In addition, it allows you to set up shared virtual disks, overcoming the obstacle of expensive shared storage.īefore you launch into this installation, here are a few things to consider.
Using VMware Server you can run multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) on a single server, allowing you to run both RAC nodes on a single machine. A third option is to use VMware Server to fake the shared storage. A cheaper alternative is to use a FireWire disk enclosure to allow two machines to access the same disk(s), but that still costs money and requires two servers. In a production environment, shared storage is often provided by a SAN or high-end NAS device, but both of these options are very expensive when all you want to do is get some experience installing and using RAC. One of the biggest obstacles preventing people from setting up test RAC environments is the requirement for shared storage. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 RAC On Linux Using VirtualBox.Since this article was written I've switched to VirtualBox as my main virtualization solution for testing installations.
