Database Identification

Use this page to uniquely identify your Oracle Database. You identify your database using a global database name, and a System Identifier (or SID).

Cluster Database Configuration Type

Cluster Database configuration can be admin-managed or policy-managed.

Admin-Managed

Admin-managed database results in an instance tied to a specific server. Servers need to be selected from the available node list. All admin-managed databases can share the server among themselves, but if a server that is selected is in use by a policy-managed database, then this server can be taken by an admin-managed database when a running instance of policy-managed database is down.

For an Admin-Managed database, the local node cannot be deselected. If only a local node is selected and no other candidate nodes are selected, a warning stating "The database is not protected against instance and node failures" appears.

Policy-Managed

A policy-managed database is dynamic, with instances managed automatically based on pools of servers for effective resource utilization. A new server pool can be created for a new database or any existing server pool can be used. Servers of policy-managed databases are not shared by each other.

Server Pool Name

Server pool is a group of servers that collectively work together to host database workload. Server pool name needs to be specified if a new server pool has to be created. Servers of server pools are always exclusive with other server pools. The server pool membership is usually controlled by MIN_SIZE/MAX_SIZE/IMPORTANCE. It is created and administered by a user having CRS Administrator Role privileges. Explicit EXECUTE permissions are needed to host resources on the server pool.

RAC One Node Database

RAC One Node databases are RAC databases that run in a cluster but usually just run one instance. Only during planned online database relocation operations is a second instance started so that the sessions can be migrated to a new node. The original instance is then shut down. RAC One Node databases can also fail over to another cluster node within its hosting server pool if their current node fails.

A RAC One Node database can be Admin-Managed or Policy-Managed. A Policy-Managed RAC One Node database selects a fail-over candidate server from the associated server pool. An Admin-Managed RAC One Node requires specific candidate servers configured for failover.

DBCA will create redo logs and undo tablespaces required for the second instance (used by online database relocation) database in a RAC One Node configuration.

Add or deleting an instance is not allowed on a RAC One Node Database.

Cardinality

Cardinality is the number of database instances you want to run. A server pool created using DBCA always has 0 as MIN_SIZE. If you choose a Configuration Type of Policy-Managed, you will be prompted to choose either Create a New Server Pool for this database and then provide the Server Pool Name and Cardinality, or you can choose Use Existing Server Pool for this database and then select the Select Server Pool [cardinality] from the list.

If a serverpool with cardinality < 1 is selected, a warning stating that the database is not protected against instance failures appears.

Creating a Global Database Name

An Oracle database is uniquely identified by a Global Database Name. The global database name is the full name of the database that uniquely identifies it from any other database. The global database name is of the following form:

<database_name>.<database_domain>

For example, here is a typical global database name:

test.us.example.com

The database name portion (in this example, test) is a simple name for your database. The database domain portion (in this case, us.example.com ) specifies the domain in which the database is located. When possible, Oracle recommends that your database domain should mirror your network domain.

The database name portion of the global database name can be no more than 8 characters, and can contain only contain only alphabetic and numeric characters.

The domain portion of the global database name can be no more than 128 characters and can contain only alphabetic and numeric characters, as well as the period (.) character.

Using a Database SID

The System Identifier (SID) identifies a specific instance of the Oracle Database software. For any database, there is at least one instance referencing the database. The SID can be any name that is not already used for another instance on this computer.

Note: In order to Change database configuration or Delete a database, you must define the SID (ORACLE_SID) environment variable in the shell from which Database Configuration Assistant is launched. If no SID is set, you cannot change database configuration settings or delete the database. If an incorrect SID is set, you can select these options in Database Configuration Assistant, but these options will not work.

Keep in mind the following platform-specific notes:

Service Name

The Database Service Name is used by applications to connect to the RAC One Node database. Services enable Oracle RAC to integrate cluster database resources into a single system image to optimize cluster manageability. This simplifies system deployment, testing, and disaster recovery and administrative overhead. With services, users connect to a database without regard for which instance executes the SQL application service.

Candidate Nodes

Select the candidate nodes on which you want to create the Admin-Managed RAC database. The local node will be used whether or not it is selected. You can use Select All or Deselect All to choose all nodes or no nodes respectively.