3 Understanding the Network Requirements

The installation process automatically discovers whether each Sun Network QDR InfiniBand Gateway switch has at least one 10 GbE connection. If they all do, then two virtual network interface cards (VNICs) are configured for each server: one for each switch bonded as bondeth0 in active/passive failover mode. The VNICs are assigned automatically to the available 10 GbE connections in round-robin fashion. For example, if each switch has three available 10 GbE connections, then the VNIC on server 1 is assigned to 10 GbE port 1, server 2 to port 2, server 3 to port 3, server 4 to port 1, and so on.

All VNICs are assigned to the same default virtual local area network (VLAN). To assign different VLANs to different VNICs, you must delete the initial VNICs and manually create your own.

Additional configuration, such as defining multiple VLANs or enabling routing, may be required for the switch to operate properly in your environment. If additional configuration is needed, then your network administrator must perform the necessary configuration steps during installation of Oracle Big Data Appliance.

To deploy Oracle Big Data Appliance, ensure that your network meets the minimum requirements. Oracle Big Data Appliance uses three networks.

These are the network descriptions:

• Administrative network: This 1 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network connects to your existing administrative network and is used to administer all components of Oracle Big Data Appliance. It connects the servers, Oracle ILOM, and InfiniBand switches connected to the Ethernet switch in the rack. This network is also called the management network.

  There are two uplinks to the administrative network:

  • From the Ethernet switch in the rack

  • From the KVM switch in the rack (Sun Fire X4270 M2-based racks only)

  Each server has two network interfaces for administration. One provides administrative access to the operating system through the eth0 Ethernet interface, and the other provides access to the Integrated Lights Out Manager through the Oracle ILOM Ethernet interface. Oracle Big Data Appliance is delivered with the eth0 and ILOM interfaces connected to the Ethernet switch on the rack. Do not use the eth0 interface on the servers for client network traffic. Cabling or configuration changes to these interfaces are not permitted.

  Domain Name System (DNS) servers are not required on the administrative network, although Oracle Big Data Appliance uses them if they are available. At least one Network Time Protocol (NTP) server must also be available. The NTP server for the administrative network can be different from the NTP server for the client network.

  All Oracle Big Data Appliance components on the administrative network must be on the same subnet; that is, the eth0 IP addresses for all servers, ILOMs, PDUs, InfiniBand switches, and the Cisco Ethernet switch must be on the same subnet.

• Client access network: This 10 GbE network connects the servers though the gateway switches to your existing client network and is used for client access to the servers. Client applications access the software through this network by using the client network host names of the servers.

  There are two Sun Network QDR InfiniBand Gateway switches in the rack. Each switch supports 1 to 8 connections for client access for a total of up to 16 client network connections. For failover, you must have at least one connection from each switch and scale up according to your requirements for loading data and providing client access.

  At least one DNS server must be accessible on the client network. At least one NTP server must also be available. The NTP server for the client network can be different from the NTP server for the administrative network.

• InfiniBand private network: This network connects the servers by using the InfiniBand switches on the rack and the bondib0 interface. This nonroutable network is fully contained within Oracle Big Data Appliance and any other Oracle engineered systems that are connected to it with InfiniBand cables. This network does not connect to your existing network. It is automatically configured during installation.

The servers are configured on the network as follows:

• eth0: Provides access to the operating system using the administrative network.

• bondeth0: Provides access to the server using the client access network.

• ILOM: Provides access to Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) using the administrative network.

Use the bda-preinstall-checkip.sh script to verify the readiness of the network environment before cabling Oracle Big Data Appliance to the existing network. See "Preparing the Network for Oracle Big Data Appliance."

Figure 3-1 shows the network connections for Oracle Server X5–2L, Sun Server X4-2L, and Sun Server X3-2L-based racks.

Figure 3-1 Network Diagram for Oracle Big Data Appliance X5–2L, X4-2L, X3–2L

Description of "Figure 3-1 Network Diagram for Oracle Big Data Appliance X5–2L, X4-2L, X3–2L"

Figure 3-2 shows the network connections for a Sun Fire X4270 M2 -based rack, which includes a KVM.

