About the Components of TimesTen Database for OKE

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TimesTen

Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database is the world's fastest OLTP database. It is a relational in-memory database with a rich feature set. TimesTen supports SQL, standard APIs, complete ACID properties, and highly available replication mechanisms. A TimesTen database resides entirely in physical memory and is persistent and recoverable. By managing data in memory and optimizing data structures and access algorithms, database operations run efficiently, achieving dramatic gains in responsiveness and throughput.

You can deploy TimesTen as a standalone database. You can use the TimesTen Operator to deploy, manage, and monitor your TimesTen databases in a Kubernetes environment.

OKE

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Kubernetes Engine is a fully managed, scalable, and highly available service that you can use to deploy your containerized applications to the cloud. You specify the compute resources that your applications require, and OKE provisions them on OCI in an existing tenancy. OKE uses Kubernetes to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications across clusters of hosts.

TimesTen Database for OKE creates a managed node pool on your pre-existing OKE cluster and deploys the TimesTen Operator on either an existing worker node or in one of the worker nodes from the new node pool.

TimesTen Operator

The TimesTen Kubernetes Operator has several key features to assist with managing TimesTen databases in a Kubernetes environment. A TimesTen database is modeled as a custom resource in the Kubernetes configuration file. The TimesTen Operator creates, manages, and monitors TimesTen Classic databases in both of the following topologies:

Active standby pair replication scheme.
Non-replicated configuration.

Marketplace

Oracle Cloud Marketplace is an online store that offers a catalog of listings from approved and registered publishers. You can use Marketplace to find an image, stack, container image, helm chart, and more, and deploy it on OCI.

TimesTen Database for OKE consists of a stack listing to deploy the TimesTen Operator. The TimesTen Operator enables you to deploy TimesTen databases as a system of record.

Resource Manager

Resource Manager is a service that uses Terraform to provision, update, and destroy a collection of related cloud resources as a single unit called a stack.

TimesTen Database for OKE uses Resource Manager to perform the following operations:

If the Kubernetes API endpoint or the worker nodes of the specified OKE cluster are in private subnets, sets up a temporary Bastion.
Creates a managed node pool in your OKE cluster with the specified number of worker nodes.
Uses the provided Kubernetes Secret for Oracle Container Registry to pull the latest TimesTen container image into a temporary host in Resource Manager.
Creates a temporary Podman container for the TimesTen container image and extracts the ttcrd, ttoperator, and ttclassic Helm charts.
Installs the TimesTen Custom Resource Definition (CRD) using the ttcrd Helm chart.
Creates a custom YAML file for the ttoperator Helm chart.
Deploys the TimesTen Operator in the specified namespace using the custom YAML file and the ttoperator Helm chart.
Deletes all temporary resources.

Oracle Container Registry

Oracle Container Registry is a repository of Docker containers for easy access to Oracle products.

TimesTen Database for OKE uses Oracle Container Registry to pull the latest TimesTen container image for the architecture specified. The stack uses the TimesTen container image to deploy the TimesTen Operator in your OKE cluster.

VCN and Subnets

A virtual cloud network (VCN) is a customizable, software-defined network that you set up in an OCI region. Like traditional data center networks, VCNs give you control over your network environment. A VCN can have multiple non-overlapping CIDR blocks that you can change after you create the VCN. You can segment a VCN into subnets, which can be scoped to a region or to an availability domain. Each subnet consists of a contiguous range of addresses that don't overlap with the other subnets in the VCN. You can change the size of a subnet after creation. A subnet can be public or private.

You can configure TimesTen Database for OKE to either use the same subnet for the Pods containing the TimesTen Operator and TimesTen databases as the worker nodes or use a different subnet.

Bastion

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Bastion provides restricted and time-limited secure access to resources that do not have public endpoints and that require strict resource access controls, such as Autonomous Transaction Processing (ATP), OKE, and any other resource that allows Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) access. With Bastion service, you can enable access to private hosts without deploying and maintaining a jump host. In addition, you gain improved security posture with identity-based permissions and a centralized, audited, and time-bound SSH session. Bastion removes the need for a public IP for bastion access, eliminating the hassle and potential attack surface when providing remote access.

To deploy the TimesTen Operator, TimesTen Database for OKE must be able to access your OKE cluster. If the Kubernetes API endpoint is in a private subnet, the stack creates a temporary Bastion plus all the underlying resources needed to access the Kubernetes API endpoint. The stack uses these temporary resources only to access the Kubernetes API endpoint for the sole purpose of deploying the TimesTen Operator in your OKE cluster. The stack does not access any other resource that may be available through the private subnet. The stack deletes all temporary resources after it completes all the tasks associated with deploying the TimesTen Operator in your OKE cluster.

Block Volume

With block storage volumes, you can create, attach, connect, and move storage volumes, and change volume performance to meet your storage, performance, and application requirements. After you attach and connect a volume to an instance, you can use the volume like a regular hard drive. You can also disconnect a volume and attach it to another instance without losing data.

The TimesTen Operator creates a persistent volume claim (PVC) for each Pod containing a TimesTen database. Persistent volume claims must request a minimum of 50 gigabytes.

Compute

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute service enables you to provision and manage compute hosts in the cloud. You can launch compute instances with shapes that meet your resource requirements for CPU, memory, network bandwidth, and storage. After creating a compute instance, you can access it securely, restart it, attach and detach volumes, and terminate it when you no longer need it.

TimesTen Database for OKE enables you to select the shape of the compute instances for the worker nodes that hold the TimesTen databases.

Cloud Guard

You can use Oracle Cloud Guard to monitor and maintain the security of your resources in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Cloud Guard uses detector recipes that you can define to examine your resources for security weaknesses and to monitor operators and users for certain risky activities. When any misconfiguration or insecure activity is detected, Cloud Guard recommends corrective actions and assists with taking those actions, based on responder recipes that you can define.

Load Balancer

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Load Balancing service provides automated traffic distribution from a single entry point to multiple servers in the back end.