“Come with me if you want to live” – famous words from the Terminator series.

It’s also the very reason IT companies are adopting the ‘Virtualize First’ policy to reap all of the benefits of virtualization and move away from the soon to be legacy bare metal architecture world and ‘save a bunch of money’ , just as the Gecko said.

As part of the Virtualization journey, one of the tools VMware Professional Services (PSO), Partners and Customers use to migrate applications from physical x86 servers (Windows & Linux) to VMware Virtual Machine (VM) is using the VMware Convertor tool, the process known as P2V (Physical to Virtual). It transforms the Windows- and Linux-based physical machines and third-party image formats to VMware virtual machines.

One of the most common question I get talking the VMware field, Partners & Customers as part of my role is ‘Can I use VMware Convertor to migrate Oracle databases from physical x86 running  Linux / Oracle OVM running Linux to VMware vSphere platform ?’ , the answer, famous 2 words , ‘it depends !!’ .

Let me explain why I said that.

Database Re-Platforming

Oracle databases, being the sophisticated ‘beasts of burden’, there are many key factors to be kept in mind when we embark on an Oracle database re-platforming exercise, either between same / different system architectures, bare metal to bare metal / physical to virtual architecture, some of them include:

• source and destination system architecture
  • are we moving between like architectures (x86 to x86)
  • are we moving between from a big endian system to a little endian system (Solaris / AIX / HP-UX to x86)
• size and operating nature of the database (terabytes / production, pre-prod, dev, test etc)
• database storage (File system / Oracle ASM)

More information on Handiness can be found in the link below
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness

So, if your use case is moving Oracle databases from a big endian system to a little endian system (Solaris / AIX / HP-UX to x86), Stop Right here, you cannot use the VMware Convertor tool to migrate databases between RISC Unix and Linux x86. You need an Oracle Plan and Design exercise to migrate Oracle databases between these 2 systems.

Keep reading if you are replatforming Oracle database between x86 platforms i.e. Physical server / Virtual machine (VMware vSphere / Oracle OVM) to VMware Virtual Machine (VMware).

Continue reading →

“I wanna “RAC” and “RAC” all night and party every day” – mantra of an Oracle RAC DBA.

Much has been written , spoken and probably beaten to senseless 🙂 about the magical “Multi-writer” setting and how it helps multiple VM’s share vmdk’s simultaneously for Clustering and FT used cases.

I still get question from customers interested in running Oracle RAC on vSphere about if we have the ability to add shared vmdk’s to a RAC cluster online without any downtime ? Yes we do. Are the steps of adding shared vmdk’s to an extended RAC cluster online without any downtime the same? Yes.

Introduction

By default, the simultaneous multi-writer “protection” is enabled for all. vmdk files ie all VM’s have exclusive access to their vmdk files. So in order for all of the VM’s to access the shared vmdk’s simultaneously, the multi-writer protection needs to be disabled.

The below table describes the various Virtual Machine Disk Modes:

As we all are aware of , Oracle RAC requires shared disks to be accessed by all nodes of the RAC cluster.

KB Article 1034165 provides more details on how to set the multi-writer option to allow VM’s to share vmdk’s. Requirement for shared disks with the multi-writer flag setting for a RAC environment is that the shared disk is

• has to set to Eager Zero Thick provisioned
• need not be set to Independent persistent

While Independent-Persistent disk mode is not a hard requirement to enable Multi-writer option, the default Dependent disk mode would cause the “cannot snapshot shared disk” error when a VM snapshot is taken. Use of Independent-Persistent disk mode would allow taking a snapshot of the OS disk while the shared disk would need to be backed up separately by a third-party vendor software.

Supported and Unsupported Actions or Features with Multi-Writer Flag:

**** Important ***
•    SCSI bus sharing is left at default and not touched at all in case of using shared vmdk’s
•    It’s only used for RAC’s with RDM (Raw Device Mappings) as shared disks

Facts about vmdk and multi-writer

Before version 6.0, we had the ability to add vmdk’s with multi-writer option to an Oracle RAC online , the only caveat was that this ability was not exposed in the vSphere Web/C# Client .We had to rely on PowerCLI scripting to add shared disks to an Oracle RAC Cluster online.

Setting Multi Writer Flag for Oracle RAC on vSphere using Power Cli
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2013/10/setting-multi-writer-flag-for-oracle-rac-on-vsphere-without-any-downtime.html#more-864

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2015/10/new-method-of-enabling-multiwriter-vmdk-flag-in-vsphere-6-0-update-1.html

With vSphere 6.0 and onwards, we can add shared disks to an Oracle RAC Cluster online using the Web Client.

