IBM Smart Virtual Appliance for Oracle Database on AIX...

Transcription

1 IBM Smart Virtual Appliance for Oracle Database on AIX Ravisankar Shanmugam Vishal Agarwal IBM Oracle International Competency Center May 2014 Copyright IBM Corporation, All Rights Reserved. All trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective holders

2 Table of contents Abstract...1 Introduction...2 Background... 2 Efficiency comparison (results)*... 3 IBM virtualization technologies overview... 4 IBM Systems Director... 4 VMControl... 4 StorageControl... 4 IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool... 4 Smart virtual appliance deployment approaches... 6 Test Setup...9 Architectural diagram of our test... 9 Test environment software stack Oracle Database smart virtual appliance creation and deployment using ICCT...11 Infrastructure requirements Capturing base virtual server image Preparing the AIX virtual server for capturing using Storage Copy Services (SCS) Capturing the virtual server using SCS with IBM Storwize V7000 FlashCopy Creating software bundle and smart virtual appliance Configuring cloud provider Configuring cloud provider image repository Importing Virtual Server Images Creating Software Bundle Applying Software Bundle (extending Image) Capturing Virtual Server image/appliance Deploying the smart virtual appliance Exporting smart virtual appliance as OVA...37 Importing an OVA into the Image repository Appendix...44 Sample Oracle Database 11g Release 2 software bundle Install operations configuration Deploy time configuration Terminology References...54 About the authors...55 Trademarks and special notices...56

3 Abstract This white paper introduces the building process of the smart virtual appliance and usage scenario for Oracle Database 11g Release 2 software on an IBM Power Systems platform with AIX using IBM Systems Director and IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool (ICCT). The smart virtual appliance approach helps in automating the entire provisioning workflow, and therefore dramatically reduces the overall time taken to deploy a certain workload, and helps provide a more predictable outcome one that drastically reduces the risk of human setup errors. While IBM Systems Director VMControl, through the VMControl plug-in, provides the underlying virtual server management capabilities, IBM ICCT takes this management functionality a step further and offers a software bundle paradigm that essentially brings the software-reuse capability to virtual servers. Using this building-block approach, it is possible to create software bundles that build on top of one another and make it possible to dynamically create new custom smart virtual appliances, having differing configurations, through a simple drag-and-drop interface. For instance, using re-usable software bundles, a smart virtual appliance with say IBM AIX 7.1, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and IBM Websphere Application Server 8.5 can be created without actually installing or configuring any of these software pieces (OS, database, application) manually. Once the smart virtual appliance is created, it can be deployed like a regular virtual server/appliance, or exported in the Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) format, which can be used for deployment on a generic compliant system. In this whitepaper, we provide a detailed walk-through of the recommended approach for creation and deployment of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 smart virtual appliance using IBM Systems Director and IBM ICCT, along with the test setup details and operational efficiencies recorded in the test setup at the IBM Oracle International Competency Center Lab. We also provide a sample Oracle DB 11g Release 2 software bundle along with this whitepaper to IBM s customers and business partners on request on an as-is basis for both training and test deployment purposes (see associated disclaimer on page 49 and in the Trademark and special notices section at the end of this paper). This paper assumes that the infrastructure elements required or referenced for creation and deployment of the smart virtual appliances, such as IBM Systems Director, VMControl, StorageControl, Storage Copy Services (SCS) FlashCopy, Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S), Virtual I/O server (VIOS) and Hardware Management Console (HMC) are available. Further setup details of these components can be obtained through the IBM white papers, websites, or Redbooks referenced in the References section of this whitepaper. Note: please be advised that a valid Oracle software license is required when following the virtualappliance based Oracle database software installation and deployment approach as described above. Customers who use the OVA to conduct repeated deployments must ensure that they have the proper Oracle software licensing to cover the multiple deployments. 1

4 Introduction Background Server virtualization is fast gaining acceptance and popularity due to its ability to increase speed of deployment, enable workload consolidation, improve resource utilization and ease management. IBM PowerVM provides a secure and scalable server virtualization environment for AIX, i, and Linux applications built upon the advanced RAS features and leading performance of the Power Systems platform. Smart virtual appliances are custom pre-integrated virtual server software images that include the necessary software elements and configurations to optimally serve a certain workload. An Oracle Database system configuration may be desired for rapid provisioning in a variety of situations such as application development testing, validating a solution proof-of-concept, staging, creating demos, or perhaps even for quick re-deployments in case of node failures. Presently, a typical Oracle Database software provisioning activity encompasses the following manual tasks: provisioning and installing the base operating system, carrying out a number of pre-installation and operating environment configuration tasks, installing the database software, carrying out post-installation tasks and creating a sample database (optional). As illustrated in the efficiency comparison chart below, this entire process can be automated and substantial time and effort savings be realized through the smart virtual appliance approach. Moreover, since the process is automated, there is little (if any) room for human error, thereby leading to more predictable outcomes. Now, there may be cases where an ever-growing collection of smart virtual appliances may be needed. For instance, to test a certain new application release, systems with differing OS and database versions may be required. Creating, capturing and storing each such combination may lead to a lot of preparation and wasted effort, plus wasted storage space. In many cases, it may be preferred to have the ability to automate dynamic creation of complex smart virtual appliances that are combinations of different operating systems, databases, middleware, and applications or release versions. With IBM's Image Construction and Composition Tool (ICCT), IBM takes smart virtual appliance automation to the next level and allows for dynamic creation of complex smart virtual appliances. Creating them can be as easy as dragging and dropping pre-created software bundles on top of one another. So, assuming there are two Oracle Database software bundles: (a) Oracle Database 10g Release 2 and (b) Oracle Database 11g Release 2, both of which are supported on (x) AIX 6.1 and (y) AIX 7.1, a user can dynamically create a total of four smart virtual appliances dynamically: a+x, a+y, b+x, b+y. Further, software bundles designed to work with the Oracle Database software bundle can be added as well to create a custom smart virtual appliance, without actually installing or configuring any of the virtual appliances manually! 2

