5 Migrating to an MAA Environment

5.1 Overview of Migrating to MAA

MAA combines the scalability and availability advantages of Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) with the site protection capabilities of Oracle Data Guard.

An MAA environment consists of a site containing a RAC production database and a second site containing a cluster that minimally hosts at least one physical or logical standby database, but ideally hosts a combination of logical and physical standby databases. This environment provides the most comprehensive solution for both unplanned and planned outages because it inherits the capabilities and advantages of both Oracle Database 10g with RAC and Oracle Database 10g with Data Guard.

However, while the ideal MAA configuration includes a RAC primary database with a RAC standby database, business requirements or other considerations might indicate that you choose a different ending configuration or that you perform a phased migration. That is, some of the ending configurations could actually be intermediate steps in a phased implementation to a RAC primary with RAC standby configuration.

The setup of your current configuration will determine which sections in this chapter you should complete. For example, Table 5-1 describes migration instructions for some possible starting configurations.

5.2 Migrating to RAC from a Single Instance

The process of adding nodes to form a RAC database involves first cloning Oracle Clusterware and RAC software to new nodes and then adding new RAC instances. Basically, the steps include the following tasks:

1. Connect new nodes to the cluster

2. Extend clusterware and Oracle software to new nodes

3. Prepare storage for RAC on new nodes

4. Add nodes at the Oracle RAC database layer

5. Add database instances to new nodes

5.3 Adding a Data Guard Configuration to a RAC Primary

The process of adding a Data Guard configuration to a RAC primary database includes the following basic tasks:

1. Configure Oracle Net Services on the standby database

2. Create the standby instances and database

3. Configure the primary database for Data Guard

4. Verify the Data Guard configuration

A series of MAA white papers have been published that provide step-by-step instructions on how to perform these tasks. The following white papers describe how to create either a single-instance Data Guard standby database, or RAC standby database:

• "MAA / Data Guard 10g Setup Guide—Creating a RAC Standby for a RAC Primary"

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/MAA_WP_10g_RACPrimaryRACStandby.pdf

• "MAA / Data Guard 10g Setup Guide—Creating a Single Instance Standby for a RAC Primary"

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/MAA_WP_10g_RACPrimarySingleInstanceStandby.pdf

• "MAA/ Data Guard 10g Setup Guide—Creating a RAC Logical Standby for a RAC Primary Database"

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/MAA_WP_10gR2_RACPrimaryRACLogicalStandby.pdf

  This white paper describes how to create a RAC logical standby database from an existing RAC physical standby database and includes the following basic steps:

  1. Prepare the physical standby database environment

  2. Convert the physical standby database to a logical standby database

  3. Verify the Data Guard configuration