Installation and configuration

This chapter discusses the installation and configuration of the Real Application Cluster (RAC) environment—that is, an Oracle Database 10 g Release 2 RAC. A standard procedure developed and recommended by Oracle Corporation is the Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA), which provides a consistent way to define disks and directory structures. This architecture is widely followed by many organizations using Oracle RDBMS. OFA is a way to promote a consistent standard disk configuration or directory structure. Implementing OFA is not a requirement for installing and configuring an Oracle database, and for organizations that may not have used OFA to configure their directory structures, it is a good practice to follow some standard to maintain consistency among the various installations within the organization. The pre-installation steps, operating-system configuration, network configuration, and database creation process are also elaborated.