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Category Archives: vSphere

Application Workload Guidance and Design for Virtualized SAP S/4HANA® on vSphere (Part 2/4)

In part 1 we introduced the concept of SAP HANA Application Workload guidance and using example business requirements to come up with a workload and vSphere cluster design for the SAP environment. In the second part we will look at storage, network and security design for the proposed customer environment.Availability Design

The availability design depends on the single point of failure (SPOF) analysis of components. There are components in the SAP infrastructure that are one of a kind and are potential SPOFs; other components are capable of having multiple instances for load balancing and availability.

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Oracle on VMware vSphere & vSAN – Asks the Oracles

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In the last post, we endeavored to explain how to go about an Oracle Licensing Audit effectively by meticulously collecting all artifacts needed for the audit.

We recommend as artifacts, Proof of Compute Enclosure and Audit Trail entries as part of the lists of artifact to collect and store for at least 2-3 audit cycles.

We also concluded that Oracle Licensing Audit should not be taken lightly just as you would for any other software vendor but not special and one does not have to fear it.

This post endeavors to highlight the typical questions customers might have in their minds after reading articles on internet or talking to other colleagues or questions they might have encountered talking to licensing auditors.

Oracle Licensing Journey

During the course of my career as an Oracle DBA and Architect working on Oracle technologies, Oracle licensing was one of the facets of a DBA life I had to go through and really , nothing has changed much.

Working as the Oracle Technologies pre-sales Lead in VMware since 2012 and being the lead Oracle pre-sales field guy, talking to customers and clarifying their questions about Oracle licensing on VMware SDDC is one of my charters.

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Application Workload Guidance and Design for Virtualized SAP S/4HANA® on vSphere (Part 1/4)

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SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (or SAP S/4HANA) is the SAP Business Suite that is built on SAP’s in memory columnar database platform SAP HANA. SAP HANA^®, the in-memory real-time platform, was initially introduced as a physical appliance and has steadily evolved to include support for virtualization with VMware vSphere^® and SAP HANA tailored data center integration (TDI). Virtualized SAP HANA is now supported in scale-up and scale-out configurations in VMware^® environments. Running SAP HANA on vSphere offers customers agility, resource optimization, and ease of provisioning. This solution enables SAP customers to provision instances of SAP HANA more quickly and effectively by using vSphere virtual machines (VM). Using the SAP HANA platform with the vSphere virtualization infrastructure constitutes an optimized environment for achieving a unique, cost-effective solution. VMware capabilities such as VMware vSphere vMotion^®, VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler™ (vSphere DRS), and VMware vSphere High Availability (vSphere HA) are inherent components of the virtualized SAP HANA platform.

The need exists for a comprehensive, “end-to-end” solution that describes the implementation of a virtual SAP HANA deployment. VMware Solutions Labs was chosen to first develop a robust validated end to end solution. This is the first solution that takes the VMware Validated Design concept and then uses its components to run an Enterprise application like SAP on top of it. This prescriptive approach called Application Workload Guidance Design applies the VMware Validated Design (VVD) to SAP S/4HANA on the vSphere platform.

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Oracle on VMware vSphere & vSAN – Preparing for an the Oracle Audit

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In the last post , we addressed the Licensing fuds and myths when it comes to addressing Oracle Licensing on VMware vSphere / VSAN technologies and explained how Oracle licensing DOES NOT change from a licensing perspective, whether you run Oracle workloads on a classic vSphere environment or Hyper-Converged Infrastructure solution like VSAN.

This post endeavors to explain how to go about an Oracle Licensing audit effectively by meticulously collecting all artifacts needed for the audit.

FUD

Googling the word FUD does certainly explains clearly the meaning and intention of this oft used word in the Oracle Licensing space.

Oracle License Audit

Having put these myths to rest, let’s talk about the “Oracle License Audit” process. Many horror stories have been echoed in the hallways of IT and around water coolers but the key thing to keep in is “Yes, we need to take that seriously but no reason to be scared about it!!! , it’s just another software audit”.

The key mantra is to be “Fully prepared for it with all relevant artifacts to defend the audit”.

We have well established beyond any reasonable doubt in the previous blog post that Oracle licensing is not Memory, Storage, Cluster, vCenter or Network based, it’s either User based (Named User Plus) or Processor(Socket in case of SE2 or cores in case of EE edition).

Successfully defending an Oracle Audit

The primary goal of effectively defending an Oracle Licensing Audit on VMware vSphere/VSAN is to prove that an effective “Compute Segmentation” has been done to ensure that Oracle Virtual Machines runs on dedicated ESXi servers in the datacenter, because again, to re-iterate, Oracle licensing is Compute (SE2/EE) / User (NUP) based.

We can achieve the above goal in 2 ways
1) Create a “Compute Enclosure” to prevent VM’s from leaving the enclosure by any means whatsoever
2) Establishing an auditing mechanism of documenting VM movements via vMotion events in the above “Compute Enclosure”

Create “Compute Enclosure”

There are 2 ways to create the “Compute Enclosure”:

Option A: Dedicated vSphere Cluster for Oracle VM’s (Recommended). This model is a widely accepted model purely from an Oracle licensing perspective.

