuration (with shared storage) that can run an Active/Passive cluster for your application to run on… but why not use this for your Oracle Standard Edition 2 (SE2) database as well? Using the Oracle Database as a resource in the cluster you can create an active/passive cluster with the option to fail-over your database to the secondary node if required.

I am not talking about Oracle RAC or Oracle RAC One Node here - these are amazing technologies which will require Oracle Enterprise Edition in 19c onwards. Some of you might already know, Oracle RAC is no longer available as an option for the SE2 software set from 19c. But you can still run the database as a single instance in an Active/Passive configuration with Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Linux.

Let's Bring Oracle SE2 Into The Mix

Without getting into the details of licensing, when you run Oracle SE2 you are allowed a maximum of two CPU sockets per server, and if you were running an Oracle SE2 RAC configuration you were only allowed 2 sockets total for the cluster (one per node) - which was a bit of a limitation. But when you run in an active/passive cluster, why not just have two sockets in each node? The database will only run on one node in the cluster at a time as a single instance, meaning you will not violate your license. Again - remember the database instance will only run on one of the servers in the cluster at any given point in time (in an “active/passive” configuration) - and based on licensing of data recovery environments as discussed in this document, you are able to run the database instance on the second node in the cluster for a maximum of 10 days per year. Excellent, this is a great way to get high availability within your SE2 licensing restrictions. Regarding licensing, always check your Oracle Database licensing with your Oracle account manager.

Configure Dbvisit Standby For Disaster Recovery

To add a little extra to the configuration - as I think everyone should always make sure they protect their databases against disaster; I will discuss in the documentation how you can configure Standby™ in this configuration - running as a cluster resource, to help protect your primary database in case disaster strikes.

Oracle Clusterware Benefits

• Increased database availability
• Quick and easy failover
• It is a trusted and supported solution
• It is reliable and secure

The Fantastic Four: Oracle Linux, Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Database and Dbvisit Standby

If you are after strict RPO/RTO and want to get more value out of your Oracle Linux investment to help create a highly available solution for your Oracle SE2 database environment, then review the use of Oracle Linux, Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Database and Dbvisit Standby. For a more in depth example of how this can be configured, please read our documentation.