My experience of converting a cross platform (AIX to HP) single instance database to RAC using RCONFIG tool

Its been really more than a month that I didn't write anything on my blog due to my busy schedule.  Well, I am here now to share my experience of converting a cross platform (AIX to HP) single instance database to 2 node RAC using the RCONFIG tool.

If you were following my blog, you might aware that we have a plan of implementing 16 node production RAC on HP UX Superdom Itanium servers using EMC DMX4 SAN storage. 

As part of production implementation, last week, I have configured initial 8 node RAC successfully and the immediate plans were to migrate the databases across operating systems (AIX to HP ux) and convert a single instance database to RAC. I have done this exercise on the development setup sucessfully, the only change this time is that I have used RCONFIG utility to convert single instance database to RAC. Earlier I have used DBCA method to do the same.

Oracle provides following methods to convert a single instance database to RAC:

Grid Control

DBCA

Manual

RCONFIG(from 10gR2)

I must say, each DBA may choose a different method according to his/her convineance to achieve the result. The following illustrates how I have migrated a database from AIX to HP UX and from a single instance to RAC (on 2 node).

Database and OS details

Source:

Database 10gR2 (10.2.0.4)

OS : AIX

non-ASM

Target:

Databae 10gR2 (10.2.0.4)

OS : HP UX Superdom Itaninum

ASM

RCONFIG brief

RCONFIG tool is introuced in Oracle 10gR2 and the main functionality of this tool is to convert single instance database to RAC. 

The tool(rconfig) can be found under $ORACLE_HOME/bin directry.

The xml input file (ConvertToRAC.xml) resides under $ORACLE_HOME/assistants/rconfig/sampleXMLs (it is recommended to copy the file before using it).

Log files(rconfig.log and etc) can be found under $ORACLE_HOME/cfgtoollogs/rconfig

The Convert verify option in the ConvertToRAC.xml file has three options:

• Convert verify="YES": rconfig performs checks to ensure that the prerequisites for single-instance to RAC conversion have been met before it starts conversion
• Convert verify="NO": rconfig does not perform prerequisite checks, and starts conversion
• Convert verify="ONLY" : rconfig only performs prerequisite checks; it does not start conversion after completing prerequisite checks 

Before you actually starts the convert process, you can run the rconfig with convert verify=ONLY option which basically check all the prerequisites. At the end, the result code either would be 0 or 1. Where 0 stands for operation success and 1 stand for operation failures and in case of failure, it will also gives you the reason of failure.

Following RMAN command converts the database from AIX to HP UX platform.

RMAN> convert database new database 'ORCL'

 transport script '/tmp_backup/tempdb/transport.sql'

 to platform 'HP-UX IA (64-bit)'

 db_file_name_convert

'+DG_ORCL/ORCL/datafile','/tmp_backup/tempdb';

Move all the converted datafiles to target machine and follow the ML NOTE: 414878.1  for further details on how to start the on target machine.

Following illustrate how to convert single instance database to RAC using the RCONFIG tool:

cp $ORACLE_HOME/assistants/rconfig/sampleXMLs/ConvertToRAC.xml convertdb.xml

modify the convertdb.xml file according to your environment. Following is the example:

==

convert_t24uat.xml 46 lines, 2964 characters 

 ?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8?

 RConfig xmlns:n=http://www.oracle.com/rconfig

           xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance

           xsi:schemaLocation=http://www.oracle.com/rconfig

    ConvertToRAC

  Verify does a precheck to ensure all pre-requisites are met, before the conversion is attempted. Allowable values are: YES|NO|O

NLY

        Convert verify=NO

 Specify current OracleHome of non-rac database for SourceDBHome

              SourceDBHome /u00/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1 SourceDBHome

 Specify OracleHome where the rac database should be configured. It can be same as SourceDBHome

              TargetDBHome/u00/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1 TargetDBHome

 Specify SID of non-rac database and credential. User with sysdba role is required to perform conversion

              SourceDBInfo SID=ORCL

                Credentials

                  User sys User

                  Password password Password

                  RolesysdbaRole

                Credentials

              SourceDBInfo

 ASMInfo element is required only if the current non-rac database uses ASM Storage

              ASMInfo SID=+ASM1

                Credentials

                  User sys User

                  Password passwordasm Password

                  RolesysdbaRole

                Credentials

              ASMInfo

 Specify the list of nodes that should have rac instances running. LocalNode should be the first node in this nodelist.