5 Efficiency comparison (results)* Table 1 below shows operational efficiency comparison between traditional and smart virtual appliance based approaches for provisioning an Oracle Database server: A) Provisioning of Oracle Database server using traditional (manual) approach Task Initial deployment Repeat deployment 1) Provisioning virtual server and installing base AIX image 1 hour 1 hour 2) Setting up environment for Oracle installation 30 min 30 min 3) Installing Oracle software and creating sample DB 45 min 45 min Total time taken in repeat deployments 2 hour 15 min B) Provisioning of Oracle Database server using IBM smart virtual appliance approach Task PREPARATION: SMART VIRTUAL APPLIANCE CREATION TASKS Initial deployment Repeat deployment*** 1) Provisioning virtual server and installing base AIX image 1 hour Not Applicable 2) Capturing base AIX image 5 min Not Applicable 3) Creating smart virtual appliance software bundle 20 min** Not Applicable 4) Installing Oracle software and creating sample DB 25 min Not Applicable 5) Capturing virtual server image [64G] 9 min Not Applicable SMART VIRTUAL APPLIANCE DEPLOYMENT 1) Deploying the Oracle Database smart virtual appliance [Server, AIX, Oracle Database Software, Sample DB] 6 min 6 min **** Total time taken in repeat deployments <6 min ( 95% faster than A) Table 1. Time saved in repeat deployments of Oracle Database virtual servers through the smart virtual appliance based approach * Performance is based on measurements and projections in a controlled environment. The actual results a user will experience may vary significantly depending upon considerations such as systems and software expertise, resource availability, etc. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve similar efficiency results. In general, the time taken for provisioning infrastructure and installing/configuring software varies from site to site and depends on human factors as well. The timings used here are based on authors own experiences. Additional human errors in provisioning, installation, or configuration could lead to delays and will affect results. ** Assuming all the software bundle pieces scripts, base image and software packages are available. *** The smart virtual appliance creation tasks are one-time activities, which aren t needed during repeat deployments. **** Deployment time measured in IBM PureFlex Systems environment 3

6 IBM virtualization technologies overview IBM Systems Director IBM Systems Director is unified platform management solution software for managing and monitoring the IBM systems server hardware and operating system environment, IBM Systems Storage, networking through a single pane of glass using web-based user friendly and menu driven interfaces. IBM Systems Director has various plug-ins (license required) to manage and monitor the physical server hardware components, virtual servers and images of virtual servers. IBM Systems Director is an upgrade of the base release and the latest version available at the time of writing this document. IBM Systems Director provides consistent views of managed systems and their status and common tasks for a basic management such as discovery, inventory, configuration, system health, monitoring, updates, event notification and automation across managed systems. VMControl IBM Systems Director VMControl is a licensed cross-platform plug-in which is useful for rapidly capturing the virtual images with operating system and applications, and deploying virtual images to create a new virtual server or on an existing virtual server. StorageControl IBM Systems Director StorageControl is a licensed plug-in used to access the storage subsystem s storage pool. This storage pool resides in a storage system such as IBM Storwize V7000 and acts as a repository for storing smart virtual appliances. In this option, a Storage Copy Service (SCS) such as FlashCopy is used for copying smart virtual appliances smartly between the storage volumes during various operations such as capture, extension and deployment. This smart copying dramatically reduces the overall time taken to copy disk images. If the storage server does not have the copy services feature enabled, copying of smart virtual appliances between the volumes happens at the Virtual I/O server (VIOS) level. IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool The Image Construction and Composition Tool is the IBM tool for smart virtual appliance creation. Its intuitive user interface is easy to use and the tool hides the complexities of image creation and packaging. Using the tool you can import a running Virtual Machine as so called base image. In addition, the tool allows you to package software components such as middleware or end-user applications into self-described containers called bundles. The base image is then extended with one or more bundles to create a deployable image. In other words, the tool synchronizes (merges) the content of a base image with the software components contained in bundles. The build and composition process is always performed in the context of a given Cloud Provider. A Cloud Provider is an abstraction layer that isolates Image Construction and Composition Tool from peculiarities of any given hypervisor. For example, the PowerVM Cloud Provider communicates with a target PowerVM hypervisor to perform basic image management tasks such as provision a virtual machine, start it, stop it, etc. 4

