When ASM technology was first introduced in Oracle 10g, it was strictly intended for managing Oracle database-related files. However, an ASM Cluster File System (ACFS), a new feature of Oracle 11g R2 Grid Infrastructure, extends ASM's capabilities to manage ALL types of data.
Oracle ACFS is designed as a general purpose, standalone, and cluster-wide filesystem solution which now supports the data that is maintained outside the Oracle database. Apart from Oracle database datafiles, ACFS can also be used to store Oracle binaries, application files, executables, database trace and log files, BFILEs, video, audio, and other configuration files. The following diagram illustrates the Oracle ASM storage layers:
ACFS also supports larger files with 64-bit file and filesystem data structure sizes, leading to exabyte capable file and filesystem capabilities on 64-bit platforms. Filesystem integrity and fast recovery is achieved via Oracle ACFS...