> This seems to be a very serious situation for us: I think a call to my Oracle > Sales Rep for a strongly worded protest is in order. Why use ASMLib in the first place? Of course the official ASM documentation [1] says that if you're running Linux, then « use the Oracle ASMLIB feature to provide consistent device naming and permission persistency. » But you can achieve the same goal with udev instead of ASMLib [2]. Don't take my word for it and check out Christo Kutrovsky's presentation « RAC+ASM: 3 years in production. Stories to share » [3] in which he also suggests to drop ASMLib in favor of udev. The main reason I don't like ASMLib is because it has to be kept in sync with your kernel version. So every time you do a kernel upgrade, you have to fiddle with ASMLib otherwise your node can't see the disks. While udev is part of the base OS and so it's a lot easier to manage. Yes, writing udev rules can be complex and ASMLib is a bit more simple to use. But once the udev rules have been written, adding a new LUN is very easy. HTH, David [1] http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e16102/asmprepare.htm#BABJHHEC [2] http://itdavid.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-increase-disk-space-in-existing.html [3] http://www.pythian.com/news/9055/oracle-rac-asm-3-years-in-production-stories-to-share-slides-from-rmoug10/ -- http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davidrobillard http://itdavid.blogspot.com/ > -----Original Message----- > From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Gillfillan, Marianne J. > Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 7:54 AM > To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: ASM on Linux 6 > > Did anyone else see the announcement from Oracle that they will not be > providing > ASMlib for kernels distributed by RH as part of RHEL 6, only for Oracle > kernels? See Metalink Note 1089399.1: > > "For RHEL6, Oracle will only provide ASMLib software and updates when > configured > with a kernel distributed by Oracle. Oracle will not provide ASMLib packages > for > kernels distributed by Red Hat as part of RHEL6. ASMLib updates will be > delivered via Unbreakable Linux Network(ULN) which is available to customers > with Oracle Linux support. ULN works with both Oracle Linux or Red Hat Linux > installations, but ASMlib usage will require replacing any Red Hat kernel > with a > kernel provided by Oracle." > > To me, this sounds like Oracle is forcing all ASM Linux sites to buy into > their > support structure and drop RH support. When we investigated the cost between > RH > and Oracle Linux support, we found Oracle Linux to be more expensive than RH > (when comparing apples to apples). For those on an already tight budget, this > is not going to sit well. > > I had also heard that this may have something to do with RedHat's decision to > pre-bundle patches in the kernel, making it more difficult for Oracle to > provide > Red Hat support (and take away customers from Red Hat support): > > http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/72012.html?wlc=1303298360 > > If that's the reason, it's going to backfire on RedHat as all those running > ASM > on Linux will have to flip to Oracle Support just to be able to download > ASMlib > updates. They'll end up losing customers anyway. The only other option is > for > ASM customers to drop the use of ASM and lose all the great functionality it > provides. Tough decisions ahead, I believe. > > Marianne > > Marianne Gillfillan, OCA > CAIS Technical DBA > Marianne.Gillfillan@xxxxxxxxxxxx > -- > //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l