3 Replies Latest reply on Dec 27, 2012 12:01 PM by Gennady Sigalaev

    Application  Testing in RAC

    SaikatBanerjee
    SaikatBanerjee Dec 24, 2012 2:48 PM
      Hi,

      "Many third-party applications do not have support for Oracle 11g RAC. Service providers will need to work with their customer's third-party application vendor to see if the application is supported in a RAC environment."

      What are the things to be tested and what are the metrices to be checked to certify an application on RAC Setup.

      Regards,
      Saikat
        • 1. Re: Application  Testing in RAC
          rcc50886
          rcc50886 Dec 24, 2012 3:25 PM (in response to SaikatBanerjee) 
          What are the things to be tested and what are the metrices to be checked to certify an application on RAC Setup.
          as a DBA, you can't decide about the app compatibility with RAC as you don't know all about the app functionality. The application vendor should be able to confirm it.
          • 2. Re: Application  Testing in RAC
            LaserSoft
            LaserSoft Dec 25, 2012 2:18 AM (in response to SaikatBanerjee)
            Hi Friend,

            Good Query.

            Note : Please involve all the stack holders in system & integration testing. (Stack Holders means Application Team, Domain Team & System Administrators)


            Before moving Application to RAC setup. Please ensure the following with Application Team as well as Domain People.

            1. Ensure all the important business process getting correct output. (If it is migrated from Single Instance to RAC instance).
            2. Verify that the system has been installed and configured correctly.
            3. Verify that basic functionality still works in a specific environment and for a specific workload. Vendors normally test their products very thoroughly, but it is not possible to test all possible hardware/software combinations and unique workloads.
            4. Make sure that the system will achieve its objectives, in particular, availability and performance objectives. This can be very complex and normally requires some form of simulated production environment and workload.
            5. Test operational procedures. This includes normal operational procedures and recovery procedures.
            6. Train operations staff.

            Test the following also :

            1. Fast Application Notification (FAN) – Notification mechanism that alerts application of service level changes of the database.

            2. Fast Connection Failover (FCF) – Utilizes FAN events to enable database clients to proactively react to down events by quickly failing over connections to surviving database instances.

            3. Transparent Application Failover (TAF) – Allows for connections to be automatically reestablished to a surviving database instance in the case that the instance servicing the initial connection should fail.

            4. Runtime Connection Load Balancing (RCLB) – Provides intelligence about the current service level of the database instances to application connection pools.

            Note : Test all the possible scenarios regarding Application and Load Testing with the help of System Administrators & Application Team

            Hope it helps......

            Thanks
            LaserSoft
            • 3. Re: Application  Testing in RAC
              Gennady Sigalaev
              Gennady Sigalaev Dec 27, 2012 12:01 PM (in response to SaikatBanerjee)
              Hi Saikat Banerjee,
              What are the things to be tested
              First of all you should identify the Oracle Database features which have limitations into RAC environments (like DBMS_PIPE, DBMS_ALERT, global contexts and etc.).
              If you are sure that your db doesn't use these features you can start performance tuning process, like setting up the sequences, because they can cause performance problems, identify the hot blocks and etc.

              Best regards,
              Gennady