Oracle Database Pre-Requisites Package

Oracle Database Pre-Requisites Package

Abstract:

The Oracle RDBMS Database has long been a tool on UNIX platforms. With the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle has drawn the Solaris operating system closer to it's orbit. One such change was to make a "pre-requisites" package in Solaris 11, to simplify installation of the RDBMS. There is a caution, if you already have standardized on user & group names for database usage.

Solaris Pre-Requisites

I was not going to write anything about this, but it appears that even other skilled engineers have run into problems with the automation of the Solaris Pre-Requisites package. I had seen a blog post from Alan, who graciously provided a solution when deploying hundreds of systems automatically.

sun9876/root# pkg install oracle-database-preinstall-19c

Alan struggled with ZFS Filesystems being created for new users by the pre-requisites script, before the user filesystems were mounted. This is not the only place where ZFS Filesystems being created for users are a problem, this author experienced several other conditions, one such condition kept a production system from coming up when the id's were scrambled by another such script.

This author filed a BUG to stop creating a ZFS File System for every user created. We have hundreds of users on some of our servers, so this ZFS feature was an inhibition to moving from Solaris 10 to 11. If you enable this feature in 11.4, you might be able to avoid the "avoid" that Alan had to use, if you don't mind the user & group id's being re-created.

Not all data centers deploy hundreds of Oracle DB's simultaneously. This author kept the pre-requisites script, but the default nature "blew away" our old user & group id's, adjusted ownership, and it was a nightmare. Procedures and scripts were built to undo everything that the pre-requisites package did with the id's & home dirctory, including returning the oracle user & dba groups back to their original ID's, correcting user & group ownership in /export/home, and then correcting the passwd, shadow, and group database. What a nightmare!

Conclusions

Honestly, it should be considered a BUG to rip out user & group names if those user & group names already exist, as a package overwrites them. After doing some DBA reading (this author is a systems guy first now a days) and do what the DBA's request of me, I found they missed a step which was to perform an "avoid" in order to avoid wiping out existing user & group id's for replacement, prior the preinstallation!

sun9876/root# pkg avoid oracle-database-os-configuration

There should NEVER be the need to perform an "avoid" from doing likely harm, but rather the package should be smart enough to realize id's exist and use them as defaults... and use an "avoid" clause, or something similar, so the "check" can be avoided and selectively allow the dangerous "blowing away & replacing" behavior.

Another piece of advise is to always perform a "dry-run" of an installation, before adding a package you are not aware of.

sun9876/root# pkg install -n oracle-database-preinstall-19c 

The dry run will show details that need to be understood, before applying an actual package later.

Revisited: Oracle Database Licensing

Revisited: Oracle Database Licensing

Abstract:
Oracle licenses it's RDBMS by several factors, typically the Standard License (by socket) and an Enterprise License (by core scaling factor.) Occasionally, hardware and operating system vendors will enhance their offerings, requiring a revisit by database vendors to expand their legal categorizations for licensing. Oracle's guiding documents are readily available on-line.

Reason for Revisit:
Sun had produced several virtualization technologies, by the time Oracle purchased them. One particular virtualization technology, "LDoms" (short for Logical Domains), renamed to "Oracle VM for SPARC", has been added to the list of being approved for Physical Partitioning technologies.

Partitioning - Topic: Server/Hardware Partitioning
The Oracle Partitioning guide now approves of LDoms or Oracle VM for SPARC as a Hard Partitioning technology.

Oracle has deemed certain technologies, possibly modified
by configuration constraints, as hard partitioning, and no
other technology or configuration qualify. Approved hard
partitioning technologies include:  Dynamic System Domains
(DSD) -- enabled by Dynamic Reconfiguration (DR), Solaris 10
Containers (capped Containers only), LPAR (adds DLPAR with
AIX 5.2), Micro-Partitions (capped partitions only), vPar,
nPar,  Integrity Virtual Machine (capped partitions only),
Secure Resource Partitions (capped partitions only), Static
Hard Partitioning, Fujitsu’s PPAR, Oracle VM Server for SPARC.
Oracle VM Server for x86 can also be used as hard partitioning
technology only as described in the following document

Implications for Network Management:

With the current SPARC T4 systems, this becomes more important for Managed Services environments, where Service Provider licenses are required in order to perform external services with an Oracle RDBMS. Being able to limit the number of cores on a new quad socket SPARC T4-4 system offers a lot of flexibility - especially when performance characteristics are similar to 8 socket POWER7 and 32 socket SPARC64 VII platforms.

