Database Overall → ACFS
The ASM Cluster File System (ACFS) extends Automatic Storage Management (ASM) by providing a robust, modern, general purpose file system for files beyond the Oracle database files. ACFS provides support for files such as Oracle binaries, report files, trace files, alert logs, and other application data files. With the addition of the Oracle ASM Cluster File System, ASM becomes a complete storage management solution for both Oracle database and non-database files. ACFS supports large files with 64-bit file and file system data structure sizes leading to exabyte-capable file and file system capacities. ACFS scales to hundreds of nodes and uses extent-based storage allocation for improved performance. A log-based metadata transaction engine is used for file system integrity and fast recovery. The ACFS on-disk structure supports endian neutral metadata. ACFS file systems can be exported to remote clients through industry standard protocols such as NFS and CIFS.
Business Benefit: Oracle ASM Cluster File System (ACFS) complements and leverages Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and provides a general purpose journaling file system for storing and managing non-Oracle database files. This eliminates the need for expensive third-party cluster file system solutions while streamlining, automating and simplifying all file type management in a single node as well as Oracle RAC and Grid computing environments. ACFS supports dynamic file system expansion and contraction without any downtime. ACFS is highly available leveraging the ASM mirroring and striping features in addition to hardware RAID functionality.