Description

A shared virtual disk of external storage can be mounted to multiple VMs, providing customers with a new deployment solution for Oracle RAC databases.

Precautions

1. Shared virtual disks will be excluded during export, backup, CDP backup, snapshot, and disaster recovery for VMs.
2. Shared virtual disks only support cold capacity expansion. Before expanding the capacity of a shared disk, business services on the VMs using it must be suspended.
3. Shared virtual disks do not support hot cloning.
4. Shared virtual disks do not support cross-datastore live migration.
5. VMs using shared virtual disks do not support cross-cluster live migration.
6. VMs using shared virtual disks cannot be suspended.
7. VMs using shared virtual disks can only be converted to VM templates after the shared virtual disks are deleted.
8. Shared virtual disks of VMs created through the Oracle RAC Wizard must be on the same LUN.

Prerequisites

A virtual shared disk of external storage already exists.

Steps

1. Go to the Compute page, click More of a VM and then Edit (or click its name and then Edit on the Summary page), go to Configuration > Add Hardware > Disk, select Shared disk for Method, select the disk, and click OK.

2. If the selected disk has been mounted to other VMs, the following confirmation dialog boxes will pop up.