Most network management software is available under SPARC and few are available under POWER, yet there has been a movement towards POWER over the past few years, specifically for databases, This is the natural time to simplify architectures and re-consolidate those Oracle Databases back onto the SPARC Network Management platforms, again. Why introduce the complexities or firewalls, multiple architectures, multiple code bases, multiple reboot windows, multiple maintenance windows, and overcomplicating D-R procedures when it is cheaper to put it all back on a new low end SPARC platform, and it can be made even less expensive by introducing virtualization technologies like [Oracle VM for SPARC] LDoms and [CPU Capped] Zones?

Oracle Database Appliance Webcast

Oracle Database Appliance Webcast

Don't miss the webcast on December 13, 2011 at 12:00EST noon!

Objectives to achieve from webcast attendance includes understanding:

• Consolidation of many small databases into a single highly available solution


• Deploy and Manage clustered systems in hours


• Benefit from Single Vendor support for Hardware, OS, and Database

The featured speakers scheduled are:

• Bob Thome
  Senior Director of Product Management,
  Oracle
  
  


• Matthew Baier
  Director of Product Marketing,
  Oracle

Register Now - See You There!

Revisited: Oracle Database Licensing

Abstract:
Oracle licenses it's RDBMS by several factors, typically the Standard License (by socket) and an Enterprise License (by core scaling factor.) Occasionally, hardware and operating system vendors will enhance their offerings, requiring a revisit by database vendors to expand their legal categorizations for licensing. Oracle's guiding documents are readily available on-line.

Reason for Revisit:
A fairly extensive set of documents were posted over the past few years, but the URL's to these documents have changed, roughly since the acquisition of Sun by Oracle. Those core documents are listed below with why one might need to reference them.

Software Investment Guide
The Oracle Software Investment Guide is perhaps the most thorough document on performing Oracle installations within an organization. Perhaps these few sentences from the guide best describes what it contains.

We provide a detailed overview on how to license all Oracle products, from the Oracle database platform and application server to all Oracle enterprise applications, which includes Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeoplSoft, and JD Edwards.

Nine easy-to-read sections enable you to find the topics that interest you most. Within every section, each specific topic has hyperlinks and toll free numbers that enable you to get more information on the subject matter.

Additionally, we've included illustrations to enhance your understanding of our pricing practices related to data environments, batch processing, and more.

Pricing information on Oracle services, such as Support, Outsourcing, Consulting, and Education is also here.

This guide is clearly not isolated to merely Oracle Databases, but it is an authoritative source.

Database Licensing:
Oracle regularly updates their Database Licensing guideline document. Terminology such as Test, Production, Sockets, and Processors are defined within this document. Finer details which are often commonly asked questions include: development databases are normally no charge, but test and production databases must be purchased; Oracle Standard Editions may be charged by socket, but more advanced features means per-processor or per-user licensing must occur with Oracle Enterprise Edition; when dealing with IBM & Intel CPU's, "each chip in the multi-chip module is counted as one occupied socket."

Partitioning:
Oracle regularly updates their Server/Hardware Partitioning document, as system vendors create new technologies. Rigorous vendors create technologies categorized under "Hard Partitioning" (i.e. Capped Solaris Containers) while less rigorous vendors often create "Soft Partitioning" technologies (i.e. VMWare.) Some virtualization technology can be implemented as both Hard or Soft Partitioning, so implementation details must be attended to (i.e. Oracle VM implementation notes.) Costs can be controlled through careful architecture decisions, if one understands how a "Processor" is counted in such virtual environments.

Processor Core Factors:
Oracle regularly updates their Processor Core Factor Table, as new CPU designers release new central processor units. Certain multi-core CPU sockets with close throughput but vastly different core counts often have very different pricing (i.e. 16 core SPARC T3 "0.25" vs 8 core SPARC T4's "0.50" factor.)

Commercial Price List:
Oracle's standard Commercial Technology Price List which includes the database packages, is also published in PDF. While this price list changes regularly, Oracle specifies the retail pricing for databases such as: Standard Edition One, Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, additional add-on components, etc.

In Conclusion:
It would be wise to track these changes to these documents, as new purchases are required, and new architectures are being developed.

Oracle License Change: Add SPARC T4

(Oracle SPARC T4 micrograph)

Oracle License Change: Add SPARC T4

Abstract

Oracle licenses it's RDBMS by several factors, typically the Standard License (by socket) and an Enterprise License (by core scaling factor.) Occasionally, Oracle will change the core scaling factor, resulting in discounting or liability for the consumer.

The Platform

The SPARC CPU from Oracle is an implementation of the SPARC V9 open specification. There have been several series of chips based upon this implementation: T1, T2, T2+, and T3. The T1 & T2 are both single socket implementations, while the T2+ and T3 are a multi-socket implementation. Oracle has released on their roadmap that the SPARC T4 processor will be coming out shortly.