Option B: Common vSphere Cluster where we use Affinity rules to bind Oracle VM‘s to a set of ESXi servers dedicated for Oracle workloads

Either of the 2 ways are acceptable as the Oracle OLSA / OMA does not stipulate anything about vSphere Cluster apart from the definition of the Processor as “Processor shall be defined as all processors where the Oracle programs are installed and/or running.”

In case of option B, the process of pinning Oracle VM’s to ESXI hosts have been explained in the previous blog post

https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/01/oracle-vmware-vsan-dispelling-licensing-myths.html

Having created the “Compute Enclosure” i.e. a vSphere Cluster for Oracle Workloads, now we need to establish an auditing mechanism of documenting the Oracle VM movements by tracking the movement of the Oracle VM’s via vMotion events within the above “Compute Enclosure”.

Establishing Audit Mechanisms

Audit Information about VM Power on/off event

In the previous blog post, we showed how the VM Power On operations audit information is recorded in the vmware.log file.
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/01/oracle-vmware-vsan-dispelling-licensing-myths.html

Let’s see the contents of the vmware.log file for “testoravm” when we power it up on a vSAN Cluster

[root@w2-pe-vsan-esx-029:/vmfs/volumes/vsan:52803547e520f694-1f6104395ada7b7c/05735458-cc86-e1e9-ca71-0025b501004e] cat vmware.log
2016-12-27T21:09:09.124Z| vmx| I125: Log for VMware ESX pid=2597049 version=6.5.0 build=build-4564106 option=Release
2016-12-27T21:09:09.124Z| vmx| I125: The process is 64-bit.
2016-12-27T21:09:09.124Z| vmx| I125: Host codepage=UTF-8 encoding=UTF-8
2016-12-27T21:09:09.124Z| vmx| I125: Host is VMkernel 6.5.0
2016-12-27T21:09:09.091Z| vmx| I125: VTHREAD initialize main thread 0 “vmx” tid 2597049
2016-12-27T21:09:09.092Z| vmx| I125: Msg_SetLocaleEx: HostLocale=UTF-8 UserLocale=NULL
……….
……….
2016-12-27T21:09:09.124Z| vmx| I125: Hostname=w2-pe-vsan-esx-029
2016-12-27T21:09:09.124Z| vmx| I125: IP=127.0.0.1 (lo0)
…..
[root@w2-pe-vsan-esx-029:/vmfs/volumes/vsan:52803547e520f694-1f6104395ada7b7c/05735458-cc86-e1e9-ca71-0025b501004e]

The Power On process of an Oracle VM on a classic vSphere Cluster also records the information of the host it powers on, no different than the o/p we see above on a vSAN Cluster.

[root@wdc-esx10:/vmfs/volumes/56bce95e-eb1c7670-1464-0025b3b1b790/Template_OEL70] more vmware.log
2016-11-02T04:36:09.871Z| vmx| I120: Log for VMware ESX pid=3165445 version=6.0.0 build=build-3029758 option=Release
2016-11-02T04:36:09.871Z| vmx| I120: The process is 64-bit.
2016-11-02T04:36:09.871Z| vmx| I120: Host codepage=UTF-8 encoding=UTF-8
2016-11-02T04:36:09.871Z| vmx| I120: Host is VMkernel 6.0.0
2016-11-02T04:36:09.854Z| vmx| I120: VTHREAD initialize main thread 0 “vmx” pid 3165445
2016-11-02T04:36:09.854Z| vmx| I120: Msg_SetLocaleEx: HostLocale=UTF-8 UserLocale=NULL
….
2016-11-02T04:36:09.856Z| vmx| I120: DictionaryLoad: Cannot open file “//.vmware/config”: No such file or directory.
……..
2016-11-02T04:36:09.859Z| vmx| I120: PREF Failed to load user preferences.
2016-11-02T04:36:09.872Z| vmx| I120: Hostname=wdc-esx10.tsalab.local

Audit Information about VM vMotion event

Let’s see the contents of the vmware.log file of an Oracle VM when we vMotion it from one ESXi server to another ESXi server within a vSphere Cluster

The VM was initially powered on wdc-esx10.tsalab.local server.

When the Oracle VM vMotion to another ESXI server either done manually or through DRS events the vMotion entries along with the source and target ESXI servers are recorded in the vmware.log file.