7 Once the image has been synchronized (bundles installed in the base image), the tool can capture and export the final smart virtual appliances as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) which can then be imported and used for deployment through IBM System Director VMControl, IBM Flex System Manager, or IBM SmartCloud Entry on IBM Power Systems, or IBM PureSystems. Figure 1 below illustrates various steps in the smart virtual appliance creation process using IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool. In step 1, an OS specialist creates a base virtual server (LPAR), installs the OS (AIX) on it and configures basic services (if any). Then, using IBM Systems Director VMControl (step 2), she captures this base virtual server into the image repository. The software specialist creates a software bundle (step 3) using ICCT. The image builder (step 4) selects the base virtual server image and a software bundle to extend it. Extending a virtual server image with a software bundle creates a new interim virtual server and installs the software bundle on it (step 5), which can then be captured and stored in the image repository (step 6). This stored virtual server image is called the smart virtual appliance, which may then be deployed or exported (step 7) in an OVA format. The exported OVA may be transferred to remote PureSystems or Power systems server, imported and deployed as new virtual servers (step 8). Figure 1. End to end smart virtual appliance creation process using IBM ICCT 5

8 Smart virtual appliance deployment approaches A software bundle based the smart virtual appliance creation and deployment approach differs from the usual virtual appliance approach. Table 2 below provides an overview of different steps employed in creating and deploying virtual appliances. Usual Virtual Appliance deployment approach Software Bundle based smart virtual appliance deployment approach i) None Create or import the Oracle Database Software Bundle in ICCT [one time activity] ii) Create a base AIX virtual server Create a base AIX virtual server iii) iv) Manually configure the base virtual server environment and install Oracle DB software Capture the Oracle Database Virtual Appliance v) Deploy Oracle Database Virtual Appliance on a new virtual server vi) Manually perform the post installation configuration steps on the new virtual server Apply the Oracle Database software bundle on base image to automatically configure and install Oracle Database software. Capture the Oracle Database smart virtual appliance Deploy Oracle Database smart virtual appliance on a new virtual server None; post installation configuration steps are applied automatically during deploy time Table 2. Differences between the software bundle based and usual Virtual Appliance creation and deployment approaches Further, multiple choices may be made with regards to the exact steps employed in creating and deploying the smart virtual appliance using the software bundle approach. These choices are highlighted in figure 2 below; steps marked in bold are used in this whitepaper. 6

9 (a) Create base AIX virtual server (b) install Oracle DB Software on base virtual server (optional) (c) Capture virtual server image in cloud provider image repository (optional) (d) Create or Import Oracle DB software bundle with install and/or deploy time scripts No (f) Kidnap live virtual server image (e) Base virtual server exists in cloud provider image repository? (step c done?) Yes (g) Import virtual server image from cloud provider (h) Oracle DB SW pre-installed on base image? (step b done?) Yes (i) deploy time scripts included in SW bundle? No (j) Install time scripts included in SW bundle? No No (k) Pre-conditions not fulfilled for VA creation Yes (l) Apply software bundle, synchronize and capture the resulting image (VA) back into cloud provider image repository (m) Export Appliance in OVA format (n) Deploy the virtual appliance (o) Import OVA and deploy through different cloud provider (p) Applied software bundle had deploy time scripts? No (q) Manually configure Oracle DB on target Yes (r) Log into to the target server and validate deployment Figure 2. Smart virtual appliance capture and deployment using software bundle 7

10 Benefits of software bundle based smart virtual appliance deployment approach: 1. Automates the application installation and configuration activities during both the source preparation time and deployment time, thereby reducing the overall time taken and errors introduced. 2. Same software bundle can be used to support multiple versions of a certain base operating system (say AIX). As a result different source virtual servers combinations can be created easily and on-demand without manually installing and configuring software. For example, Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on AIX 7.1 TL1, on AIX 7.1 TL2, or on AIX 6.1 TL1 may be created using the same software bundle as long as the software bundle supports different base operating system releases. 3. New software bundle creation for a new application release usually does not require major changes to the previous software bundle. 4..A complex virtual server configuration can easily be created by including multiple software bundles, one on top of another, into the same virtual server image. 5. The software bundle based approach also can be used to create multi-tiered workload deployment configurations that span multiple virtual servers. 8

