Simplifying Oracle RAC Deployment and Management with Nutanix Database Service

Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) is a leading solution for achieving high availability and scalability for Oracle databases, trusted by businesses for their most critical applications. While its power is undisputed, the manual deployment and management of Oracle RAC can present significant operational challenges.

This blog post explores the traditional complexities of manual RAC provisioning and highlights how the Nutanix Database Service (NDB) solution transforms this intricate process into a simple, automated workflow.

The Challenges of Manual Oracle RAC Provisioning

Without a robust automation platform, deploying a new Oracle RAC cluster is a meticulous, multi-stage process requiring precise coordination between compute, network, storage, and database administrators. A minor deviation in any step can lead to significant troubleshooting efforts or the need to restart the entire process.

Let's break down the common challenges:

1. Server and Operating System Preparation

The foundation of the cluster must be flawless, which means every node must be identical.

• Provisioning Servers: Manually creating multiple virtual or physical machines for the cluster nodes.
• Configuration Consistency: Ensuring every server has the exact same OS version, patch level, kernel parameters, and required packages (e.g., oracle-preinstall). Any inconsistency between nodes can cause instability and difficult-to-diagnose cluster failures.
• User Setup: Creating oracle and grid users and groups with consistent User IDs (UIDs) and Group IDs (GIDs) across all nodes is a strict requirement.

2. Complex Network Configuration

RAC networking is intricate and a common area for configuration errors that can impact the entire solution.

• Multiple Interfaces: Each node requires at least two, and often three, network interfaces: one for Public traffic, one for the high-speed Private Interconnect, and potentially a separate one for storage or management.
• IP Address Management: Administrators must manually track and assign numerous IP addresses: Public IPs, Virtual IPs (VIPs), and the three Single Client Access Name (SCAN) IPs.

3. Storage Provisioning and Configuration

Presenting shared storage to the cluster introduces another layer of complexity.

• LUN (Logical Unit Number) Provisioning: This involves carving out LUNs on a traditional SAN (Storage Area Network) and ensuring they are correctly mapped to every node in the cluster.
• Permissions & Ownership: Administrators must configure consistent device permissions using udev rules, ASMLib, or Oracle ASM (Automatic Storage Management) Filter Driver (ASMFD) across all servers so that Oracle ASM can properly access the shared disks. This is a detailed and error-prone task.
• Multipathing: Setting up and verifying multipathing software is essential to ensure storage high availability.

4. Grid Infrastructure and Database Installation

Even with perfectly prepared infrastructure, the Oracle software installation itself is a detailed process.

• Grid Infrastructure Install: Running the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) for Grid Infrastructure is a multi-step procedure involving extensive pre-flight checks.
• The Critical root.sh Script: The installer requires an administrator to run the root.sh script with root privileges on each node in a specific sequence. A failure during this critical stage often necessitates a comprehensive cleanup and re-installation.
• Database Creation: Only after the clusterware is running can the process of installing the Oracle RDBMS software and creating the RAC database on the ASM disk groups begin.

Doing all of the above manually can result  in deployment cycles can take several days, carry a high potential for human error, lack standardization, and consume significant time from multiple specialized IT teams.

Enter NDB: The Solution for RAC Automation

NDB is engineered to eliminate this complexity. It provides true one-click automation for the database lifecycle, and its capabilities for Oracle RAC are a significant advancement. 

Standardization Through Profiles: At the heart of NDB automation are profiles that guarantee consistency across every RAC deployment. You define your requirements once in Software, Compute, and Network profiles. Every subsequent RAC cluster deployed using these profiles is identical, which enforces best practices, accelerates provisioning, and eliminates configuration drift.

With profile-driven standardization, NDB streamlines RAC provisioning across four critical areas:

1. Automated Server & OS Readiness

• Automatically provisions RAC nodes on the Nutanix cluster.
• Deploys pre-validated OS images to provide identical patching and configuration.
• Configures oracle/grid users and groups with consistent UIDs/GIDs across all nodes.

