2 Preparing for Oracle Database Appliance Installation and Deployment

Complete these setup tasks before Oracle Database Appliance is delivered.

Registering Your Support Identifier on My Oracle Support

Add your hardware Support Identifier (SI) to your My Oracle Support account profile.

Your hardware SI is supplied when you purchase Oracle Database Appliance. If you acquire new software licenses, then you must also register your new software SIs. The SI registration process can take up to 24 hours to complete.

Note:

You cannot obtain support or software from Oracle without registered SIs.

Planning Oracle Database Appliance Configuration Options

Determine how many CPU cores you want to enable, determine your database configuration options, and gather the system information for your Oracle Database Appliance Bare Metal deployment configuration.

Note:

Do not use Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) to create databases on Oracle Database Appliance. Only use Oracle Appliance Manager for database configuration. Deploying Oracle Database instances using Oracle Appliance Manager ensures that these databases are properly configured, optimized, and supported on Oracle Database Appliance.

Selecting an Oracle Database Appliance Configuration

Compare and select an Oracle Database Appliance hardware configuration.

Oracle Database Appliance X7-2S is a small configuration designed for smaller or entry-level deployments.
Oracle Database Appliance X7-2M is a medium-sized configuration designed for performance.
Oracle Database Appliance X7-2-HA is a large configuration designed for larger databases and high-availability.

You cannot expand or reconfigure Oracle Database Appliance to a different configuration. For example, you cannot expand Oracle Database Appliance X7-S to Oracle Database Appliance X7-2M. For Oracle Database Appliance X7-2 configuration details, see the Oracle Database Appliance Owner's Guide.

Selecting Operating System Groups and Users

Determine how you want to configure your operating system groups and users and whether or not you want to allow operating system role separation.

About Operating System Groups and Users

Role separation enables you to configure groups and users to provide separate groups for operating system authentication.

Without role separation, a single user owns all of the Oracle installations. All of the databases are installed under a single user. Role separation enables you to have separate users for Oracle and Oracle Clusterware. You can install multiple databases without sharing operating system authentication for system privileges. In addition, each Oracle software installation is owned by a separate installation owner, to provide operating system user authentication for modifications to Oracle Database binaries.

Note:

Any Oracle software owner can start and stop all databases and shared Oracle Grid Infrastructure resources, such as Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) or Virtual IP (VIP). The job role separation configuration enables database security, it does not restrict user roles in starting and stopping various Oracle Clusterware resources.

With Oracle Grid Infrastructure role separation, separate operating system groups provide operating system authentication for Oracle ASM system privileges for storage tier administration. This operating system authentication is separated from Oracle Database operating system authentication. In addition, the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation owner provides operating system user authentication for modifications to Oracle Grid Infrastructure binaries.

You can configure the appliance with one of four combinations of operating system users, groups, and roles. The default users are the Oracle Database installation owner (oracle) and Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation owner (grid). The default groups are oinstall, dbaoper, dba, asmadmin, asmoper, and asmdba

Default Configuration: Two Users with Six Groups

The default configuration is a combination of two operating system roles for users with six groups.

To configure two users, oracle user with the Oracle User (oracleUser) role and the grid user with the gridUser role, allow operating system role separation.

To configure six groups, oinstall, dbaoper, dba, asmadmin, asmoper, and asmdba, do not select the option to customize users and groups.

Note:

When you select the default configuration in the Web Console, the users and groups do not appear in the interface.

Two Custom Users with Six Custom Groups

You can customize the configuration to create two custom users and six custom groups.

To configure two users, allow operating system role separation. The users are populated with the default values, oracle and grid, which you can edit.

To configure six groups, select the option to customize users and groups. The groups are populated with the default values, which you can edit. The default groups are oinstall, dbaoper, dba, asmadmin, asmoper, and asmdba.

The figure shows an example of a custom configuration with the default values populated.

Figure 2-1 Two Custom Users with Six Custom Groups

Description of "Figure 2-1 Two Custom Users with Six Custom Groups "

Single Custom User with Six Custom Groups

You can customize the configuration to create a single operating system database user and with six custom groups. The database user can deploy both the grid infrastructure and RDBMS (relational database management system) stacks. You can edit the user name and user ID and you can customize the group names and IDs. Use this option when you deploy SAP.

To configure a single oracle database user with the Oracle User (oracleUser) role, do not allow OS role separation.

To configure six groups, select the option to customize users and groups. The following default groups are populated: oinstall, dbaoper, dba, asmadmin, asmoper, and asmdba. You can customize the groups.

Single User with Two Groups

To configure a single oracle user with the Oracle User (oracleUser) role, do not allow OS role separation.

