Oracle 11g Release 2: New Features

Here are some of the new features of Oracle 11g Release 2 that I have come across.

• Oracle ASM & Oracle Clusterware Installation


• With Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g Release 2, Oracle ASM and Oracle clusterware can be installed into a single home directory which is always tagged as Grid Infrastructure home.


• Oracle ASM and Oracle Clusterware Files


• OCR and voting disks can be placed on Oracle ASM storage which enables a unified storage solution, storing all the data for the clusterware and the database without the need of any third party volume manager or cluster filesystems.


• Cluster Time Synchronization Service


• This service is newly introduced in Oracle 11g Rel 2 which ensures that there is a synchronization of the time in the cluster. If NTP daemon service is not found during cluster configuration then CTSS is configured to ensure time synchronization.


• Fixup Scripts and Grid Infrastructure Checks


• When Oracle Universal Installer detects that the minimum requirements for installation are not completed it creates a shell script programs and called it as fixup scripts. Once if OUI detects and incomplete task and is marked as fixable then we can easily fix the issue by generating a fixup script by a single click on "FIX & CHECK AGAIN"


• Always this script is executed as root because there might be the system parameters that needs to be changed which cannot be changed with some different users.


• Also with the help of cluster verify utility (CVU) we can generate a fixup scripts before moving ahead with the installation.


• Improved Input/Output Fencing Processes


• Oracle 11g Rel 2 had replaced oprocd and Hangcheck processes with the cluster synchronization service daemon agent and monitor to provide more accurate recognition of hangs and to avoid false termination.


• Oracle Clusterware Out-Of-Place upgrade


• This topic is already discussed on our blog at oracle 11g release 2 oracle clusterware out of place upgrade


• SCAN for Simplified Client Access


• This topic is already discussed on our blog at oracle 11g rel 2 scan single client


• Voting Disk Backup Procedure


• Voting disk was backed up using dd command in prior release but from Oracle 11g Rel 2 and later it is not supported


• Backing up your voting disk is not required any more as it is backed up automatically in the OCR as a part of any configuration changes. Voting disk data is automatically restored to any adding voting disks.

This article is published with help of OTN Document. Hope this will help you out in your career.