1 About Oracle Database Appliance

Oracle Database Appliance enables you to take advantage of Oracle Database in an easy-to-deploy and manage system that supports virtualization. The complete package of software, server, storage, and networking saves time and money by simplifying deployment, maintenance, and support of database and application workloads.

Oracle Database Appliance Capacity-on-Demand Licensing

Capacity-on-Demand software licensing enables you to scale quickly to more processor cores without incurring the excessive costs and downtime usually associated with hardware upgrades. You can deploy as few or as many processors in Oracle Database Appliance as your workload requires.

Table 1-1 lists the scaling capacities for Oracle Database Appliance bare metal and virtualized platform deployments. The decision to use bare-metal or Oracle Database Appliance Virtualized Platform depends on your company policies and the benefits that each implementation offers your company.

Table 1-1 Oracle Database Appliance Scaling Capacities

Oracle Database Appliance Platform Minimum Number Processor Cores Maximum Number Processor Cores

X5-2

2

72

X4-2

2

48

X3-2Foot 1 

4

32

Version 1

2

24

Footnote 1 For Oracle Database Appliance X3-2 Virtualized Platform, processor cores are licensed for your ODA_BASE only, from a minimum of 2 processor cores to a maximum of 32 processor cores.

Oracle Database Appliance Software

Table 1-2 lists the software that might be included with each Oracle Database Appliance component. Some releases may not contain all of the items for one or more components listed in the table.

Table 1-2 Software for Oracle Database Appliance

Component Component Contents Component Required On Installed or Downloaded

Oracle Database Appliance Operating System Image

Oracle Appliance Manger command-line interface

Oracle Appliance Manager configurator (graphical user interface)

Oracle Linux

Hardware drivers

All deployments

Installed

Oracle Database Appliance Patch-Set Bundle

Basic input/output system (BIOS)

Hardware drivers and management pack and firmware drivers for various components

Oracle Appliance Manager

Oracle Linux

Oracle VM

Java Development Kit (JDK)

Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (Oracle ILOM)

Oracle Database Patch Set Update (PSU)

Oracle Automated Service Request (ASR)

Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Oracle Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)

Java Development Kit (JDK)

All deployments

Downloaded

Oracle Database Appliance End-User Bundle

Oracle Database clone binaries

Oracle Database templates, customized for Oracle Database Appliance deployments

Oracle Grid Infrastructure clone binaries

Bare metal deployments

Downloaded

ODA_BASE template

Oracle Database clone binaries

Oracle Database templates, customized for Oracle Database Appliance deployments

Oracle Grid Infrastructure clone binaries

Virtualized platform deployments

Downloaded

Components listed as Installed are typically available on Oracle Database Appliance when you receive it, and components listed as Downloaded are components that you will typically download and deploy yourself.

Overview of Oracle Database Appliance Deployment

Deployment consists of three high-level steps:

  1. Prepare for Oracle Database Appliance.

    • Register your Support Identifier (SI) for Oracle Database Appliance with My Oracle Support to obtain software and support from Oracle.

    • Plan your configuration options and gather network and related information.

    • Set up the server site.

    • Configure network names and addresses on your Domain Name System (DNS) server.

      Use the Oracle Appliance Manager configurator to generate the network names and addresses or to validate your existing network names and addresses. The standalone configurator is available for download from Oracle Technology Network. You can create a configuration file on a local machine before delivery of your Oracle Database Appliance, as described in "Preparing for Oracle Database Appliance Installation and Deployment".

      Note:

      Download the standalone Oracle Appliance Manager configurator from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/database-appliance/overview

    See Chapter 2, "Preparing for Oracle Database Appliance Installation and Deployment" and Oracle Database Appliance Owner's Guide for more information to complete this step.

  2. Prepare Oracle Database Appliance for deployment.

    • Mount Oracle Database Appliance hardware into a rack at the server site.

    • Connect power and required cables to Oracle Database Appliance.

    • Create an initial network configuration to load external files.

    See Chapter 3, "Readying Oracle Database Appliance for Deployment" and Oracle Database Appliance Owner's Guide for more information to complete this step.

  3. Install and deploy software on Oracle Database Appliance.

    • Download and copy the Oracle Database Appliance software package to Oracle Database Appliance.

    • Run the Oracle Appliance Manager configurator and select or enter the required information.

      During deployment, you configure a two-node Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation (Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Automatic Storage Management). You also have the option to configure Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, Oracle RAC, or Oracle RAC One Node. After the initial deployment, you might add databases, configure core count and instance caging, and add virtual domains if you have deployed Oracle Database Appliance.

    See Chapter 4, "Deploying Oracle Software on Oracle Database Appliance" for more information to complete this step.

  4. Complete post-installation tasks.

    • Download patches to apply after deployment.

    • Reset default passwords.

    See Chapter 5, "Oracle Database Appliance Postinstallation Tasks" for more information to complete this step.