1. Installation, Migration, and Upgrade Guide
  2. Overview of the Installation Process in TimesTen Classic
  3. Overview of Installations and Instances

Overview of Installations and Instances

This section discusses these topics:

Note:

TimesTen release numbers are reflected in items such as TimesTen utility output, file names, and directory names. These change with every minor or patch release, and the documentation cannot always be up to date. The documentation seeks primarily to show the basic form of output, file names, directory names, and other code that may include release numbers. You can confirm the current release number by reviewing the Release Notes or by running the ttVersion utility.

Distribution Media

The TimesTen product is packaged into distribution media that you download. For each supported platform, TimesTen is packaged into one distribution. A distribution consists of a single ZIP file.

The distribution differs depending on the platform:

  • On a Linux/UNIX 64-bit host: The distribution file name indicates the release number, the type of distribution, and the platform. For example, for release 22.1.1.25.0 on a Linux 64-bit host, the distribution file name is timesten2211250.server.linux8664.zip or timesten2211250.server.linuxarm64.zip depending on whether you are using Oracle Linux for Intel and AMD or Oracle Linux for Arm. Use either file to install the full product or the client.

    The examples in this book use an Oracle Linux for Intel and AMD distribution (for example, timesten2211250.server.linux8664.zip), but are applicable to Oracle Linux for Arm.

  • On a Linux 32-bit host:

    • The distribution file name indicates the release number, the type of distribution, and the platform. For example, for release 22.1.1.25.0, the distribution file name is timesten.2211250.client.linux86.zip.

    • There is one distribution that contains the TimesTen client. Only the TimesTen client is supported on a Linux 32-bit host.

  • On a macOS host:

    • The distribution file name indicates the release number, the type of distribution, and the platform. For example, for release 22.1.1.25.0, the distribution file name is timesten.2211250.client.macos64.zip.

    • There is one distribution that contains the TimesTen client. Only the TimesTen client is supported on a macOS host.

  • On a Windows host:

    • The distribution file name indicates the release number and platform. For example, timesten2211250.win64.zip.

    • There is one distribution that contains the TimesTen client. Only the TimesTen client is supported on Windows.

Instance Administrator

On a Linux, UNIX or macOS host, the instance administrator is the operating system user who extracts the distribution. When the instance administrator extracts the distribution, a TimesTen installation is created. See TimesTen Installations for information on TimesTen installations. The instance administrator also plays a role in instances. See TimesTen Instances for information.

On a Windows host, the instance administrator is the operating system user who extracts the distribution and runs the installer.

Note that the instance administrator:

  • Cannot be the root user

  • Has the operating system permissions to read all files and to execute all executable files in the installation

  • Must be a member of the TimesTen users group. (See Understanding the TimesTen Users Group for information.)

TimesTen Installations

An installation is the set of files installed on the host from the distribution. The installation directory is the directory under which the installation is created.

The instance administrator is the only user who can delete the installation.

Note:

  • Installations are read-only. Do not add, alter, or remove files or directories within the installation.

  • TimesTen does not maintain any inventory of installations.

  • File path names containing multibyte characters are not supported.

These sections provide additional information:

Installations on Linux or UNIX

For installations on a Linux/UNIX 64-bit host:

  • On a Linux host, a full installation or a client installation is supported for TimesTen Scaleout and for TimesTen Classic.

  • On a UNIX host, a full installation or a client installation is supported for TimesTen Classic only.

  • Multiple instances may share a single installation.

See "Creating an Installation on Linux/UNIX" for information.

For installations on a Linux 32-bit host: A client-only installation is supported. The TimesTen client can connect to a database in either TimesTen Scaleout or in TimesTen Classic. See "Creating a TimesTen Client Installation" for information.

Installations on macOS

A client-only installation is supported on a macOS host. The TimesTen client can connect to a database in either TimesTen Scaleout or in TimesTen Classic.

See "Creating a TimesTen Client Installation" for information.

Installations on Windows

On Windows, after you extract the ZIP file, the instance administrator must run the setup.exe installer from the WIN64 subdirectory. This process creates a single installation and a single instance. No additional instances can be created.