In the above case the Oracle VM vMotioned from wdc-esx10.tsalab.local server to wdc-esx09.tsalab.local server

root@wdc-esx10:/vmfs/volumes/56bce95e-eb1c7670-1464-0025b3b1b790/Template_OEL70] more vmware.log
…..
2016-11-02T04:44:38.156Z| vmx| I120: MigrateVMXdrToSpec: type: 1 srcIp=<10.128.136.110> dstIp=<10.128.136.109> mid=5404a192575ee uuid=38383135-3735-5355-4530-343132465936 priority=yes checksumMemory=no maxDowntime=0 encrypted=0 resumeDuringPageIn=no latencyAware=yes diskOpFile= srcLogIp=<<unknown>> dstLogIp=<<unknown>>
….
…
2016-11-02T04:44:38.156Z| vmx| I120: Received migrate ‘from’ request for mid id 1478061877196270, src ip <10.128.136.110>.
….
…..
2016-11-02T04:44:38.156Z| vmx| I120: OpType: vmotion
…..
2016-11-02T04:44:38.200Z| vmx| I120: UNAME VMkernel wdc-esx09 6.0.0 #1 SMP Release build-3029758 Aug 31 2015 00:54:00 x86_64 (uwglibc release: vmware, version: 2.12.2)

The above audit trail entries are able to correctly report on the below events
• VM Power on / off
• VM vMotion to / from

The same Audit entries can also be captured from the vCenter database by mining the database for VM Power on / off and VM vMotion to / from events. We need to be mindful of the purge retention settings for Oracle/SQL Server vCenter database in order to ensure that we have audit trail entries for at least 2-3 audit cycles.

As we can see by creating a “Compute Enclosure” and establishing a “Effective Audit Mechanism”, we can conclusively day without any doubt that the Oracle VM’ always lived and migrated within the “Compute Enclosure” and never wandered outside !!!.

Tools to help gather audit trail

Another product from VMware which helps for purpose of Oracle Auditing is the VMware vRealize Log Insight which delivers heterogeneous and highly scalable log management with intuitive, actionable dashboards, sophisticated analytics and broad third-party extensibility. It provides deep operational visibility and faster troubleshooting across physical, virtual and cloud environments.

VMware LogInsight dashboard can help customers gather by means of audit trail records which can then be presented to Oracle LMS team as proof of Oracle workload footprint within a vSphere Cluster or a vSAN cluster.

The video below demonstrates the capabilities of VMware vRealize LogInsight for Oracle License Compliance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHcT4xDyONc

Also keep in mind the below listed controls demanded by licensing zealots is completely un-necessary and non-contractual.

-Not needed to create Network Segmentation to separate and dedicate a network segment for the vSphere Cluster for Oracle workloads

-Not needed to create Storage Segmentation to zone, map and mask Oracle specific storage LUNS to only the ESXI servers in the dedicated vSphere Cluster for Oracle

-Do not run PowerCLI scripts / commands against the vCenter database which shows all the ESXI servers connected to the vCenter regardless of whether they are part of the vSphere dedicated cluster for Oracle or not.

If you have to run it to gather information about the ESXi servers in the Oracle vSphere Cluster, login as the user who has access to only the Oracle cluster so that way it reduces the scope of discovery to only the Oracle Cluster

This is the document which is handed out to Customers which has information how to gather information about the ESXi servers connected to the Virtual Center , it does not specify running the script against the Oracle vSphere Cluster.

A key point to keep in mind is if this document is really contractual , why is this NOT public facing ?

-Do not give access to any auditor the keys of the kingdom i.e. vCenter username and password

Really, what’s next? Separate the vSphere Cluster for Oracle in its own cage in the data center and ensure no one goes near it!! Throw a black cloth around the cage so that no one can see what’s in it?

Both of the above steps are completely un-necessary as we have well established beyond any reasonable doubt in the previous blog post that Oracle licensing is not Memory, Storage, Cluster, vCenter or Network based, it’s either User based (Named User Plus) or Processor(Socket in case of SE2 or cores in case of EE edition).

Artifacts helpful for an Oracle Licensing Audit defense

Here are some of the important artifacts which are useful for an Oracle Licensing audit defense

1) Proof of Compute Enclosure
a. Screenshot of the vSphere dedicated cluster for Oracle Workloads

b. Screenshot of one of the ESXI servers in the cluster which clearly shows Processor Family, number of Socket and number of Cores

The Effective number of cores calculation can be found in the previous blog post
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/01/oracle-vmware-vsan-dispelling-licensing-myths.html

2. Audit Trail entries which are log file entries for every Oracle VM which shows the Power on /off and vMotion to / from operations.

VMware LogInsight can be used to extract these entries and the video below demonstrates the capabilities of VMware vRealize LogInsight for Oracle License Compliance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHcT4xDyONc

Conclusion
In conclusion, Oracle Licensing Audit should not be taken lightly just as you would for any other software vendor but not special and one does not have to fear it.

Be prepared with all the audit artifacts as detailed above.

Need Help?
For any additional Oracle Licensing on VMware clarification or help, please reach out to your respective VMware Account teams who can get our team involved in a discussion (Internal VMware folks can reach directly to us at the Tier1-Apps-Sales-Support team mailing list) and we can definitely help guide you and connect you to some of our Premier specialist partners for further discussions.

