Introduction to Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder (OVAB) Deployer

This section contains the following topics:

Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder (OVAB) is a tool that enables you to create a blueprint of a reference, multitier application topology, and then deploy that topology in Oracle VM and virtualized Exalogic environments. Using OVAB, you can examine a reference topology and capture the configuration of the individual Oracle software components in the topology, as appliances. You can then group the appliances into an assembly, which serves as a blueprint for the entire multitier application topology. You can deploy multiple instances of the OVAB-generated assemblies rapidly on virtualized systems, by using OVAB Deployer, which is an application running within an Oracle WebLogic Server container.

For information about creating assemblies by using OVAB Studio, see "Operations Related to Creating an Assembly" in the Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder User's Guide.

OVAB Deployer on Exalogic

When you upgrade the Exalogic Elastic Cloud Software (EECS) on an Exalogic machine to v2.0.6.0.0 or when you install EECS 2.0.6.0.0, OVAB Deployer 11.1.1.6.2 is installed in the Exalogic Control VM. You can use OVAB Deployer to deploy instances of OVAB-generated assemblies in the Exalogic vDC, as described in Deploying Assemblies in an Exalogic vDC Using the OVAB Deployer.

Note:

For the differences between the generally available OVAB release and OVAB Deployer 11.1.1.6.2, see Differences Between the Generally Available OVAB Release and OVAB Deployer 11.1.1.6.2.

Differences Between the Generally Available OVAB Release and OVAB Deployer 11.1.1.6.2

Table 11-1 describes the differences between release 11.1.1.6.2 of OVAB Deployer and the generally available release.

Table 11-1 Differences Between the Generally Available OVAB Release and OVAB Deployer 11.1.1.6.2

Feature	Generally Available OVAB Release	OVAB 11.1.1.6.2
Creating deployment targets	Multiple targets can be created.	A single pre-configured target, which is the same Exalogic system in which the OVAB Deployer is installed. The operation for adding targets is disabled.
Updating deployment targets	All the properties of targets can be updated	Only the operation time-out value (that is, the `exalogic.vmOperationTimeout` property) can be changed, by using the CLI.
Adding users to targets	Users belonging to the `Cloud Admins` group can grant permission to users in the `Application Admins` group, to use a target.	Users belonging to the `Cloud Admins` group can use a configured target; however, they must supply their own credential information to the virtualization system.
Guest base images that can be used for creating assemblies by using OVAB Studio	Any generic Oracle VM image	Only the Exalogic guest base image
Deployment interfaces	Command-line interface and API	Command-line interface, web console (for the tasks described in Using the OVAB Deployer Web Console), and API
IP-address assignment for appliances	The IP addresses can be DHCP-assigned or static. So in the deployment plan, the `network.eth<network>-usedhcp` property can be set to `true` or `false`, depending on the requirement.	IP-address assignment is similar to DHCP, except that the addresses are from a set of addresses that are pre-allocated in Exalogic Control, as described in Allocating Virtual IPs for an Account. To use this feature, set the `network.eth<network>-usedhcp` property in the deployment plan to `true`. If static IP addresses are required, set `network.eth<network>-usedhcp` to `false`, and specify IP addresses from the set of pre-allocated addresses.
Network creation/binding	The required networks must exist and must be preconfigured. The OVAB metadata defines bindings to the existing networks.	Based on the assembly metadata, private vNets are constructed dynamically on the InfiniBand fabric.
Anti-affinity behavior	See the Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder User's Guide.	If the `anti-affinity-min-servers` property is set to a value other than 0, anti-affinity is enabled for the appliance; otherwise, anti-affinity is disabled. When anti-affinity is enabled, the instances of the appliance are placed on separate nodes, up to the number of nodes available. If the number of instances is equal to, or less than, the number of nodes, each instance is placed on a separate node. When the number of instances exceeds the number of nodes, a placement failure occurs for the additional instances.