Package of running Oracle

[Ryan Ma]

I would like to ask if listener should be included in Oracle package.

In my environment, listener and oracle are in the same package. The processes of both of them are monitored.

Rgds,
Ryan

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi there.
Yes, you did it right.
Listener should be in the same package as the database / instance.
We have an environment here with a SG cluster
( two N4000 ) and we configured it the same way.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Christopher McCray_1]

You can do it either way. I have been told that it is better from the standpoint ease of maintenance for your dbas if the listener is included, but you need to have basically everthing but the oracle binaries on the shared drive. My dbas prefer to have the listener not part of the package, so the have to maintain two separate sets of configuration files for it to work and all the oracle application software resides on vg00, the data on the shared drive. Your call.

good luck,
Chris

[Stefan Farrelly]

Yes, the listener startup/shutdown should be in your oracle package. This way any cluster package commands (start, stop or failover) wil start/stop everything. All ours work this way.

[Christopher McCray_1]

Maybe I misunderstood the question. Yes the startup/shutdown of the listener resides in the oracle package script. It is the listener and other config files within oracle that reside on vg00 of both servers and is called there in the case of failover. Sorry if I was off the first time.

Chris

[Santosh Nair_1]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't the listener be configured to use the package IP address, and if that's the case, wouldn't it make more sense to run the listener within the package?

-Santosh

[Christopher McCray_1]

Santosh,

It works either way. Yes, I was told that it was probably better to do it the way you suggested; I brought it to the attention of the db group; they chose to do it the way We currently run it. They have the added responsibility of ensuring everything application-wise with oracle is identical on both servers in the cluster. The package ip address just creates a virtual lan card from the primary data lancard. When the users log into the virtual host, it points to the package ip, the correct server and thus the correct database. I will not pretentd to know the 1s and 0s of it; I just know it works either way.

Chris

[Santosh Nair_1]

I understand that it works either way, but I don't understand why you'd want to maintain two different listener.ora files. I mean that file hardly gets changed. I would understand why you'd want to keep the config.ora and the init.ora files local as you try different tuning parameters for the database instance, but there's not much tuning to be done on the listener...

Just my 1 1/2 cents (bad economy) :-)

-Santosh

[Christopher McCray_1]

I thank you, Santosh, for your comments. As I stated before, the dbas wanted it this way, they know full well what the pros and cons are. I just run the server and in the environment I work in (ultra political), you do what the customer wants, and hope nothing goes wrong. I totally share your views regarding the listener and I apologize if I seemed defensive. I was just pointing out alternatives. Thanks again and I hope we solved Ryan's question as a result.

Good luck
Chris

[Santosh Nair_1]

Chris,

Don't misunderstand, I wasn't offensed, just trying to get a better understanding. I fully realize what you mean by "I just run the server"...many a times I've voiced my opinions to my clients only to have them ignored...and then later...much later they come to the same conclusions as I originally did. But I'm not one to say I told you so :-)

-Santosh

[Ryan Ma]

In my opinion, I think listener should not be included in the package of oracle.

My point is that if listener is dead, there is no need to fail over. Only restarting the listener will work. ( In my system, Oracle package retry time is 0 )

If the package fail over only because the listener is dead, it will affect all current user as well ( Oracle shutdown / startup ).

So I think the listener should not be included in the package. Make it more clear, listener should not be included in PID monitoring in the package.

Do my point stand?

[Sanjay_6 · Accepted solution]

Hi Ryan,

the Listener should be part of the oracle package configuration. It is not required if the listener is not used at all times. But if you are planning on using the listener, it should be part of the oracle package script. IF you have to manually start the listener after the package has started, it defeats the purpose of the MC/SG. You are required to manually intervene to start a required process for that package.

The system will not failover the package if the listener dies, because the same is not monitored by the MC/SG. To monitor a process by the SG you have to define it in the service being monitored. At any time, you can close the listener and see, wether the package is failing over. As per my understanding the package will not failover if the listener dies. The package startup scripts just tries to start the listener after the oracle database has started.

Hope this helps. To make listener a part of the package script finally depends on the SA handling the system and the DBA involved. But i certainly won't suggest the listener to be kept out of the package startup script.

thanks

[Ryan Ma]

Sanjay,

Thanks for your explanation. Before, I am confused because my package monitor listener PID as well. And I think it is unnecessary and need to be modified.

Monitored process = ora_pmon_TST, pid = 23123
Monitored process = ora_dbw0_TST, pid = 23126
Monitored process = ora_ckpt_TST, pid = 23138
Monitored process = ora_smon_TST, pid = 23140
Monitored process = ora_lgwr_TST, pid = 23136
Monitored process = ora_reco_TST, pid = 23142
Monitored process = tnslsnrTST, pid = 23080
Monitored process = tnslsnrAPPS_TST, pid = 23091


Read my last sentence in last message, "listener should not be included in PID monitoring in the package."
It is just similar to your explanation and I am not taking out listener from oracle package.
May be my wording mislead you. :(

Now I know what I have to do and thanks for all your reply.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Ryan,

Listener is never monitored. Only the ora_pmon_SID_NAME and other ora processes are monitored. If any of these processes failed the package will failover. I was earlier talking to my DBA some days back and she said that she can live without a few of these processes but not all of them, so it is upto the customer, either you monitor the processes and failover whenever one of them fails or you don't monitor them at all. If you don't monitor these processes, the oracle database can be brought down and still the package will not failover. So the choice is for the DBA to make.

We have a flag set into the monitor script and if we touch a file, we can still bounce the database and the package will not failover though the processes are being monitored. when we touch this file i'm talking about, the monitoring of the processes is stopped and my DBA can do the online database maintainance.

Hope this explains a little about the way we are monitoring the ora processes.

Thanks