Oracle on VMware SDDC Collateral
All Oracle on vSphere white papers including Oracle licensing on vSphere/vSAN, Oracle best practices, RAC deployment guides, and workload characterization guide can be found in the url below

Oracle on VMware Collateral – One Stop Shop [Customer]
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/01/oracle-vmware-collateral-one-stop-shop.html

VMworld 2017 Oracle Customer Bootcamps

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VMworld 2017 Oracle Customer Bootcamps

On a mission to arm yourself with the latest knowledge and skills needed to master application virtualization?

VMworld Customer bootcamps can get you in shape to lead the virtualization charge in your organization, with Instructor-led demos and In-depth course work designed to put you in the ranks of the IT elite.

Oracle on vSphere
The Oracle on VMware vSphere Bootcamp will provide the attendee the opportunity to learn the essential skills necessary to run Oracle implementations on VMware vSphere. The best practices and optimal approaches to deployment, operation and management of Oracle database and application software will be presented by VMware expert Sudhir Balasubramanian who will be joined by other VMware and Industry Experts.

This technical workshop will exceed the standard breakout session format by delivering “real-life,” instructor-led, live training and incorporating the recommended design and configuration practices for architecting Business Critical Databases on VMware vSphere infrastructure. Subjects such as Real Applications Clusters, Automatic Storage Management, vSAN and NSX will be covered in depth.

Learn More

https://www.vmworld.com/en/us/learning/sessions.html?mid=9592&eid=CVMW2000001358867&elqTrackId=ac4f78fd201d4b8ea8c06c94903ec64e&elq=a30d659ad2934a969e912b357d9624d2&elqaid=9592&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4153

Details

Cost: $725 / seat

Schedule:
Saturday August 26, 2017
8:00am to 5:00pm
(registration opens at 6:30am)

Location:
Mandalay Bay, South Convention Centre
3rd Floor Jasmine Rooms

Registration

Be sure to add the Bootcamp in step 4 of your VMworld conference registration, under Educational Offerings, after you’ve selected your conferences pass.

Registration is open, seating is limited! Lunch and breaks provided.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

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

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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.

Updated – Official SQL Server on vSphere best practices guide, March 2017

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Microsoft SQL Server is the most virtualized enterprise mission critical application today. In recent years it has become a mainstream effort among VMware customers to virtualize critical databases to allow better agility and scale while increasing availability and operational efficiency.

The official best practices guide for virtualizing SQL Server is now updated with information regarding vSphere 6.5 and some new lessons learned in the past year.

A big Thank you! is due to:

Allan Hirt (Twitter @SQLHA) for keeping me honest on SQL Server nomenclature

David Klee (Twitter @Kleegeek) for his help reviewing this paper

Deji Akomolafe (Twitter @dejify) for his expertise and contribution

You can read the updated guide
here: http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/solutions/sql-server-on-vmware-best-practices-guide.pdf

As always, comments and feedback are welcome

Niran

VMware Adapter for SAP Landscape Management 1.4.1 – Automate and manage your VMware virtualized SAP Landscape

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On behalf of David Gallant, ISBU, Product Management and the Integrated Systems Business Unit, we are very pleased to announce the General Availability of VMware Adapter for SAP Landscape Management 1.4.1.

VMware Adapter for SAP Landscape Management integrates SAP Landscape Management (LaMa) with VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) technologies, allowing SAP BASIS administrators, VMware administrators, SAP project and business stakeholders to automate provisioning and management of SAP landscapes running on VMware’s SDDC. The adapter is a key component of VMware private cloud solution for SAP, which defines the software stack to virtualize, secure and automate SAP environments leveraging VMware’s software-defined architecture. At its core, it includes VMware vSphere, VMware NSX, vRealize Automation and the VMware Adapter for SAP Landscape Management and will help to bring SAP Consumers closer to IT Providers, by leveraging for instance an optional service portal to perform SAP system deployments and management tasks instead of using administrator and system tools.

Below figure shows how providers and consumers can leverage the VMware Adapter for SAP Landscape Management.

This release of the adapter is a very important maintenance release. With this release, we continue to enhance support for vRealize Automation and the system automation application interface (SA-API). These enhancements pave the way for additional customers to adopt SAP LaMa, and VMware’s SDDC.

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Multiple production SAP HANA virtual machines on a single physical server on vSphere 6

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Last week we finished the Multi SAP HANA VM and NUMA Node Sharing (CPU socket sharing) tests with vSphere 6. Due to the good results, SAP granted full production level support for multiple SAP HANA systems deployed on a single SAP HANA certified server virtualized with vSphere 6.

With this, customers can get now better TCO results by SAP HANA system consolidation and better utilizing their hardware assets.

For details please review SAP note 2315348 – SAP HANA on VMware vSphere 6 in production.

What is allowed by now with vSphere 6?

