Category: Information Technology
Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance
Tuesday, 13 August, 2013 19:30 Written by Brian B
I truly believed in the virtualization productions brought to us from Sun Microsystems.
Included in the product lines were
VirtualBox
Solaris Zones/Containers
Sun Logical Domains (LDOMs)
I was quite pleased to see that Oracle kept and provided significant enhancements to these products.
LDOMs are now OVM Server for SPARC as well as augmented these technologies with solutions like OVM for x86.
Their engineered systems work really well. Solutions include
Exadata
Exalogic
Sparc SuperCluster
Exalytics
Oracle Database Appliance
These engineered systems utilize a number of Oracle’s virtualization solutions, but I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t a true engineered system for OVM for x86. Given their acquisition of Xsigo they can bring the concept of virtualization to networking. Xsigo is now called Oracle Virtual Network (OVN) so the pieces were there, but the customer had to build the solution themselves.
Today, Oracle announced their newest Engineered System, the Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance, to address this.
The FAQ is located here.
The datasheet here.
Oracle introduced its Virtual Compute Appliance, an integrated, “wire once” stack for the data center that integrates compute, network, and storage resources in a software-defined fabric. It is designed for rapid deployment of both infrastructure hardware and application software, and runs Linux, Oracle Solaris, or Microsoft Windows.
The Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance can be scaled linearly, one server at a time, from 2 to 25 compute nodes per rack. Oracle VM Templates enable application scalability across virtualized resources. Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance controller orchestration software automatically powers up, installs, and configures the hardware and software environment. The appliance includes Oracle (Software Defined Network) SDN software for virtualizing network resources.
Infiniband: Each Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance hardware configuration contains multiple redundant QDR InfiniBand switches and Oracle Fabric Interconnect systems that serve as gateways to the data center’s ethernet network.
x86: Compute nodes comprise Oracle’s Sun Server X3-2 systems containing Intel Xeon CPUs, high-speed dual inline memory modules (DIMM) memory, redundant, 40 Gb/sec InfiniBand host channel adapters (HCAs), and redundant disks.
Storage: Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance features a fully integrated, enterprise grade Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance for centrally storing the management environment as well as providing data storage for VMs.
- Q: Will this new system be recognized by Ops Center 12c and OEM 12c or will we have to wait for feature update.
A: EM 12c will be able to be used with it just as you would use it with standard Oracle VM. That certification is being finalized now and should be available in the next few weeks. - Q: Are there plans to move OVM to KVM based virtualization (away from XEN)?
A: No, no plans at all. While we continue to watch KVM closely, we continue to believe that Xen based hypervisors continue to provide the best overall mix of performance, reliability, security, and features for enterprise class customers. By the way, this is why companies like Amazon Web Services continue to use Xen as well. - Q: What version os Oracle VM runs on this new appliance?
A: It runs the latest Oracle VM 3.2 release. - Q: Do you need to bring down the machine to add nodes?
A: No. You can add machines without an outage to existing servers or VMs. You can also start adding VMs as soon as the very first VM comes on-line, i.e. you can be adding VMs while the system is adding servers. - Q: Is Oracle VM certified for Exalogic today?
A: Yes, Oracle VM is certified for Exalogic - Q: What is the max number of nodes that this can expand?
A: The OVCA base rack can support a maximum of 25 compute nodes - Q: Hot plugable compute nodes?
A: The compute nodes are hot plugable. - Q: Can you run RAC across the appliance? Does it have to be all rAC like Exadata?
A: You can deploy Oracle VM Templates for RAC on OVCA. - Q: What is the maximum number of external vlans that can be attached to the ovca ?
A: 4096 total. - Q: What should I do, if I need more than 25 compute nodes, for our Weblogic applications. Do I need to install another rack?
A: We are planning to introduce the ability to expand to additional racks but at this time the OVCA rack is limited to 25 nodes. - Q: Can you use Oracle Traffic Director with this appliance.
A: No, this appliance has its own controller software. - Q: Does this have OVN integrated?
