Preface

This guide describes Oracle Big Data Appliance, which is used for acquiring, organizing, and analyzing very large data sets. It includes information about hardware operations, site planning and configuration, and physical, electrical, and environmental specifications.

This preface contains the following topics:

Audience

This guide is intended for Oracle Big Data Appliance customers and those responsible for data center site planning, installation, configuration, and maintenance of Oracle Big Data Appliance.

Documentation Accessibility

For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc.

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.

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 5.2

Release 5.2 includes the following new features, software revisions, and other changes.

Cloudera 6.3.4 Support

Oracle Big Data Appliance 5.2 is based on Cloudera Enterprise 6.3.4. See the Cloudera web site for details about release 6.3.4.

Supported Upgrades

You can upgrade to Oracle Big Data Appliance Release 5.2 directly from Releases 4.12, 14.13, 4.14, and 5.1.

There are important prerequisites to fulfill before you can do the upgrade. See Upgrading the Software on Oracle Big Data Appliance in this guide for the prerequisites, the upgrade procedure, and some known issues.

Note:

Upgrade to Big Data Appliance 5.2 is supported for pre-existing Oracle Linux 6 clusters, but there is no option to create new Oracle Linux 6 clusters in the release.

Rolling Upgrades

Rolling upgrades (where nodes are upgraded one-after-the-other and downtime is avoided) are generally an option in Oracle Big Data Appliance releases. Rolling upgrades from Big Data Appliance 5.1 to 5.2 are supported. However, this option is not currently available for upgrades from Big Data Appliance 4.x releases to release 5.2. An upgrade from a 4.x release will require some cluster downtime.

Support for Migration from Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7

Big Data Appliance 5.2 includes support for migrating cluster nodes from Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7.

Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7 migration is supported in releases 4.13 and greater. For any of these releases you can perform a migration from Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7 either before or after the upgrade to Big Data Appliance 5.2. However, in the case of Big Data Appliance 4.13, if you choose to migrate to Oracle Linux 7 it is recommended that you perform the migration after the upgrade to Big Data Appliance 5.2. This is because some improvements to the process were introduced after release 4.13.

See:

Migrating from Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7 in this guide.

High Availability for HiveServer2 and Oozie Roles

For new Big Data Appliance 5.2 clusters only, HA HiverServer2 and HA Oozie are set up by default in the Mammoth installation. There is also an option to provide HA for the load balancer that handles traffic for these roles.

In clusters upgraded to 5.2 from earlier releases, High Availability cannot be provided for HiveServer2 and Oozie. This results in some differences in the role layouts between new and upgraded clusters.

Before You Create a New Cluster:

See For New Clusters: High Availability HiveServer2 and Oozie. This topic explains how High Availability works for these roles and shows the differences in role distribution between new and upgraded clusters.

Also see the Virtual IP Address (optional) subsection of Chapter 4: Using Oracle Big Data Appliance Configuration Generation Utility. This explains how to implement High Availability for the load balancer.

X8-2L Server Support

Big Data Appliance 5.2 racks are shipped with X8-2L servers, with the base image pre-installed. The OS level is Oracle Linux 7. Earlier server models are also supported.

You can integrate X8-2L servers into existing clusters consisting of X7-2L, X6-2L, and X5-2L servers. To do so, first ensure that the existing nodes of the cluster are running Big Data Appliance release 4.10 or higher.

X8 racks can be integrated into multirack configurations with existing X7, X6, or X5 racks.

Oracle Big Data SQL 4.1

Big Data SQL 4.1 is included as an optional package with the Big Data Appliance 5.2 release. Big Data SQL supports queries against non-relational data stored in multiple big data sources, including Apache Hive, HDFS, Oracle NoSQL Database, Apache Kafka, Apache HBase, and other NoSQL databases, as well as the Amazon S3 and Oracle Object Store.

A license is required in order to install Big Data SQL on Big Data Appliance. No additional license is required for the Oracle Database side of the installation. See the Oracle Big Data Appliance Licensing Information User Manual for details on licensing requirements.

Big Data SQL components must be installed on both Hadoop and Oracle Database. The Oracle Big Data SQL Installation Guide provides instructions for both parts of the installation, including generic instructions for installing the product on several supported Hadoop frameworks. However, on Oracle Big Data Appliance, most of the Hadoop-side installation is integrated with Mammoth, the Big Data Appliance installer. Installing Oracle Big Data SQL in this guide explains what is different about the Hadoop-side installation of Big Data SQL on Big Data Appliance.

Audience

Documentation Accessibility

Related Documentation

Conventions

Backus-Naur Form Syntax

Changes in Oracle Big Data Appliance Release 5.2