Key points to take away from this blog:
•    VMware recommends using shared VMDK (s) with Multi-writer setting for provisioning shared storage for ALL Oracle RAC environments (KB 1034165)
•    vSphere 6.0 and onwards, we can add shared vmdk’s to an Oracle RAC Cluster online using the Web Client
•    Prior to version 6.0, we had to rely on PowerCLI scripting to add shared disks to an Oracle RAC Cluster online

Example of an Oracle RAC Setup

As per best practices, the 2 VM’s, ‘rac01-g6’ and ‘rac02-g6’ , part of the 2 node Oracle RAC setup was deployed from a template ‘Template-12crac’.

The template has 10 vCPUs with 64 GB RAM with OEL7.3 as the operating system.

The template has 2 vmdk’s, 50GB each on SCSI 0 controller (Paravirtual SCSI Controller type)
•    Hard disk 1 is on SCSI0:0 and is for root volume (/)
•    Hard disk 2 is on SCSI0:1 and is for oracle binaries (/u01 for Grid and RDBMS binaries)

Hard Disk 1 (OS drive) & Hard Disk 2 (Oracle /u01) vmdk’s are set to
•    Thin Provisioning
•    No Sharing i.e. exclusive to the VM
•    Disk mode is set to ‘Dependent’

Template has 2 network adapters of type VMXNET3.
•    Public adapter
•    Private Interconnect

Public Adapter:

Private Interconnect:

Lets add a shared vmdk of size say 50GB to both the VM’s online without powering down the VM’s.

Add shared vmdk to an Oracle RAC online

1. Adding shared disks can be done online without downtime.

2. Add a PVSCSI Controller (SCSI 1) to RAC VM ‘rac01-g6’. Right Click on ‘rac01-g6’ , ‘Edit Settings’ and add New Controller of Type ‘Paravirtual’

Leave the SCSI Bus Sharing to ‘None’ (default)

3. Next step is to add a 50 GB shared vmdk to VM ‘rac01-g6’  to SCSI1:0 bus slot ( you can add the new vmdk it to any slot on SCSI 1 you want to)

Right Click on VM ‘rac01-g6’ and Choose ‘Edit Settings’. Choose ‘New Hard Disk’ ,  set Sharing to ‘Multi-writer’ , leave Disk mode to ‘Dependent’ and click ‘Add’. Click ‘OK’ and monitor progress.

4. Repeat Step 2 to add new ‘Paravirtual’ Controller SCSI 1 to RAC VM ‘rac02-g6’

5. . The new vmdk (vmdk with multi-writer option) created on VM ‘rac01-g6’ at SCSI1:0 bus slot needs to be shared with ‘rac02-g6’ VM for clustering purpose

6. Right Click on VM ‘rac02-g6’, Choose ‘Edit Settings’. Choose ‘Existing Hard Disk’ and Click ‘Add’.

7. Navigate to your Datastore [Group06], expand the Datastore contents and click on ‘rac01-g6’ folder. Click on the shared vmdk ‘rac01-g6_2.vmdk’ which was created on ‘rac01-g6’. Click ‘OK’

8. Note that the Sharing attribute for this vmdk needs to be set to ‘Multi-Writer’ and the SCSI controller set to the same SCSI controller as we did for ‘rac01-g6’ i.e SCSI1:0. Click ‘OK’ when done.

9. Scan the bus on the OS of both VM’s to see the new disk added and list the devices

[root@rac01-g6 ~]# fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00098df2

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048     2099199     1048576   83  Linux
/dev/sda2         2099200   104857599    51379200   8e  Linux LVM

….
Disk /dev/sdc: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
[root@rac01-g6 ~]#

[root@rac02-g6 ~]# fdisk -lu
Disk /dev/sda: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00098df2

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048     2099199     1048576   83  Linux
/dev/sda2         2099200   104857599    51379200   8e  Linux LVM
….
Disk /dev/sdc: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
[root@rac02-g6 ~]#

10. Partition Align the shared disk (/dev/sdc) on ‘rac01-g6’ (do this on one node only) using the fdisk / parted utility / tool of your choice) :

11. After partition alignment:

root@rac01-g6 ~]# fdisk -lu /dev/sdc
……
Disk /dev/sdc: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4402e64c

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048   104857599    52427776   83  Linux
[root@rac01-g6 ~]#

[root@rac02-g6 ~]# fdisk -lu /dev/sdc
…..
Disk /dev/sdc: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4402e64c

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048   104857599    52427776   83  Linux
[root@rac02-g6 ~]#

As we can see, we have now added a shared vmdk of size 50 GB to both VM’s without any downtime online.

The rest of the steps to create the Oracle RAC is exactly the same as shown in the Oracle documentation
https://docs.oracle.com/database/122/CWSOL/title.htm

########
Summary
########
Key points to keep in mind:

• VMware recommends using shared VMDK (s) with Multi-writer setting for provisioning shared storage for ALL Oracle RAC environments (KB 1034165)
• vSphere 6.0 and onwards, we can add shared vmdk’s to an Oracle RAC Cluster online using the Web Client
• Prior to version 6.0, we had to rely on PowerCLI scripting to add shared disks to an Oracle RAC Cluster online

Best Practices needs to be followed when configuring Oracle RAC environment  which can be found in the “Oracle Databases on VMware – Best Practices Guide”

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/solutions/vmware-oracle-databases-on-vmware-best-practices-guide.pdf

All Oracle on vSphere white papers including Oracle licensing on vSphere/vSAN, Oracle best practices, RAC deployment guides, workload characterization guide can be found in the url below
Oracle on VMware Collateral – One Stop Shop
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/01/oracle-vmware-collateral-one-stop-shop.html

Interested to find out how to streamline your Business Critical Applications on VMware Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC) seamlessly?

