Deploying Oracle 10g with Altiris Deployment Solution on Dell PowerEdge Servers
Filed under:
Database
Submitted by Eric Szewczyk on 15 March, 2006 - 16:59.
Authors:
Chethan Kumar
Eric Szewczyk
Mahmoud Ahmadian
This article explores the possibility of integrating an Oracle 10g Standard Edition ONE database installation with the Altiris Server deployment process to offer a single integrated solution.
Aug. 24, 2006: Updated Silent video that shows Oracle 10g being deployed to a Linux Server. (14.7MB)
Altiris and Dell offer an integrated solution for bare-metal Adeployment of Dell PowerEdge servers that leverages the Dell OpenManage™ Deployment Toolkit (DTK). Altiris Deployment Solution for Dell Servers, a component of the Altiris Server Management Suite™, offers administrators a single management framework for complete, automated server builds and can help significantly reduce server build times from hours to minutes. Altiris automates the build process of both hardware and software–including scripted or image-based OS installation of both Microsoft Windows and Linux and installation of popular software applications such as Oracle Database 10g.
Altiris can also update hardware components as part of the provisioning process using Dell Update Packages to help ensure that all server components are up-to-date. The entire provisioning process can be encapsulated into a single job that can be easily executed in a one-to-many deployment by simply dragging and dropping the job onto the managed computer(s) in the Altiris Deployment Solution console.
Dell and Oracle provide validated configurations of Dell servers and storage with Oracle databases. Extensive system testing is involved in this validation process to help ensure that all components–down to the specific firmware and driver versions–are tested to work in a Dell and Oracle database environment. This article explores the integration of Oracle Database 10g with Altiris Deployment Solution for Dell Servers to provide a single, integrated installation.
Altiris Deployment Solution for Dell Servers
Altiris Deployment Solution for Dell Servers lets administrators fully configure hardware components such as the BIOS, Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC), baseboard management controller, and PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) in a pre-OS environment leveraging the bundled Dell tools. Altiris Deployment Solution can also create the 32 MB Dell Utility partition. The end result is an automated approach to provisioning Dell PowerEdge servers that can help ensure configuration consistency and enable rapid server builds in hours or minutes.
Altiris Deployment Solution for Dell Servers is an add-on to the Altiris Deployment Solution. Altiris offers the flexibility of installing this add-on as part of a bundled installation (including Altiris Deployment Server) for firsttime users, or by installing it separately for existing users who may already have an Altiris Deployment Server infrastructure in place. This Dell-specific add-on provides predefined drag-and-drop jobs for fifth-generation and later PowerEdge models, as supported by the DTK.
Oracle Database 10g
Oracle is a leading provider of enterprise-class database and application software. Many hardware components are available for database administrators (DBAs) when choosing the appropriate hardware for a database server. Adding to the complexity is the installation of components that require knowledge that exceeds traditional DBA skills–hardware configuration, operating systems, drivers, patches, and any third-party software required for management of such components. Dell has tested and validated configurations to help reduce this complexity, and the Solution Deliverable List tells administrators exactly which revision of drivers and patches have been validated for a given release.
Dell-recommended database solutions can help enterprises manage vital data. Dell servers use industry-standard hardware components that are designed to provide high performance, reliability, and high availability. These servers can power business-critical applications and enable scalability. Whether enterprises need an affordable entry-level server or a high-performance server for mission-critical applications, Dell offers a range of server products that are designed to meet various business needs. In addition, industry-standard Dell hardware platforms can help ease server installation and management.
Oracle Database 10g has been designed for scalability and high availability. A high degree of scalability also can be achieved by adding servers and storage in Oracle Real Application Clusters. Oracle Database 10g is available in Standard Edition One (SE1) and Enterprise Edition.
Several features in Oracle Database 10g SE1 make it easy to use and manage. One of these features is Automatic Storage Management (ASM), which provides storage fault tolerance, volume management, and disk load balancing. ASM allows enterprises to start with a small storage infrastructure and grow as needed without additional administrative and tuning efforts. Another feature is Flashback Database, which allows error or failure recovery with an automated flashback to a specific point in time. A third feature of Oracle Database 10g SE1 is its monitoring and statistics-based self-tuning functionality. All these features are designed to significantly reduce the complexity of managing an Oracle database solution, thereby helping reduce total cost of ownership and increase return on investment.
Hardware deployment: Configuring the Dell PowerEdge servers
After installing the product, a folder named "Deployment Solution for Dell Servers" displays in the Jobs pane of the Altiris Deployment Solution console. This folder contains the predefined Dell jobs, which are organized into four subfolders: Pre OS-Deployment Jobs, OS Deployment Jobs, Post OS-Deployment Jobs, and Dell Samples (see Figure 1). Hardware provisioning tasks are handled by the pre-OS deployment jobs.
Altiris Deployment Solution manages the RAID configuration automatically based on the type of RAID controller detected and the number of drives in the system. For example, a PowerEdge 1855 server typically has two hard drives, so by default a RAID-1 configuration would be implemented. If an administrator uses a PowerEdge server that accommodates three or more drives, then a RAID-5 configuration would be applied. These defaults can be overridden by the Altiris administrator, but at the time of this writing version 1.4 of the DTK bundled with Altiris Deployment Solution for Dell Servers version 1.2B currently limits available options to RAID-0, RAID-1, or RAID-5.
