Oracle 11GR2 Adding node to existing RAC Cluster in VMware environment

[barza22]

Hello. We have existing 2 node Oracle 11GR2 RAC node cluster in Vmware environment.

We want to add a third node to this 2 node cluster and make it a 3 node cluster. We've performed this task in the past following steps from Oracle to add the third node which entails running a series of commands to copy/propagate the Oracle Grid Infra and RAC Rdbms software software from one of the existing nodes in the cluster to the new third node. And, then executed Oracle commands to configure/customize the third node to incorporate into the existing cluster as the 3rd node of the cluster.

Since we're using Vmware we want to, as we've read in VMware documentation, create the noted third server to be added to the 2 node RAC cluster as a clone/copy (using VMware) of the the existing node 1 of the RAC cluster and then make the needed customization changes on the third node so as to add it to the 2 node cluster and extend the 2 node cluster to be a 3 node cluster.

For Oracle 10G we have found the needed aforementioned customization steps to be applied to the 3rd node of the cluster to incorporate into the existing 2 node cluster in the following VMware White Paper: "VMWare and Oracle Databases Software Solutions Deployment Guide" approximately pages 86 to 93.

But, Oracle 11GR2 after some review the commands/steps documented in Oracle 10G don't seem to apply to Oracle 11GR2 release as the commands and scripts between Oracle 10G and Oracle 11G seem to have change quite a bit.

Does anyone have any documentation/steps for the needed Oracle RAC type customizations needed to be executed on the third node (created as a VMware clone on one of the existing node of the 2 node cluster)? As stated in the aforementioned white paper "VMWare and Oracle Databases Software Solutions Deployment Guide" we see the equivalent steps for Oracle 10G but we haven't been able to find the corresponding steps for Oracle 11GR2. Thanks.

[admin]

Hi Barza,

I read the documentatio that you referred. I believe this kind of operations in a live cluster are little bit dangerous. You have th documented methods to do it, and I think are safer.

Anyway, you here you can find how to add a node to a Oracle cluster (clusterware only):

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/rac.112/e10717/adddelclusterware.htm#CHDFIAIE

And after that, here you can find how to add nodes to a RAC DB:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/rac.112/e10718/adddelunix.htm#RACAD0067

Further, you can use the enterprise manager to add new nodes to RAC DB from a GUI or DBCA (Database Creation Assistant) once you have the node in the clusterware infrastructure with another GUI. You have these "graphical" optios to make it.

Regards,

Paulo.

[barza22]

Thank You. We successfully added a node using the Oracle 11GR2 Oracle Clusterware Deployment and Administration documentation and Real Application Cluster Deployment and Administration documentation. Sorry for delay and thanks for your time.

[barza22]

Information provided helped in our implementation test. Thank You.