Introduction

Beginning with Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) 19.11. the ORACLE_BASE and ORACLE_HOMEs are created on ACFS. That’s good news, because there is much more space on ASM than on the internal disks, i.e. no space issues with /u01 anymore. So how does it work?

ORACLE_BASE and ORACLE_HOME on ACFS

When installing an ODA from scratch then ORACLE_BASE and ORACLE_HOME are already on ACFS. See an example of a freshly installed ODA X8-2M:

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli list-dbhome-storages

============================================================================================================= 
ID                                     Node Description          Disk Group Volume      Size(GB)   Status     
-------------------------------------- ---- -------------------- ---------- ----------- ---------- ----------
3e5b27c0-f021-4cc8-9c4d-a68362aed23b   0    ORACLE_HOME          DATA       orahome_sh  30         CONFIGURED
a8fa8109-d8ec-4a4c-84f4-53b07661dc0f   0    ORACLE_BASE          DATA       odabase_n0  10         CONFIGURED
============================================================================================================= 

If there is no ORACLE_HOME on ACFS (e.g. after upgrading from an earlier version) then you should configure the database-home-storage. I.e. do that after step 14 (update of the storage components) of the upgrade process. In the following example I configure 100GB for my ORACLE_HOMEs on diskgroup DATA:

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli configure-dbhome-storage -dg DATA -s 100
DCS-10606:Database homes storage has already been created, no changes are allowed.

The command failed, because a dbhome-storage has already been configured on my machine.

With describe-dbhome-storage you can get more information about the dbhome-storage:

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli describe-dbhome-storage -i 3e5b27c0-f021-4cc8-9c4d-a68362aed23b
ORACLE_HOME storage details:
================================================================
                     ID: 3e5b27c0-f021-4cc8-9c4d-a68362aed23b
                  State: CONFIGURED
                Created: July 29, 2021 9:33:24 AM CEST
                Updated: July 29, 2021 9:58:33 AM CEST

 Volume Details
 --------------
                   Name: orahome_sh
             Disk Group: DATA
            Description: ORACLE_HOME
            Node Number: 0
        Allocated Space: 30.0 GB
             Used Space: 12.22 GB
             Free Space: 17.77 GB
               Location: /u01/app/odaorahome

 DiskGroup Details
 -----------------
                   Name: DATA
        Allocated Space: 4.65 TB
             Used Space: 352.31 GB
             Free Space: 4.31 TB
================================================================

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# 

The size of the dbhome-storage can be changed with modify-dbhome-storage. E.g. here I resize it to 40GB:

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli modify-dbhome-storage -i 3e5b27c0-f021-4cc8-9c4d-a68362aed23b -s 40
{
  "jobId" : "bec8b73f-5537-4b59-87e9-bb780edf38d1",
  "status" : "Created",
  "message" : null,
  "reports" : [ ],
  "createTimestamp" : "August 04, 2021 22:26:02 PM CEST",
  "resourceList" : [ ],
  "description" : "Modify database home storage",
  "updatedTime" : "August 04, 2021 22:26:02 PM CEST"
}
[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli describe-job -i bec8b73f-5537-4b59-87e9-bb780edf38d1

Job details                                                      
----------------------------------------------------------------
                     ID:  bec8b73f-5537-4b59-87e9-bb780edf38d1
            Description:  Modify database home storage
                 Status:  Success
                Created:  August 4, 2021 10:26:02 PM CEST
                Message:  

Task Name                                Start Time                          End Time                            Status    
---------------------------------------- ----------------------------------- ----------------------------------- ----------
Resizing database home storage           August 4, 2021 10:26:02 PM CEST     August 4, 2021 10:26:02 PM CEST     Success   

