Oracle Database Appliance Bare Metal Setup In A Nutshell

Introduction

Deploying an Oracle Database Appliance consists of several basic steps. It is very important to plan the ODA deployment properly before performing the actual steps, this helps you to avoid issues during deployment and save time.

In this article I will layout the high level steps required to perform a successful ODA deployment.

Pre-Deployment Steps

• Gather Network details.

Fill the ODA Pre-Install Checklist form with details like, Cluster name, Hostname, IP Address etc.

Allocate IPs and Submit DNS and firewall requests

Other network details required are, Domain name, DNS, NTP.

Work with your Network administartor to gather all these details.

• Oracle Appliance Manager Configurator

Build the deployment configuration files using the Oracle Appliance Manager Configurator utility in offline mode. This is an optional step which will save time to complete the deployment and perform network validation before deployment.

Read more on ODA configuration at: 

http://netsoftmate.blogspot.in/2017/06/oracle-database-appliance-oda.html

• Download ODA patches

Download the below patches from MOS note 888888.1

Read the MOS note carefully before downloading the patches.

Here I am downloading the patches for ODA Bundle patch version 12.1.0.11

• OS ISO image (2.1.2.11) - If you want to reimage ODA to latest ODA software version.

12999313 Oracle Database Appliance 12.1.2.11.0 Bare Metal ISO Image.

Choose the correct version when downloading the patch.

• ODA Bundle Patch (26080564) - These patches are required to update the firmware post reimaging ODA

File name: p26080564_1212110_Linux-x86-64_1of2.zip & p26080564_1212110_Linux-x86-64_2of2.zip

• End-User Bundle

12978712 - Oracle Database Appliance 12.1.2.11.0 End User Bundle (GI+RDBMS)

Choose the correct version when downloading the patch.

Deployment Steps

• Receive Oracle Database Appliance delivery at Data Center
• Unpack Oracle Database Appliance box
• Read the Manually carefully that comes with ODA box
• Mount ODA components as per guidelines
• Connect the Power and Network Cables. Read the ODA Setup poster for your model, for example: Setup Poster X6-2 HA
• Power On the PSU
• Power On the Systems. Turn on the power to  Storage shelf first and the power on the ODA Node 0 and Node 1.
• Configure and Setup Oracle ILOM Configuration.

ILOM configuration via Serial port (Doc ID 1395445.1)

How to Setup ILOM (Doc ID 1393191.1)

• Using OS ISO image perform the complete reimage of both the nodes - Optional
• Network Configuration -  Configure firstnet

- Connect to ODA node 0 using ILOM and run firstnet

- /opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli configure firstnet

- Verify you can ping node 0

- Repeat the step on ODA node 1

• Copy and unpack the ODA Bundle Patch (node 0 and 1) and End-user Bundle GI/RDBMS (node 0) patches to ODA under /tmp

- Copy to /tmp or file system where there is more stapce

- cd /tmp

- /opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli unpack -package /tmp/filename.zip

• VNC Configuration and Connection - Optional

To Deploy ODA you need GUI interface, to do this you make use of VNC server to connect with ODA and open GUI interface. You can also connect to Web ILOM and execute xstart to start VNC

• Complete the ODA bare metal deployment

/opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli deploy

• Update the firmware (ILOM, BIOS and so on)

oakcli update –patch 12.1.2.10.0 --verify

oakcli update -patch 12.1.2.10.0 --server -local (on both nodes)

oakcli update -patch 12.1.2.10.0 --storage

• Update RDBMS homes

oakcli update -patch  12.1.2.11.0  --database or

oakcli update -patch  12.1.2.11.0  --database --local

Post Deployment and Cleanup

• Validate ODA Deployment

/opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli show version -detail

crsctl status res -t

/opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli validate -c storagetopology

oakcli show dbhomes -detail

oakcli validate -d

oakcli validate -c OSDiskStorage

oakcli validate -c SharedStorage

oakcli validate -c SystemComponents

oakcli validate -c NetworkComponents

oakcli validate -c DiskCalibration

• ODA Redeploy or Cleanup - Optional

To perform a redeploy for the Oracle Database Appliance is a very simple task and is executed with the cleanupDeploy.pl script

/opt/oracle/oak/onecmd/cleanupDeploy.pl

Once this cleanupDeploy.pl script completes, you can rerun the deployment process using the Oracle Appliance Manager utility discussed earlier.

Conclusion

In this article we have learned the steps required to perform an Oracle Database Appliance Bare Metal Deployment. It is very important to consider the deployment steps carefully to avoid issues. ODA deployment is simple and very easy to perform.