11 Test Setup Architectural diagram of our test For this paper, an IBM Power System server with POWER7 processors was used with dual VIOS configured. An IBM Storwize V7000 was used for providing storage volumes to Virtual Servers and these volumes were supplied to logical partitions (Virtual Servers) through virtual SCSI interfaces. IBM Power System POWER7 HMC Virtual Ethernet Virtual Switch 0 VIOS1 ( ) SAN Storage Pool Image Repository AIX 7.1 LPAR : : AIX 7.1 LPAR ( ) Image Construction and Composition Tool AIX 7.1 LPAR ( ) Oracle DB 11g Release 2 AIX 7.1 LPAR ( ) Management Server- IBM Systems Director VMControl VIOS2 ( ) Eth Eth FC FC FC FC Eth Eth Virtual Ethernet Virtual Switch 1 SAN Public Network IBM Network Advisor tool for SMI-S installed in Red Hat Linux IBM Storwize V7000 Figure 3. Test environment architecture 9

12 Figure 4. IBM Systems Director VMControl setup Test environment software stack Software Component AIX7.1 Virtual servers IBM Systems Director (ISD) - Management Server ISD VMControl Plug-In Release Version 7.1 TL01 SP03 ISD Storage Control Plug-In Build AIX Fileset in ISD Management Server sysmgt.cimserver.pegasus.rte Virtual I/O servers Hardware Management Console (HMC) V7R Image Construction and Composition Tool (ICCT) IBM Network Advisor tool version for SMI-S install in RHAT Linux IBM Storwize V7000 micro code Power7 750 Express server Micro Code (build ) AL730_095 Oracle Database (Single Instance) 11g Release 2 ( Table 3. Software used in testing 10

13 Oracle Database smart virtual appliance creation and deployment using ICCT Infrastructure requirements In order to build and use smart virtual appliances using the approach that is illustrated in the following sections, a certain infrastructure configuration must be available. The following components need to be installed and configured before we proceed with creating a software bundle, or capturing, extending or deploying a smart virtual appliance using ICCT with the IBM PowerVM cloud provider backed by a Storage Copy Services based image repository. Additional details on setting up the environment can be obtained by referring to white papers and resources listed in the References section. 1. Install IBM Systems Director (or later) on an AIX virtual server, and activate the VMControl and StorageControl plug-ins. 2. Discover and inventory the HMC, managed system as well as the connected VIOS. 3. Create a storage pool on the SAN storage with sufficient storage for storing both interim and final virtual server images (smart virtual appliances). 4. Install and configure the SMI-S provider on a Linux server for the SAN fabrics (SAN switches). Note this may or may not be required, depending on the SAN storage/switch used. 5. Discover and add the SAN storage system and the SAN fabric using IBM Systems Director StorageControl. Once this is done, capture the Farm inventory. 6. Enable the FlashCopy feature (if available) with IBM Systems Director Storage Copy Services. 7. Create the image repository on the SAN storage pool: a. Install the VMControl CAS subagent (e.g. CommonAgentSubagent_VMControl) on the VIOS and inventory the VIOS. b. Create the image repository by selecting the right storage pool through the VMControl Create Image Repository feature. 8. Create a base virtual server (LPAR) with AIX7.1 installed. Note this virtual server could have single or multiple disks and will provide a template configuration for the smart virtual appliance. 9. Install ICCT on an AIX virtual server. Capturing base virtual server image Unlike NIM, the SCS method can significantly decrease the capture and deploy times for a smart virtual appliance, especially when leveraging the underlying storage subsystem s FlashCopy feature. This is primarily due to fast data copying between different SAN volumes on the same storage subsystem; a NIM based approach suffers from the network bandwidth and latency issues. With SCS, both the capture and deploy processes usually take a few minutes to complete often less than a minute. This can be critical especially when there is a frequent requirement for capturing and deploying multiple virtual images in the data centers. To capture the base virtual image using SCS however, certain additional (manual) steps must be performed though. 11

14 Preparing the AIX virtual server for capturing using Storage Copy Services (SCS) A special requirement for capturing an AIX virtual server using the SCS method is that the virtual server activation engine (VSAE) needs to be enabled on it. The activation engine sets the proper deploy time IP and disk-name configuration on the virtual server. A smart virtual appliance that does not have the activation engine enabled when deployed may not have correct IP address or the disk name(s) and this may result in an in-operable virtual server. NOTE: this requirement can be ignored if the base AIX virtual server is kidnapped directly through ICCT. Here are the steps for installing and enabling activation engine: 1. Copy the file vmc.vsae.tar from the IBM Systems Director host (under /opt/ibm/director/proddatat/activation-engine) to the AIX virtual server (say /tmp/vsae) and extract it. 2. Login to the AIX virtual server and go into the directory where vmc.vsae has been un-tared. 3. Do export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java5/jre 4. Run aix-install.sh. 5. In case the AIX virtual server has been captured before and needs to be captured again, run the following commands: c. rm /opt/ibm/ae/ap/* d. cp /opt/ibm/ae/as/vmc-network-restore/resetenv /opt/ibm/ae/ap/ovfenv.xml 6. From IBM Systems Director, discover and collect inventory the AIX virtual server. 7. Prepare the AIX virtual server to be captured by running the following command. This will prepare the virtual server for the capture and then shutdown the virtual server. /opt/ibm/ae/ae.sh -reset Caution: The above command will prepare the virtual server for capture and then shutdown the virtual server. If you have running application(s) in the virtual server, safely bring them down before running the command. 8. Wait for the virtual server to come to a complete halt and then capture the virtual server image using IBM Systems Director. Capturing the virtual server using SCS with IBM Storwize V7000 FlashCopy Using the SCS method, one or more SAN volume(s) assigned to the virtual server either through the Virtual I/O server s vscsi method or NPIV (N-Port ID virtualization) can be captured. While capturing the virtual server, the SAN volumes assigned to the virtual server will be copied to another set of volumes using fast FlashCopy method if the FlashCopy is enabled in the storage subsystem level as well as the SSH Remote Service Access Point (RSAP) connection for the IBM Storwize V7000 storage subsystem is enabled. The FlashCopy feature to the storage subsystems is a licensed feature. If the FlashCopy feature in the Storage Subsystem is enabled, while capturing the virtual server, the SAN disks assigned to the virtual server through Virtual I/O server are copied to the same sized target disks in the SAN Storage pool which is associated with Image Repository. 12