Come attend our session at VMworld 2017 Las Vegas on Thursday, Aug 31, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. where Amanda Blevins and  Sudhir Balasubramanian will talk about the end to end life cycle of an Application on VMware SDDC.

This includes provisioning, management, monitoring, troubleshooting, and cost transparency with the vRealize Suite. The session will also include best practices for running Oracle databases on the SDDC including sizing and performance tuning. Business continuity requirements and procedures will be addressed in the context of the SDDC. It is a formidable task to ensure the smooth operation of critical applications running on Oracle, and the SDDC simplifies and standardizes the approach across all datacenters and systems.

Signup for our session here
https://my.vmworld.com/scripts/catalog/uscatalog.jsp?search=virt1625bu&showEnrolled=false

Interested to find out how VMware HCI vSAN solution provides high availability, workload balancing, seamless site maintenance, stability, resilience, performance and cost effective hardware required to meet critical business SLA’s for running mission critical workloads?

Come attend our session at VMworld 2017 Las Vegas on Wednesday, Aug 30, 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. where Sudhir Balasubramanian and Palanivenkatesan Murugan will talk about the VMware HCI vSAN solution for Mission Critical Oracle workloads

This session will showcase deployment of Oracle Clustered and Non Clustered databases along with running IO intensive workloads on vSAN and also talk about seamlessly running database day 2 operations like Backup & Recovery, Database Cloning , Data Refreshes , Database Patching etc using vSAN capability.

Signup for our session here
https://my.vmworld.com/scripts/catalog/uscatalog.jsp?search=STO1167BU&showEnrolled=false

Oracle Database 12c on VMware vSAN — Day 2 Operations and Management

Customers deploying production Oracle workloads have stringent requirements to support and maintain critical database operational tasks such as Backup and Recovery, Cloning, Data Refresh for Development/Test environment and Patching. These operational tasks are also known as Database Day 2 Management Operations.

With the rapid adoption of VMware vSAN™ for business-critical workloads due to highly scalable , available , reliable and high performance HCI solution. It is essential to provide features and tools for seamless Day 1 and Day 2 Operations.

vSAN offers a range of tools and features for Day 1 and Day 2 Operations. VMware vSphere^® web client provides administrator with the capability to manage their infrastructure in a unified way for deploying, provisioning, health check, and performance monitoring. vSAN 6.0 and above has improved snapshot capability, which provides users with enterprise-class snapshots and clones that can be used for Oracle database cloning use cases.

The Oracle Real Application Clusters on VMware vSAN reference architecture addresses common business challenges that CIOs face today in an online transaction processing (OLTP) environment that requires availability, reliability, scalability, predictability and cost-effective storage, which helps customers design and implement optimal configurations specifically for Oracle RAC Database on vSAN.

The Oracle Database 12c on VMware vSAN 6.2 All-Flash reference architecture addresses common business challenges that CIOs face today in an OLTP and decision-support-system (DSS) environment that requires predictable performance and cost-effective storage.

Having addressed the Day 1 operations including deployment and provisioning of critical Oracle workloads on VMware vSAN, this operation guide focuses on the Day 2 Operations of Oracle on vSAN including backup and recovery, database cloning, database refresh for test and development environment and database patching.

VMware vSAN snapshot and clone technologies are primarily used for providing support to Oracle Day 2 Operations. VMware vSAN snapshot and clone technologies used with inherent Oracle tools provide efficient Day 2 Operations for business-critical Oracle database.

Check out the recently published Oracle Database 12c on VMware vSAN — Day 2 Operations and Management  operation guide that provides solutions and operation procedures for Oracle Database Day 2 Operations including below key oracle database tasks using vSAN snapshots and clones:

• Backup and recovery
• Cloning
• Data refresh for development and test environment from production
• Patching

While the operation guide provides above solutions natively for the Oracle database on vSAN environment. There are backup vendors who provide Oracle application-level integration along with VADP (VMware vSphere Storage APIs – for Data Protection) API integration, which can help in ease of backup/cloning, greater levels of manageability and control in vSphere environment including vSAN. These third-party backup solutions can also be used for these use cases.

Further, with the announcement of VMware Ready for vSAN program that offers partners a set of tools, resources, and processes needed to certify Data Protection products with VMware vSAN. This certification program will provide confidence with the partner data protection solutions deployed in VMware vSAN environments for seamless operation.