1. Connect to the Oracle ASM instance.

   For example:

   $ sqlplus / as sysasm
   

2. Create an SPFILE in a disk group that has COMPATIBLE.ASM set to 11.2 with the SQL CREATE SPFILE statement.

   For example, create an Oracle ASM SPFILE from the existing PFILE.

   SQL> CREATE SPFILE = '+DATA/asmspfile.ora' 
          FROM PFILE = '$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/asmpfile.ora';
   

   The CREATE SPFILE statement also updates the Grid Plug and Play (GPnP) profile. You can check the location of the Oracle ASM SPFILE in the GPnP profile with the ASMCMD spget command. See spget.

   Note:

   If you include the AS COPY option, then the CREATE SPFILE FROM PFILE statement does not update the clusterwide SPFILE location.

3. Restart the Oracle ASM instance so that the instance reads the SPFILE in the new location.

   For information on shutting down and starting up an Oracle ASM instance, see About Starting Up an Oracle ASM Instance and About Shutting Down an Oracle ASM Instance.

1. Locate the Oracle ASM SPFILE using the ASMCMD spget command.

   For example:

   ASMCMD [+] > spget
   +DATA/ASM/ASMPARAMETERFILE/registry.253.849343867
   

2. Copy the Oracle ASM SPFILE to another disk group with spcopy command.

   For example:

   ASMCMD [+] > spcopy +DATA/ASM/ASMPARAMETERFILE/registry.253.849343867 +FRA/spfileCopyASM.ora
   

   Running spcopy without the -u option does not update the location of the Oracle ASM SPFILE. You can use spset to set the location of the Oracle ASM SPFILE in the Grid Plug and Play (GPnP) profile.

3. List all the copies of the Oracle ASM SPFILE file contained in the FRA disk group using the ASMCMD ls command.

   For example:

   ASMCMD [+] > ls -l --absolutepath FRA/ASM/ASMPARAMETERFILE
   Type              Redund  Striped  Time             Sys  Name
   ASMPARAMETERFILE  MIRROR  COARSE   JUN 06 13:00:00  Y    +FRA/spfileCopyASM.ora => REGISTRY.253.849533009
   

4. Verify the current location of the Oracle ASM SPFILE file with the spget command.

   For example:

   ASMCMD [+] > spget
   +DATA/ASM/ASMPARAMETERFILE/registry.253.849343867
   

ASMCMD [+] > spcopy -u +FRA/spfileCopyASM.ora +DATA2/ASM/spfileASM.ora

The ASM_DISKGROUPS initialization parameter specifies a list of disk group names that an Oracle ASM instance mounts at startup when the SQL ALTER DISKGROUP ALL MOUNT statement is issued.

The Oracle ASM instance startup process executes ALTER DISKGROUP ALL MOUNT unless the NOMOUNT startup option is specified.

The default value of the ASM_DISKGROUPS parameter is a NULL string.

The ASM_DISKGROUPS parameter is dynamic. If you are using a server parameter file (SPFILE), then you do not have to manually alter the value of ASM_DISKGROUPS in most situations. Oracle ASM automatically adds a disk group to the parameter when the disk group is successfully created or mounted. Oracle ASM also automatically removes a disk group from the parameter when the disk group is dropped. However, the SPFILE is not updated on a manual dismount.

The following is an example of setting the ASM_DISKGROUPS parameter dynamically:

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET ASM_DISKGROUPS = DATA, FRA;

When using a text initialization parameter file (PFILE), you may edit the initialization parameter file to add the name of any disk group so that it is mounted automatically at instance startup. You must remove the name of any disk group that you no longer want automatically mounted.

The following is an example of the ASM_DISKGROUPS parameter in the initialization file:

ASM_DISKGROUPS = DATA, FRA

For Oracle Database 12c Release 1 or later, Oracle ASM configurations support up to 511 disk groups. Oracle ASM configurations with Oracle Database releases before 12c Release 1 can only support up to 63 disk groups.

The ASM_DISKSTRING initialization parameter specifies a comma-delimited list of strings that limits the set of disks that an Oracle ASM instance discovers.

The discovery strings can include wildcard characters. Only disks that match one of the strings are discovered. The same disk cannot be discovered twice.

The discovery string format depends on the Oracle ASM library and the operating system that are in use. Pattern matching is supported. Refer to your operating system-specific installation guide for information about the default pattern matching.

For example on a Linux server, to limit the discovery process to only include disks that are in the /dev/rdsk/mydisks directory for an Oracle ASM instance that does not use Oracle ASM Filter Driver (Oracle ASMFD) or ASMLIB, set the ASM_DISKSTRING initialization parameter to:

/dev/rdsk/mydisks/*

The asterisk is required.