15 If you don t have the FlashCopy feature enabled, while capturing the virtual server, the same sized target disks are created in the SAN Storage subsystem and assigned to the Virtual I/O server hosting the virtual server which is under capture process and the data is copied from the source disks (SAN disks assigned to the virtual server) to the target disks using the dd command. The same dd command is used while doing deploy process. In our setup, the IBM Storwize V7000 has the FlashCopy feature enabled and disks are copied using the FlashCopy. Once the pre-requisites are taken care of, capture the virtual server using the following steps: 1) From IBM Systems Director web console, select System Configuration > VMControl > Virtual Appliances > Capture. Review the welcome screen messages and proceed to next step. 2) Enter the name of the smart virtual appliance 3) Select Virtual Server. Workload implies capturing more than one virtual server. In some scenarios, the whole setup such as DB tier, Middle tier/application tier may need to be captured and bundled as a virtual appliance image. In our scenario, only one virtual server is to be captured. 13

16 4) While many virtual servers are listed, use Search field to list the particular virtual server to be captured. 5) Select disks that need to be captured as part of the smart virtual appliance. Also provide descriptions for the disks to provide aid during deployment. 6) Provide description for the virtual network 7) Select an existing parent version tree or create new one. 14

17 8) 9) Validate settings in the summary page and click Finish to capture virtual server. Once the capture process is initiated, the progress of the operation can be monitored in the Display Properties Logs of a pop-up menu or from Task Management Active and Scheduled Jobs. A sample progress log might look like this: March 4, :55:23 AM PST-Level:1-MEID:0--MSG: Job "Capture virtual appliance - March 4, :55:03 AM PST" activated. March 4, :55:23 AM PST-Level:200-MEID:0--MSG: Subtask "Capture virtual appliance" activated. March 4, :55:23 AM PST-Level:200-MEID:0--MSG: No clients to start. March 4, :55:23 AM PST-Level:200-MEID:0--MSG: Subtask activation status changed to "Active". March 4, :55:23 AM PST-Level:1-MEID:0--MSG: Job activation status changed to "Active". March 4, :55:23 AM PST-Level:200-MEID:0--MSG: Subtask activation status changed to "Active". March 4, :55:23 AM PST-Level:200-MEID:0--MSG: Subtask activation status changed to "Active". March 4, :55:25 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP411I Capturing virtual server icc-163 to virtual appliance AIXBaseImage in repository SCSRep. March 4, :55:25 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP912I Disk group to be captured: DG_ :42:09:349 March 4, :55:25 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP959I Capturing disk image content of selected disks for virtual server 'icc-163'. March 4, :55:25 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP960I Capturing disk image content for server disk 15

18 'vdisk358' of size (MB) '32768'. March 4, :55:25 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP960I Capturing disk image content for server disk 'vdisk359' of size (MB) '32768'. March 4, :55:25 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP900I Requesting SAN volume(s) March 4, :56:02 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP948I New disk group: DG_ :56:01:869 March 4, :56:02 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP413I The virtual appliance is using disk group DG_ :56:01:869 with the following SAN volumes: [AIXBaseImage3, AIXBaseImage4]. March 4, :56:02 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP414I The virtual server is using disk group DG_ :42:09:349 with the following SAN volumes: [vdisk358, vdisk359]. March 4, :56:03 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP909I Copying disk images March 4, :56:12 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: DNZLOP409I Creating the OVF for the virtual appliance. March 4, :56:15 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: Discovering software image where the Derby ID is '69' March 4, :56:15 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: Creating new container for the software image. The derby container ID is '69' March 4, :56:15 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: Discovering software image where the Derby ID is '70' March 4, :56:15 AM PST-Level:150-MEID:0--MSG: Creating new container for the software image. The derby container ID is '70' March 4, :56:16 AM PST-Level:200-MEID:0--MSG: Subtask activation status changed to "Complete". March 4, :56:16 AM PST-Level:1-MEID:0--MSG: Job activation status changed to "Complete". March 4, :56:16 AM PST-Level:200-MEID:0--MSG: Subtask activation status changed to "Complete". March 4, :56:16 AM PST-Level:100-MEID:0--MSG: Capture virtual appliance complete. NOTE: In the sample case above, it took less than 1 minute to capture the virtual server with two 32G disks! 10) The captured image is displayed under the Virtual Appliances tab in the VMControl main page. Creating software bundle and smart virtual appliance This section describes ICCT configuration and explores some common functions such as importing a virtual server image from the cloud provider, capturing a virtual appliance (i.e. storing virtual server image back into the cloud provider image repository), extending and synchronizing a virtual server image with a software bundle, and exporting a smart virtual appliance in the OVA format. Configuring cloud provider The cloud provider used for the purpose of this white paper is a PowerVM cloud provider, which is functionality offered through IBM Systems Director application with VMControl plug-in. 16

