1. What is OCFS for Linux?
OCFS is an open source clustered file system for Linux designed for use with Oracle RAC on Linux to store Oracle datafiles, redo logs, archive logs, voting disks, quorum files and control files. It is NOT a general purpose file system and should not be used to store a shared Oracle home. OCFS, also referred to as OCFS (Release 1), works with the 2.4 version and later of the Linux Kernel like RHEL, CentOS, SUSE.
2. What is OCFS2 for Linux?
OCFS2 is the next generation of the open source clustered file system for Linux. It can be used not only to store Oracle datafiles, redo logs, archive logs, etc. but also a shared Oracle Home. While OCFS2 is designed to be a general purpose file system, Oracle Support extends free support for its use only as a store for datafiles, etc. and shared Oracle home. OCFS2 works with the 2.6 version of the Linux Kernel like Red Hat’s EL4, Novell’s SLES9, SLES10 and Asianux 2.0.
3. Are OCFS and OCFS2 only for Linux?
Yes. While Oracle supports CFS’s for other platform(s), OCFS and OCFS2 are only for the Linux platform.