A: Yes, OVN is pre integrated. - Q: What’s the secret sauce/Why cant i just build this from Oracle components?
A: The secret sauce is the OVCA controller software which is a new piece of software that Orchestrates/automates the interaction between the servers, storage, and network that would otherwise have to all be done manually. Further, the manual cabling of such a system should not be under estimated. At the end of the day, you could do all of this manually, but it would take a lot of time and be significantly error prone. - Q: Will a single instance of OVCA manage a maximum of a single rack, or can it manage multiple racks simultaneously?
A: At this time the controller supports only the base rack but has been designed to scale up - Q: Is external infiniband for example to exadata available?
A: No. Right now, all InfiniBand connectivity is completely within an OVCA unit itself.
I’ll dig a little (OK a lot) more and post more as I gain some familiarity with the product.
Links – Week ending 8/9
Sunday, 11 August, 2013 08:50 Written by Brian B
If you are on 11i and are planning to upgrade to R12 then make sure you review the below links on the Consolidated Upgrade Patch 2 (CUP2). http://ow.ly/2yTvWl
Virtualization and Cloud Made Simple and Easy with Oracle’s Latest Engineered Systems – Webcast http://t.co/HFu9lzsbD8
Linux Container (LXC) Part 2: Working With Containers http://t.co/pDkVzHyYwk
e-book Engineered for Extreme Performance http://t.co/Yht6oLOQUA
Oracle Launches New Oracle Linux 6 Certifications; Oracle Linux 5 Exams To Retire http://t.co/rQNHGGrBG7
Oracle is Unveiling the Latest Engineered System for Enterprise Virtualization http://t.co/I46E2oi3dy
Ready for detailed info on Oracle Multitenant ? Read this technical white paper http://t.co/VZso6WMRdH
The Case for Running Oracle Database 12c on Oracle Solaris http://t.co/0KEMnSocix
10 Things CIOs Should Know About The World’s First Cloud Database http://t.co/sm0KrQbMkj
Oracle VM Templates for Oracle Database http://t.co/nrO4OavkMi
Basic mdb walkthrough.
Wednesday, 07 August, 2013 11:02 Written by Brian B
The Solaris Crash Analysis Tool is a fantastic solution that is available in “My Oracle Support” (MOS) that can assist those that don’t have a strong background in Solaris internals in looking at potential issues with a system that is in a panic condition.
The built-in modular debugger (mdb) can also augment or at times work faster than SCAT
Here is a very basic walkthrough that I provide to our Collier IT engineers to assist them in initial diagnostics.
There’s much more, and I’ll add some additional walk-throughs later.
1. Useful information can be found in the stack backtrace to search keywords against MOS. Sometimes you get lucky here.
