VIP Failover Testing

Question

Hello,
Am new to Oracle RAC. We have a 2 node 11gR2 Cluster and we are in the process of doing some failover testing. For database deployments we use an internal third part tool called the deployer which has tokens for DB configurations and the DBHost token in the deployer has the Hostname for either Node 1 or Node 2. In this way we are not actually utilising the HA feature because the connection is either to Node1 or Node 2 and if something happens to either the deployment cannot connect to the database on the respective Node which treats as a single Node instead of a Cluster.
Instead of mentioning the DBHost value to point to the Physical Hostname of the Server in a Cluster I was thinking if I can use the VIP address i.e ipaddress-VIP for either of the Node. So after making changes I would like to do some failover testing manually and I am stuck here. How do I go about the testing scenarios.
For Eg: if DBHOST token value is VIP for Node 2, connections are coming in to Node2 via deployer how do I proceed with the testing
Should I bring down Node 2? If I reboot how can I see if it failed over or not to the surviving Node?
Any help/suggestions much appreciated.
Thanks!

Answer 1

What you describe is having a RAC cluster, possibly working possibly not, and no actual use of the value of the licensing you paid for.
My first advice to you is to read the docs and learn what RAC is, how it works, how to define and use services, and how a properly configured LISTENER.ORA and TNSNAMES.ORA should be constructed so you can compare that to what you have. With 11gR2 you should connect to the SCAN not the VIP.
Here's how I would test RAC:
1. Walk up to one of the servers while half the users are connected to each instance and do a SHUTDOWN ABORT. See what happens. Restart the killed node. Try it with the other node.
2. With everything running properly and load on both machines disconnect the switch that provides the cache fusion interconnect or pull one of the cables out of the server. When you reestablish the connection what happens?
3. Repeat #2 but this time with the connection to storage.
The above should get you started.