The Addition

The SPARC T4 has been added to the Oracle RDBMS "Processor-Core Factor Table".

Factor Vendor/Processor
0.25 SUN UltraSPARC T1 <1.4GHz
0.25 Oracle SPARC T3
0.50 SUN UltraSPARC T1 1.4GHz
0.50 SUN UltraSPARC T2+ Multicore
0.50 Fujitsu SPARC VII+
0.50 Oracle SPARC T4
0.75 SUN UltraSPARC IV, IV+, or earlier
0.75 Fujitsu SPARC64 VI, VII
0.75 SUN UltraSPARC T2

Note, Green is new. Oracle has added the T4 processor with a core factor of 0.50.

Impacts to Network Management Infrastructure

It appears that Oracle will be releasing SPARC T4 into production. Purchasing should be watched very closely during this transition period.

If there is the need for increased thread performance, the 8 core T4 may be leveraged instead of the 16 core T3, with no impact to Oracle licensing when databases require an RDBMS.

The UltraSPARC IV+ 21.GHz processors had some of the best single-threaded performance characteristics of any SPARC processor ever produced (albeit, the throughput pales in comparison to any of the newer generation of multicore SPARC systems.)

The Oracle SPARC T4 finally looks like a good candidate to replace those old SUN UltraSPARC IV+ systems, which are so highly cherished for their single thread performance. There is probably no better Network Managment platform to consider at this point in time.

2011 April 03-09: Articles of Interest

ZFS, Flash, Database, and industry Articles of Interest


2010-09 - Oracle Database Cloning Solution Using Oracle's Sun ZFS Storage Appliance And Oracle Data Guard

This document describes how the Oracle Data Guard feature is deployed in conjunction with the snapshot and cloning features of the Sun ZFS Storage Appliance, enabling easy and efficient database cloning of a standby database. This document also includes Oracle-validated best practices and scripting to automate the database cloning operation.

2010-11 - Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification

The Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) Solid State Storage Technical Work Group (SSS TWG) has developed a very important document: The Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification (SSS PTS).

The SSS PTS sets forth a standard methodology and nomenclature for measuring the
performance of solid state storage devices. Participation in the SSS TWG came from a number of solid state storage (SSS) industry companies and stakeholders from all parts of the SSS industry, including the designers and manufacturers of SSS devices, computer systems, controller chips, test labs, and end users.

2011-04 - Oracle Database Cloning Solution Using Oracle Recovery Manager
and Sun ZFS Storage Appliance

This paper describes how to use the Oracle RMAN incrementally updated backup feature to back up a SAN-based ASM database into a Network File System (NFS) protocol-based database stored on the Sun ZFS Storage Appliance.

The snapshot and cloning features of the storage appliance are then used to duplicate or clone the Oracle RMAN backup. The cloning procedure explained in this document is performed at the production site.

2011-04-08 - Verizon iPad 2s suffer 3G blindness

Apple iPhone/iPad users had stressed the AT&T wireless backbone. Verizon is now next on the list of carriers to have their infrastructure stressed.

Last Saturday, a user with the handle of nixxon2000 began a thread on Apple's iPad discussion board saying that he or she was unable to get a 3G connection. Since that initial posting, 83 other users (and counting) have chimed in, prompting nearly 13,500 page views.

Another poster, Dambuilder, reported that after navigating up Verizon's support ladder, he or she was told that "the constant roaming indication is a bug that they presently have no solution for."

SUN and Oracle Synergies

SUN and Oracle Synergies

SUN has been producing computing systems for over 2 decades - and they have merged with a large software business.

A SUN Perspective

Sun made an announcement on April 20, 2009

Sun and Oracle today announced a definitive agreement for Oracle to acquire Sun for $9.50 per share in cash. The Sun Board of Directors has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close this summer.

An Oracle Perspective

Oracle made an announcement on April 20, 2009

“The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”

An Outside Perspective

What does all this mean to Oracle and SUN Customers?

In some ways, things will not change much.

• More Oracle databases are deployed under Solaris than any other single operating system, according to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. It seems like Solaris is here to stay.
• The largest number of Oracle databases are deployed under SPARC Solaris, it seems like SPARC is there to stay.
• Oracle has embedded Java Runtime into the Oracle Database, so it seems Java is there to stay.
• Oracle has acquired other databases in the past and continues to develop them, so it seems MySQL is there to stay.
• Oracle is very dependent upon external storage vendors for their database, so it seems Open Storage is here to stay.
• Oracle is very dependent upon tape backup for data retention, so it seems StorageTek is here to stay.
• Oracle was heavily driving the thin-client idea with SUN for years, so it seems SunRay is here to stay.

