Annoucement
I had to delete my post on shell scripting that referred to a webpage on oracle.com. I was doing some updates to post formats and such and noticed that the link on my post was not valid (alive) anymore.
Sorry for the inconvinience.
Here is what I had in the post.
Shell Scripting For DBAs
Here is a helpful article on use of shell scripting for DBAs.
A few years ago, Oracle released the first commercial database on Linux. Since then, Oracle, Red Hat, and Novell/SUSE have been steadily collaborating on changes to Linux kernel as they relate to database and application performance. For that reason, Oracle Database 10g for Linux includes enhancements that are closely related to the operating system. Now more than ever, DBAs need to have knowledge of and experience on this platform to best administer the systems under their watch.
There is a traditional division of responsibilities between sysadmins and DBAs. However, in practice, the distinction is not always clear. Many IT shops employ individuals who address concerns at the database as well as the operating system levels. And of course the Oracle Database itself uses operating system resources and is designed to interact closely with its environment.
Furthermore, many sysadmins and DBAs find it necessary or convenient to automate tasks related to their work. The installation of software, monitoring of system resources, and management of systems involve repetitive and error-prone tasks are better addressed through automated processes than manual procedures.
One method that is used to automate such tasks is shell scripting. Shell scripts play a significant role in the Linux System from the time it is installed. Various scripts are called when the system is started up and shut down. Utilities by Oracle and other third-party vendors are invoked through shell scripts. Because they can be developed quickly, they have historically been used for prototyping applications. System Administrators have taken advantage of the functionality available through shell scripting to provide solutions that are tailored for the particular requirements and idiosyncrasies of the systems under their watch.
Comments feed
I did lead a RAC workshop last week and as I said that the sql scripts should be run remotely to benefit from RAC failover capabilities, it was suddenly silent in the room for a few seconds, until one student asked : “Do you mean there should be no script on the server when using RAC?”. Well, it is not related to RAC, but most of the tasks, like sql-plus and sql-loader, could be run on an application server, and the database server should contain… database files.
The key discussion was actually ASM, which does not offer a shared file system. And there is no failover. So if you want to have only one version of a file and use it in RAC/ASM, the best is probably to not put it on the database server.
To go further in job collaboration, RAC require the user to have cluster and network skills too. And Linux leads to RAC, does not it?
Cheers,
Laurent
RAC requires users to know what their DR/failover/Processing options are. Users must know how Oracle RAC behaves by itself and with other Oracle products/technologies.
I was once told in a meeting that ” RAC is nothing but oracle’s way of marketing one more product based on “performance benefits” but in a nutshell RAC is just a cluster-concept-based-technology, the concept which has been around for quite long.” I had to give them a little 101 on what is an OS and what is an RDBMS and how RAC draws the line.
I didn’t get the comment where you said “And Linux leads to RAC, does not it?”. Can you please explain?
thanks
-Kirtan-
> the concept has been around for quite long
Yes, OPS has been released more than 10 years ago, and the big difference with rac may be the sales and marketing commitment to push it to the customers
>: Linux leads to RAC
because of the scalability. Even if the Linux 2.6 kernel allows you to scale up to to 1024 CPU (in theory), you are mostly limited to the x86_64 hardware, probably 8x2cores. To get acceptable availability and scalability, you need rac, or does it sounds marketing again
Well my answer to the whole RAC-is-nothing-but-cluster-based-design was that ‘may be it is. do you care? do you care if oracle markets something that really works? Why do you have to be against it because it’s being marketted strongly.
but anyways, I think RAC serves the purpose it was build for.