Exalogic Elastic Cloud V2.0.1 Sneak Preview

It has not officially been announced to my knowledge, but here’s a sneak preview of what’s in the bag!

There’s a new base image for the compute nodes, a VM base image for Linux guests, a new version of the Exalogic Configuration Utility (ECU), and something called ‘Exalogic Control’ in 8 parts.

The README says this:

• Download all files from the four disks listed above to a Linux machine.
• Unzip all files in the same directory.
• Run the following script: ./runMe.sh
• If required, run the following command to change the privileges of file runMe.sh: chmod +x runMe.sh

el_x2-2_db_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
el_x2-2_emoc_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
el_x2-2_ovmm_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
ovmm-3.0.3-installer-b265.iso
python_3.0.3.265.zip

This creates the following files:
The above files are required when installing and configuring Oracle Exalogic 2.0.1.0.0 software using V32088-01: Oracle Exalogic 2.0.1.0.0 Configuration Utilities for Exalogic Oracle VM x86-64 (64 bit).

Let’s have a look : after unzipping all the Exalogic Control pieces we have this:

[root@xxxxxcn01 tarfiles]# ls *.part?<strong>
</strong>el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part0 el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part3
el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part6 el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part1
el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part4 el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part7
el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part2 el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part5
runMe.sh
[root@xxxxxcn01 tarfiles]# cat runMe.sh<strong>
</strong>#!/bin/sh
#
# Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
#
cat el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.part? &gt; el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz

OK, so let’s run it:

[root@xxxxxcn01 ELcontrol]# ./runMe.sh
[root@xxxxxcn01 ELcontrol]# tar -xvzf el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
el_x2-2_db_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
gzip: stdin: unexpected end of
file
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Error is not recoverable:
exiting now

Bummer!

Well maybe runMe.sh is not such a smart script….probably glues them together in the wrong order…

Let’s do this ourselves, stating a fixed order:

[root@xxxxxcn01 tarfiles]# tar -xvzf el_x2-2_control_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz<strong>
</strong>el_x2-2_db_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
el_x2-2_db_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.md5
el_x2-2_emoc_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
el_x2-2_emoc_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.md5
el_x2-2_ovmm_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
el_x2-2_ovmm_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.md5
ovmm-3.0.3-installer-b265.iso
ovmm-3.0.3-installer-b265.iso.md5
python_3.0.3.265.zip
python_3.0.3.265.zip.md5

OK that’s better, so runMe.sh goes out the window:

[root@xxxxxcn01 tarfiles]# rm runMe.sh
rm: remove regular file `runMe.sh'? y

What did we get: well, we find that Exalogic Control appears to be comprised of a set of Oracle Virtual Machine template images and some other files. Let me guess what they contain: a database VM, an Enterprise Manager Ops Center VM and an Oracle VM Manager VM image. And it looks like we are dealing with Oracle VM version 3.0.3, not 3.1.

Unzipping the base guest template zipfile (not part of Exalogic Control):

[root@xxxxxcn01 zipfiles]# unzip V32083-01.zip
Archive: V32083-01.zip
inflating: el_x2-2_base_linux_guest_vm_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
inflating: el_x2-2_base_linux_guest_vm_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz.md5

Looking inside the tarball:

[root@xxxxxcn01 tarfiles]# tar -tvzf el_x2-2_base_linux_guest_vm_template_2.0.1.0.0_64.tgz
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2012-04-19 16:37:54 BASE/
-rw-r--r-- root/root       992 2012-04-19 16:37:54 BASE/vm.cfg
-rw-r--r-- root/root 4296015872 2012-04-19 16:37:47 BASE/System.img

Indeed an Oracle Virtual Machine template. Same goes for the EMOC, DB and OVVM files, I won’t bother to list their outputs.

Here’s a schematic for Exalogic Control from the documentation:

As you can see, it’s intended to manage the Exalogic or maybe even an assembly of Exalogic systems as a virtual datacenter cloud in which you can make seperate secure cloud partitions for multitenancy. Very nice!

Unzipping the base image zipfile intended to boot the Compute Nodes:

[root@xxxxxcn01 iso]# unzip V32082-01.zip
Archive:  V32082-01.zip
inflating: el_x2-2_baseimage_ovs_2.0.1.0.0_64.iso
extracting: el_x2-2_baseimage_ovs_2.0.1.0.0_64.iso.md5

It’s rather small, as expected for a hypervisor image when comparing to of a full native Linux image (e.g. v2.0.0.0.0):

[root@xxxxxcn01 iso]# ls -l *.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody  496558080 Apr 18 17:44 el_x2-2_baseimage_ovs_2.0.1.0.0_64.iso
[root@xxxxxcn01 iso]# du -h
475M
 
[root@qnlexa011 v2.0.0]# ls
el_x2-2_baseimage_linux_2.0.0.0.0_64.iso
[root@qnlexa011 v2.0.0]# du -h
3.9G      .

This is what we get unzipping the ECU (Exalogic Config. Utility) zipfile:

[root@qnlexa010 ECU]#<strong> ls
</strong>ecu.sh      el_configurator.ods  etc  expect  external  install.sh      jy  py      sh

Now we have to find out how to use all this nice gear to upgrade our Exalogic to this new exciting version. That’s stuff for another, longer post…

Publicatiedatum: 11 juni 2012

About the author Jos Nijhoff

Jos Nijhoff is an experienced Application Infrastructure consultant at Qualogy. Currently he plays a key role as technical presales and hands-on implementation lead for Qualogy's exclusive Exalogic partnership with Oracle for the Benelux area. Thus he keeps in close contact with Oracle presales and partner services on new developments, but maintains an independent view. He gives technical guidance and designs, reviews, manages and updates the application infrastructure before, during and after the rollout of new and existing Oracle (Fusion) Applications & Fusion Middleware implementations. Jos is also familiar with subjects like high availability, disaster recovery scenarios, virtualization, performance analysis, data security, and identity management integration with respect to Oracle applications.

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