1 Copyright 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

2 Copyright 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Essential Tools for Supporting RAC Environments Part 1:
RACcheck/ORAchk
Bryan Vongray - Senior Principal Technical Support Engineer
Scott J esse Customer Support Director
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Objective
Promote Best Practices/Success
Factors
Maintain a healthy Oracle
Environment
Avoid Rediscovery of Known Issues
Increased Satisfaction with Oracle
Products
Decrease the number of Reactive Issues with the Oracle Stack:

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Best Practices and Success Factors
Generated based on Real-world Oracle Customer experiences:
1. Issues are Documented, Stored and Tracked by Support and Development Teams
2. Reviewed by Oracle Support and Development teams
3. An Approved Success Factor or Best Practice is published externally through MOS
Documents, Product Documentation and White Papers
4. From a RAC Perspective, Best Practices and Success Factors are consolidated within
the series of MOS RAC Best Practices and Starter Kit notes (all linked from Note:
810394.1).

The foundation of the ORAchk Utility
Provide customers with the ability to proactively avoid and prevent known issues
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ORAchk Oracle Configuration Audit Tool





A tool designed to be a proactive self-service method for
customers to perform Health Checks on their Oracle systems
It validates and provides system-specific feedback on:
Configuration issues that can impact the system
Best Practices/Success Factors that are not being
adhered to on the system
Documentation on checks for ease of knowledge transfer
Developed by the RAC Assurance Development team with the
specific goal of automation of the promotion of Best Practices
and Success Factors
RACcheck is Packaged with 11.2.0.4 Database
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Evolution of RACcheck into ORAchk
Fact: Knowledge Transfer of Success Factors and
Best Practices has historically been a challenge

RACcheck Overcame this Knowledge Transfer Challenge
Automatic validation of Success Factors and Best Practices
Results tailored to specific environment
Consolidation of Findings with MOS Note, Documentation and White Paper
References

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Evolution of RACcheck into ORAchk
With the ever increasing popularity of RACcheck, other Product Areas
took note of this value-add
v. 2.1.3 - MAA (Maximum Availability Architecture) Checks Added
v. 2.2.0 Single Instance DB Support Added
v. 2.2.3 GoldenGate Checks Added
Interest shown from E-Business AP, Sun Systems as well as other
Product Areas

Fact: Success Factors and Best Practices are
Developed by ALL Product Areas within Oracle

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ORAchk has been Born
ORAchk replaces the popular RACcheck tool
Full Support of Engineered Systems - Includes functionality of
EXAchk and ODAchk
Expands into the following Product Areas:
E-Business Suite Financials Accounts Payables
Sun Systems


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ORAchk Features
Proactively analyzes systems for known issues that can impact
stability and availability
Automates validation of system conformity to the latest Best
Practices and Success Factors
Findings reported in HTML format with a severity for each finding and
the ability to view details of a finding by drilling down
Upgrade Readiness feature to help ensure successful upgrades
(RAC Only)
New and Updated checks are added quarterly


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ORAchk Features
Ability to automate execution and email results using the ORAchk
Daemon
Report Comparison functionality for baseline comparisons
Collection Manager, a companion Application Express web app,
provides a single dashboard view of collections across your entire
enterprise
ORAchk will continue to expand in the future with updated checks
and additional Product Areas


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ORAchk Easy to Install, Easy to Execute

Download latest ORAchk version
MOS Note: 1268927.1
Transfer orachk.zip to a single
node
Extract orachk.zip
Execute orachk.exe
Follow the prompts

Execution times are generally less
than 10 min for a 2 node cluster!
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ORAchk Demo


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ORAchk Data Analysis


Data is gathered across all nodes and
analyzed
Analysis rules are then applied to generate a
PASS, WARNING, FAIL and INFO result for
each analyzed data collection point
By default the output (screen and
report) will highlight WARNING, FAIL
and INFO
PASS checks can be included in the
output by executing ORAchk o v



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ORAchk Output What to get out of it?
Easy-to-Read HTML Report
Indication of System Health Score
Pass/Warning/Fail and Info findings
backed up with MOS Notes and
Documentation References
Proactive Patch recommendations
within the report
Reports from different executions are
able to be compared