19 Verify that ICCT is installed and running successfully by logging onto the ICCT portal: host>/. Note that the default username and password are: admin and Passw0rd. The first time the ICCT portal is accessed, the user is prompted to provide cloud provider creation details. This wizard may also be opened at a subsequent stage by clicking on Administrator > Manage Cloud Provider > New Cloud Provider. 1) 2) Provide a cloud provider name and description. The cloud provider type that needs to be selected for an IBM Systems Director VMControl backend is PowerVM Express. 3) Provide the hostname and login credentials for IBM Systems Director that would be used at the back-end for various image capturing and deployment activities. 17

20 4) Once the IBM Systems Director instance is accessed successfully, a choice of target hypervisors is presented. Each cloud provider is associated with a single hypervisor, which needs to be selected here. Network configuration details are crucial for successful image capture, extend and sync operations. The primary and secondary DNS servers are queried by ICCT to do reverse hostname lookups while creating interim virtual server images for the extended images (i.e. new virtual images with a software bundle). That hostname is then used for naming the interim virtual server or LPAR, and also for hostname setup on the interim virtual server. In case the hostname isn t resolved, virtual server names might appear as: sys-aa-bb-cc-dd.domain.com, where aa-bb-cc-dd are the octets of the IP address being used. 18

21 5) Review the cloud provider settings and click on Done to create the cloud provider. 19

22 Configuring cloud provider image repository 1) Once a cloud provider is configured, choose Administrator > Manage cloud providers menu option to select and configure an image repository. 2) Select the cloud provider from the list of cloud providers. Choose the Repositories tab and click on the pen icon to configure repository access credentials. 3) In addition to providing the repository credentials, the Storage Volume Controller (IBM Storwize V7000) credentials also need to be updated, along with the private key. This private key is the same one created in the IBM Systems Director and uploaded to the user superuser in the IBM Storwize V7000. Note that this key creation is described in the section Adding IBM Storwize V7000 into the IBM Systems Director Storage Control in this document. 20

23 4) If the repository credentials are valid, the credentials column below will reflect a value of Yes. Importing Virtual Server Images Once the image repository is successfully configured, we can import virtual appliances or images that exist on the image repository, through the cloud provider. 1) Select Images and Bundles > Build and manage images option 2) Select Import from cloud provider option. This brings up the list of virtual images that are 21

24 available in the image repository for importing. 3) Import a base AIX image that has been updated with vmc.vsae package. Note that the particular package is a pre-requisite when using SCS as the image repository but isn t required for NIM image repositories. 4) Enable VSAE on the base AIX virtual server as described in the section Preparing the AIX virtual server for capturing using Storage Copy Services (SCS). Note that if a live virtual server (LPAR) is kidnapped, i.e. captured directly from ICCT, the VSAE enablement is done automatically by ICCT. 5) Select the desired image and provide login credentials that ICCT can later use for logging into the virtual image and installing the software bundle. 6) Once an image is successfully imported, its attributes can be reviewed by clicking on the image name. Note that the imported image does NOT have the Activation Framework. 22

25 Creating Software Bundle 1) Select Images and Bundle > Build and Manage Software Bundles option and click on the New Bundle icon to initiate bundle creation. 2) Provide software bundle details, similar to the details below: 23

26 3) Provide an appropriate and unique Universal ID, specify the bundle version and add details of products included in the software bundle (e.g. OracleDB11gR2AIX below). 4) Provide software bundle requirements. In this example, we only specify AIX 7.x as the base operating system requirement. 24

27 5) Provide the software bundle install operation configuration details. The install operation configuration takes place during an image extend operation. During this phase, an interim virtual server is created and the install operation configuration files copied to it and executed. Here are two approaches that can be used for the Oracle Database software bundle install configuration. The Oracle Database software installation and silent response files can either be bundled together or made available through an NFS share. During the software bundle install time, user can specify using ORACLE_TARFILE and ORACLE_RESPONSE_FILENAME arguments whether these files are bundled in or referenced from remote NFS share. Install script configuration for NFS hosted installation and data files: 25

