Oracle Database Appliance Virtualized Platform Deployment In A Nutshell

Introduction

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.

You can deploy ODA in one of the following model:

• Bare Metal Deployment
• Virtualized Platform Deployment

By default, ODA ships with the latest version of Bare Metal Operating System. To deploy Oracle Database Appliance Virtualized platform, you must re-image ODA using Virtualized OS ISO image.

To identify ODA deployment type, execute the following command:

[root@odanode1 ~]# oakcli show env_hw
BM ODA X5-2
Public interface : COPPER

The output shows that it is a Bare Metal deployment. If you see the string VM-Dom0, it means that is a Virtualized platform.

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 Oracle Database Appliance Virtualized Platform deployment.

Pre-Deployment Steps

• Decide the type of Deployment
• Bare Metal (BM) or Virtualized Platform (VM)

• 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 administrator 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 Virtualized Platform patches

Download the below patches from MOS note 888888.1
Read the MOS note 888888.1 carefully before downloading the patches.

As of writing the latest Virtualized OS ISO image and latest ODA_BASE is 12.1.2.12.0

• ODA Virtualized Platform Patches - Choose the correct release from the drop down  menu.

Patch 16186163 - Oracle Database Appliance VM ISO Image. (DOM0)  
Patch 16186172 - Oracle Database Appliance VM Template (ODA_BASE)

Note: Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle Database software are installed by deploying ODA_BASE

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 Virtualized OS ISO image perform the complete reimage of both the nodes - MUST

• Validate the cable connections to the Storage shelf

# oakcli validate -c storageTopology

Note: If you see any errors or warning, connect the cables correctly. DO NOT ignore the error or the warning.

• 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 and node 1
• Respond to the prompts (Domain Name, DNS Server, Hostname, Network, IP address and Gateway

• Copy the downloaded ODA_BASE zip files to DOM0 under /OVS
• Copy to /OVS or file system where there is more stapce

• Unzip the zip files copied under /OVS

# cd /OVS
# unzip unzip p16186172_1212120_Linux-x86-64_1of3.zip
# unzip unzip p16186172_1212120_Linux-x86-64_2of3.zip
# unzip unzip p16186172_1212120_Linux-x86-64_3of3.zip

unzipping the zip files will create two files, oda_base_12.1.2.12.gz01, oda_base_12.1.2.12.gz02 and oda_base_12.1.2.12.gz03

• Merge or concatenate the above 2 files as below:

# cat oda_base_12.1.2.12.gz01 oda_base_12.1.2.12.gz02 oda_base_12.1.2.12.gz03 > oda_base_12.1.2.12.tar.gz

This file name will be used in next step.

• Deploy ODA_BASE
• From Node0 (oak1-dom0), deploy oda_base by executing the following command as root user

# /opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli deploy oda_base

Enter the file name with full path /OVS/oda_base_12.1.2.12.tar.gz when prompted

• Select the number of cores for ODA_BASE and network for ODA_BASE

• Verify the ODA_BASE domain

# xm list
# /opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli show oda_base

• VNC Configuration and Connection

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

Connect to oda_base using vncviewer with <oak1-dom0>:5900

• Complete the ODA Virtualized Platform deployment
• Connect to ILOM as root user and start the X window.
• Execute the following command to complete ODA Deployment

# /opt/oracle/oak/bin/oakcli deploy

• Verify the ODA Deployment

# oakcli show env_hw
# oakcli show version -detail

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 Virtualized Platform Deployment. It is very important to consider the deployment steps carefully to avoid issues. By default, ODA ships with the latest version of Bare Metal Operating System. To deploy Oracle Database Appliance Virtualized platform, you must re-image ODA using Virtualized OS ISO image.