Consolidation of multiple SAP HANA production level VMs on a single SAP HANA certified server based on Intel Xeon E7-v3 (Haswell).
Possibility to share a NUMA node with two production level SAP HANA VMs. Example: 4 socket Haswell server is now able to support up to 8 SAP HANA VMs, and an 8 socket Haswell based server supports up to 16 SAP HANA VMs in production.
SAP HANA sizing rules must get applied and followed.
When sharing a NUMA node minimal 8 CPU cores (16 threads) must get assigned to the VMs, RAM must get assigned accordingly the latest SAP HANA sizing rules.
Enough network and storage IO capacity must be available for all running production SAP HANA VMs (SAP HANA TDI storage KPIs).
Enable VMware HA to protect the consolidated SAP HANA workload and ensure that enough failover capacity is available in the vSphere cluster.

What is not allowed as of today with vSphere 6?

No Intel E7-v4 (Broadwell) based system and vSphere 6.5 support. Validation and tests are ongoing but not finished.
Running more than two SAP HANA VMs on a single NUMA node (CPU socket)
Over-subscription of CPU and RAM resources

Oracle on VMware Collateral – One Stop Shop

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Here is a one stop shop for all collateral related to Oracle on VMware SDDC for easy and quick access.

The links also contains offline demos/videos (no audio) , uploaded to VMware TV on YouTube ,which users can subscribe to.

I will updating this blog as and when we add more Oracle collateral to the kitty.

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VMworld 2017 Oracle Customer Bootcamps
##################################

On a mission to arm yourself with the latest knowledge and skills needed to master application virtualization?

VMworld bootcamps can get you in shape to lead the virtualization charge in your organization, with instructor-led demos and in-depth course work designed to put you in the ranks of the IT elite.

The Oracle on VMware vSphere Bootcamp will provide the attendee the opportunity to learn the essential skills necessary to run Oracle implementations on VMware vSphere. The best practices and optimal approaches to deployment, operation and management of Oracle database and application software will be presented by VMware expert Sudhir Balasubramanian who will be joined by other VMware and Industry Experts.

https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/05/vmworld-2017-oracle-customer-bootcamps.html

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A Comprehensive Authority for Oracle on VMware SDDC
###########################################

“Virtualize Oracle Business Critical Databases on VMware SDDC” – A Comprehensive Authority for Oracle DBA’s on the subject of Oracle & Linux on vSphere

This book is a single source of information for an Oracle DBA to understand the benefits of virtualization and how to effectively deploy Oracle Databases on VMware’s SDDC platform. This book is targeted for DBAs looking at implementing Oracle on a virtualized infrastructure. Key topics include deployment, scaling, troubleshooting and performance tuning. The authors have spent a number of years focusing on virtualizing Tier-One high performance Oracle platforms. The authors include VMware VCPs, VMware vExperts as well as an Oracle ACE, Oracle ACE Director and hold certifications in the Oracle stack.

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Oracle Licensing on VMware
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Oracle fully supports the virtualization of Oracle databases on VMware. To augment Oracle’s support document, VMware also has a total ownership policy for customers with Oracle issues.

VMware Support will accept accountability for any Oracle-related issue reported by a customer. By being accountable, VMware Support will drive the issue to resolution regardless of which vendor (VMware, Oracle or others) is responsible for the resolution

VMware Oracle Support provides customers the following new advantages as part of the existing Support and Subscription contract at no additional charge:

Total ownership of Oracle Database technical issues reported to VMware Support

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/solutions/oracle/VMware-Oracle-Support-Affirmation.pdf

Access to a team of Oracle DBA resources within VMware Support to troubleshoot related to Oracle Databases used as a data store or run within a VM
Performance tuning and best practices related to Oracle Database used as a data store or run within a VM
Faster resolution of technical issues in VMware environments via a TSANet collaborative support arrangement between VMware Support and Oracle Support

More details can be found at the url below

https://www.vmware.com/support/policies/oracle-support.html

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Oracle Licensing on VMware vSAN
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Oracle licensing DOES NOT change from a licensing perspective, whether you run Oracle workloads on a classic vSphere environment or Hyper-Converged Infrastructure solution like vSAN

http://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/01/oracle-vmware-vsan-dispelling-licensing-myths.html

https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/06/oracle-vmware-vsphere-vsan-preparing-oracle-audit.html

https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2017/06/oracle-vmware-vsphere-vsan-asks-oracles.html

https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2017/01/04/licensing-applications-vsan/

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Oracle Licensing Collaterals
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Oracle on vSphere Certification, Support and Licensing Guide 2017
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/whitepaper/solutions/oracle/understanding_oracle_certification_support_licensing_vmware_environments-white-paper.pdf

Support Position for Oracle Products Running on VMWare Virtualized Environments (Doc ID 249212.1)
For Oracle RAC, Oracle will only accept Service Requests as described in this note on Oracle RAC 11.2.0.2 and later releases

“The Empowered Database: Database Trends and Applications – 2016 Oracle on vSphere Usage Survey”
http://www.dbta.com/DBTA-Downloads/ResearchReports/THE-EMPOWERED-DATABASE-2016-ENTERPRISE-PLATFORM-DECISIONS-SURVEY-6662.aspx

