New ASM Background Processes in 11G

Few hours back I installed Oracle Database 11g(Though still DB is yet to be created), so I started playing with the ASM instance. First thing I did was to check ASM alert.log. I used ADRCI (11g) to see it

adrci&gt; show incident

ADR Home = /u03/app/oracle/diag/asm/+asm/+ASM:
*********************************************************
0 rows fetched

adrci&gt; show alert

ADR Home = /u03/app/oracle/diag/asm/+asm/+ASM:
**********************************************************
Output the results to file: /tmp/alert_9572_1_+ASM_1.ado
"/tmp/alert_9572_1_+ASM_1.ado" 48 lines, 1964 characters
PMON started with pid=2, OS id=3672
DIAG started with pid=4, OS id=3678
<strong>VKTM started with pid=3, OS id=3674
VKTM running at (100ms) precision</strong>
2008-06-24 15:24:12.425000 +05:30
PSP0 started with pid=5, OS id=3680
<strong>DSKM started with pid=6, OS id=3682</strong>
<strong>DIA0 started with pid=7, OS id=3684</strong>
MMAN started with pid=6, OS id=3686
DBW0 started with pid=8, OS id=3689
LGWR started with pid=9, OS id=3691
CKPT started with pid=10, OS id=3694
SMON started with pid=11, OS id=3700
RBAL started with pid=12, OS id=3702
GMON started with pid=13, OS id=3705
ORACLE_BASE from environment = /u03/app/oracle
<strong>Spfile /u03/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/db_1/dbs/spfile+ASM.ora is in old pre-11 format and compatible &gt;= 11.0.0; converting to  new H.A.R.D. compliant format.</strong>

I have highlighted the things which were not present in 10g. According to Docs

DI A0 (diagnosability process 0) (only 0 is currently being used) is responsible for hang detection and deadlock resolution.

VK TM (virtual keeper of time) is responsible for providing a wall-clock time (updated every second) and reference-time counter (updated every 20 ms and available only when running at elevated priority)

These were the definitions from docs. Oracle should have been more generous and also documented following

DIA0 – Does that mean we will have auto SystemState/Hanganalyze generated during hang? Will ORA-60 be handled by this process?

VKTM – What does this mean to us? Will this timer be used in 10046 timing information? Will it ensure Oracle Scheduler run jobs on time

DSKM – This is still not documented.

Last message kind of indicates that spfile is also made H.A.R.D complaint. So it should take care of corruptions.

I have created more confusion rather than explaining what these processes actually do Anyways if you have any information, then it will be really nice if it can be shared…Thanks for Reading !!