You must complete certain operating system tasks on your servers before you install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster and Oracle Real Application Clusters. The values provided in this chapter are for installation minimums only. Oracle recommends that you configure production systems in accordance with planned system loads.
Perform the following tasks to gather your current system information.
Checking the Currently Configured Virtual Memory on Windows Systems
Checking the Available Disk Space for Oracle Home Directories
The minimum required RAM is 4 gigabyte (GB) for Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster installations, including installations where you plan to install Oracle RAC.
To determine the physical RAM size, for a computer, you can use either of the following methods:
Open System in the control panel and Select the General tab.
Alternatively, start the Windows Task Manager, then select the Performance tab to view the available memory for your system.
Virtual memory (also known as a paging file) stores information that cannot fit in RAM, the main memory for the computer. All processes share the paging files, and a lack of space in the paging files can prevent processes from allocating memory.
Oracle recommends that you set the paging file size to match the amount of RAM available on the server, up to a maximum of 16 GB. If possible, split the paging file into multiple files on multiple physical devices. This configuration encourages parallel access to virtual memory, and improves the software performance.
From the Control panel, select System.
In the System Properties window, select the Advanced tab.
Under Performance, click Performance Options, or Settings.
In the Performance Options window, click the Advanced tab.
The virtual memory configuration is displayed at the bottom of the window.
If necessary, refer to your operating system documentation for information about how to configure additional virtual memory.
To determine whether your computer is running a 64-bit (x64) Windows operating system, perform the following steps:
Right-click My Computer and select Properties.
On the General tab, under the heading of System, view the displayed text.
You will see text similar to "64-bit Operating System" if you have the x64 version of the operating system installed.
To view your processor type (32-bit or 64-bit), perform the following steps:
The Grid home includes Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM software and configuration files. Additional disk space on a cluster file system is required for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Management Repository, Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) and voting files used by Oracle Clusterware.
If you are installing Oracle RAC, then you must configuration additional disk space for:
The Oracle RAC software and log files
The shared data files and, optionally, the shared Fast Recovery Area in an Oracle ASM disk group
If you use standard redundancy for Oracle Clusterware files, which is 3 Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) files and 3 voting files, then you should have at least 2 GB of disk space available on three separate physical disks reserved for storing the Oracle Clusterware files in Oracle ASM.
Note:
You cannot install OCR or voting files (Oracle Clusterware files) on raw partitions. You can install Oracle Clusterware files only on Oracle ASM. Raw devices can be used as Oracle ASM disks.To ensure high availability of OCR or voting files on Oracle ASM, you need to have at least 2 GB of disk space for Oracle Clusterware files in three separate failure groups, with at least three physical disks. Each disk must have at least 1 GB of capacity to ensure that there is sufficient space to create Oracle Clusterware files.
If the temp space and the Grid home are on the same file system, then add together their respective requirements for the total minimum space required for that file system.
Note:
Oracle recommends that you choose the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Management Repository option when installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure. When you choose this option, OUI configures a Oracle Grid Infrastructure Management Repository database on one of the nodes in the cluster. Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 12.1.0.2, installation of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Management Repository is no longer optional and it is installed automatically.To determine the amount of available free disk space, there are two methods you can use:
Using the Computer properties window:
Open the Start menu, then click Computer.
View the free disk space for each drive.
Right-click the drive on which you plan to install the Oracle software and select Properties to view additional information about the disk space for that drive.
Using the Disk Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC) plug-in:
From the Start menu, select Run...
In the Run window, type in Diskmgmt.msc to open the Disk Management graphical user interface (GUI).
The Disk Management GUI displays the available space on the available file systems.
The amount of disk space available in the TEMP directory is equivalent to the total amount of free disk space, minus what will be needed for the Oracle software to be installed.
Note:
The temporary directory must reside in the same directory path on each node in the cluster.You must have 1 GB of disk space available in the TEMP directory. If you do not have sufficient space, then first delete all unnecessary files. If the temp disk space is still less than the required amount, then increase the partition size of the disk or set the TEMP environment variable to point to a different hard drive. Ensure the environment variables TEMP and TMP both point to the location of the TEMP directory, for example:
TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
To modify the setting for the TEMP environment variable:
Log in as or switch to the user that will be performing the installation.
From the Control Panel, select System.
Select Advanced System Settings.
In the System Properties windows, select the Advanced tab, then click Environment Variables.
Modify the value of the TEMP environment variable in the user variables list.
Select servers with the same instruction set architecture as cluster members.
Ensure servers run the same operating system binary.
Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) support servers with different hardware in the same cluster. Your cluster can have nodes with CPUs of different speeds or sizes, but Oracle recommends that you use nodes with the same hardware configuration.
Oracle recommends that if you configure clusters using different configuration, that you categorize cluster nodes into homogenous pools as part of your server categorization management policy.
See Also:
Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide for more information about server state and configuration attributes, and about using server pools to manage resources and workloadsEach system must meet the following minimum hardware and memory requirements:
Table 2-1 Minimum Hardware and Memory Requirements for Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation
| Hardware Component | Requirements |
|---|---|
|
Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations: At least 4 gigabyte (GB) of physical RAM for Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster installations, including installations where you plan to install Oracle RAC |
|
|
If your server has between 4 GB and 16 GB of RAM, then you should configure a paging file of at least the same size as the RAM. If your server has more than 16 GB of RAM, then the paging file should be 16 GB. |
|
|
256 color and at least 1024 x 768 display resolution, so that OUI displays correctly while performing a system console-based installation |
|
|
Note:
32-bit systems are no longer supported for Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC.Each system must meet the following minimum storage requirements:
1 GB of space in the %TEMP% directory.
If the free space available in the %TEMP% directory is less than what is required, then complete one of the following steps:
Delete unnecessary files from the %TEMP% directory to make available the space required.
Extend the file system that contains the %TEMP% directory. If necessary, contact your system administrator for information about extending file systems.
At least 7 GB of space for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster home (Grid home). Oracle recommends that you allocate 100 GB to allow additional space for patches.
At least 3.5 GB of space for the Oracle base of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation user. The Oracle base includes Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM log files.
If you intend to install Oracle Database, then allocate 5.89 GB of disk space for the Oracle home (the location for the Oracle Database software binaries).
If you plan to configure automated database backups for your Oracle Database, then you require additional space either in a file system or in an Oracle Automatic Storage Management disk group for the Fast Recovery Area.
Note:
The base directory for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c and the base directory for Oracle RAC 12c must be different from the directories used by any Oracle RAC 11g Release 2 installations.See Also:
Oracle Database Backup and Recovery User's Guide for more information about Fast Recovery Area sizing
Oracle recommends that you install Oracle software, or binaries, on New Technology File System (NTFS) formatted drives or partitions. Because it is difficult for OUI to estimate NTFS and file allocation table (FAT) disk sizes on Windows, the system requirements documented in this section are likely more accurate than the values reported on the OUI Summary screen.
Note:
Oracle Grid Infrastructure software is not supported on Network File System (NFS).You cannot use NTFS formatted disks or partitions for Oracle Clusterware files or data files because they cannot be shared. Oracle Clusterware shared files and Oracle Database data files can be placed on unformatted basic disks or disk partitions, called raw partitions, managed by Oracle ASM.
Oracle ASM is recommended for storing Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Database data files.