The VMW-DellEMC microsite with all jointly developed Oracle & SQL Server collateral
http://www.dbta.com/emc

Straight Talk on Oracle on vSphere Licensing webinar
http://www.dbta.com/Webinars/Details.aspx?EventID=933&src=emc1

Scheduler operation when using CPU Affinity (2145719)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2145719

Licensing Databases on EMC and VMware Technology
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere-new/2016/08/new-database-licensing-white-paper-house-brick.html

http://houseofbrick.com/whitepaper-database-licensing

LogInsight Dash Board for License Compliance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHcT4xDyONc

License Consulting Video
http://www.licenseconsulting.eu/2012/08/29/vmworld-richard-garsthagen-oracle-on-licensing-vmware-virtualized-environments/
http://www.licenseconsulting.eu/oracle-risk-mitigation

Virtualizing Oracle – Caging the Licensing Dragon (Daniel Hesselink and Judy K (Lawyer)
http://t.co/2KmUc4ZB

Hardware Certification List for Oracle Linux and Oracle VM
http://linux.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=117:1:0::NO:RP::

IOUG Survey
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/solutions/oracle/VMware-The-Empowered-Database-2014-IOUG-Platform-Decisions-Survey-Report.pdf

Log rotation and logging options for vmware.log (8182749)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=8182749

#############################
Oracle Licensing Case Study
#############################

Mars v/s Oracle – The Face off
http://houseofbrick.com/mars-vs-oracle/
http://www.licenseconsulting.eu/mars-vs-oracle-lawsuit-vmware-virtualization/

###############################
Oracle Performance on VMware Guides
###############################

Oracle on vSphere white papers including best practices, RAC deployment guides, workload characterization guide can be found on the Oracle landing page below.
http://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/oracle-virtualization.html

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
https://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/oracle-virtualization.html

End of General Support for vSphere 5.0 and vSphere 5.1 (2145103)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2145103

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmware-perfbest-practices-vsphere6-0-white-paper.pdf
https://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.5.pdf

Best Practices for Performance Tuning of Latency-Sensitive Workloads in vSphere VMs
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmw-tuning-latency-sensitive-workloads-white-paper.pdf

Deploying Extremely Latency-Sensitive Applications in VMware vSphere 5.5
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/latency-sensitive-perf-vsphere55-white-paper.pdf

Virtualizing Performance-Critical Database Applications in VMware vSphere 6.0
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsphere/vmware-database-apps-perf-vsphere6.pdf

Oracle 12c and vSphere 6.0 Monster VM
https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsphere6-oracle-perf.pdf

Oracle Monster Virtual Machine Performance on vSphere 6.5
http://www.vmware.com/techpapers/2017/vsphere65-oracle-monster-vm-perf.html

Accelerating Virtualized Oracle 12c performance with vSphere 5.5 Advanced features Flash Read Cache and vMotion
http://principledtechnologies.com/vmware/vFRC_Oracle_12c_0414.pdf

Tuning Queues
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2015/07/queues-queues-queues-2.html

VMware Communities: Interpreting esxtop Statistics
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9279

#########
Oracle RAC
#########

Oracle RAC on VMware Deployment guide
http://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/oracle-virtualization.html

Multi-writer Flag KB (1034165)
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1034165

Setting Multi Writer Flag for Oracle RAC on vSphere using Power Cli
https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-24873
http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2015/10/new-method-of-enabling-multiwriter-vmdk-flag-in-vsphere-6-0-update-1.html

https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2013/10/setting-multi-writer-flag-for-oracle-rac-on-vsphere-without-any-downtime.html#more-864

Using Oracle RAC on vSphere 6.x VSAN Datastore (2121181)
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2121181

Oracle RAC and vSphere 5.1 vMotion
http://www.principledtechnologies.com/VMware/vMotion_Oracle_RAC_1013.pdf

Performance Study of Oracle RAC on VMware vSphere 5.0
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/OracleRAC-perf-vSphere5.pdf

Oracle 12c RAC Performance on vSphere 5 and EMC
http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h23606-emc-vnx-scaling-performance-oracle-12c.pdf

EBusiness Suite on Oracle / Oracle RAC on VMware
http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8124-oracle-e-business-unified-storage-vmware-wp.pdf
http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white-papers/h7270-rapid-deployment-scale-out-oracle-wp.pdf
http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h5896-oracle-ebiz-suite-dr-vmware-srm-clariion-wp.pdf
http://www.vce.com/asset/documents/oracle-ebs-migration-refarch.pdf

Oracle RAC Virtualization Technical Case Study – VMware IT
http://vmware.roinnovation.com/v2/DisplayDocumentShell.aspx?p=StreamDocumentDepotRV&id=12%2097C93A6AC&i=68748&po=69692

