Since 2013, Capilano University has utilized Oracle Database Appliances (ODAs) to host Banner Databases (ODA Version 1 - "Bare-metal"). Recently these ODAs were replaced with the latest hardware/software version available (X5-2) to upgrade the Components and Capacity and also reduce the cost of OS licensing (on Solaris and Redhat based Banner Application servers and Oracle Middle-wares).

New ODAs were implemented as Virtualized Platform (which was a new and very challenging in-house project due to lack of proper documentations and effective support from Oracle. Other resources for help mostly were unavailable because most organizations stay with preconfigured "Bare-metal" deployment so Virtualized deployment issues was not a high return term in Google search if the intent was to rely on non-official/oracle help & tips. High Availability (HA)for Banner Database was met by Oracle Real Application Cluster embedded in ODA_BASE deployment however for the Database Disaster recovery (DR), Oracle Data Guard was utilized. HA and DR for Application VMs were met by utilizing F5 technology, backed-up with enabling internal Failover feature in OVM for ODA.

This presentation will be very helpful for other institutions to learn about the ODA and its benefits, especially if the intent is to deploy it in virtualized platform. Deployment of the virtual ODA requires the following steps presented at a very high level view:

  • Re-installation of the appliance
  • Deploying vitalized-images on the ODA
  • Deploying ODA_Base, Deployment User-VMs
  • Create/manage the VLANs in the ODA
  • Create/manage shared-repository in the ODA
  • Patching the Virtualized ODA
  • HA and DR set up

Speakers

Shaya Hazeri-Chabok

DBA, Capilano University