The document explains the RAC Attack community's initiative to help Oracle users configure 2-node RAC environments, illustrating the transition from admin-managed to policy-managed databases introduced in Oracle 11gr2. It emphasizes the advantages of policy-managed databases, detailing the structure of server pools and their role in clustering, along with step-by-step instructions for converting existing setups. The lab covers server pool management, database conversion, and practical commands to facilitate the transition, ensuring improved high availability and reduced configuration efforts.

1. SERVER POOLS AND POLICY MANAGED DATABASES
Author: RAC Attack Community
Creation Date: March 23, 2014
Last Updated: March 23, 2014
Version: 1.0

2. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 2
1 PREFACE
RAC Attack is an Oracle RAC SIG community effort to invite all Oracle Users to install and configure a 2-
Node RAC environment on their own hardware (laptops) with experienced RAC Attack Ninja’s support.
The effort has gained much support within the last year of its inception and is held at most major
conferences. For more information, visit http://racattack.org/12c.
2 PURPOSE
The purpose of this particular is to illustrate a conversion from Admin-Managed RAC Databases to Policy
Managed databases, a feature introduced with Oracle 11gR2 but still quite uncommon.
Policy Managed Databases require less configuration effort and achieve superior High Availability for the
most critical databases. The database instances are no more directly assigned to cluster nodes. The
database are assigned instead to server pools and there is no more a one-to-one relation between
instances and servers.
2.1 SERVER POOLS
Server pools are the foundation of policy managed databases. They are used to partition a cluster into
smaller groups of servers. Because databases are assigned to server pools, their size directly affects the
resources available to the databases.
The size of server pools is driven by three main attributes:
• MIN_SIZE: The minimum number of servers that compose the server pool
• MAX_SIZE: The maximum number of servers
• IMPORTANCE: The priority level (from 0 to 1000, higher numbers means higher priority)
These factors are used by the cluster to assign server pools when the cluster starts.

3. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 3
2.2 POLICY MANAGED DATABASES
With admin-managed databases, you must set manually which instances run on which servers. This is
somehow an additional effort on one side, but on the other it allows DBAs to choose how many instances
can run for each database:
Policy-managed databases however span the entire server pool, so the number of instances is always
equal to the number of servers composing the server pool, and it is the same for each database in the
server pool.

4. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 4
3 ASSUMPTIONS
This lab assumes that the user has an existing 2-node RAC environment configured as per the base RAC
Attack 12c manual instructions listed here.
4 CONVERT TO POLICY MANAGED DATABASES
4.1 GET CURRENT SERVER POOLS
[oracle@collabn1 bin]$ . oraenv
ORACLE_SID = [oracle] ? RAC
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status srvpool -detail
Server pool name: Free
Active servers count: 0
Active server names:
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 2
Active server names: collabn1,collabn2
NAME=collabn1 STATE=ONLINE
NAME=collabn2 STATE=ONLINE

5. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 5
When a cluster is configured with admin managed databases, only two server pools exist: Generic and
Free. The first contains the database instances, the second contain servers that don’t have database
configured.
4.2 GET DATABASE MANAGEMENT MODE
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl config database -db RAC
Database unique name: RAC
Database name: RAC
Oracle home: /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1
Oracle user: oracle
Spfile: +DATA/RAC/spfileRAC.ora
Password file: +DATA/RAC/orapwrac
Domain: racattack
Start options: open
Stop options: immediate
Database role: PRIMARY
Management policy: AUTOMATIC
Server pools: RAC
Database instances: RAC1,RAC2
Disk Groups: FRA,DATA
Mount point paths:
Services: svctest
Type: RAC
Start concurrency:
Stop concurrency:
Database is administrator managed
The last line states that the database is admin-managed.
4.3 CREATE A NEW SERVER POOL
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status serverpool
Server pool name: Free
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 2
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl add srvpool -serverpool RACATTACK -min 1 -max 2 -importance 10
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status serverpool
Server pool name: Free
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 2
Server pool name: RACATTACK
Active servers count: 0
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$
The RACATTACK server pool is created, however it is empty because there are no servers available in the
“Free” server pool or other server pools with lower priority.

6. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 6
4.4 FREE-UP A NODE FOR THE NEW SERVER POOL
In order to get a server for the new created server pool, we should either add a node to the cluster or
remove a server from the generic server pool. We’ll choose the second one as it is the easiest example for
the lab.
To get a server from the Generic server pool we need to remove all the instances assigned to a chosen
node (we’ll free up the collabn1 node first).
Stop the instance, remove any exclusive service assigned to it, if existing, and remove the instance from
the clusterware configuration:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl stop instance -db RAC -instance RAC1
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl remove service -service svctest -db RAC
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl remove instance -db RAC -instance RAC1
Remove instance from the database RAC? (y/[n]) y
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status serverpool
Server pool name: Free
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 1
Server pool name: RACATTACK
Active servers count: 1
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$
As you can see, the freed node is immediately assigned to RACATTACK server pool because it is already
configured.
4.5 CONVERTING THE DATABASE TO POLICY-MANAGED
Converting a DB to policy managed is as simple as modifying it by specifying the new server pool through
srvctl, however this will shut down completely the database the time necessary for the reconfiguration
(seconds to minutes). The “-force” switch is necessary to confirm the shutdown of the database.
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status database -db RAC
Instance RAC2 is running on node collabn2
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl modify database -db RAC -serverpool RACATTACK -force
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$
The database now is running on two instances, two nodes.
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status database -db RAC
Instance RAC_1 is running on node collabn2
Instance RAC_2 is running on node collabn1
Why?

7. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 7
Once the admin-managed database instances have been removed from the cluster, the Generic server
pool is automatically emptied because RAC is the only database in the cluster. The servers are then
assigned both to the RACATTACK server pool.
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status serverpool
Server pool name: Free
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: RACATTACK
Active servers count: 2
Notice that the instance names contain an underscore (RAC_1 and RAC_2), this is the naming convention
used by the clusterware for policy managed databases. The cluster automatically adds UNDO tablespaces
and REDO threads to new the database in order to satisfy new instances in the server pool. This is has not
been done in our example however, because the database was already composed by two instances.
The instances, RAC_1 and RAC_2, may not be assigned respectively to collabn1 and collabn2. The server
assignment is dynamic and the first instance is usually configured on the first available node so don’t rely
on this.
Verify that the instance is now policy managed:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl config database -d RAC
Database unique name: RAC
Database name: RAC
Oracle home: /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1
Oracle user: oracle
Spfile: +DATA/RAC/spfileRAC.ora
Password file: +DATA/RAC/orapwrac
Domain: racattack
Start options: open
Stop options: immediate
Database role: PRIMARY
Management policy: AUTOMATIC
Server pools: RACATTACK
Database instances:
Disk Groups: FRA,DATA
Mount point paths:
Services:
Type: RAC
Start concurrency:
Stop concurrency:
Database is policy managed
5 PLAYING WITH THE SERVER POOLS
The server pool now has min pool size 1, max pool size 2.

8. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 8
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl config srvpool -serverpool RACATTACK
Server pool name: RACATTACK
Importance: 10, Min: 1, Max: 2
Category: hub
Candidate server names:
Because it’s the only server pool, it can get its maximum number of servers.
Check the status of the database using crsctl:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ /u01/app/12.1.0/grid/bin/crsctl stat res -t -w "TYPE = ora.database.type"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Target State Server State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.rac.db
1 ONLINE ONLINE collabn2 Open,STABLE
2 ONLINE ONLINE collabn1 Open,STABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now try to shrink the server pool:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl modify srvpool -serverpool RACATTACK -min 1 -max 1 -force
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ /u01/app/12.1.0/grid/bin/crsctl stat res -t -w "TYPE = ora.database.type"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Target State Server State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.rac.db
1 ONLINE ONLINE collabn2 Open,STABLE
2 ONLINE OFFLINE Instance Shutdown,ST
ABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you notice the behavior? Even if we have shrunk the server pool, the second instance is already
configured and showing up as an offline instance.
This is a misleading behavior for the users, but according to Oracle, it is the expected behavior.
Now try to add another server pool.
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl add srvpool -serverpool ANOTHERPOOL -min 1 -max 1 -importance 1
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status serverpool
Server pool name: Free
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: ANOTHERPOOL
Active servers count: 1
Server pool name: RACATTACK

9. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 9
Active servers count: 1
The server pool is added and one server is assigned to ANOTHERPOOL.
Now try to specify a minimum size of 2:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl modify srvpool -serverpool ANOTHERPOOL -min 2 -max 2 -importance 2
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status serverpool
Server pool name: Free
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: ANOTHERPOOL
Active servers count: 1
Server pool name: RACATTACK
Active servers count: 1
The new server pool has lower importance than RACATTACK, so the RAC database survives and both
server pools have 1 server assigned.
Expand RACATTACK again:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl modify srvpool -serverpool RACATTACK -min 2 -max 2
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ /u01/app/12.1.0/grid/bin/crsctl stat res -t -w "TYPE = ora.database.type"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Target State Server State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.rac.db
1 ONLINE ONLINE collabn2 Open,STABLE
2 ONLINE ONLINE collabn1 Open,STABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Review the current configuration and status of server pools:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl config srvpool
Server pool name: Free
Importance: 0, Min: 0, Max: -1
Category:
Candidate server names:
Server pool name: Generic
Importance: 0, Min: 0, Max: -1
Category:
Candidate server names:
Server pool name: ANOTHERPOOL
Importance: 2, Min: 2, Max: 2
Category: hub
Candidate server names:
Server pool name: RACATTACK
Importance: 10, Min: 2, Max: 2
Category: hub
Candidate server names:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl status serverpool
Server pool name: Free

10. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 10
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: Generic
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: ANOTHERPOOL
Active servers count: 0
Server pool name: RACATTACK
Active servers count: 2
Now try to give more importance to ANOTHERPOOL. Because it requires shutting down the database
RAC, it asks to use the –force switch:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl modify srvpool -serverpool ANOTHERPOOL -min 2 -max 2 -importance 20
PRCS-1011 : Failed to modify server pool ANOTHERPOOL
CRS-2736: The operation requires stopping resource 'ora.rac.db' on server 'collabn2'
CRS-2736: The operation requires stopping resource 'ora.rac.db' on server 'collabn1'
CRS-2738: Unable to modify server pool 'ora.ANOTHERPOOL' as this will affect running resources,
but the force option was not specified
You can verify the actions that the clusterware would do by using the new 12c –eval switch:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl modify srvpool -serverpool ANOTHERPOOL -min 2 -max 2 -importance 20 -
eval
Database rac will be stopped on nodes collabn2,collabn1
Server collabn1 will be moved from pool RACATTACK to pool ANOTHERPOOL
Server collabn2 will be moved from pool RACATTACK to pool ANOTHERPOOL
Finally, use the -force switch and verify that the RAC database is shut down by the cluster.
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl modify srvpool -serverpool ANOTHERPOOL -min 2 -max 2 -importance 20 -
force
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ /u01/app/12.1.0/grid/bin/crsctl stat res -t -w "TYPE = ora.database.type"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Target State Server State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.rac.db
1 ONLINE OFFLINE Instance Shutdown,ST
ABLE
2 ONLINE OFFLINE Instance Shutdown,ST
ABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 RAC ONE NODE
Oracle RAC One Node may be convenient and cheaper than Oracle RAC for many customers.
As final step in this lab we’ll convert our database to RAC One Node.

11. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 11
Because our RAC database is already shut down (no servers assigned to RACATTACK server pool), we can
remove it from the configuration:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl remove database -db RAC
Remove the database RAC? (y/[n) y
Then we can add back the database as RAC One Node:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl add database -db RAC -oraclehome
/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1 -dbtype RACONENODE -serverpool ANOTHERPOOL -spfile
+DATA/RAC/spfileRAC.ora -pwfile +DATA/RAC/orapwrac -domain racattack -diskgroup "FRA,DATA"
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl start database -db RAC
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ /u01/app/12.1.0/grid/bin/crsctl stat res -t -w "TYPE = ora.database.type"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Target State Server State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.rac.db
1 ONLINE ONLINE collabn2 Open,STABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The database has only one instance as expected.
Review its configuration:
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl config database -d RAC
Database unique name: RAC
Database name:
Oracle home: /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1
Oracle user: oracle
Spfile: +DATA/RAC/spfileRAC.ora
Password file: +DATA/RAC/orapwrac
Domain: racattack
Start options: open
Stop options: immediate
Database role: PRIMARY
Management policy: AUTOMATIC
Server pools: ANOTHERPOOL
Database instances:
Disk Groups: FRA,DATA
Mount point paths:
Services:
Type: RACOneNode
Online relocation timeout: 30
Instance name prefix: RAC
Candidate servers:
Database is policy managed
Now the instance to the other node of the cluster:

12. Server Pools and Policy Managed Databases
Author: RAC Attack Community
Last Updated: March 21, 2014
Page#: 12
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ srvctl relocate database -db RAC
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$
[oracle@collabn1 ~]$ /u01/app/12.1.0/grid/bin/crsctl stat res -t -w "TYPE = ora.database.type"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Target State Server State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.rac.db
2 ONLINE ONLINE collabn1 Open,STABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------