In other ways, one would hope for some things to change

• Oracle has been over-pricing Oracle RDBMS pricing on SUN hardware, depressing SUN hardware sales, and giving business to IBM, who wants to migrate those customers to POWER & DB2.
  

This seems like a match made in heaven - things can only get better!

Oracle Database Licensing: Cuts Own Throat

Oracle Database Licensing: Cuts Own throat

The Register in the UK posted an odd article concerning the licensing change to Oracle

Oracle raises software prices on IBM's Power6 iron

Odd statement regarding IBM POWER6

The Oracle price hike on Power6 chips seems unfair given that the quad-core Sparc64 VII processors used in Sun and Fujitsu machines have the same 0.75 scaling factor

The Power6 processor gains most of it's horsepower from an increase in clock rate (POWER6: 2.2GHz to 5.0Ghz, while SPARC64 processors gain their throughput through an increase in number of cores (SPARC64: 2 to 4 cores), while the CoolThreads SPARC T processor gain their throughput through a massive increase in threads per core (T: 32 threads to 64 threads.)

Multiple SPARC cores for Oracle has been a FREE LUNCH at the expense of SPARC customers.

Odd statement regarding Fujitsu SPARC64

It will be interesting to see what Oracle does when Sun and Fujitsu roll out the Sparc64 VII+ quad-core chips, which they are expected to do soon

I don't know why it would prove interesting. It is not like the clock speed will double, as POWER5 to POWER6. Right now, the core multiplier is completely out-of-whack for the SPARC64 chips, just completely.

Odd statement regarding Intel Itanium

Intel gets its quad-core "Tukwila" Itaniums out the door in June or July. The Tukwila chips should certainly get their scaling factor removed, but given that HP and Intel do not have a database software business, I would venture that Tukwilas might sneak by with a 0.75 scaling factor.

There is a popular & competitive Microsoft SQL Server on those platforms. The scaling factor may remain, to just be competitive with Microsoft SQL Server. If the clock rate doubles, removing the scaling factor removal may be a reasonable thing, but I doubt the clock rate would double.

Odd statement regarding SUN SPARC ROCK

various other Sparc, and other chips have a 100 VUP rating. ...it is hard to imagine a 16-core "Rock" UltraSparc-RK chip not being in the same range when it comes out sometime in the fall.

I highly doubt a 16 core RK chip will be 16x faster than a SPARC64 V, VI, or VII core. This being the case, IBM cranking up the VUP rating would be completely "off the chain". I think this analyst clearly has mistaken expectations from either SUN or IBM.

Reasonable statement regarding Oracle

To be fair, Oracle should run a database benchmark test on each processor and come up with a literal scaling factor based on possible clock speeds of all processors and make the scale all relative to the performance of one machine that it picks as the gold standard.

I agree with this sentiment. Just comparing POWER and the SPARC processors... In the words of President Obama, "to be FAIR":

scaling factor for POWER6 should be 1.50 instead of 0.75
scaling factor for SPARC64 should be 0.50 instead of 0.75
scaling factor for SPARC-T should be 0.50 instead of 0.75

Even with the chart above, POWER would still have an advantage of scaling factor of 0.50 per core over SPARC64 due to IBM's incredibly high clock rate!!!

This clearly demonstrates how far out-of-whack the pricing is for Oracle Databases on systems today.

Oracle cuts their own throat

Former substantial cross-platform vendors like Informix and Sybase are not the large players, like they used to be, resulting in databases being closely aligned to Hardware or OS vendors. Most applications that require a third-party database will use a major commercial vendor, like: Oracle Database, IBM DB2, or Microsoft SQL.

Oracle's continuing punishment of SUN and "giving the farm" away to IBM has always seemed odd, considering that IBM is a direct commercial competitor, while SUN's MySql is not a direct commercial competitor. The migration of Oracle RDBMS to IBM DB2 is something that IBM's professional services is something that they would LOVE to do, while there is no equivalent professional services group in SUN to move Oracle RDBMS to MySQL.

It is just a matter of time before Oracle continues to modify their processor core scaling factors, since they are cutting their own throats by advocating platforms who have extremely strong competing databases... but perhaps that is why Oracle has been able to charge a premium for SPARC - because there was no serious database competition.

By Oracle abusing their near-monopolistic licensing policies on SUN, because Oracle could, Oracle is being forced to compete against other databases on their home turf, instead of on the turf which Oracle could have an advantage (SUN SPARC Solaris has no real commercial competing database vs IBM's DB2 on IBM hardware vs Microsoft SQL on Intel Itanium or Intel x64.)