Convert Single Instance Database to RAC and ASM

Convert a Single Instance Database to Oracle RAC 10g on RHEL3:

Learn how to convert a single-instance database to Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) 10g on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (RHEL3), step by step.
Contents
Overview
Step 1: Preliminary Installation
Step 2: Migrate Your Database to ASM
Step 3: Install Cluster Ready Services (CRS) Software
Step 4: Install Oracle RAC Software
Step 5: Post Installation
Step 6: Test Transparent Application Failover (TAF)Conclusion

Download for this article:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition and Clusterware for Linux x86
Oracle ASMlib Drivers

For those with limited hands-on experience, implementing Oracle RAC 10g can be an intimidating prospect. But it doesn't have to be that way.

In this guide, I'll provide the precise procedures for converting a single-instance Oracle 10g database to Oracle RAC on RHEL3. We'll use Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM), an integrated file system and a volume management solution built into the Oracle database kernel, for RAC database storage because it simplifies database storage management tasks while offering storage reliability and performance.

To summarize on a very high level, there are several ways to convert your database to RAC. If the database is small, you can consider installing a new RAC database on ASM and export/import your data from your current database to the RAC database. For a larger database, the preferred method would be to use RMAN to migrate the database files over to ASM.

The method demonstrated here is a two-phase approach:

first, migrating the data to ASM, and
second, converting the single-instance database to RAC.

If you are new to ASM, I would recommend taking this migration path to get familiar with ASM before leaping into ASM and RAC at the same time. (For more information about Oracle ASM, visit the Oracle ASM Product Center or refer to the documentation.)

This guide requires a basic understanding of RAC architecture and some familiarity with managing and administering Oracle Database and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Refer to the documentation for details.

The detailed stepwise guidance is available at the below URL:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/chan_sing2rac_install.html

The above URL holds a beautiful document to migrate a single instance database from Cluster file system to ASM and to RAC.