Database Software

Hello Experts,

I am designing an implementation for Oracle RAC 11gR2 on AIX 6.1 with SAN storage from IBM. My design does not Include Oracle ASM, i know it is recommended to use Oracle ASM, but my design does not included

I read Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide and i have the below questions concerning the storage configurations:

1. Do I need special configuration to replace ASM?
2. Is It mandatory to use HACMP (Clustering solution from IBM) since i am not using ASM? since based on the Grid Infrastructure Installation guide section 3.2 (Shared Storage Configuration) : [http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e17210/storage.htm] there is a section 3.2.7 "Configuring HACMP Multinode Disk Heartbeat (MNDHB) for Oracle Clusterware" so my question is it mandatory to use HACMP if i do not want to use ASM?
3. In the same above installation guide it was mentioned in section 3.2.8 that "To use raw logical volumes for Oracle Clusterware, HACMP must be installed and configured on all cluster nodes." what is raw logical volumes ? is it mandatory to use it ? since i am not using ASM?
4. In the Installation guide, sections 3.2.3 to sections 3.2.9, are these sections pre-requisites to sections 3.2.10 to 3.2.15? or i can simply apply sections 3.2.10 to 3.2.15 without applying 3.2.3 to 3.2.9?

One Final Question:

ASM comes embedded with the cluster software, does it need a seperate license or the cluster license cover the ASM license ?

Regards,