To limit the discovery process to only include disks that have a name that ends in disk3 or disk4, you could set ASM_DISKSTRING as follows on a Linux system:

ASM_DISKSTRING = '/dev/rdsk/*disk3', '/dev/rdsk/*disk4'

The ? character, when used as the first character of a path, expands to the Oracle home directory. Depending on the operating system, when you use the ? character elsewhere in the path, it is a wildcard for one character.

The default value of the ASM_DISKSTRING parameter is a NULL string. A NULL value causes Oracle ASM to search a default path for all disks in the system to which the Oracle ASM instance has read and write access. The default search path is platform-specific. Refer to your operating system-specific installation guide for more information about the default search path.

Oracle ASM cannot use a disk unless all of the Oracle ASM instances in the cluster can discover the disk through one of their own discovery strings. The names do not have to be the same on every node, but all disks must be discoverable by all of the nodes in the cluster. This may require dynamically changing the initialization parameter to enable adding new storage.

The ASM_POWER_LIMIT initialization parameter specifies the default power for disk rebalancing in a disk group.

The range of values is 0 to 1024. The default value is 1. A value of 0 disables rebalancing. Higher numeric values enable the rebalancing operation to complete more quickly, but might result in higher I/O overhead and more rebalancing processes.

• For disk groups that have the disk group ASM compatibility set to 11.2.0.2 or higher (for example, COMPATIBLE.ASM = 11.2.0.2), the operational range of values is 0 to 1024 for the rebalance power.

• For disk groups that have the disk group ASM compatibility set to less than 11.2.0.2, the operational range of values is 0 to 11 inclusive. If the value for ASM_POWER_LIMIT is larger than 11, a value of 11 is used for these disk groups.

You can also specify the power of the rebalancing operation in a disk group with the POWER clause of the SQL ALTER DISKGROUP .. REBALANCE statement. The range of allowable values for the POWER clause is the same for the ASM_POWER_LIMIT initialization parameter. If the value of the POWER clause is specified larger than 11 for a disk group with ASM compatibility set to less than 11.2.0.2, then a warning is displayed and a POWER value equal to 11 is used for rebalancing.

The specification of the power of the rebalancing operation in a disk group only affects rebalance operations, not new allocations to a disk group.

The ASM_PREFERRED_READ_FAILURE_GROUPS initialization parameter value is a comma-delimited list of strings that specifies the failure groups that should be preferentially read by the given instance.

The ASM_PREFERRED_READ_FAILURE_GROUPS parameter setting is instance specific. The default value is NULL. This parameter is generally used for clustered Oracle ASM instances and its value can be different on different nodes.

For example:

diskgroup_name1.failure_group_name1, ...

The setting for the DB_CACHE_SIZE parameter determines the size of the buffer cache.

You do not have to set a value for the DB_CACHE_SIZE initialization parameter if you use automatic memory management.

This buffer cache stores metadata blocks. The default value for this parameter is suitable for most environments.

The DIAGNOSTIC_DEST initialization parameter specifies the directory where diagnostics for an instance are located.

The default value for an Oracle ASM instance is the $ORACLE_BASE directory for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

Example 3-1 shows an example of the diagnostic directory for an Oracle ASM instance.

$ ls $ORACLE_BASE/diag/asm/+asm/+ASM
alert  cdump  hm  incident  incpkg  ir  lck  metadata  stage  sweep  trace

The INSTANCE_TYPE initialization parameter specifies whether the instance is a database instance, an Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) instance, or an Oracle ASM Proxy instance.

The following is an example of the INSTANCE_TYPE parameter in the initialization file:

INSTANCE_TYPE = ASM

In addition to values asm and rdbms, INSTANCE_TYPE can be set to asmproxy in an Oracle Flex ASM configuration.

The setting for the LARGE_POOL_SIZE parameter is used for large allocations.

You do not have to set a value for the LARGE_POOL_SIZE initialization parameter if you use automatic memory management.

The default value for this parameter is suitable for most environments.

The PROCESSES initialization parameter affects Oracle ASM, but the default value is usually suitable.

However, if multiple database instances are connected to an Oracle ASM instance, then you can use the following formulas, where n is the number of database instances connecting to the Oracle ASM instance.

In a non-Exadata environment, the recommended settings are:

• For n < 10, PROCESSES = 50*n + 50

• For n >= 10, PROCESSES = 10*n + 450

In an Oracle Exadata environment, the recommended setting is PROCESSES = MAX(450 + 10*n, 1024).

The REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE initialization parameter specifies whether the Oracle ASM instance checks for a password file.

This parameter operates the same for Oracle ASM and database instances.

The setting for the SHARED_POOL_SIZE parameter determines the amount of memory required to manage the instance.

You do not have to set a value for the SHARED_POOL_SIZE initialization parameter if you use automatic memory management. The setting for this parameter is also used to determine the amount of space that is allocated for extent storage. The default value for this parameter is suitable for most environments.