28 Install script configuration for bundled installation and data files: Note: Refer to Appendix 1 for details on the software bundle and bundle specific usage. Ensure that the main installation scripts are marked as executable. The arguments to the installation script can be passed as arguments or environment variables. In the example here, the environment variable options are used, the values specified here are the default values. These values may also be provide during image extend phase or deployment phase (see image extension section below). The arguments to the installation script are handled within the installation script and if environment variables are used instead of command line switch options to pass arguments, the script should be written to expect arguments accordingly. 6) Provide the software bundle deploy time configuration details. The software bundle s deploy time configuration details are applied after the base virtual image has been extended and the resulting image captured. The deploy time configuration typically involves configuring the installed software for the new virtual server on which 26

29 deployment is taking place. Note: a. Unlike the install operation configuration script in this example above, the deploy time configuration script here is written to accept arguments through command line. However, just like the install operation configuration, the deploy time configuration script too can accept arguments through environment variables. b. The dependencies list includes setting certain network parameters. Specifying the list of dependencies here provides a mechanism to specify the order in which the deploy time configuration. Specifically, the following dependencies are specified in this example: activate.vmc.network-interface activate.vmc.system-networking 27

30 Example: activate.vmc.system Once the image is extended the deploy time configuration order can be validated by observing the script names under /etc/rc.d/rc2.d directory on the interim virtual server after a successful image extension operation. Applying Software Bundle (extending Image) 1) Select the base image to be extended by selecting the Images and bundles > Build and manage images menu option. 2) Click on the extend icon to extend the image and provide details for the extended image. 28

31 3) Click on the Start Editing icon and then the Add bundle button on the resulting screen to select the software bundle. Then choose the bundle that needs to be added to the base image. 4) Update any install or deploy time parameters. 29

32 5) Click on the save icon and verify the list of software bundles as well as products in the resulting image. Note that the image status at this point is out-of-sync, which implies that the software bundle hasn t actually been applied on the base image. 6) Click on the synchronize icon to apply the software bundle on the base AIX image, and provide the username and password for the base AIX image: 30

33 7) Wait until the image is successfully synchronized. Capturing Virtual Server image/appliance Having an image successfully synchronized means that the software bundle contained in it is installed on it. In this example, the software bundle includes Oracle Database 11g Release 2 software. 31

34 Connect to the interim virtual server to validate the bundle installation. In this example, it can be validated that the Oracle database has been successfully installed and that the instance is up and running. icc-165 /# su - oracle $ sqlplus / as sysdba SQL*Plus: Release Production on Mon Mar 4 14:23: Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved. Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release bit Production With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options SQL> select count(*) from cat; COUNT(*) SQL> Click on the capture icon to capture the image. Note that this action would shutdown the virtual server, take the virtual server s image, store it on the configured image repository, delete the interim virtual server and release its IP for future use. 32

35 Deploying the smart virtual appliance Once an image is captured, it can be deployed using IBM Systems Director VMControl, IBM Flex System Manager or other IBM cloud provisioning applications such as IBM SmartCloud Entry. 1) Log into IBM Systems Director server and select Systems Configuration > VMControl subsection from the side-bar. The captured image can be found in the virtual appliances list. 2) Select the newly created smart virtual appliance from the list and click on Deploy Virtual Appliance from the menu bar above. 3) Select the target managed system where the virtual server is to be deployed. 4) Provide a unique workload name for the new virtual server. 33

36 5) Specify the storage connection. In our test we used Virtual SCSI adapters. 6) Select the disk(s) to deploy and specify the storage pool for those. 7) Specify the Network Mapping. 8) Specify the deploy time parameters. Note that the software bundle parameters also appear at the end of the list here and the default values can be altered as per requirement (e.g. ORACLE HOME) below. 34

37 9) Validate the details in the summary screen and click finish to deploy. 10) Monitor the deploy task progress until completion. Once successfully deployed, log onto the newly deployed virtual server and validate the software bundle deploy time configuration. Note that it might take a few minutes before the newly created system gets the right IP and hostname. 35

38 One the virtual server is deployed, it can be validated that not only has the Oracle software been successfully captured and deployed, but the database instance migrated as well to match the destination hostname. icc-169 /# su - oracle $ sqlplus / as sysdba SQL*Plus: Release Production on Mon Mar 4 15:25: Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved. Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release bit Production With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options SQL> select count(*) from cat; COUNT(*) SQL> 36

39 Exporting smart virtual appliance as OVA The Image construction and composition tool (ICCT) is used for building a virtual image with multiple software components in it. For example, AIX 7.1 operating system, application binaries, install and configuration scripts can be bundled together as a smart virtual appliance and kept in the image repository for repeated deployment within the same datacenter environment, or the smart virtual appliance can be exported from the image repository to another server using ICCT functionality. The ICCT exports the image in Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA) format to a specified location in another remote host using Secure Copy Protocol (SCP). The following screens show the steps for exporting the smart virtual appliance using ICCT. In ICCT web GUI, click on Images and bundles Build and manage images, this lists the images (smart virtual appliances) on the left side of the screen. These images are extended images with additional software components or base image(s) which were captured from a virtual server, saved in the Image repository and imported into the ICCT catalog. Click on the image which needs to be exported. On the right side, the details of the image which is selected are shown. Click on the symbol located in the right top corner of ICCT. This symbol pops up a window for getting the remote host name and location where the exported image will be stored. The remote host can be any host with enough storage space to accommodate the exporting image. Make sure the Secured Copy Protocol (SCP) can be done between Virtual I/O server and the remote host, otherwise set up the secured shell environment on the remote host. 37