The TimesTen client can connect to databases in either TimesTen Scaleout or in TimesTen Classic running on a separate Linux or UNIX server.

See "Creating an Installation on Windows" for information.

TimesTen Instances

An instance refers to either:

  • A running TimesTen daemon (timestend) and its children and associated processes, along with the configuration files and other supporting files required for its operation (full instance)

  • A set of configuration files and other supporting files required for the use of TimesTen clients (client-only instance)

Each instance has an instance home. This is the top level of directory structure associated with the instance and represented in this document as timesten_home. See "Instance Home" for information. A full instance can manage one or more databases. A client instance cannot have a database itself. Multiple instances can run from a single installation. TimesTen does not maintain an inventory of instances on a host and does not maintain an inventory of all instances associated with a particular installation.

On a Windows host, there is one instance in an installation that is created automatically during installation. The instance name is instance.

The role of the instance administrator for instances is as follows:

  • The instance administrator for a full instance creates and manages databases, loads databases into memory and from memory, modifies and destroys the instance, performs all management activities, and performs backup and restore operations.

  • The instance administrator for a client instance creates, modifies and destroys the instance.

  • On a Linux, UNIX, or macOS host:

    • The instance administrator is also the only user who can create the instance (by running the ttInstanceCreate utility) and is the instance administrator for all instances created from this installation.

    • You cannot change the instance administrator after that administrator creates the installation or the instance.

    • The ttInstanceCreate utility enforces that the instance administrator cannot create the instance within the TimesTen installation tree. See "ttInstanceCreate" in the Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database Reference for information on the ttInstanceCreate utility.

  • On a Windows host:

    • The instance administrator is the operating system user who extracts the distribution and runs the installer. There is no ttInstanceCreate utility on Windows. This instance administrator is the instance administrator for the instance.

    • The one installation and the single instance must have the same owner (the instance administrator).

    • An instance has a single instance administrator, who is the user who created the instance.

    • You cannot change the instance administrator after that administrator runs the installer.

Instance Home

On a Linux, UNIX, or macOS host: The instance home is a directory that is created when the instance administrator runs the ttInstanceCreate utility.

On a Windows host: The instance home is a directory that is created as a result of the instance administrator running the installer.

This directory is owned by the instance administrator.

The instance home contains all the files that are configured specifically for the instance. It is indicated by timesten_home in the TimesTen documentation.

There are two types of instance home directories.

Either:

  • Full instance home: Supports the full use of TimesTen, including the server and direct mode. It must be a local directory to the host on which the instance runs.

  • Client-only instance home: Provides the files required to run TimesTen clients and is created when TimesTen is configured for client-only use. It must be a local directory to the host on which the instance runs.

On a Linux, UNIX, or macOS host: Users of a particular TimesTen instance must set their environment by sourcing ttenv.sh or ttenv.csh (where which you use depends on your shell) provided in each instance. See "Environment Variables" for more information.

On a Windows host: You can either register the environment variables during the installation process for a persistent setting or you can execute the ttenv.bat file. See "Create an Installation on Windows" and "Environment Variables" for details.

Note:

  • A single instance home cannot be shared by more than one instance.

  • The instance home includes symbolic links to the associated installation.

Instance Configuration File (timesten.conf)

The instance configuration file defines the attributes of the TimesTen instance. It resides in the timesten_home/conf directory and is named timesten.conf. The file is an ASCII text file, consisting of name=value pairs, one pair per line.

Here is a sample configuration file for a full instance. Comments are indicated by "#". 

# TimesTen Instance Configuration File
# Created by ttInstanceCreate
hostname=host1
timesten_release=22.1
instance_name=instance1
daemon_port=6624
server_port=6625
tns_admin=
admin_user=myadmin
admin_uid=12345
group_name=ttgroup
instance_guid=39734D8C-E59A-4164-A77D-FC4327FF9496
verbose=1

Some of these values are known or provided by TimesTen, others are according to your choices or specifications during installation or instance creation or modification.

For complete information about this file, see TimesTen Instance Configuration File in the Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database Reference.