Preparing for Exadata - Oracle Exadata Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach - page 152

How It Works
The configuration worksheet is typically an editable Adobe Acrobat document that allows you to enter
customer-specific configuration values in a number of fields. Additionally, the configuration worksheet provides
a narrative presenting the overall configuration process.
Each section inside the configuration worksheet is important, but some sections are worth special attention
based on their overall configuration impact. Every configuration choice and decision is modifiable, but some require
considerable planning and effort to change post-installation, as well as potentially introducing outages. Below is a list
of what we consider to be the most important configuration attributes to get right the first time:

• The choice of Role Separated Authentication vs. Standard OS Authentication . If you do not

supply the proper Grid Infrastructure software owner at installation time, you'll need to
re-install Grid Infrastructure to remain supported, which will introduce downtime.

• The database machine name. This will set hostnames, and changing hostnames can be

difficult post installation.

• IP address ranges and all network information. While less difficult than changing hostnames,

changing IP address information post-installation is not trivial.

The choice of whether to back up your Exadata databases internal to Exadata or external to Exadata has a
bearing on how large Oracle ACS configures the RECO grid disks and associated ASM disk groups, as discussed in
Recipe 6-5. You can rebuild your Exadata storage entities after the initial installation using recipes in Chapter 9 so it is
not absolutely vital that this configuration is the way you want it, but if you are planning on adjusting this, it is best to
do so before any important databases are migrated to Exadata to avoid downtime.