Wednesday 5 July 2017

Reimage Oracle Database Appliance (ODA)

Re-image Oracle Database Appliance (ODA)

Oracle Database Appliance comes preinstalled with the most current version of the Base Metal Operating System. It is not be necessary to re-image the ODA operating system. However, if there is a OS corruption or if you want to update the ODA software quickly or a large period of time has passed between ODA shipment and deployment, a latest version of Bare Metal image may have been released.

You can also reimaging ODA if you want to convert a ODA Virtualized platform back to ODA Bare Metal deployment.

The command "oakcli show version" is used to display the version that is currently installed, compare the results with the MOS note 888888.1 to know the latest version available. If a latest version is available, download the latest image and re-image the ODA operating system.

The Bare Metal restore OS reimaging is specific to the node on which the procedure is executed and overwrites the local storage on that node. ODA reimaging does not Patch the firware (BIOS, ILOM, Local HDD and Shared HDD). It only re-image the local disk from an OS perspective. Use the Patch number 12999313 for Bare Metal re-imaging. 


Note: Patch number 12999313 contains different releases of the Oracle Appliance Kit make sure to select the latest release.

In this article I have demonstrate how to reimage an Oracle Database Appliance X4-2 to Oracle Appliance Kit version 12.1.2.10.0.

Prerequisites:

  1. A valid IP address is configured for ILOM
  2. Root user access to ILOM (Default password changeme)
  3. Latest Java software installed on the client (Laptop/Desktop)
  4. Download latest ODA kit using patch number 12999313

Procedure to Reimage Oracle Database Appliance

- Open a web browser and enter hostname or IP address of the ILOM

https://10.10.1.20

 - On the home page Expand Remote Control, Select Redirection, click Launch Remote Console




- Click Ok
 

- Java Application is starting
 

- Click Continue
 

- Click Run
 

- We can now see the ILOM console
 

- Under Devices menu, select CD-ROM Image
 

- Select the ISO image on your laptop/desktop
 

- We can see that the ISO image is attached to ILOM
 

- On left, under Expand Host Management, Select Host Control, Select Next Boot Device as CDROM and click Save
 

- On left, under Expand Host Management, Select Power Control, Select Power Cycle and Save
 

- Click OK to confirm  


- Now the ODA server is restarted
 

- Reimage process start after the system restart. The Reimage process takes roughly between 1 to 2 hours
 













 - When prompted select the Fiber or Copper cards for Public Interface and enter YES to reboot the server.


 - Reimage process completed and prompted for login


- Verify the Oracle Database Appliace Kit Version
 

We have just completed Reimaging Oracle Database Appliance.

You should repeat the above steps on the second ODA server.

The reimaging process can take somewhere between one to two hours. To save time you can run the procedure in parallel on both server.


Conclusion:

In this article we have learned how to reimage an Oracle Database Appliance X4-2 to latest version. ILOM allows reimaging of the appliance server nodes via ISO images. In most cases, it is not be necessary to re-image the ODA operating system. There are situations where you reimage system such as corruption, or if you want to update the software to the latest version quickly.


Monday 3 July 2017

Configure VNC On Oracle Database Appliance


Introduction:


To Deploy ODA you need GUI interface, to do this you make use of VNC server to connect with ODA and open GUI interface.

In this article I will demonstrate how to configure VNC on Oracle Database Appliance.

Configure VNC:

You can access database servers remotely by using tools such as PuTTY and Virtual Network Computing (VNC) which are freely available for download.

In most cases, accessing a database server in a command-line mode via PuTTY is enough. Sometimes we may need to access a database server to run GUI-based software. For example, to run runInstaller to install Oracle software or DBCA to create databases. In these cases, VNC a cool tool for running GUI-based sofware.

VNC allows you to run GUI interface on database server. It allows you to execute programs locally on the server, while only the screen output is sent to the VNC client on your desktop.