Figure 3-2 Network Diagram for Oracle Big Data Appliance (with KVM)

Description of "Figure 3-2 Network Diagram for Oracle Big Data Appliance (with KVM)"

Physical Ethernet connections are created only between the site network and the gateway switches. The Oracle Big Data Appliance servers are connected only by InfiniBand to those switches. Each server has two InfiniBand connections, one to each gateway switch, in an active-passive backup mode; only the active InfiniBand connection is used for all InfiniBand traffic to that server. If that connection fails, it immediately fails over to the other connection.

Half of the Oracle Big Data Appliance servers have active connections to one gateway switch, and the other half have active connections to the other gateway switch. Inside Oracle Big Data Appliance, the client network traffic is transported over those InfiniBand connections using the Ethernet over InfiniBand (EoIB) protocol. As a result, each Oracle Big Data Appliance server has two virtual NICs (VNICs) that are bonded in the same active-passive backup mode. Each VNIC is assigned a specific port on the gateway switch. If a switch has only one 10 GbE connection, then all VNICs for that switch point to the same port. If a switch has multiple connections, then the VNICs are spread across those ports in round-robin fashion.

Depending on the number of 10 GbE connections, the client network traffic for multiple servers can be sent across the same physical 10 GbE connection. The maximum number of connections provides 160 gigabits per second (Gbps) of client network bandwidth to Oracle Big Data Appliance.

Although you can create up to eight 10 GbE connections for each gateway switch, its physical ports are 40 Gbps quad small form-factor pluggable (QSFP) ports. Each gateway switch has two of these physical ports reserved for 10 GbE connectivity. The ports are equipped with QSFP transceivers that take an optical cable with an MTP/MPO connector. On the site network side are typically 10 Gbps ports with SFP+ transceivers that take LC connectors. For these connections, you can use splitter cables that have a single male MTP/MPO connector on one end and four pairs of LC connectors on the other end. Each 10 Gbps SFP+ transceiver takes a duplex LC connector for a total of four pairs. Thus, you can use a single splitter cable to create up to four 10 GbE connections. However, all four duplex LC connectors do not require a connection to the site network.

The splitter cables are not provided with Oracle Big Data Appliance and must be ordered separately from Oracle. They are available in lengths of 10, 20, and 50 meters. Oracle recommends that you order the SFP+ transceivers used at the site end of the 10 GbE network from the same manufacturer as the 10 GbE switch.

If your data center does not have a 10 GbE infrastructure, you can still connect Oracle Big Data Appliance to it by using an external switch that supports both 10 GbE (or 40 GbE) and 1 GbE. The Sun Network 10 GbE Switch 72p and numerous third-party switches provide this capability. You can connect the Sun Network QDR InfiniBand Gateway switches to a 10 GbE or 40 GbE port and connect the data center to a 1 GbE port in the external switch.

Oracle recommends that you follow these guidelines for making 10 GbE connections to the two gateway switches in Oracle Big Data Appliance:

• Make the same number of 10 GbE connections to both gateway switches.

• To make 1 to 4 10-GbE connections to each switch, use a single QSFP splitter cable to the 0A-ETH port of both switches.

• To make 5 to 8 10-GbE connections to each switch, use two QSFP splitter cables to both 0A-ETH and 1A-ETH ports of both switches. Divide the connections as evenly as possible between the 2 splitter cables.

• To make multiple 10 GbE connections to a single QSFP splitter cable, start with the lowest number port and work upward. For example, for two connections, use 0A-ETH1 and 0A-ETH2.

• Make the10 GbE connections to the same ports on both NM2-GW switches. If you make connections to 0A-ETH1 and 0A-ETH2 on one switch, then make connections only to 0A-ETH1 and 0A-ETH2 on the other switch.

When multiple Oracle Big Data Appliance racks are connected to form a single Hadoop cluster, Oracle strongly recommends that you spread the 10 GbE connections across the switches in different racks. Every gateway switch in every rack must have at least one 10 GbE connection. Oracle does not support a configuration in which the 10 GbE connections to the switches in a single rack are used for all servers in all Oracle Big Data Appliance racks.