When administrators deploy Oracle 10g from bare metal, Dell best practices recommend using a RAID-10 configuration for all data disks for optimal I/O performance. This RAID level requires a minimum of four disks. Altiris Deployment Solution can use a vendor-specific utility, such as DOS, Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE), Linux Fedora-based pre-OS environment, or any post-OS environment that Altiris supports. The next release of the DTK version 2.0 and the subsequent release of Deployment Solution for Dell Servers version 2.0 will offer native RAID-10 and RAID-50 support as well as bare-metal Windows and Linux preinstallation support for eighth-generation servers.
Software deployment: Installing the OS
After the Altiris Deployment Solution job is modified to configure the Dell server hardware and install a Windows or Linux OS, administrators can add software deployment tasks. Any software that can be scripted to run unattended can be deployed with Altiris Deployment Solution. Oracle 10g supports unattended installation.
Dell software engineers relied upon Altiris Deployment Solution during their early testing and validation of Oracle Database 10g configurations in July 2005. Specifically, the engineers needed to redeploy both Windows and Linux operating systems repeatedly after each test of the Oracle 10g installation to help ensure that the OS was ready for the next test. To do this, Dell engineers installed Windows and Linux reference systems and then captured their images using Altiris Deployment Solution. After the initial images had been captured, individual test systems could be rapidly and remotely reset for the next test to ensure the OS was clean. Dell engineers simply dragged and dropped the respective "Deploy Image" jobs for each OS onto various managed test servers displayed in the Altiris Deployment Solution console. The ability to quickly and easily reset the test environment helped reduce the amount of time required to validate Oracle 10g installations on Dell server hardware.
For enterprises that choose to implement scripted OS installations rather than imaging installations, the Dell Configuration Wizard function of the Dell Deployment add-on can help administrators complete the necessary setup tasks. Such tasks include copying OS source files and plug-and-play or SCSI drivers to their respective locations on the deployment server and editing the Windows unattend.txt or Linux kickstart files that act as the answer files for the OS builds (see Figure 2).
Imaging can perform OS deployments in minutes, whereas scripted installations take a little longer, permitting administrators to introduce service packs, hot fixes, and upgraded drivers into OS source files for easy maintenance. As mentioned earlier, Altiris supports both installation methods.
Database deployment: Installing Oracle Database 10g
Oracle provides a mechanism to install Oracle Database 10g silently. Silent installation runs in the background and does not require any input from the DBA. The typical interactive graphical user interface (GUI)-based menus are not displayed during installation. Instead, all options required for installing Oracle 10g are supplied to the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) in a text-based response file. A sample of the response file for the database installation is found in the root of the Oracle 10g installation CD.
Installing Oracle Database 10g on Windows
Oracle 10g installation on Windows is straightforward. Dell created a custom Oracle 10g on Windows installation job for the Altiris Deployment Solution console, which performed the following tasks:
- Deployed an OS with the Altiris agent (AClient) preinstalled
- Created a local group–ORA_DBA–on the target server
- Added the local administrator account to the group
- Mapped a drive to the Altiris eXpress share to initiate the silent installation
The response file for the Oracle 10g installation is supplied to the OUI as a command-line option in the Altiris Run Script task. The nowait option is used to instruct the OUI not to wait for user prompts at the end of the installation, making this a truly unattended installation.
The sections of the Run Script task shown in Figures 3 and 4 initiate the Oracle 10g installation for Windows. Figure 3 shows the script for creating the ORA_DBA group on the target server; Figure 4 shows the script for mapping the drive to the Altiris eXpress share and installing Oracle 10g.
Installing Oracle Database 10g on Linux
Installing Oracle Database 10g on Linux is somewhat more complicated than installing this software on Windows. Tasks are grouped into preinstallation, Oracle installation, and postinstallation categories.
Dell created a custom job for the Altiris Deployment Solution console with tasks to deploy their precaptured image of Red Hat® Enterprise Linux with the Altiris Deployment Agent for Linux (ADLAgent) preinstalled. Other tasks included execution of preinstallation Python scripts to create a local Oracle user as well as the Oinstall and DBA groups. Creating directories for the Oracle binaries and mapping points to the Altiris eXpress share and setting permissions on the directories are also required.
As part of preinstallation, Oracle recommends setting shell limits and configuring certain kernel parameters. (For more information about Oracle preinstallation recommendations, refer to the appropriate Oracle 10g documentation). The remaining tasks initiate the Oracle 10g installation from the mounted Altiris eXpress share and execute the necessary postinstallation tasks. Figures 5, 6, and 7 show the scripts for Oracle 10g installation on Linux.
Figure 6. Script for installing Oracle 10g on Linux from the Altiris eXpress mount point.
A simple, cost-effective deployment solution
The integrated server deployment process tested jointly by Dell and Altiris and described in this article verifies that the Altiris Deployment Solution framework can effectively support an Oracle Database 10g installation. (Samples of the jobs used to test and validate Oracle Database 10g deployment on Dell PowerEdge servers have been provided as part of Altiris Deployment Solution 6.5.) This process provides administrators with a simple, cost-effective method for deploying Oracle databases on Dell PowerEdge servers. By integrating and automating the server build and database deployment processes, Altiris Deployment Solution for Dell Servers helps streamline the installation and configuration of Oracle Database 10g on Dell hardware–simplifying administrators' duties significantly and allowing them to focus on other business-critical tasks.
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