1. Software User's Guide
  2. Preface

Preface

This guide describes how to manage and use the installed Oracle Big Data Appliance software.

Audience

This guide is intended for users of Oracle Big Data Appliance including:

  • Application developers

  • Data analysts

  • Data scientists

  • Database administrators

  • System administrators

The Oracle Big Data Appliance Software User's Guide introduces Oracle Big Data Appliance installed software, features, concepts, and terminology. However, you must acquire the necessary information about administering Hadoop clusters and writing MapReduce programs from other sources.

Documentation Accessibility

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Access to Oracle Support

Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.

Related Documents

For more information, see the following documents:

Conventions

The following text conventions are used in this document:

Convention Meaning

boldface

Boldface type indicates graphical user interface elements associated with an action, or terms defined in text or the glossary.

italic

Italic type indicates book titles, emphasis, or placeholder variables for which you supply particular values.

monospace

Monospace type indicates commands within a paragraph, URLs, code in examples, text that appears on the screen, or text that you enter.

# prompt

The pound (#) prompt indicates a command that is run as the Linux root user.

Backus-Naur Form Syntax

The syntax in this reference is presented in a simple variation of Backus-Naur Form (BNF) that uses the following symbols and conventions:

Symbol or Convention Description

[ ]

Brackets enclose optional items.

{ }

Braces enclose a choice of items, only one of which is required.

|

A vertical bar separates alternatives within brackets or braces.

...

Ellipses indicate that the preceding syntactic element can be repeated.

delimiters

Delimiters other than brackets, braces, and vertical bars must be entered as shown.

boldface

Words appearing in boldface are keywords. They must be typed as shown. (Keywords are case-sensitive in some, but not all, operating systems.) Words that are not in boldface are placeholders for which you must substitute a name or value.

Changes in Oracle Big Data Appliance Release 4.13

Release 4.13 includes the following software revisions and new features.

Software Versions in This Release

  • Cloudera Enterprise 5.15.1, including CDH, Cloudera Manager, and Key Trustee, Sentry, Impala, Cloudera Search, Apache HBase, Apache Hive, Apache Spark 1.6.

    Note that Apache Spark 1.6 is deployed as shipped with CDH, but Mammoth also deploys Apache Spark 2 automatically. The Cloudera parcels for Kudu, Kafka, and Key Trustee Server are included for your convenience, but are not deployed or configured by default.

  • Oracle Big Data Connectors 4.12 (unchanged since last Oracle Big Data Appliance release).

  • Cloudera CDK Powered By Apache Kafka 3.1.0

  • Oracle NoSQL Database Enterprise Edition 18.1.11

  • Oracle Big Data SQL 3.2.1

  • Oracle NoSQL Community Edition 18.1.11

  • MySQL Enterprise Edition 5.7.23

  • Oracle R Advanced Analytics for Hadoop (ORAAH) 2.8.0

  • Oracle's R Distribution (ORD) 3.3.0

  • Oracle Big Data Spatial & Graph 2.5

  • Java JDK 8u181

  • ODI Agent 12.2.1.3.0

  • Oracle Linux 7 with UEK4 for new clusters. Oracle Linux 6 with UEK4 for Oracle Linux 6 cluster upgrades.

    Note:

    New Oracle Big Data Appliance racks are delivered with Oracle Linux 7.

    There is no in-place procedure for upgrading servers from Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7 at this time. However, you can reimage these servers to Oracle Linux 7 using the OL7 v4.10.0 BDA Base Image. This can be done on X3–2L to X6–2L servers. Sun Fire X4270 M2 servers cannot be re-imaged to Oracle Linux 7.

    All servers in existing clusters (not in newly delivered racks) where you are installing Oracle Big Datas Appliance 4.13 must first be updated to at least Oracle Big Data Appliance 4.10.0 before any X7–2L servers can be added as nodes in the cluster.

    See Oracle Big Data Appliance Patch Set Master Note (Doc ID 1485745.1) in My Oracle Support for the base image download and instructions.

About Oracle Big Data SQL 3.2.1

Release 3.2.1 is the first Oracle Big Data SQL release to support both Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and 12.1.0.2. This is the primary feature enhancement in release 3.2.1.