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ORAchk Output Review


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ORAchk Usage Considerations
Downloading the latest version is always recommended!
ORAchk is designed to be run by administrators with
basic knowledge
ORAchk should be staged and operated from a local
filesystem
Execution is from a single node in the cluster SSH
(Secure Shell) is used for data collection on the remote
nodes
ORAchk is to be executed as the Database Software
owner
There are data collection elements that require root
access (via SUDO or manual password entry)
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ORAchk Supported Environments
Supported Platforms
Linux x86-64 (OEL, RedHat and SuSE 9, 10, 11)
Oracle Solaris (SPARC and x86-64)
IBM AIX (must have the BASH 3.2 shell installed)
HP-UX (must have the BASH 3.2 shell installed)
Supported Oracle Releases
10gR2
11gR1
11gR2
12cR1
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ORAchk Upgrade Readiness
Upgrade Readiness was introduced in RACcheck 2.1.5
The goal of the ORAchk Upgrade Readiness Assessment is to make the
process of upgrade planning for Oracle RAC and Oracle Clusterware as
smooth as possible by automating many of the manual pre/post checks
detailed in various upgrade related documents.
Feature is documented in MOS Note: 1457357.1
Only valid for upgrades to 11.2.0.3, 11.2.0.4 and
12.1.0.1

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ORAchk Upgrade Readiness
Pre-upgrade at a high level will perform the following:
OS: Patch, Parameter Validation, Configuration Validation
GI, ASM, RDBMS: prerequisite patch validation, configuration validation
General Pre Upgrade Information/Links

Post-upgrade at a high level will perform the following:
Latest PSU check/recommendation
General upgrade validations
General Post Upgrade Information/Links
Standard RACcheck validations for the target release/platform
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ORAchk When should it be run?
Grid Infrastructure and at least one database up and running
During times of least load on system
After initial Oracle RAC deployment
Before planned maintenance activities
After planned maintenance activities
At least once every three months
During the planning phase for 11.2.0.3 upgrades (in pre-upgrade mode)
Post-11.2.0.3 upgrade (in post-upgrade mode)
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ORAchk What it is NOT
ORAchk is NOT a diagnostic tool
ORAchk is NOT a performance analysis tool
ORAchk is NOT a diagnostic collection tool
ORAchk is NOT a replacement for the Cluster Verification Utility The tools
complement one another

ORAchk IS a proactive self-service configuration audit tool to promote Success
Factors and Best Practices with the intent to reduce the number of reactive
issues with the Oracle Stack.
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Obtaining ORAchk Support
ORAchk is supported via the MOS Database
RAC/Scalability Community Forum
Troubleshooting Section of the ORAchk Note:
1268927.1
Feedback for future RACcheck enhancements is
always welcome!







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ORAchk @ Work

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How has ORAchk made a difference?
RACcheck Resolution
1. Used in environment
We use ORAchk as a pre-check before a build.
We use it prior to patching to ensure that nothing
has changed.
We use it post-patching to ensure that all is well.

2. Customer impression
ORAchk is an excellent tool to QA RAC system
and ensure all Oracle best practices are followed.
This should be something Oracle should promote
more and add to products like EM also for pre-
check analysis.

3. Were reactive issues reduced
Absolutely!
Prior to opening an SR, we normally run ORAchk
to ensure we didn't miss anything (and 9 out of 10
times we find that something did change and
resolution of that helps in solving the problem,
which leads to fewer SR's).


How is ORAchk used within your
environment?
What is your impression of ORAchk?
Do you feel that ORAchk assisted in the
reduction of reactive issues with RAC?

RACcheck Customer
Success Story
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How Can ORAcheck make a difference?
RACcheck Resolution
The ORAchk Upgrade Readiness feature
answers all of these questions to assist
users in upgrade planning and execution in
a user-friendly, consolidated format.
This report can easily be used as a
checklist to ensure the success of an
upgrade to Grid Infrastructure/RAC
11.2.0.3+.


What do I need to do to my RAC system to
ensure it is ready for an upgrade?
Are there any known issues that may prevent
my upgrade from being successful?
Where do I find consolidated information
specific to my system to assist with an
upgrade?

My Customer is planning
for an Upgrade
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ORAchk Collection
Manager
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ORAchk Collection Manager
Companion Application to ORAchk
Dashboard Interface to track ORAchk
Collections
Enterprise Wide Central Repository for ORAchk
Collections
Trending of Findings over time
Automatic Result Comparison for each system
Incident tickets for tracking of corrective
action(s)
Available via MOS Note: 1602329.1

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ORAchk Collection Manager Demo


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Recap Recommendations
We encourage you to proactively take advantage of the tools
outlined in this presentation to provide:
Increased system stability, reliability, and performance
Fewer reactive issues with RAC
Decrease the complexity and eliminate problems with
Grid Infrastructure and RAC upgrades

30 Copyright 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.