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Lesson 5 Operating system processes in OPS
Objective Describe Operating system processes in an Oracle Parallel Server system.

Operating System Processes (Parallel Server system)

There are several ways to set up OPS, depending on your hardware and software configuration and the needs of your system. However, no matter how you do it, your operating system must have certain components in place and available for use by the OPS.
OPS uses the operating system components to access database files and to speed up communications, as you see in the diagram below.
connection manager
Connection manager
  1. The Cluster Manager watches over all the activity for all of the processors. All transactions register and de-register with this component. If a failure occurs in one instance, the Cluster Manager redirects traffic until it is fixed.
  2. The Startup component is part of the Windows NT operating system, but is not needed on other operating systems. It controls the sequence of events when the OPS starts up.
  3. The Input/Output component coordinates simultaneous access to shared disks. It works with the Oracle process called the Integrated Distributed Lock Manager (IDLM).
  4. The interprocessor communication (IPC) component is responsible for moving information between the interconnected parallel processors as quickly as possible. A fast IPC is needed for good response time in the OPS.

Oracle Parallel Server OS Components

Oracle Component

The Oracle component that works closely with these operating system components is called the Integrated Distributed Lock Manager (IDLM). The IDLM is the choreographer of all the communications that are happening at once in a parallel system. Its primary tasks are to:
  1. Coordinate operations, such as locking and updating data, that require reading and writing of data on disks. This maximizes re-use of data in memory.
  2. Ensure that all operations have a consistent view of the data. This validates data integrity.
The IDLM is a built-in component of the (OPS) Oracle Parallel Server that is customized for each operating system that Oracle suports. The next lesson covers the concept of instance affinity.

Operating System Processes - Exercise

Click the Exercise link below to match terms with their definitions.
Operating System Processes - Exercise