2 Preparing for Oracle Database Appliance Installation and Deployment

Complete these setup tasks before Oracle Database Appliance is delivered.

Tasks:

• Registering Your Support Identifier on My Oracle Support
  Add your hardware Support Identifier (SI) to your My Oracle Support account profile.
• Planning Oracle Database Appliance Configuration Options
  Use these topics to help you to make decisions about your Oracle Database Appliance configuration.
• Gathering System Requirement Information
  Use these checklists to collect information before deploying Oracle Database Appliance.

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

Use these topics to help you to make decisions about your Oracle Database Appliance configuration.

These topics help you to select the correct Oracle Database Appliance and plan for deployment. Record your decisions and the information that you require before you proceed to complete system configuration checklists.

Caution:

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.

Topics:

• Selecting Database Deployment Options for Oracle Database Appliance
  If you plan to create an initial database during deployment, then use these lists to select an Oracle Database deployment option, and prepare for the deployment.
• 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.
• Calculating Required Cores
  After you select templates for your planned Oracle Database, identify your workload type, and determine the total number of CPUs that you require to support the templates.
• 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.

Selecting Database Deployment Options for Oracle Database Appliance

If you plan to create an initial database during deployment, then use these lists to select an Oracle Database deployment option, and prepare for the deployment.

Oracle Appliance Manager installs Oracle Database software on mirrored disks that are internal to Oracle Database Appliance. During the initial deployment, you can either create a database or you can defer database creation to a later time.

Options:

• Enterprise Edition: Oracle Database 18c Enterprise Edition (no automated failover), with the following characteristics:

  • Single-instance Oracle Database Enterprise Edition home

  • Oracle Database software installation on both nodes

• Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) One Node: Oracle RAC One Node 18c, with the following characteristics:

  • Oracle RAC One Node has a designated Oracle Database Appliance home node

  • Oracle RAC One Node software is installed on both servers

  • Automated failover is configured

  • Enterprise Edition license is required

  • Oracle RAC One Node license on each server is required

    Exception: If you designate one server as a backup server, then you can use that server without a license, in accordance with the 10-day rule.

• Oracle RAC: Oracle Real Application Clusters 18c, with the following characteristics:

  • Oracle RAC home

  • Oracle RAC software is installed on both servers

  • Enterprise Edition license is required

  • Oracle RAC license on each server is required (not eligible for the 10-day rule)

Note:

For information about the 10-day rule, see the Oracle Software Investment Guide at https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/.

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.

Calculating Required Cores

After you select templates for your planned Oracle Database, identify your workload type, and determine the total number of CPUs that you require to support the templates.

Oracle Database Appliance templates are configured and tuned for specific types of Oracle Database workloads:

• Generic templates

• Online analytic transaction templates (OLTP)

• Decision support services templates (DSS)

• In-Memory database templates

These templates are designed to run on a specific number of cores. Caging ensures that each database workload is restricted to the set of cores allocated by the template, enabling multiple databases to run concurrently with no performance degradation, up to the capacity of Oracle Database Appliance. You can select database template sizes larger than your current needs to provide for planned growth, which you accommodate later by adjusting System Global Area (SGA) and Program Global Area (PGA) sizes, as well as the number of cores.

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.

Gathering System Requirement Information

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

• List of Information You Need Before Deployment
  Collect storage and network information required to prepare for deploying Oracle Database Appliance.
• 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.
• Checklist for Custom Network Address Configuration
  Use the checklist to identify the IP addresses required for Oracle Database Appliance.

List of Information You Need Before Deployment

Collect storage and network information required to prepare for deploying Oracle Database Appliance.

Review your security requirements for root passwords, determine your storage requirements and network administration requirements, and complete any required configuration before your Oracle Database Appliance hardware is delivered.

Security Requirements

• 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 includes integrated storage for operational files (operating system, Oracle Grid Infrastructure home, Oracle Database homes, tools), user data (database files), and log files (database redo logs). Operational files are stored on mirrored internal system disks in each server.

Data and database redo log files are stored on shared disks:

• On Oracle Database Appliance X5-2, data files are stored in the storage shelf and the optional storage expansion shelf. Database redo log files are stored on solid-state drives (SSDs) in the storage shelf, and on the optional storage expansion shelf.

Oracle Database Appliance X5-2 contains four 400 GB SSDs, which are configured as an ASM disk group, using ACFS for an additional database cache. Also, on Oracle Database Appliance X5-2, four 200 GB SSDs are used for attribute caching, in addition to the database redo logs.

Note:

Oracle Database Appliance X5-2 ships with 4 TB shared disks. Disk hardware capacity is measured using the formula that 1 KB equals 1,000 bytes; software storage requirements are based on 1 KB equals 1,024 bytes. This difference of 24 bytes means that a disk that has a rated capacity of 4 TB actually has about 3.725 TB of available space for software storage.

