New ASM features and RAC

There are many new features in Oracle 11g RAC that are introduced with ASM enhancements. Many of these involve ASM configuration.

New SYSASM privilege for Oracle 11g R1 ASM

Introduced in Oracle 11g R1, the SYSASM privilege allows you to separate the database operating system credentials from ASM credentials. This can be useful in today's era of auditing controls and compliance to fulfill requirements for Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), as well as to divide storage support between system administrators and DBA staff members.

For Oracle 11g, you should now use the SYSASM privilege instead of the SYSDBA privilege to connect to and administer an ASM instance. Although before Oracle 11g R2, you were still able to manage ASM from SYSDBA, it is not recommended. In the event that you still decide to use the SYSDBA privilege to connect to an ASM instance, Oracle will send a warning to the alert log file because commands that you run using SYSDBA privileges on an ASM instance are supposed...