To configure two groups, oinstall and dba, do not select the option to customize users and groups.

Selecting Database Deployment Options

Review the Oracle Database editions that are available for deployment.

In earlier releases, the database edition was defined at the appliance level during the initial deployment. Beginning with Oracle Database Appliance release 12.2.1.1, Oracle Database editions are defined at the database level, not the appliance level.

Note:

It is important to understand your Oracle Database licensing before you create databases. You cannot provision Oracle Database Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition databases in the same bare metal platform, subject to Oracle Database licensing requirements.

The following Oracle Database editions are available:

Oracle Database Enterprise Edition

Oracle Database Enterprise Edition provides the performance, availability, scalability, and security required for mission-critical applications such as high-volume online transaction processing (OLTP) applications, query-intensive data warehouses, and demanding Internet applications.
- Single-instance Oracle Database Enterprise Edition home
- Oracle Database options are available
Enterprise Edition for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1, 12.1.0.2, and 11.2.0.4 support Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC).
Oracle Database Standard Edition 2

Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 delivers unprecedented ease of use, power, and performance for workgroup, department-level, and Web applications.

Standard Edition 2 for Oracle Database 12.x supports Oracle RAC and RAC One.
Oracle Database Standard Edition One

Oracle Database Standard Edition One delivers unprecedented ease of use, power, and performance for workgroup, department-level, and Web applications.

Standard Edition One for Oracle Database 11.2.0.4. Standard Edition One supports Oracle RAC and RAC One.
Oracle Database Standard Edition

Oracle Database Standard Edition delivers the unprecedented ease of use, power, and performance of Standard Edition One, with support for larger machines and clustering of services with Oracle RAC.

Standard Edition for Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 supports Oracle RAC and RAC One.

Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node is an always online single instance of an Oracle RAC enabled database running on one node in a cluster.

Note:

Review the Database Licensing Information User Manual for the Oracle Database release to review supported options and products.

Selecting Database Shapes for Oracle Database Appliance

Oracle Database Appliance software includes preconfigured templates, known as shapes, that incorporate Oracle best practices with optimization for different classes of databases.

Because of differences in CPU counts, memory size, and other resources available with different Oracle Database Appliance models, some shapes are not supported on all models.

Each Oracle Database shape has different workload profile and performance characteristics:

Memory requirements, which are calculated from the System Global Area (SGA), and Program Global Area (PGA) sizes
Processing requirements, which are calculated from the number of processes
Logging requirements, which are based on log buffer size, and online redo log size

Oracle Database Appliance shapes are tuned for the size of each database instance workload and are designed to run on a specific number of cores.

Note:

Oracle strongly recommends that you use the Oracle Database Appliance shapes. These shapes implement best practices, and are configured specifically for Oracle Database Appliance.

Gathering System Requirement Information

Use these checklists to collect information before deploying Oracle Database Appliance.

List of Information You Need Before Deployment

Collect security, storage, and network information required to prepare for deploying Oracle Database Appliance X7-2S, X7-2M, and X7-2-HA.

Security Requirements

Review your security requirements for root passwords.

What root password should you use for Oracle Database Appliance? Root passwords should comply with your system security requirements.
Secure operating systems are an important basis for general system security. Ensure that your operating system deployment is in compliance with common security practices.

Storage Administration Requirements

Storage administration is integrated into Oracle Database Appliance. No additional storage configuration is required.

Oracle Database Appliance uses Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) or Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) and include the following:

Integrated storage for operational files (operating system, Oracle Grid Infrastructure home, Oracle Database homes, tools). Operational files are stored on mirrored internal system disks.
DATA (user data and database files).
RECO (database redo logs, archive logs, and recovery manager backups).
REDO (database redo logs). X7-2-HA only.
FLASH (hot table data) X7-2-HA with HDD drive configuration only.
Operational files are stored on mirrored internal system disks.

Based on your environment and backup location, you can configure the storage capacity for the DATA diskgroup to be anywhere from 10% to 90%, with the remaining percentage for RECO diskgroup. For example, you might assign 80% of the storage capacity for DATA and 20% for RECO.

Note:

Depending on the model, you have the option to expand the system’s storage capacity.

Network Administration Requirements for Single Node Systems

Review the network administration requirements and recommendations for Oracle Database Appliance X7-2S and X7-2M.

The network administration requirements and recommendations are as follows:

Determine the type of network interface for your public network and know the details for your generic and public network.
Oracle recommends that you resolve addresses using Domain Name System (DNS) servers.
All names must conform to the RFC 952 standard, which permits alphanumeric characters and hyphens ("-"), but does not allow underscores ("_").
Provide an IP address for the public interface (btbond1).