On ODA you can configure VNC in two ways:

  1. startx command
  2. vncserver command

Using startx command:


- Login to ILOM as super user (root) and execute startx command




- VNC screen is displayed




- Execute "oakcli deploy" to test GUI access




- Left click and exit to return back to ILOM session



Using vncserver command:


- Login to database server as Suport user (root), Check if vnc servers is running, Execute vncserver command to start vnc. Enter the root password first time and enter again to verify. Check if vnc server is started and note down the port number.




- Download VNC-Viewer and Click on VNC-Viewer on desktop




- ON VNC-Viewer page enter the ODA Node IP or hostname along with VNC server port




- Click Continue




- Enter the root password




- VNC screen is displayed




- Execute "oakcli deploy" to test GUI access




- Left click and exit to return back to ILOM session





Conclusion:

In this article we have learned about VNC and how to configure VNC on Oracle Database Appliance. Configure VNC is simple and straight forward. VNC comes handy when you want to run GUI-Based applications. To Deploy ODA you need GUI interface, to do this you make use of VNC server to connect with ODA and open GUI interface.

Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) and Its Components

Oracle Database Appliance:

Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) is a pre-configured, highly available Oracle Database Engineered system. ODA system consists of hardware, software, storage and networking. The hardware configuration is designed to provide redundancy and protection against single points of failures in the system.

The Oracle Database Appliance saves time and money by simplifying deployment, maintenance, and support of high availability Database solutions.

ODA consists of two physical servers (Node 0 and Node 1), a storage shelf and optionally an additional storage shelf. The two independent physical servers are interconnected and direct attached to SAS and SSD storage.

ODA is basically a 2-node RAC cluster database system running Oracle Linux operating (OEL), Oracle Database, Oracle Grid Infrastructure (Clusterware and ASM). All these together provides the Oracle Database high availability running on ODA.


Picture of ODA X6-2:

ODA X5-2 HA with optional Storage Expansion



ODA X6-2 HA 



Advantages of Oracle Database Appliance:

Oracle marketed ODA using the tagline "Simple, Reliable and Affordable".
- Simple: The ODA deployment made simple and easy to use by using the wizard based deployment.
- Reliable: The ODA platform provide complete high availability for Database and Application
- Affordable: With ODA you have the benefit of using Capacity-on-Demand Licensing. Pay for what you use.

Few other benefits includes:

- Saves Time and Money
- Single Vendor Support
- High Performance and High Availability
- End to End Monitoring for all components
- Reduced Cost
- Easy management and Supporting

Why ODA?

Traditional hardware deployments are complex, they can take from several weeks to months to implement. It depends on the several factors such as hardware procurement, deployment model choose by the organization and hardware & software certification.

The ODA deployment time is far less than a tranditional hardware deployment as ODA comes pre-configured with hardware and software in just on box. ODA includes Oracle Appliance Manager software to manage and maintain the
database server, patching/Upgrade ODA stack and troubleshooting.

H/W components of ODA
 

ODA consists of:

- 2 physical servers
- 1 Storage Shelf
- Optional additional storage shelf
- Networking
- Interconnect

S/W components of ODA

The Oracle Database Appliance runs Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, and customers have the choice of running Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) or Oracle RAC One Node.

• Oracle Enterprise Linux
• oracle Database Appliance Manager
• Oracle VM (Optional)
• Hardware Drivers
• Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 2 and Oracle Database 12c Enterprise Edition
• Oracle Real Application Clusters One Node
• Oracle Real Application Clusters


Note: There are changes in ODA X6. Oracle introduced X6-2S, X6-2M and X6-2L which I will cover in a different article.

Oracle Database Appliance Deployment options:

You can deploy ODA in one of the following model:

1. Bare Metal Deployment
2. Virtualized Platform Deployment

Conclusion:


In this article we have learned what is Oracle Database Appliance and different hardware and software components of it. The Oracle Database Appliance saves time and money by simplifying deployment, maintenance, and support of high availability Database solutions. 

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