              NodeList

                Node name=rac01

                Node name=rac02

              NodeList

 Specify prefix for rac instances. It can be same as the instance name for non-rac database or different. The instance number will be attached to this prefix.

              InstancePrefix ORCL InstancePrefix

 !--Specify port for the listener to be configured for rac database.If port=, alistener existing on localhost will be used for rac

 database.The listener will be extended to all nodes in the nodelist --

              Listener port=""

 Specify the type of storage to be used by rac database. Allowable values are CFS|ASM. The non-rac database should have same storage type.

              SharedStorage type=ASM

 Specify Database Area Location to be configured for rac database.If this field is left empty, current storage will be used for rac database. For CFS, this field will have directory path.

                TargetDatabaseArea+DG_ORCL TargetDatabaseArea

 Specify Flash Recovery Area to be configured for rac database. If this field is left empty, current recovery area of non-rac dat

abase will be configured for rac database. If current database is not using recovery Area, the resulting rac database will not have

a recovery area.

         TargetFlashRecoveryArea +DG_ORCL Target FlashRecoveryArea

        SharedStorage

        Convert

     ConvertToRAC

 RConfig

===

Once you modify the convert.xml file according to your environment, use the following command to run the tool:

rconfig convertdb.xml

Oracle does the following during conversion:

oracle@usogp01: /u00/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/bin # ./rconfig convertdb.xml

Converting Database ORCL. to Cluster Database. Target Oracle Home : /u00/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1.

Setting Data Files and Control Files

Adding Database Instances

Adding Redo Logs

Enabling threads for all Database Instances

Setting TEMP tablespace

Adding UNDO tablespaces

Adding Trace files

Setting Flash Recovery Area

Updating Oratab

Creating Password file(s)

Configuring Listeners

Configuring related CRS resources

Adding NetService entries

Starting Cluster Database

Starting Listeners

    

      

        

          Operation Succeeded

        

      

      

         /u00/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1

      

        

          ORCL1<\SID>

          ORCL2<\SID>

        <\SIDList>    

    

  

oracle@usogp01: /u00/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/bin #

==

As you can see the exit code is 0, which indicates the success of the conversion process.

Uphills faced during the conversion process

The only error which I got during the conversion was missing listener.ora under ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory as we had created listener under the ASM home (we have separate RDBMS and ASM homes). Problem has been resolved by creating the link under the RDBMS network admin directory of ASM listener.ora file.

We have contacted one of the developer of rconfig utiity to clarify the two changes (following) to make sure it will work:

non-ASM to ASM 

single instance to RAC.

He said that the main purpose of this utility is to convert single instance database to RAC and optinally few non-ASM of target database to ASM while converting to RAC. But, he is not sure about moving the entire non-ASM to ASM while conversion. As they don't have any test case. However, asked us to go ahed and try. Well, we were amazed that it worked for us and we delightly informed the developer that two changes are worked for us and you can have our reference.

Our next migration/conversion is our EBusiness suit and of course, I am going to share my expereince here.

References

http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/install.102/b14201/cvrt2rac.htm#sthref1273

Important Meta Link Notes:

ML Note:387046.1 RCONFIG : Frequently Asked Questions

ML Note:371519.1 RCONFIG Error When Converting From Single Instance To RAC

ML Note:375472.1 RCONFIG FAILS with an null pointer EXCEPTION

ML Note:391297.1 RCONFIG fails when using ASM as Shared Storage

ML Note:388577.1 Using Oracle 10g Release 2 Real Application Clusters and

 Automatic Storage Management with Oracle E-Business Suite 

 Release 12

Happy Reading,

Jaffar