A Cluster File System allows all nodes in a cluster to concurrently access a device via the standard
file system interface. This allows for easy management of applications that need to run across a
cluster.
OCFS (Release 1) was released in December 2002 to enable Oracle Real Application Cluster
(RAC) users to run the clustered database without having to deal with RAW devices. The file
system was designed to store database related files, such as data files, control files, redo logs,
archive logs, etc.
OCFS2 is the next generation of the Oracle Cluster File System. It has been designed to be a
generalpurpose
cluster file system. With it, one can store not only database related files on a
shared disk, but also store Oracle binaries and configuration files (shared Oracle home) making
management of RAC even easier.