Depending on your network setup, you can use one of the following available bonds:

Onboard NIC 10GBase-T ports
25GbE SFP+ ports

As part of the initial setup, you must use the command configure-first through Oracle ILOM's remote console to plumb the public network.

Answer These Questions

Determine the answers to the following questions:

What is your domain name?

For example: example.com.
Do you want to use DNS?

(Optional) Ensure that the names and addresses that you provide for network configuration are configured in your Domain Name System (DNS) servers. DNS is optional, but recommended. If you want to use DNS, then obtain your DNS server addresses. The addresses that you provide are configured in the /etc/hosts file to provide IP name and address resolution, even if a DNS server is not available.
Do you have a Network Time Protocol (NTP) service configured for each server, so that the local system time for each server is synchronized?
Which network interface do you want to use for your public network?
- 10GBase-T port
- 25GbE SFP+ ports
What are the details for your public network? To connect to the system, you require the following information:
- Host name
  
  For example: myhost
- IP address
  
  For example: 192.0.2.18
- Netmask for the public network
  
  For example: 255.255.252.0
- Gateway for the public network
  
  For example: 192.0.2.1
What are the Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (Oracle ILOM) details needed to manage Oracle Database Appliance independent of the operating system?

Collect the following Oracle ILOM details from your network administrator:
- Oracle ILOM host name
  
  For example: myilom1
- Oracle ILOM IP address
  
  For example: 10.0.0.3
- Netmask for the Oracle ILOM network
  
  For example: 255.255.255.0
- Gateway for the Oracle ILOM network
  
  For example: 10.0.0.1

Network Administration Requirements for Multi-Node Systems

Review the network administration requirements and recommendations for Oracle Database Appliance X7-2-HA multi-node systems.

The network administration requirements and recommendations are as follows:

Determine the type of network interface for your public network and know the details for your generic and public network.
Oracle recommends that you resolve addresses using Domain Name System (DNS) servers.
All names must conform to the RFC 952 standard, which permits alphanumeric characters and hyphens ("-"), but does not allow underscores ("_").
Provide an IP address for the public interface (btbond1) for each node. This interface is bond0, which is used for the host IP address for the node.

For Oracle Database Appliance X7-2-HA, a correctly configured appliance requires at least six public addresses on the same subnet for the nodes:
- A public IP name and address for each node
- A virtual IP name and address for each node
- Two addresses that resolve to the SCAN for the cluster

Depending on your network setup, you can use one of the following available bonds:

Onboard NIC 10GBase-T ports
25GbE SFP+ ports

As part of the initial setup, you must use the odacli configure-first command to configure a public network through Oracle ILOM to get access to the machine.

Be prepared to provide a netmask and gateway for the network when you configure the network connection for Oracle Database Appliance.

Domain Name System (DNS) Servers

For multi-node systems, ensure that the names and addresses that you provide for network configuration are configured in your DNS servers. The addresses that you provide are configured in the /etc/hosts file to provide IP name and address resolution, even if a DNS server is not available.

You have the option to connect either to a copper, or to a fiber public network. Ensure that your network planning is based on the correct type of public network.

Oracle recommends that you resolve addresses using a DNS server, so that you can use Single Client Access Names (SCANs). Having a single name to access the cluster enables the client to use the EZConnect client and the simple JDBC thin URL to access any Oracle Database running in the cluster, independent of the active servers in the cluster. The SCAN provides load-balancing and failover for client connections to these databases. The SCAN works as a cluster alias for Oracle Databases in the cluster.

If you deploy without using a DNS server, then you can add a DNS server later, and add SCANs. If you add SCANs, then you must specify additional VIP addresses for those SCANs.

Answer These Questions

Determine the answers to the following questions:

What is your domain name?

For example: example.com.
Do you want to use DNS?

(Optional) Ensure that the names and addresses that you provide for network configuration are configured in your Domain Name System (DNS) servers. DNS is optional, but recommended. If you want to use DNS, then obtain your DNS server addresses. The addresses that you provide are configured in the /etc/hosts file to provide IP name and address resolution, even if a DNS server is not available.
Do you have a Network Time Protocol (NTP) service configured for each server, so that the local system time for each server is synchronized?

