Starting from Oracle 11g ASM, new privilege has been created for Administering Oracle ASM instances. This is called SYSASM role.

You can continue using SYSDBA role to connect to ASM but it will generate following warning messages at time of startup/shutdown, create Diskgroup/add disk, etc.

<strong>$ adrci</strong>

ADRCI: Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Beta on Tue Jul 1 15:43:57 2008
Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

ADR base = "/u03/app/oracle"
adrci&gt; help
adrci&gt; set homes
DIA-48431: Must specify at least one ADR home path

<strong>adrci&gt; show homes</strong>
ADR Homes:
diag/rdbms/testdb11/TESTDB11
diag/asm/+asm/+ASM
diag/clients/user_oracle/host_2900411789_11
diag/tnslsnr/testzone/listener
<strong>adrci&gt; set home diag/asm/+asm/+ASM
adrci&gt; show alert</strong>

ADR Home = /u03/app/oracle/diag/asm/+asm/+ASM:
******************************************
Starting ORACLE instance (normal)
<strong>WARNING: Deprecated privilege SYSDBA for command 'STARTUP'</strong>
2008-06-25 13:13:09.287000 +05:30

Please note that SYSASM privilege cannot be used to start the RDBMS instance. This way it ensures separation of database administration privilege from the ASM storage administration privilege. Trying to do so results in ORA – 1031

$ sqlplus
SQL*Plus: Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Production on Tue Jul 1 16:09:54 2008
Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Enter user-name: / as sysasm
Connected to an idle instance.

SQL> startup pfile=initest.ora
<strong>ORA-01031: insufficient privileges</strong>

As per documentation, the privilege to administer an ASM instance with SYSDBA will be removed in future versions. Anyways till now DBA’s can administer the ASM instance 😉