ASM - Automatic Storage Management Is a LVM (Logical Volume Manager) that provides storage abstraction layer The RDBMS see only Diskgroups (set of RAW disks ) Can’t store binaries on Diskgroups Uses OMF (Oracle Managed Files) Striping Coarse - 1MB allocation units | OLTP | small IO Fine - 128 kb allocation units | Data warehouses | high IO Allows three Redundancy types High Normal External Installed in separated dedicated instance (+ASM) as part of Grid Infrastructure No DB or data dictionary => +ASM instance will be mount never open Where the users are saved? Password file. Managed by users with SYSASM role Specific processes RBAL - Coordinates disk activity for disk groups (Rebalance Master) ARBn - Perform the extent movement (Rebalance "Slave") ASMB - Perform the communication between database and the ASM instance ASM + RMAN Backup ASM dis...