Category: Cloud

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Oracle Database on Hyper-scale Public Cloud – License Questions!

We all know, on January 23, 2017, Oracle updated the Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment document. The gist of the announcement was “When counting Oracle Processor license requirements in Authorized Cloud Environments, the Oracle Processor Core Factor Table is not applicable“. So, if you are running Oracle database on x86 Intel platform on-premise, when moving to AWS or Azure cloud, your available licensed CPUs are cut in half. Read my blog on this topic.

Can I run Oracle RAC on Public Cloud?

The answer is “yes!”. On AWS and Azure (for that matter any public cloud), you could use third party product Flashgrid to make local storage shared on all nodes, and have ASM on top. FlashGrid Storage Fabric turns local drives into shared drives accessible from all nodes in the cluster. The local drives shared via FlashGrid Storage Fabric can be block devices of any type including Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes, local SSDs, or LVM volumes. The sharing is done at the block level with concurrent access from all nodes. With ASM, you can choose normal redundancy (two copies) or high redundancy (three copies). I believe, this is the limitation of Flashgrid as of today, you can have up to 3 node RAC using Flashgrid. Read more.

Oracle RAC in AWSOn Oracle cloud, you can have a two node RAC natively using Oracle DBaaS service. If you need bigger capacity servers, Oracle Bare Metal Cloud service is the answer. With Bare Metal Cloud, you can have up to 72 OCPU and 1TB of memory per node. With bare metal also, only two node RAC is possible – no more than two nodes.

What about licensing RAC on Public Cloud?

The Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment document has a link to “eligible” technologies and products on the cloud (this document also updated on Jan 23, 2017). I see Database SE, SE2, EE, even Partitioning, Advanced Security, Advanced Compression listed, but I do not see Oracle RAC. Does this mean, from a licensing standpoint, Oracle RAC on AWS & Azure using Flashgrid is not allowed?

Note, Oracle’s official document is under review. Hopefully, some clarity comes out in the next few days.

How about In-Memory, Multitenant and Active Dataguard?

I also do not see these technologies listed in the document. So, are these products/technologies not allowed on Azure/AWS? I know technically it is possible to create a Container Database with the In-memory option and Active Dataguard (together or separate) on AWS EC2 or Azure Compute (both IaaS). Question is, am I allowed to do so? Amazon’s own white paper, Oracle Advanced Architectures include Active Dataguard in multiple scenarios. This white paper was published in April 2016 though, much before Oracle updating the Cloud Licensing Document!

Thoughts??

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12th Day of #Cloud: Thoughts

12 Days of #Cloud: Day 12

After playing with Oracle Database Cloud Service (DBaaS) for past several days, I have mixed feeling. I like quite a lot of features and the amount of automation went into the product. For example, creating an RAC instance and creating a Data Guard instance by picking a check box is pretty awesome. These two configurations are pretty good, in my quick validation. If Oracle development team takes care of few cosmetic items in the Cloud interface to make it consistent across all services and simplify the data entry portion, users like me would start liking and adopting the service. I also expect a lot of automation.

I had two pain points – storage and cloud tooling. The trial account navigation on the Cloud dashboard is too slow as well.

From the Dashboard after you click on a Cloud Service (for example Database Cloud Service or Golden Gate Cloud Service), you get to the screen where you have a button on the top right to open the console.

The Storage Console URL is tied to the data center (not sure why), hence I think the “Open Service Console” button is missing in Storage Cloud Service main screen.

Still, I do not think it is a big deal to generate my storage cloud console URL as my data center is known to Oracle and provide a consistent interface. The URL is https://storageconsole.us2.oraclecloud.com/

When entering storage container information, I have to create URL. Would it be easier to ask me the domain name and container name instead of asking me to coin the URL? From the storage domain name and container name, Oracle developer can easily build the URL.

When I am subscribing to a service, I expect everything latest and greatest, especially the cloud tools to manage my service. I am not sure why I should manually update the cloud tooling to the latest? In my view, updating cloud tooling to latest release must be part of provisioning and automatic ongoing.

When creating a DBaaS service, enabling backup is easy through the GUI. But, if we have to change the backup configuration, it is a lot of manual steps. I would expect a DBaaS modify service GUI similar to the create service GUI where I can change the backup configuration.

These may be minor, and once you are used to the service may not be a big deal. For a new product, the challenge is to get people to get used to the tool. If you turn them off initially with a non-friendly interface, it does not matter how good the product is.

Hope these posts will help you try out Oracle #DBaaS. I will continue to play with Cloud service as long my trial account is active 🙂

Happy New Year!