> $c vpanic(127def0, 2a100ed40c0, 0, 0, 3effffff8000000, 1869c00) cpu_deferred_error+0x568(ecc1ecc100000000, 2, 1000060000003a, 600000000, 0, 30001622360) ktl0+0x48(29fff982000, 2a100ed4d78, 30000, 16, 60, 30) pp_load_tlb+0x1e4(29fff980000, 29fff9822c0, 1d00, 29fff980300, 1822f00, 2) ppcopy_common+0x12c(70001d32500, 700030b2500, 1, 1, 29fff982000, 29fff980000) ppcopy+0xc(70001d32500, 700030b2500, 0, 0, 1822348, 70001d32500) do_page_relocate+0x228(2a100ed5120, 2a100ed5128, 700030b2500, 2a100ed53e0, 0, 2a100ed4fb0) page_relocate+0x14(2a100ed5120, 2a100ed5128, 1, 1, 2a100ed53e0, 0) page_lookup_create+0x244(60017811400, 6007c570000, 70001d32500, 0, 2a100ed53e0, 0) swap_getconpage+0xb4(60017811400, 6007c570000, 2000, 0, 2a100ed53c8, 2000) anon_map_getpages+0x474(60010c02008, 0, 200, 109a420, 2a100ed53e0, 1) segvn_fault_anonpages+0x32c(0, 800000, 0, 1, 6001753c2a8, 3) segvn_fault+0x530(300034bc3c0, 300012abc20, 1, 1, 892000, ffffffffff76e000) as_fault+0x4c8(300012abc20, 6001766b9d0, 890000, 60016881390, 186c0b0, 0) pagefault+0xac(890000, 0, 1, 0, 60016881318, 1) trap+0xd50(2a100ed5b90, 8903bb, 0, 1, fea0ad6c, 0) utl0+0x4c(1e, fe8f8104, 9e58, fe8fee34, 7aebd8, fe8fa524) >
2. Status can also give you things like the hostname and the kernel revision they’re running:
> ::status debugging crash dump vmcore.0 (64-bit) from sunbkpsrv5 operating system: 5.10 Generic_142900-13 (sun4u) panic message: UE CE Error(s) dump content: kernel pages only >
3. cpuinfo also shows some good info on what was running when the system panicked
> ::cpuinfo -v
ID ADDR FLG NRUN BSPL PRI RNRN KRNRN SWITCH THREAD PROC
0 0000183a620 1b 7 0 60 no no t-0 3000371fb20 java
| |
RUNNING <--+ +--> PRI THREAD PROC
READY 60 2a1000c7ca0 sched
EXISTS 59 30001e121e0 java
ENABLE 59 30001d293e0 in.mpathd
59 3000371d480 java
59 3000371ce00 java
59 3000371c440 java
59 3000371f4a0 java
ID ADDR FLG NRUN BSPL PRI RNRN KRNRN SWITCH THREAD PROC
1 0000180c000 1d 6 0 59 yes no t-0 30001dc01c0 syslogd
| |
RUNNING <--+ +--> PRI THREAD PROC
QUIESCED 99 2a100237ca0 sched
EXISTS 60 2a100a83ca0 sched
ENABLE 53 3000371c100 java
53 3000371c780 java
51 3000371aaa0 java
50 300032a9940 savecore
>
4. ::ps gives good info on everything running at the time of the crash
> ::ps S PID PPID PGID SID UID FLAGS ADDR NAME R 0 0 0 0 0 0x00000001 0000000001838150 sched R 3 0 0 0 0 0x00020001 0000060012dab848 fsflush R 2 0 0 0 0 0x00020001 0000060012dac468 pageout R 1 0 0 0 0 0x4a004000 0000060012dad088 init R 808 1 807 807 0 0x42000000 0000060016acf890 nbevtmgr R 805 1 7 7 60002 0x4a304102 0000060016746038 java R 764 1 764 764 0 0x42000000 0000060016acec70 dbsrv11 R 712 1 711 711 0 0x42000000 0000060016ad04b0 bpcd R 709 1 708 708 0 0x42000000 00000600167fa040 vnetd R 386 1 385 385 0 0x42000000 0000060016ad10d0 snmpd R 382 1 382 382 25 0x52010000 00000600169a2048 sendmail R 381 1 381 381 0 0x52010000 00000600169a2c68 sendmail R 334 1 334 334 0 0x42000000 0000060016747878 syslogd R 327 1 327 327 0 0x42000000 00000600161c0490 sshd R 324 1 323 323 0 0x42010000 00000600167fb880 smcboot R 326 324 323 323 0 0x42010000 0000060013fba018 smcboot R 325 324 323 323 0 0x42010000 00000600167fac60 smcboot R 275 1 275 275 0 0x42000000 0000060016748498 utmpd R 267 1 266 266 0 0x42000000 00000600159bb860 pbx_exchange R 263 1 263 263 0 0x42000000 