2. Simplified RAC Networking

• Applies predefined network profiles for public, private, VIPs, and SCAN IPs.
• Automates VLAN setup and IP assignment, avoiding  manual errors.
• Ensures RAC interconnects are correctly configured out of the box.

3. Seamless Shared Storage Setup

• Uses Nutanix Distributed Storage Fabric to provision and attach shared vDisks.
• Automatically creates and configures ASM disk groups.
• Supports udev, ASMLib, or ASMFD for disk discovery.
• Configures multipathing for storage high availability without manual setup.

4. End-to-End RAC Installation

• Automates the full Oracle Grid Infrastructure and RDBMS installation.
• Orchestrates critical sequencing (like root.sh) without manual intervention.
• Deploys chosen Oracle versions and architectures from software profiles.
• Completes with a production-ready RAC database in hours, not days.

What was once a demanding project for multiple IT roles becomes a simple, repeatable task that a DBA can perform from a single interface.

Why NDB for Oracle RAC is a Standout Offering

NDB’s value extends far beyond initial provisioning. It simplifies critical Day 2 operations that are traditionally challenging for Oracle RAC environments.

• One-Click Rolling Patching: Patching an Oracle RAC cluster is a high-stakes activity. NDB automates this entire process with one-click rolling patch automation. It applies patches across the entire stack—from the underlying OS to the Grid Infrastructure and Oracle database homes—sequentially across the nodes.
  To achieve zero application impact, NDB intelligently utilizes features like Oracle's Transparent Application Continuity (TAC) to gracefully drain application connections from the node being patched and seamlessly fail them over to other active nodes in the cluster, avoiding downtime for planned maintenance.
  Detailed study on how this works can be read here.
  In addition, NDB supports bulk patching through maintenance windows, allowing administrators to schedule and apply patches across multiple RAC clusters at once. This provides fleet-wide consistency, avoids manual coordination, and aligns patching with enterprise governance policies.

• Effortless Storage Scaling: Adding storage to a running RAC cluster manually involves provisioning new LUNs, managing permissions, and carefully adding disks to ASM across all nodes. With NDB, this becomes a single-click storage scaling operation. You simply specify the new desired size, and NDB handles the underlying work of adding vDisks to the database servers and rebalancing the ASM disk group.
• Rapid, Storage-Efficient Snapshots and Clones with Time Machine: NDB’s Time Machine feature provides incredibly fast and space-efficient database protection and cloning. It leverages the underlying Nutanix snapshot technology, which means creating a snapshot of a multi-terabyte RAC database completes in minutes and consumes minimal additional storage. This makes it feasible to take frequent snapshots for operational recovery and to provision full, writable clones for development and testing in minutes instead of hours, all while achieving significant storage savings. You can read more about Time Machines in this blog.
• Hybrid Cloud Flexibility with NC2: The powerful automation of NDB is not confined to on-premises data centers. NDB fully supports deploying and managing Oracle RAC on the Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) platform on AWS and Azure. This provides a true hybrid cloud solution, allowing organizations to use the same simplified operational model for their Oracle RAC databases whether they are running on-premises or in the public cloud, dramatically simplifying their cloud adoption strategy.
• Major Version Upgrade: NDB supports major version upgrades for Oracle databases for Single Instance and RAC configurations, simplifying what has traditionally been a complex process.

Customer Impact: Real Results from NDB’s Automation

Conclusion

Oracle RAC delivers unmatched availability and scale, but historically that power has come with complexity. Manual provisioning can stretch into days, patching risks downtime, and scaling requires deep expertise.

NDB fundamentally changes this dynamic. By delivering powerful, end-to-end automation for both deployment and ongoing operations, NDB makes managing Oracle RAC clusters a straightforward and rapid process. It allows organizations to harness the full potential of RAC for availability and scale without the associated operational burden, freeing DBAs to focus on high-value activities that drive the business forward.

Ready to Simplify Oracle RAC?

With Nutanix Database Service, you can take Oracle RAC from days of complex setup to a repeatable, one-click experience — and manage ongoing operations with ease.

• Learn more about Nutanix Database Service here
• Take a free Test Drive of NDB: cloud.nutanixtestdrive.com

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