Oracle 10g (ASM):Sample Implementation

Preparing Disks for ASM: Windows NT

To simulate implementation of ASM in the Windows NT environment, I first created raw disk partitions on some of my hard drives. Fortunately, I had extra space on three of the four disks in my test server, so I created several primary disk partitions sized at 100MB on each of those three drives using the Windows Disk Partitioning utility (DISKPART.EXE):

C:\> select disk 2

C:\> Disk 2 selected.

C:\> create partition primary size=100

C:\> Partition created.

C:\> create partition primary size=100

C:\> Partition created.

C:\> create partition primary size=100

C:\> Partition created.

C:\> select disk 3

C:\> Disk 3 selected.

C:\> create partition primary size=100

C:\> Partition created.

Creating an ASM Instance Using DBCA In Windows NT

Now that I have completed preparing all my disks, I used Oracle 10g's Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA), the simplest method to create an ASM instance, since the specification of all ASM instance parameters and creation of the instance's ASM Disk Groups is quite intuitive. I invoked DBCA from a command prompt on my Windows NT server and followed these steps:
First, I chose the Create a Database option  and clicked the Next button. 
I selected General Purpose as the Database Type and clicked the Next button. 
Next, I supplied values for the Global Database Name and clicked the Next button. 
I then accepted all default values for the Management Options  and clicked the Next button. 
I supplied the same password for all database management accounts  and clicked on Next. 
At this point, I must decide to create the ASM instance. I did this by selecting the Automatic Storage Management (ASM) option , at which point I was presented with a screen for specification of the ASM instance's additional password .Note that I could also click on the ASM Parameters button to specify exactly which directories Oracle should search for candidates for ASM disks, but in this case, I decided to let Oracle find the disks on its own. I clicked on Next to let Oracle create the ASM instance. 
Once the ASM instance had been created successfully, the screen in  was presented. After I clicked on the Create New button, Oracle displayed the screen in to show all Windows NT partitions that were candidates for ASM disk group creation. I then selected the partitions desired, supplied a name for the ASM disk group (DGROUP1), and clicked the OK button to complete the ASM disk group creation. 
Once the ASM disk groups were created, Oracle presented one last screen  to confirm the disk group creation. At this point, even though it seems counter-intuitive, I clicked the Cancel button to complete the creation of the ASM instance, as there are no further steps required.