crsctl stat res -t shows a third ASM resource in a incorrect status in a two nodes cluster setup (12c, 18c, 19c)

Starting in 12c, onc we finish the setup of a two nodes cluster, output of csrctl stat res -t shows a third resource in a non-correct status

ora.asm
      1        ONLINE  ONLINE       rac18c1                  Started,STABLE
      2        ONLINE  ONLINE       rac18c2                  Started,STABLE
      3        OFFLINE OFFLINE                               STABLE

According to note 2132715.1 from Support, this is expected behaviour, since with Flex ASM, the default is 3 instances.

If we check the cardinality of the asm instance, we can verify it:

[oracle@rac18c2 ~]$ srvctl config asm
ASM home: <CRS home>
Password file: +DATA/orapwASM
Backup of Password file:
ASM listener: LISTENER
ASM instance count: 3
Cluster ASM listener: ASMNET1LSNR_ASM
[oracle@rac18c2 ~]$
So, we can leave  it safely as it is, or we can change the cardinality.
According to the mentioned note, the best way to change this cardinality is change it to ALL:

[oracle@rac18c2 ~]$ srvctl modify asm -count ALL

We verify the cardinality again:

[oracle@rac18c2 ~]$ srvctl config asm
ASM home: <CRS home>
Password file: +DATA/orapwASM
Backup of Password file:
ASM listener: LISTENER
ASM instance count: ALL
Cluster ASM listener: ASMNET1LSNR_ASM
[oracle@rac18c2 ~]$

And verify it again with crsctl. We see that now is corrected:

[oracle@rac18c2 ~]$ crsctl stat res ora.asm -t
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name           Target  State        Server                   State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.asm
      1        ONLINE  ONLINE       rac18c1                  Started,STABLE
      2        ONLINE  ONLINE       rac18c2                  Started,STABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[oracle@rac18c2 ~]$

Error running DBCA - ORA-27528 Transport RDS required by Engineered System not available

After some time not being able to update my blog, due to my schedule, now will try to add some updates more often.
This is an error I found the other day while running dbca on a Exadata Virtual machine and using a prevoiuosly created template for the database

At first glance, could not find any related note in Oracle Support, but a search in Google got some results, and directed me to the correct note.
The problem happens because parameter cluster_interconnect is set to one or more specific IPs. Of course, those IPs are only available in one node but DBCA tries to use them for all nodes. Obviously, it fails.
Solution: There are a couple of solutions, but being in DBCA, the best thing to do is leave the parameter cluster_interconnect empty and update it after database has been created. This is what I did and worked like a charm.

 Reference: DBCA errors when cluster_interconnects is set (Doc ID 1373591.1)

Not always the more the better. ORA-04031 provoked by parallel servers

I thought is worth to write about this incident that happened in one of my servers a couple of months ago. The reason is to show that to add or increase resources is not always the right approach to solve a problem.

ASL - My thermometer for the database

I suppose that most of you, DBAs,  have been asked sometime questions like "How is the general performance of the database?",  "I think there are a problem somewhere, is the database running well?", "Yesterday, at some moments of the day, the database run slow. Can you check what happened?".

Sure, those questions sound familiar to you. How could we give an answer to them?. Of course, we can take a look at the typical ratios, check AWR or Statspack reports, take a look at the OS, etc, etc.

Installation of Oracle Grid/RAC 11.2.0.4 on RHEL 7 or Oracle Linux 7

Some days ago, I had to install Oracle 11.2.0.4 on Red Hat Linux 7 and Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server. What I expected to be a quick task turned to be trickier than expected. Here outlined are the steps for the installation.

Data Guard: Using a Physical Standby database for testing

Here is a test I made. Usually, a standby database is used to provide contingency. But
we can use it sometimes for some testing. Let's say we want to try a job, to check some performance issues, to test a new application, etc.. but we do not want to do it in the main database. Here is a way to do it:

A free troubleshooting tool. Session Sampler

As I needed a tool that permit me to sample the activity of active sessions in Oracle and analyze the data, I wrote a tool for sampling in Python.

This tool is written for troubleshooting and not for continuous monitoring. Is not a substitute for ASH, but can be very helpful to see what happens in the database at one moment in time.