Extended Oracle RAC on vSphere Metro Storage Cluster using Storage Virtualization
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2015/10/oracle-vmware-and-extended-distance-oracle-real-application-clusters-on-vsphere-metro-storage-cluster.html

EMC vPLEX , VNX & vSphere Metro Storage Cluster
https://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h11225-VNX-VPLEX-use-cases-wp.pdf

Oracle 11gR2 4 Node RAC vMotion operation with Swingbench
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncm1QGfDCRc&list=PLCED9FDF31C7C0562

Virtualizing Oracle RAC – Offline Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mASWP3kSl08

#####################################
Third Party Clustering Technologies on vSphere
#####################################

########
Symantec
########

1. Symantec Storage Foundation High Availability 6.x in guest storage, high availability, and disaster recovery support (Partner Verified and Supported) (2046035)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2046035

2. What configuration does InfoScale support when simultaneous write protection is disabled?
https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000107217/

3. InfoScale support for SCSI Bus Sharing configurations and VMware vMotion
https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000107751/

4. Storage Foundation Cluster File System HA on VMware VMDK Deployment Guide
https://vox.veritas.com/t5/Articles/Storage-Foundation-Cluster-File-System-HA-on-VMware-VMDK/ta-p/812973

########
Red Hat
########

1. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 High Availability Add-On Overview
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html-single/High_Availability_Add-On_Overview/index.html

2. Support Policies for RHEL High Availability Clusters – Virtualization Platforms
https://access.redhat.com/articles/29440/

3. How to configure VMware fencing using fence_vmware_soap in Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add On?
https://access.redhat.com/solutions/68064

4. Are VMware VMDK disk images a supported shared storage method in Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Cluster?
https://access.redhat.com/solutions/158873

5. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Configuration Example – Oracle HA on Cluster Suite
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/Configuration_Example_-_Oracle_HA_on_Cluster_Suite/

6. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Cluster, High Availability, and GFS Deployment Recommended Practices
https://access.redhat.com/articles/40051

7. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Configuring the Red Hat High Availability Add-On with Pacemaker
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/Configuring_the_Red_Hat_High_Availability_Add-On_with_Pacemaker/index.html

################################################
Oracle Data Guard and VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM)
################################################

Architecting Oracle Database DR Solution on vSphere 5 With Data Guard and SRM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-xgPniaFao&list=PLCED9FDF31C7C0562

#########################
Oracle on VMware VSAN Hybrid
#########################

White Paper
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmware-oracle-real-application-clusters-on-virtual-san-reference-architecture.pdf

Blog
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2015/12/oracle-real-application-clusters-on-vmware-virtual-san.html
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2015/12/10/oracle-real-application-clusters-on-vmware-virtual-san

Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWNbn2radiQ&list=PLCED9FDF31C7C0562

##############################
Oracle on VMware VSAN SAN All Flash
##############################

Oracle Database 12c on VMware Virtual SAN 6.2 All-Flash

White Paper
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/vsan/oracle-database-12c-on-vmware-virtual-san-6.2-all-flash.pdf

Blog
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2016/08/oracle-12c-oltp-dss-workloads-flash-virtual-san-6-2.html

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

White Paper
https://storagehub.vmware.com/#!/vmware-vsan/oracle-database-12c-on-vmware-vsan-day-2-operations-and-management-1

Oracle U2VL with Virtual SAN and the batch processing use case
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2016/02/03/oracle-u2vl-with-virtual-san-and-the-batch-processing-use-case

#################################
Oracle on VMware VSAN Other Collaterals
#################################

Other Oracle on VSAN Collateral
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/?s=oracle
http://www.vmware.com/products/virtual-san/resources.html
https://storagehub.vmware.com/#!/vmware-vsan

vSAN sizing guides for Business Critical Applications
https://storagehub.vmware.com/#!/vmware-vsan/vmware-r-virtual-san-tm-design-and-sizing-guide

VMware VSAN Demos
https://storagehub.vmware.com/#!/vmware-vsan/vmware-vsan-demonstrations

Case Study
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/customers/vmware-cloud-carib-15q4-cs-en.pdf?src=WWW_customers_vmware-cloud-carib-15q4-cs-en.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/customers/VMware-UnionHospital-15Q2-CS-EN.pdf?src=WWW_customers_VMware-UnionHospital-15Q2-CS-EN.pdf
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/casestudy/vmware-union-hospital-15q2-casestudy-en.pdf

#################################
Oracle on VMware Virtual Volumes (vVOL)
#################################

White Paper
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vvol/vmware-oracle-on-virtual-volumes.pdf
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/resources

Blog
Virtual Volumes: A game changer for operations of virtualized business critical databases
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2015/10/virtual-volumes-a-game-changer-for-operations-of-virtualized-business-critical-databases.html#more-1325

https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2015/10/06/virtual-volumes-a-game-changer-for-operations-of-virtualized-business-critical-databases

Demo

EMC VVOL
http://www.emc.com/collateral/technical-documentation/h14638-virtual-volumes-oracle-vmax3-sg.pdf