The same Oracle Big Data SQL 3.2.1 installation on a Hadoop cluster can connect to both Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and 12.1.0.2.

About Oracle Big Data Spatial and Graph 2.5

Release 2.5 includes the following changes:

  • Count action added to the Spatial Index in the Spark Vector API.

  • The multimedia analytics feature is deprecated.

About Oracle Big Data Discovery 1.6

Big Data Discovery 1.6 supports Oracle Big Data Appliance 4.13. You can download the installation files from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud (also known as eDelivery).

The procedures for installing and upgrading Big Data Discovery on Oracle Big Data Appliance have not changed with release 1.6. See Installing Oracle Big Data Discovery in the Oracle Big Data Appliance Owner’s Guide for installation instructions. (This procedure differs from the one described in the Oracle Big Data Discovery Installation Guide.)

For upgrades, follow the instructions in the Oracle Big Data Discovery Upgrade Guide.

About Perfect Balance

Perfect Balance is not included in Oracle Big Data Appliance 4.13. (This software was deprecated in previous releases.)

Disk Shredding for Secure Node Decommissioning

The The bdasecureerasenode utility securely erases all data partitions on the node where it is executed. This utility is based on shred command from the GNU Core Utilities. utility securely erases all data partitions on the node where it is executed. This utility is based on shred command from the GNU Core Utilities.

Users have the option to set the number of shred passes (three is the default). The output of the shred process is logged in /tmp.

Oracle Big Data Manager now Supports External Kerberos Key Distribution Centers

This extends Oracle Big Data Manager compatibility with Kerberos-secured cluster configurations in two ways.

  • Oracle Big Data Manager now supports AD Kerberos.

    In Oracle Big Data Appliance 4.12, Oracle Big Data Manager support for Kerberos-secured clusters was limited to MIT Kerberos.

  • Oracle Big Data Manager can now run on MIT Kerberos-secured clusters where KDCs are either internal or external to the appliance.

Extensibility and Automatic Upgrade for Kafka Clusters

Kafka clusters are now extensible. This feature was not available in Oracle Big Data Appliance 4.12.

The ./mammoth -e command is used to extend both CDH and Kafka clusters. See "Mammoth Options" in the Oracle Big Data Appliance Owner’s Guide for the description of mammoth -e and other options.

Pre-existing Kafka clusters are automatically upgraded to Kafka 3.1.0 during the Mammoth installation.

Note:

The bdacli admin_cluster operations (decommission, recommission, migrate, and reprovision) are not available for Kafka clusters in Oracle Big Data Appliance 4.13.

The Oracle Big Data Appliance Deployment Bundle no Longer Includes the Base Image

The bundle now includes Oracle Big Data Appliance components as RPMs only. The base image is no longer included. There are no changes in the steps you follow to unpack and deploy the bundle.

If you need the base image to bring existing servers up to the minimum release 4.10 base level, see Oracle Big Data Appliance Patch Set Master Note (Doc ID 1485745.1) in My Oracle Support.

SHA-2 Supported for Security Certificates Used with SSL

Oracle Big Data Appliance now supports SHA-2 (specifically, the SHA256, SHA384 and SHA512 Cryptographic Hash Algorithms) for signing SSL certificates.

Active Directory Kerberos on Oracle Big Data Appliance no Longer Requires an SSL Certificate

In this release of Oracle Big Datas Appliance, both the Mammoth installer and the bdacli enable ad_kerberos command enable AD Kerberos without the need of an SSL certificate. AD Kerberos can be enabled whether /opt/oracle/BDAMammoth/active_directory.cer is present or not .

Customers have the option to add an AD Kerberos SSL certificate. Both SHA-1 and SHA-2 are supported.

See Also:

The following documents provide comprehensive information on installing, configuring, and upgrading AD Kerberos on Oracle Big Data Appliance.

Recent Change History Prior to Oracle Big Data Appliance 4.13

Appendix G in the Oracle Big Data Appliance Owner’s Guide describes changes in the previous release, 4.12. If you are upgrading from an older version of Oracle Big Data Appliance, then it may be informative to read this change summary.