This preface lists changes in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide.
The following are changes in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide for Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2):
Automatic Installation of Grid Infrastructure Management Repository
The Grid Infrastructure Management Repository is automatically installed with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2).
Cluster and Oracle RAC Diagnosability Tools Enhancements
Oracle Clusterware uses Oracle Database fault diagnosability infrastructure to manage diagnostic data and its alert log. As a result, most diagnostic data resides in the Automatic Diagnostic Repository (ADR), a collection of directories and files located under a base directory that you specify during installation.
Note:
The Oracle Trace File Analyzer (TFA) Collector is not supported on Windows operating systems.IPv6 Support for Public Networks
Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 1 (12.1) supports IPv6-based public IP and VIP addresses.
IPv6-based IP addresses have become the latest standard for the information technology infrastructure in today's data centers. With this release, Oracle RAC and Oracle Grid Infrastructure support this standard. You can configure cluster nodes during installation with either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses on the same network. Database clients can connect to either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. The Single Client Access Name (SCAN) listener automatically redirects client connection requests to the appropriate database listener for the IP protocol of the client request.
The following are changes in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide for Oracle Clusterware 12c Release 1 (12.1):
Oracle ASM File Access Control Enhancements on Windows
You can now use access control to separate roles in Windows environments. With Oracle database services running with the privileges of an Oracle home user rather than Local System, the Oracle ASM access control feature is enabled to support role separation on Windows. In earlier releases, this feature was disabled on Windows because all Oracle services run as Local System.
You can change the identity of an Oracle ASM user from one operating system user to another operating system user without having to drop and re-create the user, which requires dropping all the files a user owns, which improves the manageability of Oracle ASM users and the files they own.
You can modify Windows file access controls while files are open using ASMCMD file access control commands, such as chgrp, chmod, and chown.
See Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide and Oracle Database Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows.
Cluster Health Monitor Enhancements
Cluster Health Monitor (CHM) has been enhanced to provide a highly available server monitor service that provides improved detection of operating system and cluster resource-related degradation and failures.
Oracle Cluster Registry Backup in ASM Disk Group Support
The Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) backup mechanism enables storing the OCR backup in an Oracle ASM disk group. Storing the OCR backup in an Oracle ASM disk group simplifies OCR management by permitting access to the OCR backup from any node in the cluster should an OCR recovery become necessary.
Oracle Grid Infrastructure Rolling Migration for One-Off Patches
Oracle Grid Infrastructure one-off patch rolling migration and upgrade for Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) and Oracle Clusterware enables you to independently upgrade or patch clustered Oracle Grid Infrastructure nodes with one-off patches, without affecting database availability. This feature provides greater uptime and patching flexibility. This release also introduces a new Cluster state, "Rolling Patch" Operations allowed in a patch quiesce state are similar to the existing "Rolling Upgrade" cluster state.
See Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide and Section D.2, "About Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle ASM Upgrade and Downgrade."
Oracle Home User Support for Oracle Database and Oracle Grid Infrastructure
Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Database supports the use of an Oracle Home User, which can be specified at installation time. The Oracle Home User can be a Built-in Account or a Windows Domain User Account. If you specify a Windows User Account, then the user should be a standard (non-Administrator) account to ensure that the Oracle Home User has a limited set of privileges. Using an Oracle Home User ensures that Oracle Database services have only those privileges required to run Oracle products.
See Oracle Database Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows and Section 5.2, "Configuring User Accounts."
Oracle RAC Hang Detection and Node Eviction Protection
Slowdowns in the cluster, mainly affecting the Oracle Database instances, are detected and classified as a hung process or instance and removed accordingly to prevent unnecessary node evictions as a consequence. While the occasional eviction of a node in an Oracle RAC cluster is mostly transparent to the application, this feature minimizes its occurrence. Also, the Global Conflict Resolution (GCR) process has been enhanced to provide better detection and avoidance of issues causing node evictions.
Policy-Based Cluster Management and Administration
Oracle Grid Infrastructure allows running multiple applications in one cluster. Using a policy-based approach, the workload introduced by these applications can be allocated across the cluster using a policy. In addition, a policy set enables different policies to be applied to the cluster over time as required. Policy sets can be defined using a web-based interface or a command-line interface.
Hosting various workloads in the same cluster helps to consolidate the workloads into a shared infrastructure that provides high availability and scalability. Using a centralized policy-based approach allows for dynamic resource reallocation and prioritization as the demand changes.
Shared Grid Naming Service (GNS) Across Multiple Clusters
In earlier releases, the Grid Naming Service (GNS) was dedicated to one Oracle Grid Infrastructure-based cluster, providing name resolution only for its own cluster member nodes. With this release, one Oracle GNS can now manage just the cluster member nodes in its own cluster, or GNS can provide naming resolution for all nodes across all clusters in the data center that are delegated to Oracle GNS for resolution.
Using only one Oracle GNS for all nodes that are part of an Oracle Grid Infrastructure cluster in the data center not only streamlines the naming convention, but also enables a data center cloud, minimizing day-to-day administration efforts.
See Section 4.2.1, "About Oracle Grid Infrastructure Name Resolution Options."
Support for Separation of Database Administration Duties
Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) provides support for separation of administrative duties for Oracle Database by introducing task-specific and least-privileged administrative privileges that do not require the SYSDBA system privilege. These new system privileges are: SYSBACKUP for backup and recovery, SYSDG for Oracle Data Guard, and SYSKM for encryption key management.
See "Managing Administrative Privileges" in Oracle Database Security Guide and Section 5.1.8.4, "Extended Oracle Database Groups for Job Role Separation."
Updates to Oracle ASM File Access Control Commands and Open Files Support
This features enables the modification of Windows file access controls while files are open. This features supports updates to ASMCMD file access control commands, such as chgrp, chmod, and chown.
See Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide.
The following features are deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release:
Standalone Deinstallation Tool
The deinstallation tool is now integrated with the installation media.
The -cleanupOBase flag of the deinstallation tool
The -cleanupOBase flag is deprecated in this release. There is no replacement for this flag.
Deprecation Announcement for Oracle Restart
Oracle Restart is a feature provided as part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure. Oracle Restart monitors and can restart Oracle Database instances, Oracle Net Listeners, and Oracle ASM instances. Oracle Restart is currently restricted to manage single instance Oracle Databases and Oracle ASM instances only, and is subject to desupport in future releases. Oracle continues to provide Oracle ASM as part of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation for Standalone and Cluster deployments.
For more information about the Oracle Restart deprecation announcement and its replacement, see My Oracle Support note 1584742.1:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1584742.1
The following features are no longer supported by Oracle. See Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of desupported features in this release.
Direct use of raw devices with Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Database
Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS) for Windows is desupported
Oracle Objects for OLE
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control