Veritas Cluster enables one system to failover to the other system. All related software processes are simply moved from one system to the other system with minimal downtime.
Veritas Cluster does NOT have both boxes up at once sevicing requests. It only offers a hot standby system. This enables the system to keep running (with a short transfer period) if a machine fails or system maintenance needs to be done.
What a Cluster Does at Startup
Here is what the cluster does at startup:
If no other machine is running, checks communication (gabconfig). May need system admin intervention if cluster requires both nodes to be available. (/sbin/gabconfig -c -x)
Once communication between machines is open -- or gabconfig has been started, it sets up network (nic & ip adddress) (starts cluster server)
If also brings up volume manager, file system, and then oracle.
File Locations (Logs, Conf, Executables)
Log location: /var/VRTSvcs/log
There are several logs in this directory:
engine.log_A: primary log, usually what you will be reading for debugging
Oracle_A: oracle process log (related to cluster only)
Sqlnet_A: sqlnet process log (related to cluster only)
IP_A: related to shared IP
Volume_A: related to Volume manager
Mount_A: related to mounting actual filesystes (filesystem)
DiskGroup_A: related to Volume Manager/Cluster Server
NIC_A: related to actual network device
Conf files:
Network conf: /etc/gabtab
If has: /sbin/gabconfig -c -n2 , will need to run /sbin/gabconfig -c -x if only one system comes up and both systems were down.
Cluster conf: /etc/VRTSvcs/conf/config/main.cf
Has exact details on what the cluster contains.
Most executables are in: /opt/VRTSvcs/bin or /sbin
ALWAYS be very careful when changing the cluster configurations. The only time I needed to change the cluster configuration was when Vipul upgraded Oracle versions and ORACLE_HOME changed directories. This is a very dangerous thing to do.
There are two ways of changing the configurations. The method one uses if the system is up (cluster is running on at least one node, preferably on both):
If both systems are down:
A wonderful reference book for Veritas Clusters is:
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