Network Administration Requirements

Ensure that the names and addresses that you provide for network configuration are configured in your Domain Name System (DNS) servers. With Patch Set 1 and later, 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.

If you are deploying Oracle Database Appliance X5-2 or X4-2, then you have the option to connect either to a copper, or to a fiber public network. To connect to a fiber network on Oracle Database Appliance X5-2, you must also replace the InfiniBand cards with 10 GbE SFP+ fiber cards. 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.

A correctly configured Oracle Database 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

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 for each node. This interface is bond0, or Eth1 on Oracle Database Appliance Virtualized Platform, (a bond of Eth2 and Eth3), which is used for the host IP address for the node.

If you select a Custom installation, then provide names and addresses for the following optional interfaces that you need:

• bond1 (Ethernet bond): This applies to all Oracle Database Appliance platforms.

• bond2 (Ethernet bond): This applies only to Oracle Database Appliance Version 1.

• xbond0 (for high capacity transfers, such as backups): This applies only to Oracle Database Appliance Version 1.

Use bond1 and bond2 for management, backup, disaster recovery, or other options where you require a network interface. Be prepared to provide a netmask and a gateway for each interface, as both are required when you configure network connections for Oracle Database Appliance.

Also determine answers to the following questions:

• 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.

IP Address Questions to Ask Your Network Administrator

Confirm with your network administrator that the IP addresses that you configure for Oracle Database Appliance meet these three criteria:

1. They are static IP addresses.

2. They are on the same subnet as all other IP addresses, virtual IP (VIP) addresses (used for Oracle Real Application Clusters communication), and SCAN addresses.

3. They include the following:

   • One public IP address configured on the DNS server for each node and resolvable to that node before installation.

   • A VIP address for each node configured on the DNS server that is not currently in use.

   • SCANs for Oracle Database Appliance with the following characteristics:

     • Configured on the DNS server before installation, so that the two IP addresses are associated with the name provided as the SCAN, and both addresses are returned in random order to the requester by the DNS server

     • Configured on the DNS server before installation to resolve to addresses that are not currently in use

     • Have names that do not begin with a numeral

Caution:

Do not change the IP addresses and subnet for the private network.

Note:

Configuring SCANs in a Network Information Service (NIS) is not supported.

Additional Information

See Oracle Database Appliance Owner's Guide for information about replacing the InfiniBand cards with 10 GbE SFP+ fiber cards. For a comprehensive introduction to SCANs, see "Oracle Single Client Access Name (SCAN)", a technical paper on Oracle Technology, and Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide for Linux.

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
Oracle Database Appliance System Name	Provide the name for the cluster running on Oracle Database Appliance. This name is also used as the default root word for Oracle Database Appliance network addresses. The name must be unique across your enterprise, must be at least one character long and no more than 13 characters in length, must be alpha-numeric, cannot begin with a numeral, and may contain hyphens (-). Underscore characters (_) are not allowed. The name you choose will become the default first part of the names for the following items. The default (generated names) can be changed. Oracle ILOM host names for Nodes 1 and 2 (systemname1-ilom and systemname2-ilom respectively) SCAN host name (systemname-scan) Node 0 and Node 1 Public IP addresses (systemname1 and systemname2 respectively) Node 0 and Node 1 Virtual IP addresses (systemname1-vip and systemname2-vip respectively) The name should comply with the host name specifications described in the RFC 952 standard.
Type of Configuration	Typical, which has the most default values. Custom (recommended by Oracle), which allows you to override default values for any or all of the following: Database block size, language, territory, backup file location, or disk redundancy level for the DATA and RECO disk groups Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (Oracle ILOM) server Oracle Auto Service Request (Oracle ASR) configuration Oracle Cloud File System mount point and file system size Network Time Protocol (NTP) service server
Mode	Bare metal or virtualized platform
Region	Select the region where you plan to operate the Oracle Database Appliance system.
Timezone	Select the time zone where you plan to operate the Oracle Database Appliance system.
Initial Database Details (if you want to create one during deployment)	Database name Normal or container database Class (database template) Database language Database deployment (Oracle Enterprise Edition single instance, Oracle RAC One Node, or Oracle RAC) (Container databases only) Data file size, in gigabytes (GB)
Root password	You are prompted to provide a root password for the system. Ensure that the root password you provide is in compliance with common security practices.

Note:

Oracle recommends that you use all lowercase characters for the host name. The names are generated from the system name. For example, if you use mysystem as the name of your system, then the derived host names are mysystem0 and mysystem1; the derived host virtual IP names are mysystem0-vip and mysystem1-vip; and the ILOM names are mysystem0-ilom and mysystem1-ilom.

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	InfiniBand has bonded interface ibbond0 . The system configures icbond0 on non-InfiniBand High-Availability systems. The subnet 192.168.16.0/24 is configured.	Not applicable: the private addresses are defined before deployment and should not be changed