ABS 4.5 SOFTWARE INSTALLED

[Lucie]

This is 3-node cluster.
I upgraded to ABS 4.5 on two alpha systems yesterday.
Today I installed ABS 4.5 on the Itanium system. This system never had the software install.
I expected the install would find the existing catalogs, files etc on disk $1$dga109 (Instead it created the directories in sys$common. (The default).
Now I have two separate ABS installs. The Itanium system should be using the same catalog etc as the rest of the cluster.

Now I am going to run @abs$system:abs$delete_abs and @sys$systartup:mdms$uninstall.com

My question is - will this affect the catalog, abs files, etc on $1$dga109?

I believe the answer is no but I need verification before I run the commands.

Thanks

[Volker Halle]

Lucie,

those common ABS files are most likely pointed to be ABS-specific logical names. If those don't exist on your Itanium system, it's unlikely that the de-install does affect $1$DGA109:

If you want to be 100% sure, dismount $1$DGA109: on the Itanium system, then nothing can happen.

Before you try to attempt the de-install, consider changing the ABS logicals on the Itanium to just point to the ABS files on the $1$DGA109: disk.

Volker.

[Lucie]

Thanks Volker,
the logicals on the Itanium point to sys$common, the alpha logicals point to $1$dga109.
I like your suggestion - dismount the disk on Itanium. Then I will be sure nothing will be be done the $1$dga109.

Thanks again

Lucie

[Jan van den Ende]

Lucie,

and then onwards again: Were your (Alpha-common) logicals accessible/visible on the I64?
(at least the LOCATION definition)

If they are/were, then something is very wrong with the installation; it they were not, then defining ABS$SYSTEM (or the concealed device from which that name will be derived; I am not too familiair with ABS) needs to be defined as a pre-installation step.

hth

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Lucie]

I don't if the logicals were seen on the itanium before the install.
Since I expected the install to "realize" the other install was on dga109 that would be where the install would have retrieved the information.
We never had ABS on the itanium. None of the logicals pointed to DGA109.

[Colin Butcher]

Don't forget that you now have two system discs, one for Alpha, one for IA64, so you have two lots of SYS$COMMON logicals etc. that point to the architecture specific system discs. They're no longer cluster wide logicals in that SYS$COMMON on the Alphas points to a different place than SYS$COMMON on the IA64 system. The same would happen if yuo had more than one system disc for your Alpha nodes. All you've got is a cluster with multiple system discs.

In a mixed-architecture cluster or cluster with multiple system discs you'll usually want to set up a cluster common set of logicals and directories. I've often thought there should be a CLUSTER$xxx set of logicals for those things that are genuinely cluster wide and not architecture specific or system disc specific.

In a mixed architecture cluster or multiple system disc cluster (or in fact in any cluster if you're planning ahead for changes in the future) it's worth moving all the node specific and architecture specific information to a cluster common area and ensuring that all the logicals are consistently defined during startup on each node in the cluster. It's a bit like moving the UAF etc. out to a specific 'hotfiles' disc.

For ABS, all you need to do is ensure that the ABS logicals are defined on each node in a consistent manner. You might not need to uninstall ABS on the IA64 machine - just edit the ABS node specific startup and configuration files to point to the cluster-wide files and restart ABS.

Have fun!

Cheers, Colin (http://www.xdelta.co.uk).

[Steve Reece_3]

Are you sure you need to go to the extent of deinstalling the product Lucie? What happens if you redefine the logical names to point to the catalogs that you already have on DGA109 and then (re)start ABS/MDM?

Steve

[Lucie]

ABS logicals are defined by ABS at system startup.
For any files/logicals etc that are cluster specific (alpha and itanium) we have a disk defined for that purpose, called clu$common. This contains the mount_cluster_disk.com and other com files that are needed clusterwide

Dga109 is specifically dedicated to ABS and is mounted clusterwide. Currently ABS it is only installed in an alpha environment. We need to include the itanium system to take advantage since System Backup to Tape (SBT) feature for Oracle 10gR2 has been qualified.

The new version is for mixed architecture and testing indicated it would create directories for alpha and I64 and segregate files specific to the architecture.
With everything being said in the thread, I am beginning to have doubts about this.

Does anyone have this scenario and can confirm separate directory for mix architecture?
I donâ t want leave ABS install on the system disk that will not be used. It could cause confusion later with other system admin.

[Colin Butcher]

When you install the ABS kit on a node the kit installation process will work out what architecture it is being installed on. It'll install the IA64 executables etc. on the IA64 system disc, the Alpha executables etc. on the Alpha system disc.

So, you now have the IA64 specific stuff on the IA64 system disc and the Alpha specific stuff on the Alpha system disc. ALl you need is to set up the ABS logiocals to all point to the same cluster-wide database location.

In your environment the ABS databases etc. live on a third cluster common disc. You'll need to edit the per system disc ABS startup files to point to the common databases etc.

You should ensure that you have the same version of ABS installed on all system discs in the cluster. You should ensure that the logicals defined by the startup procedures invoked by each system disc refer to the same common set of databases. You might want to set those logicals up in the same place as where you mount that common disc.

Typically with a multiple system disc cluster you move as much of the startup etc. as you can into a cluster-common area rather than having multipe copies of files spread around multiple system discs. You seem to have done that already, which is good.

You've presumably already made backups of the ABS databases, just in case.

From memory most of the work with setting up ABS is in MDMS$SYSTARTUP.COM. For things like this I generally put a 'stub' one in place on each system disc that simply calls the cluster-common one and have everything in the one cluster-common file with logic that implements the node specific bits based on the nodename of that particular cluster member.

If you're really having trouble setting it up then try it out first on a small-scale test environment, or perhaps consider bringing someone in to help you with it.

Cheers, Colin (http://www.xdelta.co.uk).

[Lucie]

Thanks Colin for your suggestions.
I have been dealing with Oracle issues and have not been able to re-install ABS. I did run the de-install and the system does not contain and ABS/MDMS "files".
I did not want to keep anything there to confuse other people thinking there may be 2 MDMS databases.
we have a common disk for system-wide logicals, applications, etc.
ABS has been upgraded on the alpha nodes. They have been running ABS for awhile with no issues. We need to bring the I64 node int0 the mix and want to include it has part of the server search list.
I hope to install abs today.
thanks again!