19c Grid New Features

• Support for Dry-Run Validation of Oracle Clusterware Upgrade
• Multiple ASMB
• Parity Protected Files
• Secure Cluster Communication
• Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching Using Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning
• Re-support of Direct File Placement for OCR and Voting Disks
• Optional Install for the Grid Infrastructure Management Repository

1.Support for Dry-Run Validation of Oracle Cluster ware Upgrade 19c: 

 Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c, the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation wizard (gridSetup.sh) enables you to perform a dry-run mode upgrade to check your system’s upgrade readiness.

2. Multiple ASMB

Given that +ASM1 has DG1 mounted but not DG2, and +ASM2 has DG2 mounted but not DG1, the Multiple ASMB project allows for the Database to use both DG1 and DG2 by connecting to both ASM instances simultaneously. Instead of having just ASMB, we can now have ASMBn.

 

This feature increases the availability of the Real Application Clusters (RAC) stack by allowing DB to use multiple disk groups even if a given ASM instance happens not to have all of them mounted.

3.Parity Protected Files:

A great deal of space is consumed when two or three way Oracle ASM mirroring is used for files associated with database backup operations. Backup files are write-once files, and this feature allows parity protection for protection rather than conventional mirroring. Considerable space savings are the result.

 

If a file is created as HIGH, MIRROR, or UNPROTECTED redundancy, its redundancy can change to HIGH, MIRROR, or UNPROTECTED. If redundancy has been changed, then the REMIRROR column of V$ASM_FILE contains Y to indicate that the file needs new mirroring, initiating a rebalance to put the new redundancy into effect. After the rebalance completes, the value in the REMIRROR column contains N .

 

When a file is created with PARITY redundancy, that file can never change redundancy.

 

When the file group redundancy property is modified from a HIGH, MIRROR, or UNPROTECTED setting to a PARITY setting, the redundancy of the existing files in the file group does not change. This behaviour also applies to a change from PARITY to a HIGH, MIRROR, or UNPROTECTED setting. However, any files created in the future adopt the new redundancy setting.

4.Secure Cluster Communication:

Secure Cluster Communication protects the cluster interconnect from common security threats when used together with Single Network Support. Secure Cluster Communication includes message digest mechanisms, protection against fuzzing, and uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) to provide privacy and data integrity between the cluster members.

 

The increased security for the cluster interconnect is invoked automatically as part of a new Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c deployment or an upgrade to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c. Database administrators or cluster administrators do not need to make any configuration changes for this feature.

5.Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching Using Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning:

Use Fleet Patching and Provisioning to patch Oracle Grid Infrastructure without bringing down Oracle RAC database instances.

 

Current methods of patching the Oracle Grid Infrastructure require that you bring down all Oracle RAC database instances on the node where you are patching the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. This issue is addressed in the Grid Infrastructure layer where by the database instances can continue to run during the grid infrastructure patching.

6.Resupport of Direct File Placement for OCR and Voting Disks:

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c, the desupport for direct OCR and voting disk file placement on shared file systems is rescinded for Oracle Standalone Clusters. For Oracle Domain Services Clusters the requirement to place OCR and voting files in Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) on top of files hosted on shared file systems and used as ASM disks remains.

 

In Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle announced that it would no longer support the placement of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) and voting files directly on a shared file system. This desupport is now rescinded. Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c (19.3), with Oracle Standalone Clusters, you can again place OCR and voting disk files directly on shared file systems.

7.Optional Install for the Grid Infrastructure Management Repository:

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c, the Grid Infrastructure Management Repository (GIMR) is optional for new installations of Oracle Standalone Cluster. Oracle Domain Services Clusters still require the installation of a GIMR as a service component.

 

The data contained in the GIMR is the basis for preventative diagnostics based on applied Machine Learning and can help to increase the availability of Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) databases. Having an optional installation for the GIMR allows for more flexible storage space management and faster deployment, especially during the installation of test and development systems.