Oracle 11g Release 2 for Windows was just released this month. With the availability of the grid infrastructure in this version, I plan to install it on my Windows 7 desktop to see what it can do even if it is just on stand alone environment.
In order for database to use Automatic Storage Management (ASM), it requires the Grid Infrastructure. In addition to ASM, Grid Infrastructure will also provide Oracle Restart to manage the Oracle processes (database, listener, and ASM).
One of the first issues I’ve encountered is the new requirement that the clusterware files (OCR & Voting) must be on ASM. I have to admit even though I’ve done ASM on Solaris and Linux before, but never on Windows. Since this is mandatory, I will give it a try. And since I will use ASM for clusterware files, I plan to use it for database data files as well.
In order to use ASM, I’m required to provide the unformatted (raw) basic disks. I plan to use the existing disks without adding new physical ones. Fortunately in Windows 7, I can use the disk management (diskmgmt.msc) tool to shrink volume and create a new logical disk from claimed space. Note that you may have multiple physical disks on your machine, but ASM supports and recognizes only logical drives on the Basic disk (not Dynamic disk). Click here if you’re interested in differences between Basic and Dynamic disks.
Once data volume is shrunk, I can create a new volume and then a logical drive. The new drive must not be formatted or having a drive letter assigned to it. Here is the guidelines from Oracle document on “create disk partitions”.
To use ASM with direct attached storage or SAN, the disks must be stamped with a header. This can be accomplished by using either asmtool (command-line version) or asmtoolg (GUI version). Since we will install Oracle grid infrastructure in interactive mode, the asmtoolg will be called during the configuration. Somehow, if I tried to launch the asmtoolg outside Oracle grid infrastructure installation, I always encountered error with no disks found. However, within the Oracle grid infrastructure installation, there is no issue.
In general, the installation went well. I’ve encountered few issues which I’ve documented them in the documents below. The snapshots of steps here are for educational purpose only.
Windows 7 – Disk Preparation for ASM
Oracle 11g R2 Grid Infrastructure for Standalone Server Installation on Windows
Oracle 11g R2 Software Installation for Single Instance Database on Windows
), I found this solution in the document ID 308705.1: OUI Does Not Start After Running Setup.exe Installing OAS On Windows 2003, which says that the root cause is because the Application Experience Lookup Service is not started. Once started, the installation proceeds without any issues. The strange thing is that those servers we’ve previously installed it successfully did not have this service up either.