VMworld 2015 session recording (VVOLs for Business Critical Oracle Databases)
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2016/07/28/vvols-reloaded-game-changer-for-tier-1-business-critical-databases

##################
Oracle & VMware NSX
##################

Demo – Extended Oracle RAC across sites with VMware NSX
http://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2016/09/demo-extended-oracle-rac-across-sites-vmware-nsx.html

#############################
Oracle Database as a Service (DBaaS)
#############################

Virtual LiVefire Solutions Oracle RAC-as-a-Service
https://www.dropbox.com/s/50yza6hiy9gp02x/Virtual%20LiVefire%20Solutions%20%20Oracle%20RAC-as-a-Service-20160713%200305-1.mp4?dl=0

Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQvAWhLzM4E&list=PLCED9FDF31C7C0562

Accelerating Database-as-a-Service(DBaaS) with VMware vRealize Automation and EMC XtremIO All-Flash Array
https://www.emc.com/video-collateral/demos/microsites/mediaplayer-video/accelerating-database-service-vmware-vrealize-automation-xtremio-all-flash-array.htm

DBaaS at EMC using vRealize Suite
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/customers/VMware-EMC-CaseStudy.pdf?src=WWW_customers_VMware-EMC-CaseStudy.pdf

Deploying Database-as-a-Service with Pure Storage and VMware
https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/partners/DBaaS-White-Paper-PureStorage-VMware-VLSS.pdf

Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) Reference Architecture with VMware and Tintri
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2015/10/VLSS-Tintri-DBaaS-v2.pdf

Enabling Oracle EM12c-‐based Database-‐as-‐a-‐Service on VMware with the Blue Medora Plugin for VMware
https://community.emc.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/34701-102-1-109942/Blue%20Medora%20-20Oracle%20DBaaS%20on%20VMware%20Overview.pdf

DBaaS with Oracle 12c, EMC ExtremeIO and VMware (vCAC)
http://www.principledtechnologies.com/vmware/vCAC_DBaaS_0914.pdf

#################
VMware Unix to Linux
#################

https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2016/02/03/oracle-u2vl-with-virtual-san-and-the-batch-processing-use-case/

Interested in the vSphere Unix to Linux Migration Service ? Contact U2Vl@vmware.com for more information

#########################
VMware Online Documentation
#########################

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-65/index.jsp

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/index.jsp

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp

#################
Important KB Articles
#################

Linux 2.6 kernel-based virtual machines experience slow disk I/O performance (2011861)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2011861

PVSCI/vmdk lun queue depth
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2053145

Low throughput for UDP workloads on Windows virtual machines (2040065)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2040065

Virtual machine performance degrades while a vMotion is being performed (2007595)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2007595

Understanding and troubleshooting vMotion (1003734)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003734

A snapshot removal can stop a virtual machine for long time (1002836)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1002836

Disabling Time Synchronization (1189)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1189

RSS and multiqueue support in Linux driver for VMXNET3 (2020567)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=2020567

Poor network performance or high network latency on Windows virtual machines (2008925)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2008925
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2061598

Virtual machine performance degrades while a vMotion is being performed (2007595)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2007595

Quiescing Oracle Database on Windows for Backup with VMware VDPA
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2013/03/quiescing-oracle-db-windows-vdpa.html

VMFS v/w RDM
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmfs_rdm_perf.pdf

Performance Characterization of VMFS and RDM Using a SAN
http://www.vmware.com/techpapers/2008/performance-characterization-of-vmfs-and-rdm-using-1040.html

Troubleshooting migration compatibility error: Device is a SCSI controller engaged in bus-sharing (1003797)
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003797

###########
Miscellaneous
###########

Oracle VM – 4x More Marketing, 4x Fewer Substantiated Facts
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2012/04/oracle-vm-4x-more-marketing-4x-less-substantiated-facts.html

Consolidating Mixed-Workloads with Agile All-Flash Private Clouds : VMware & XTREMIO
Virtualization for MySQL on VMware: Best Practices and Performance Guide

Exadata v/s vBlock
https://community.emc.com/thread/125829?tstart=0
http://houseofbrick.com/exadata-vs-vblock-a-case-study

###########
User Groups
###########

Oracle User Group Community Portal
http://www.iouc.org/

VMware User Group – Connect, Learn, Grow and Share as a VMUG Member

The VMware User Group (VMUG) is an independent, global, customer-led organization, created to maximize members’ use of VMware and partner solutions through knowledge sharing, training, collaboration and events.

Join today to connect with the community and take advantage of all of the benefits of a free VMUG membership.

https://www.vmug.com/

For Applications owners, database admins, Exchange admins, vSphere admins and application architects.

###################### Oracle Licensing on VMware ######################

########################### Oracle Licensing on VMware vSAN ###########################

###################### Oracle Licensing Collaterals ######################

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Oracle Licensing on VMware
######################

###########################
Oracle Licensing on VMware vSAN
###########################

######################
Oracle Licensing Collaterals
######################