If you have NTP servers and you want to synchronize time between Oracle Database Appliance nodes using NTP, then be prepared to provide the addresses for the servers. If you do not provide addresses for NTP servers, then Oracle Grid Infrastructure software configures time synchronization between nodes using Cluster Time Synchronization Service (CTSS).
Do you want to plug in the public IP address cables to redundant switches, so that you can avoid a single point of failure for Oracle Database Appliance? Oracle recommends that you use redundant switches for High Availability.
Which network interface do you want to use for your public network?
- 10GBase-T (copper)
- 25GbE SFP+ (fiber)
What are the details for your public network? To connect to the system, you require the following information:
- Host name
  
  For example: myhost
- IP address
  
  For example: 192.0.2.18
- Netmask for the public network
  
  For example: 255.255.252.0
- Gateway for the public network
  
  For example: 192.0.2.1
What are the Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (Oracle ILOM) details needed to manage Oracle Database Appliance independent of the operating system?

Collect the following Oracle ILOM details from your network administrator:
- Oracle ILOM host name for each node
  
  For example: myilom1 and myilom2
  
  Oracle ILOM IP address for each node
  
  For example: 10.0.0.3 and 10.0.0.4
- Netmask for the Oracle ILOM network
  
  For example: 255.255.255.0
- Gateway for the Oracle ILOM network
  
  For example: 10.0.0.1

Checklist for System Details

Use the checklist to gather system information that you need to obtain for Oracle Database Appliance. Record the values for your system.

Table 2-1 Checklist for System Configuration Information for Oracle Database Appliance

System Information	Description
Host Name	The name for the Oracle Database Appliance System. The name must conform with the RFC 952 standard, which allows alphanumeric characters and hyphens ( - ), but does not allow underscores ( _ ). The name should not begin with a numeral or hyphen and should not end in a hyphen. Oracle recommends that you use all lowercase characters for the host name.
Domain Name	Your domain name. For example: `example.com`
Region	The region where you plan to operate the Oracle Database Appliance system.
Timezone	The time zone where you plan to operate the Oracle Database Appliance system.
Diskgroup Redundancy	Determine the redundancy level for DATA, RECO, and FLASH: Normal redundancy (two way mirror) or High redundancy (three way mirror). If you select High redundancy, then DATA, RECO, and FLASH are all High redundancy. If the system has less than five (5) NVMe storage devices, then redundancy is automatically set to Normal and this field does not appear.
Percentage of Storage Reserved for Data	Determine the amount of reserves for DATA storage. The percentage must be a whole number between 10 and 90 and determines how the NVMe Disks are partitioned between DATA and RECO. For example, if you specify 80, then 80% of storage is reserved for DATA and the remaining 20% is for RECO.
Master Password	The password set for the root password of the system, OS users, database users, and pdbadmin. The password is also used to set the database `SYS` and `SYSTEM` passwords. Ensure that the password you provide is in compliance with common security practices.
DNS Server	(Optional) DNS server details.
NTP Server	(Optional) Network Time Protocol (NTP) service details.
Network Information for the client access network	Obtain the following network information for the public network: IP address Subnet Mask Gateway
Network Information for the Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) network	(Optional) Obtain the following ILOM network information: ILOM host name ILOM address Subnet mask Gateway
User and group information	Determine how you want to configure your users and groups and whether or not you want to allow operating system role separation. The default is two users with six groups.
Initial Database Details (if you want to create one during deployment)	(Optional) If you choose to create an initial database during deployment, determine the following configuration details: Database name Database unique name Database version (based on the database clones that are registered with the Oracle Database Appliance): 12.2.0.1 12.1.0.2 11.2.0.4 Determine the Oracle Database edition licensing that you have, either Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition. You cannot mix editions. Container database, or not Shape (for example: odb1 or odb2) Class (database template): Enterprise Edition, 12c: OLTP, DSS, or IMDB Enterprise Edition, 11g: OLTP or DSS Standard Edition: OLTP Database characterset Database language Storage (Oracle ASM or Oracle ACFS). All version 11.2.0.4 databases are provisioned on top of Oracle ACFS. Configure Oracle Enterprise Manager console. If you are using Enterprise Manager Cloud Control with this appliance, do not choose this option.
Oracle Auto Service Request (Oracle ASR) information	(Optional) Do you want to Configure and enable Oracle ASR at deployment or later?

Checklist for Custom Network Address Configuration

Use the checklist to identify the IP addresses required for Oracle Database Appliance.

Note:

Oracle does not recommend changing the default Host Private Address. You cannot change the private network after deploying the appliance.

Table 2-2 Default IP Address Requirements for Oracle Database Appliance

Type of IP	IP Address Default Values	Your Values As Applicable
Client Access Network	No default	No default
Additional Network	No default	No default
Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM)	No default	No default
Host Private Addresses	192.168.16.24	Not applicable: the private addresses are defined before deployment and should not be changed