1.2 Components

The Oracle PCA consists of a Sun Rack II 1242 base, populated with the hardware components identified in Figure 1.1.

Server Nodes

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance base racks are factory installed with the latest supported generation of server nodes. Earlier generations of the Oracle PCA server architecture continue to be supported by the Oracle PCA controller software. If additional nodes have been installed, or if nodes have been replaced, an Oracle PCA rack can be populated with a mix of supported servers. Besides the marginal performance increase offered by a newer server architecture, there is no functional difference between the server generations within the Oracle PCA environment.

Currently supported server architectures are:

  • Oracle Server X7-2: software release 2.3.2 or newer

  • Oracle Server X6-2: software release 2.2.1 or newer

  • Oracle Server X5-2: software release 2.0.3 or newer

  • Sun Server X4-2: software release 1.1.3 or newer

  • Sun Server X3-2: since initial release

When you order expansion compute nodes, you receive the latest available generation.

The Oracle PCA Controller Software must be upgraded to the correct version to support the hardware installed in your environment.

Internal Storage Appliance

The initial version of the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, the X3-2 base rack, was shipped with the Sun ZFS Storage Appliance 7320. This hardware component was replaced with the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS3-ES in racks shipping with appliance software Release 1.1.3. In racks shipped with appliance software Release 2.3.3 or newer, the internal storage is now provided by an Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS5-ES.

Software support for the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS5-ES is available as of Release 2.3.3. All subsequent software releases continue to support the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS3-ES and Sun ZFS Storage Appliance 7320.

Figure 1.1 Components of an Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Rack

Figure showing the components installed in a fully populated base rack. The letters in the figure correspond with the entries in the Figure Legend table below.

Table 1.1 Figure Legend

Item

Quantity

Description

A

1

Either Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS5-ES, Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS3-ES, or Sun ZFS Storage Appliance 7320

B

2

Either Oracle Server X5-2, Sun Server X4-2, or Sun Server X3-2, used as management nodes

C

2-25

Either Oracle Server X7-2, Oracle Server X6-2, Oracle Server X5-2, Sun Server X4-2, or Sun Server X3-2, used as virtualization compute nodes

(Due to the higher power requirements of the Oracle Server X7-2, Oracle Server X6-2 and Oracle Server X5-2, if the appliance is equipped with 22kVA PDUs, the maximum number of compute nodes is 23.)

D

2

Oracle Fabric Interconnect F1-15

E

2

NM2-36P Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Expansion Switch

F

2

Oracle Switch ES1-24


At the software level, Oracle PCA leverages the virtualization technology of Oracle VM and Oracle Virtual Networking. Management, including updates, of the underlying hardware and software is orchestrated and largely automated by the Oracle PCA controller software.