00000600159bac40 inetd R 257 1 257 257 0 0x42000000 0000060013e26c30 automountd R 259 257 257 257 0 0x42000000 0000060015d02488 automountd R 251 1 251 251 1 0x42000000 0000060013fbc478 rpcbind R 234 1 234 234 0 0x42010000 00000600161c10b0 cron R 208 1 208 208 0 0x42000000 0000060015d00c48 xntpd R 185 1 7 7 0 0x42000000 0000060013fbd098 iscsid R 155 1 154 154 0 0x42000000 0000060013e28470 in.mpathd R 144 1 144 144 0 0x42000000 00000600159ba020 picld R 139 1 139 139 1 0x42000000 00000600159bd0a0 kcfd R 136 1 136 136 0 0x42000000 0000060012daac28 nscd R 120 1 120 120 0 0x42000000 0000060015d030a8 syseventd R 80 1 79 79 0 0x42020000 0000060013e26010 dhcpagent R 61 1 61 61 0 0x42000000 0000060013fbb858 devfsadm R 9 1 9 9 0 0x42000000 0000060013e29090 svc.configd R 7 1 7 7 0 0x42000000 0000060012daa008 svc.startd R 357 7 7 7 0 0x4a004000 0000060016746c58 rc2 R 702 357 7 7 0 0x4a004000 00000600167490b8 lsvcrun R 703 702 7 7 0 0x4a004000 0000060013e27850 sh R 809 703 7 7 0 0x4a004000 00000600169a3888 pdde R 812 809 7 7 0 0x4a004000 0000060016ace050 pdde R 813 812 7 7 0 0x4a004000 00000600169a44a8 sleep R 342 7 7 7 0 0x4a004000 0000060015d00028 svc-webconsole R 717 342 7 7 0 0x4a004000 00000600169a50c8 sjwcx R 720 717 7 7 0 0x4a004000 00000600167fc4a0 java R 304 7 304 304 0 0x4a004000 0000060013fbac38 ttymon R 290 7 7 7 0 0x4a004000 00000600167fd0c0 svc-dumpadm R 293 290 7 7 0 0x4a004000 00000600161bf870 savecore R 269 7 269 269 0 0x4a014000 00000600161be030 sac R 278 269 269 269 0 0x4a014000 0000060015d01868 ttymon
5. ::panicinfo shows more info on the panic itself
> ::panicinfo
cpu 0
thread 3000371fb20
message UE CE Error(s)
tstate 80001606
g1 1270ce4
g2 127dc00
g3 3effffff8000000
g4 fbfffffe
g5 1
g6 0
g7 3000371fb20
o0 127def0
o1 2a100ed4098
o2 0
o3 0
o4 fc30ffffffffffff
o5 3cf000000000000
o6 2a100ed3761
o7 11020dc
pc 104982c
npc 1049830
y 0
>
6. Find the address of the thread that was executing when the system panicked.
> panic_thread/K panic_thread: panic_thread: 3003acf7020 gt;
7. Run the thread macro against the pointer value from above. Search for the t_procp structure.
> 3003acf7020$<$thread
t_link = 0
t_stk = 0x2a108333ae0
t_startpc = 0
t_bound_cpu = 0x30004b42000
t_affinitycnt = 0
t_bind_cpu = 0xffff
t_flag = 0x1800
t_proc_flag = 0x104
...
t_procp = 0x3005a6713e0 <== use the value here ...
>
8. run the proc2u macro against the pointer from the t_procp structure. Look for the value stored in p_user.u_psargs. This is the full path to the command that was running on the CPU at the time of the system panic.
> 0x3005a6713e0$<proc2u
p_user.u_execsw = execsw+0x28
p_user.u_auxv = [
{
a_type = 0x7d8
a_un = {
a_val = 0xffffffff7fffff90
a_ptr = 0xffffffff7fffff90
a_fcn = 0xffffffff7fffff90
}
...
p_user.u_start = {
tv_sec = 2007 Jun 11 00:00:00
tv_nsec = 0xcf77e0
}
p_user.u_ticks = 0x191b148
p_user.u_comm = [ "bgscollect" ]
p_user.u_psargs = [ "bgscollect -I noInstance -B /usr/adm/best1_7.3.00" ] <== use the value here
p_user.u_argc = 0x5
p_user.u_argv = 0xffffffff7ffffc98 ...
>