# RAC Attack - Oracle Cluster Database at Home
## Book Contents (e)

    Overview
    Planning Your Time
    Events
    Creating Printed Lab Handbooks
    Local Manual of Style
    Bullpen (Newly Contributed Content)
    Expanded Table of Contents

#### Part I: Setting Up RAC

* Hardware and Windows Preparation
* Linux Install
* Create Cluster
* Grid Install (ASM)
* Grid Install (Shared Filesystem)
* RAC Install
* Create Database
* Rolling Patches

#### Part II: Exploring RAC

* Clusterware Testing
* Services, Failover and Load Balancing
* RAC SQL and PLSQL
* RAC Backups and Recovery

## Welcome

RAC Attack is a free curriculum and platform for hands-on learning labs related to Oracle RAC (cluster database). We believe that the best way to learn about RAC is with a lot of hands-on experience. This curriculum has been used by individuals at home and by instructors in classes since 2008.
PLEASE NOTE: This is the wiki for the Oracle11g version of RAC Attack, which has more lenient hardware requirements.
If you are looking for the 'Oracle12c version of RAC Attack, please go to the wiki for that version, you'll be glad you did... :)

## Events

RAC Attack is on the road!! Details are on the /Events page.
* Visit: Check the /Events page to see if there are any upcoming RAC Attack sessions!
* Volunteer: If you have experience with RAC then volunteer with us to help teach some DBAs who haven't used it yet.
* Organize: If you're talented at bringing people together, then consider hosting another RAC Attack event!

## RoadMap

There are five items on the roadmap:
* Continue recruitment of new organizers, writers, and maintainers (even short-term) and support all events. Also continue discussing and improving project organization and strategy.
* VirtualBox platform option. Technical goal for the project roadmap - provide labs for virtualbox with the same high quality as the current VMware labs.
* EC2 platform option. Additional technical goal for the project roadmap - this may require a little more R&D work since it hasn't been explored as heavily within the professional community. But some work has already been done in this area by contributors to this project and we can definitely be the first ones to publish a quality lab handbook on EC2!
* Complete and cleanup the local manual of style. This spells out conventions for all content in this book. It's mostly up-to-date but just needs to be made a little more user-friendly and loose ends need to be tied up.
* Wikibook Cleanup: Tagging (reading level, subjects, categories, etc), Review Process (for changes to non-bullpen content), Collections, PDF and printed books. These features are all strongly supported by and tightly integrated with the wikibooks platform. We want this book to follow wikibooks conventions and be as "wiki-friendly" as possible.

## History

The project began in April of 2008 at the IOUG Collaborate conference in Denver, Colorado. IOUG had a classroom full of PCs, and because of a cancellation the room became empty for an afternoon. It didn't seem right to have so many PCs sitting idle at an educational event like Collaborate, so Jeremy and a few others created a set of labs - on the spot - to walk people through making a RAC cluster on OEL with VMware. Using these labs, they offered an impromptu hands-on RAC workshop to Collaborate participants. The workshop was received well and before long there were requests to repeat and enhance it. At one point it was offered in Chicago and Dan coined the name "RAC Attack" - and this name has stuck ever since.
The original contributors were Jeremy Schneider, Dan Norris and Parto Jalili. The handbook was published at http://www.ardentperf.com for several years before its migration to this wikibook. They released all RAC Attack content under the CC BY-SA license in May 2011 when this project was initiated.

## You Can Help!!! (e)

You are strongly encouraged (read as begged) to contribute to this book! There are many things you can do to help:
* add new pages (tutorials or reference material)
* upload new images (screen shots)
* edit existing pages (correct errors, improve the writing, or make additions)
* join the team responsible for this WikiBook
Read our Local Manual of Style to learn about conventions used in this book. This manual itself actually needs some work too, so your contributions toward improving this documentation of existing conventions would be very welcome.

### How to Join the Team

If you want to join our WikiBook team, go to the Team page for information and advice.

### How to Add New Pages

To add a new page in this book (such as a tutorial or reference):
* Edit the RAC Attack - Oracle Cluster Database at Home/Bullpen page and add a descriptive wikilink.
* After saving your edit, follow the redlink to create the module and begin adding content to it.
* Preview your work. When you're satisfied it, use the Save page button to add your new module to the wiki.

### How to Upload New Images

Images are a vital part of RAC Attack tutorials! They clarify instructions, provide a point of reference, and improve the teaching process.
However: screenshots of software owned by Oracle, VMware or Microsoft are derivative works of copyrighted material - therefor they can only be used under limited circumstances called "fair use" under United States copyright law. Many images in this wikibook fall under this category. Special wikibook privileges are required to upload "fair use" images. If you do not have uploader privileges then you can find some who does from the RAC Attack - Oracle Cluster Database at Home/Team page. You may contact this person and ask them to upload your "fair use" images.
Images that:
* are entirely your own creation or
* only use CC-BY-SA/GFDL compatible sources
...should be uploaded to the Commons. (For example, the Book Logo and the Part I Flowchart.) Please make sure every image you use is not copyrighted or that you have permission to use it.
This book is heavy on screenshots -- by design! We encourage you to use screenshots liberally (even under fair-use) since it makes the tutorials much better!

### How to Edit Existing Pages

To edit any page in this wikibook:
* Click on the Edit tab at the top of the page.
* Make your change in the large text box.
* Type an explanation of your change in the Edit summary text box below.
* Click on the Show preview button below the edit summary to preview your change.
* If you're satisfied with the result, click on the Save page button.
Your contribution will be reviewed before it is officially published.
Things you shouldn't add to pages:
* external links that are not directly related to the module
* comments or questions regarding the text
To ask questions and make comments about any module:
* Click on the Discussion tab at the top of the page. This will take you to the corresponding talk page. Note that the talk page name begins with the "Talk:" prefix.
* If the topic of your question or comment is under discussion, edit the relevant section.
* If it's a new topic, click on the Add topic tab at the top of the talk page to start a new discussion.
* Sign your message by typing ~~~~ at the end. (This will expand to your username and the date.)
* Remember to save your edit when you're done!
* To return to the WikiBook, click on the Book tab at the top of the talk page.