{"id":16565,"date":"2021-08-03T10:30:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T08:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/deploying-a-kvm-based-virtualized-x8-2m-oda\/"},"modified":"2021-08-03T10:30:04","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T08:30:04","slug":"deploying-a-kvm-based-virtualized-x8-2m-oda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/deploying-a-kvm-based-virtualized-x8-2m-oda\/","title":{"rendered":"Deploying a KVM-based virtualized X8-2M ODA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Until now, High-Availability (HA) ODAs could have been deployed either in bare metal or in virtualized mode. Virtualized mode means that instead of installing a classic Linux system on the nodes, an OVM hypervisor (based on Xen) was deployed. This hypervisor had at least one VM, a special one called ODA BASE, holding all the databases and having direct path to ASM disks. Other VMs could be created, not for databases but for applications, making ODA HA a smart solution for ISV. This solution was supported for hard partitioning, meaning that only the cores dedicated to ODA BASE VM needed Oracle Database licences.<\/p>\n

Lite ODAs, from X6-2S until X8-M, could also have virtual machines on them for applications, but CPU resources were shared with bare metal databases (no hard-partitioning), and integration with odacli was missing. As a consequence, most of the lite ODAs running today are not using VMs.<\/p>\n

Now, virtualization is available for all ODAs, HA and lite, and I just tested some of the virtualization features on a brand new ODA X8-2M.<\/p>\n

What’s new?<\/h2>\n

First of all, there is no more specific ISO to deploy on your ODA if you need VMs. All ODAs will be deployed as bare metal systems, and you will be able to configure VMs later if you need to.<\/p>\n

odacli now fully integrates the VM management. Each VM will be configured in a CPU pool, a CPU pool being dedicated cores for isolating VMs. VM can be of general purpose, or DB System. DB System is a specific kind of VM dedicated to databases: you don’t install yourself the OS and the database home, and you also don’t need to create the database. VMs are user-managed VMs, you will do everything on them, starting from installing the OS.<\/p>\n

As virtualized ODA does not exist anymore, goodbye oakcli, this legacy tool that made ODA a success story is getting retired. odacli is now the only CLI with its system counterpart odaadmcli. And BUI, the Browser User Interface, is now available for everyone.<\/p>\n

If you need strong isolation between your databases, you can now implement that with multiple DB Systems on multiple VLANs on a single ODA. It could make sense as ODA became more and more capable these past years.<\/p>\n

Finally, hard-partitioning is now supported with KVM on ODA thanks to CPU pools. You will no more run your application VMs on the few cores dedicated to your databases if you use Enterprise Edition.<\/p>\n

Hands on!<\/h2>\n

Nothing is better than a real test on these new features. My test is done on a brand new X8-2M with basic storage configuration. I will work with version 19.11, a first “production release” of this virtualization management. As my ODA came with 19.9, I will first do a complete reimage with 19.11. I will then configure a DB System and an application VM on it. These 2 VMs will use the public network: no VLAN configuration here but it’s something you would probably consider for your own environment.<\/p>\n

Deploying this ODA<\/h2>\n

Deployment is not different than deploying a bare metal configuration as virtualization now comes on top:<\/p>\n