In my opinion mixing ASM and non-ASM is not a good idea for operational reasons. It adds complexity and as others have pointed out, “complexity is the enemy of availability”. It’s possible to mix ASM and non-ASM environments of course but it adds risk and I think I wouldn’t do it unless it’s for a migration (to ASM or file system).

Martin

As usual that was an excellent yet another awsome article. For senior DBAs like myself in real life, and making sure to be on top of new Oracle features in each version, through my OCP certificates, reading your articles comes in to me very useful and easy to follow and understand. Having, said that here is a topic I would like you to elaborate on and give me your best opinion on it.

I have a project to set up a couple of Oracle databases for Oracle Data Guard along with the good DGB configuration , Don’t get it confused with KGB. lol . It is not RAC , just single instance , one in 10g and one in 11g.

But here is the challenge for me here since I have not done this type of setup in work experience. I have done file system to file system and ASM to ASM. But this one is from file system to ASM, My question is what is the best way to accomplish setting up DG configuration from primary that is in file system storage to an standby that will be ASM storage. Here are my thought process:

Is it a good idea to first change the storage for Primary to ASM and then setup DG, or can the primary stay on files system storage and the standby stay on ASM and be configured for DG? if the latter , what about STANDBY_FILE_MANAGEMENT = AUTO? will that still work since now the primary is on File system storage and standby is ASM?

I will look forward to your feed back?

thanks,
Kabir

Please also email me your response to kabir.kazimi@astound.net