1. Installation and Configuration Guide for Exadata Database Machine
  2. Configuring Oracle Exadata Database Machine
  3. Imaging a New System
  4. Using Elastic Configuration to Image a New System

6.12.2 Using Elastic Configuration to Image a New System

Elastic configuration is now the standard methodology for all new deployments, and applies to Oracle Exadata X4-8 and later servers.

You can also use elastic configuration to add additional database servers or cells to an existing configuration. The process allows initial IP addresses to be assigned to database servers and cells, regardless of the exact customer configuration ordered.

Elastic configuration is only applicable to machines shipped from the factory (or to machines imaged exactly to mimic that) and only for X4-8 or later systems. You can run elastic configuration at the first time of deployment, and when adding new factory-built components to a rack. You cannot use elastic configuration to configure or reconfigure systems. It is recommended that you use elastic configuration only with machines shipped from the factory for first-time deployment.

To prepare a new Exadata system for deployment using the elastic configuration method, perform the following steps:

  1. Download the latest version of Oracle Exadata Deployment Assistant (OEDA).

  2. Run the OEDA configuration tool to generate the configuration files.

  3. Power on all the servers.

    1. Database nodes and cells will automatically assign to themselves unused IP addresses on eth0 in the 172.16.* range.

    2. Host names of the nodes will be of the format nodeN, where N is a number.

  4. If you are using Oracle VM, then, before you run the OEDA installation tool, run switch_to_ovm.sh on each database server. The database servers will reboot. If you are using physical deployment and not virtualized deployment, then you can skip this step.

    For example:

    # /opt/oracle.SupportTools/switch_to_ovm.sh
2014-12-07 11:58:36 -0800 [INFO] Switch to DOM0 system partition /dev/VGExaDb/LVDbSys3 (/dev/mapper/VGExaDb-LVDbSys3)
2014-12-07 11:58:36 -0800 [INFO] Active system device: /dev/mapper/VGExaDb-LVDbSys1
2014-12-07 11:58:36 -0800 [INFO] Active system device in boot area: /dev/mapper/VGExaDb-LVDbSys1
2014-12-07 11:58:36 -0800 [INFO] Set active systen device to /dev/VGExaDb/LVDbSys3 in /boot/I_am_hd_boot
2014-12-07 11:58:36 -0800 [INFO] Reboot has been initiated to switch to the DOM0 system partition

  5. On systems with InfiniBand Network Fabric only, run /opt/oracle.SupportTools/reclaimdisks.sh -free -reclaim on each database server before installing any software.

    The command reclaims disk space reserved for the deployment type not selected, which is not required on RoCE-based Exadata database servers.

    The command typically takes less than 5 minutes.

    Caution:

    Do not skip this step. Skipping this step results in unused space that can no longer be reclaimed by reclaimdisks.sh. 
    # /opt/oracle.SupportTools/reclaimdisks.sh -free -reclaim
Model is ORACLE SERVER X5-2
Number of LSI controllers: 1
Physical disks found: 4 (252:0 252:1 252:2 252:3)
Logical drives found: 1
...
[INFO     ] Copying /usr/share/grub/x86_64-redhat/* to /boot/grub ...
[INFO     ] Create filesystem on device /dev/sda1
[INFO     ] Tune filesystem on device /dev/sda1

GNU GRUB  version 0.97  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename.]
grub> root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
grub> setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
 Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0) /grub/stage2 p /grub/grub.conf "... succeeded
Done.
grub> quit

  6. Apply your specific configuration to the nodes by running the applyElasticConfig.sh script that is supplied with OEDA.

  7. Run ibhosts and verify that all nodes show the correct IP addresses and host names. There should be no nodes with elasticNode in the description.

  8. Run the OEDA tool to deploy, supplying the name of the configuration file generated by OEDA.

    For example, if your rack is named exadm01, then you would use the following command: 

    [root] # ./install.sh -cf ../exadm01.xml -l
1. Validate Configuration File
2. Setup Capacity-on-Demand
3. Create Virtual Machine  
4. Create Users  
5. Setup Cell Connectivity  
6. Create Cell Disks  
7. Create Grid Disks  
8. Configure Alerting  
9. Install Cluster Software  
10. Initialize Cluster Software  
11. Install Database Software  
12. Relink Database with RDS  
13. Create ASM Diskgroups  
14. Create Databases  
15. Apply Security Fixes  
16. Install Exachk  
17. Setup ASR Alerting  
18. Create Installation Summary  
19. Resecure Machine

Parent topic: Imaging a New System