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli list-dbhome-storages

============================================================================================================= 
ID                                     Node Description          Disk Group Volume      Size(GB)   Status     
-------------------------------------- ---- -------------------- ---------- ----------- ---------- ----------
3e5b27c0-f021-4cc8-9c4d-a68362aed23b   0    ORACLE_HOME          DATA       orahome_sh  40         CONFIGURED
a8fa8109-d8ec-4a4c-84f4-53b07661dc0f   0    ORACLE_BASE          DATA       odabase_n0  10         CONFIGURED
============================================================================================================= 

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli describe-dbhome-storage -i 3e5b27c0-f021-4cc8-9c4d-a68362aed23b

ORACLE_HOME storage details:
================================================================
                     ID: 3e5b27c0-f021-4cc8-9c4d-a68362aed23b
                  State: CONFIGURED
                Created: July 29, 2021 9:33:24 AM CEST
                Updated: August 4, 2021 10:26:02 PM CEST

 Volume Details
 --------------
                   Name: orahome_sh
             Disk Group: DATA
            Description: ORACLE_HOME
            Node Number: 0
        Allocated Space: 40.0 GB
             Used Space: 12.24 GB
             Free Space: 27.75 GB
               Location: /u01/app/odaorahome

 DiskGroup Details
 -----------------
                   Name: DATA
        Allocated Space: 4.65 TB
             Used Space: 362.31 GB
             Free Space: 4.30 TB
================================================================

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# df -h /u01/app/odaorahome
Filesystem               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/asm/orahome_sh-250   40G   13G   28G  31% /u01/app/odaorahome
[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# 

Creating a new ORACLE_HOME is created on the dbhome-storage on ACFS:

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli list-dbhomes

ID                                       Name                 DB Version                               Home Location                                 Status    
---------------------------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- ----------
e36a3f2f-22f8-4ff0-9935-9a4943f51349     OraDB19000_home1     19.11.0.0.210420                         /u01/app/odaorahome/oracle/product/19.0.0.0/dbhome_1 CONFIGURED

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli create-dbhome -v 19.11.0.0.210420

Job details                                                      
----------------------------------------------------------------
                     ID:  aac4de69-bfde-496e-ac53-9f02ebcf36c2
            Description:  Database Home OraDB19000_home2 creation with version :19.11.0.0.210420
                 Status:  Created
                Created:  August 4, 2021 10:29:58 PM CEST
                Message:  Create Database Home

Task Name                                Start Time                          End Time                            Status    
---------------------------------------- ----------------------------------- ----------------------------------- ----------

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli list-dbhomes

ID                                       Name                 DB Version                               Home Location                                 Status    
---------------------------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- ----------
e36a3f2f-22f8-4ff0-9935-9a4943f51349     OraDB19000_home1     19.11.0.0.210420                         /u01/app/odaorahome/oracle/product/19.0.0.0/dbhome_1 CONFIGURED
9cc87345-67a5-41ae-b7b9-4c0c9f2a8be7     OraDB19000_home2     19.11.0.0.210420                         /u01/app/odaorahome/oracle/product/19.0.0.0/dbhome_2 CONFIGURED

[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# odacli describe-dbhome -i 9cc87345-67a5-41ae-b7b9-4c0c9f2a8be7
DB Home details                                                   
----------------------------------------------------------------
                     ID: 9cc87345-67a5-41ae-b7b9-4c0c9f2a8be7
                   Name: OraDB19000_home2
                Version: 19.11.0.0.210420
          Home Location: /u01/app/odaorahome/oracle/product/19.0.0.0/dbhome_2
                 Status: CONFIGURED
                Created: August 4, 2021 10:29:58 PM CEST
       Database Edition: SE
[root@dbi-oda-x8 ~]# 

Out of place patching

By having much more space for ORACLE_HOMEs, patching DB-Homes (odacli update-dbhome) is no longer happening in place. I.e. when new RDBMS clone files have been loaded in the repository and you run odacli update-dbhome a new ORACLE_HOME with the new version is created and the databases moved to the new ORACLE_HOME. That makes the whole patching process much more stable, because going back to the previous ORACLE_HOME is possible in case of an error.