40 After clicking, an export status window pops up to show the status of the export task. Click on Open the export status to show the status of the export. 38

41 The progress of the export task can be seen in the ICCT log file: /drouter/ramdisk2/mnt/raid-volume/raid0/logs/trace/trace.log While exporting the virtual image from the Image Repository (with Storage Copy Services option), the following tasks are happening: 1. In the storage server, a volume is created with the same size as the Virtual Image and the Virtual Image is copied to that volume using FlashCopy feature. 2. The new volume is assigned to the Virtual I/O server who owns the Image repository and the whole volume is copied into a raw file on the Virtual I/O server using dd command. This command can be seen in the log file of the ICCT. For example, dd if=/dev/hdisk209 bs=512 bzip2 > /home/padmin/aixbaseimageoracledb raw.bz2. 3. After the raw file is created, it is copied to a final location of the remote host which was given as the input to the previous window. 4. The ICCT cleans up the raw file created in the Virtual I/O server as part of the dd command and the storage volume in the Storage server. The final export file (OVA file) is a compressed (zip) file that can be imported into another Systems Director VMControl Image repository or Flex Systems VMControl Image Repository using their import feature. 39

42 Importing an OVA into the Image repository Systems Director VMControl plug-in manages the images in the image repository. Virtual images can be captured, deployed and imported using the features of VMControl. For the testing purpose, the image that was exported using ICCT was imported back into the Systems Director Image Repository using the VMControl import option. The following steps with the screen shots show the import process. Before starting the import, have the exported OVA file in a host system which can be accessed through the web or copy the OVA file into a local directory in the host where the Systems director is installed or mount the remote file system where the OVA file is located into the Systems Director host. Extract the.zip file using the jar command, don t use unzip command. For example, jar -xvf icon_image_aix60g_3gtmp_oracle_1_0_0.ova.zip. This extracts the zip file and a file with.ovf extension can be seen, that is the file which has the information about the virtual image and Meta data. 1) To start the import of the OVA, click the Import button as shown in the previous page. Click next on the welcome screen and provide the.ovf file with full path name in the input field on the next screen. The details of the OVF can be seen by clicking View Details button. 40

43 2) Check Import without digital signature. 3) It shows the name of the OVA image and its description. 41

44 4) Create a new version or select a virtual appliance to be the parent of the new smart virtual appliance. 5) Review the summary and click Finish to import. 42

45 6) Click Finish to start the import of the OVA. The log of the import action can be seen in the next screen or go to Task Management of the Systems Director main page and click Active and Scheduled Jobs to list the running jobs and their status and logs. 7) While importing the image, it creates a volume in the storage server with the same size as the volume which had the image before. Upon completion of the import process, the imported OVA can be seen on the VMControl page. If there are two identical names are listed, the one highlighted is the one which was imported. If you click it, it would show the date stamp and the version of the virtual image. 43

46 Appendix Sample Oracle Database 11g Release 2 software bundle The sample software bundle and the sample deploy time configuration activation engine scripts are provided on an As Is basis, without warranty, either express or implied. It is up to the users to check that the software bundle and scripts meet Oracle Database installation requirements at the time of use, and make any needed changes. Oracle Database installation requirements can be found on My Oracle Support at: The sample Oracle Database 11g Release 2 software bundle used in this white paper includes both the install operations configuration and the deploy time configuration activation engine scripts. It does not include Oracle Database software or Oracle silent install response file. The install and config scripts referenced in this whitepaper can be obtained by sending a request to; ibmoracle@us.ibm.com. Install operations configuration The install operations configuration includes the following files: 1) README.txt The README.txt file contains detailed instructions on using the install time configuration scripts. 2) Oracle database silent install response file (silent_install.rsp) Users may create a silent response file tailored to their environment. Also, one software bundle may include multiple silent install response files. During the image install/extend time, the response file that is to be used needs to be passed as argument (ORACLE_RESPONSE_FILENAME). In addition to bundling the silent install response file within the software bundle, the file may even be referenced from a remote NFS server. To achieve this, the ORACLE_RESPONSE_FILENAME must be set to reflect the full NFS path, such as: test.usca.ibm.com:/software/oracle/silent_response.rsp 3) Oracle database software tar file (11gR2.tar). 1. This tar file includes the Oracle Database software installation binaries starting at the database directory. The ORACLE_TARFILE argument needs to be configured during synchronization time to match this filename. NOTE: 1. Since the Oracle Database software installation binaries size (11gR2.tar size) is large, uploading the software may not succeed. This is a known limitation of the current ICCT release. In this case, a dummy software file with same name needs to be added in the dialog here. Subsequently, the actual software file needs to be 44