Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FOR
DUMmIES
by Michael Wessler,
OCP & CISSP
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Publishers Acknowledgments
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Introduction
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If you see an icon that says remember, you may want to, uh,
remember the information. We wont have deep meaning-oflife stuff, but it may be good to know for later.
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Chapter 1
Exalogic Computing
In This Chapter
Identifying the current state and pitfalls of traditional computing
environments
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Complex computing environment may be understood only
by a few individuals who have institutional knowledge.
Maintenance for a custom solution is continual and often
expensive.
Resource consumption cant easily be directed toward
increased innovation.
Features are difficult to modify and grow as business
requirements change and new opportunities appear.
These factors result in higher costs and complexities for the
organization while providing less benefit to the business.
Individual components and processes can be improved, but
the negative aspects of highly customized solutions for relatively standard practices still remain.
Oracle Exadata
The first product to take advantage of the engineered hardware and software solution was Oracle Exadata. The Oracle
Exadata database machine is an optimized database and storage solution that offers a high-performance and highly scalable configuration. Key items include
A preconfigured hardware and software system using
optimized Oracle settings
Oracle RAC (Real Application Cluster) databases
A high-performance, fault-tolerant, and optimized I/O
subsystem
Increased performance and throughput
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The ability to scale capacity to meet customer requirements and grow as needed
Oracle Exadata database machines support both cloud and
noncloud environments. The success of the Exadata database
platform paved the way to the Exalogic solution.
Oracle Exalogic
Exalogic is Oracles Engineered System for the application and
middle tier. Like Exadata, Exalogic is an optimized software
and hardware machine. Instead of hosting databases, however, Exalogic is designed to host Oracle Applications, Fusion
Middleware, and third-party software. Customers deploying
applications on Exalogic will benefit from reduced complexity,
better performance, simplified operations, and faster time to
value at lower cost.
The Exalogic benefits that organizations find useful can be
categorized into three key areas:
Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud computing
Support of very large systems
Datacenter consolidation
Applications
Custom Web
Applications
E-Business
Suite
Fusion Apps
Siebel
Enterprise
Manager
Middleware Platforms
Integration:
SOA Suite
Process:
BPM Suite
Security:
User Interaction:
Identity Mgmt
WebCenter
Shared Services
Grid
Control
OpsCenter
Exalogic
Exadata
Figure 1-1: Oracle Exalogic in the Oracle Cloud Technology Stack.
As you can see in Figure 1-1, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud provides a platform for applications (Oracle Applications, Fusion
Middleware, or custom) riding atop middleware technology.
Infrastructure is provided by the engineered hardware and software solutions including Exalogic and Exadata. All components
are managed by Oracle management tools.
For database access within the cloud, database servers are
interconnected to the Exalogic servers. When that happens,
the database servers are typically Oracle Exadata database
servers, although standard Oracle servers or even non-Oracle
database servers can be used.
Oracles storage solutions provide storage capacity. These
solutions can take the form of external attached storage or storage internal to the Exalogic or Exadata servers. Furthermore,
the solutions can exist as high-performance disk, high-capacity
storage disk, high-performance solid state flash devices, or
tape. Oracle offers many possible storage solutions.
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Oracles Enterprise Manager toolset handles the critical management of these components. These tools can configure,
monitor, provision, tune, and proactively manage each component within the cloud.
Virtualization the ability to create environments that
appear to the customer as dedicated environments but in
reality are shared resources is a key component within
cloud computing. Oracle makes extensive use of virtualization
with little administrative overhead.
The Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud allows customers to
achieve many of the cloud characteristics described in the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition of cloud computing. Oracles solution provides customers with on-demand self-service as demand increases, broad
network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service metrics.
The benefits of the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud include
Shared resource environment to reduce overall cost
Ability to rapidly increase or decrease capacity based on
resource requirements
A common, nonspecialized Oracle environment that is
readily understood
High availability and fault tolerance via a redundant
cloud of servers
High performance due to optimized hardware and software components
Easy integration into the cloud because it uses technologies already present in IT organizations
Ability to deploy most applications without any changes
Management by Oracle Enterprise Manager technology
stack, which is integrated across all components
Backing and support by Oracle Support Services
These factors make Exalogic Elastic Cloud a solid solution for
organizations looking for a better way to manage IT.
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Datacenter Consolidation
It is very common for datacenters to have many more servers
and operating environments than what is actually required to
support the organizations systems. Often, each application
demands its own separate development, test, and production
server with all the necessary support components, such as
networking, storage, software licenses, and administrators to
manage the system. All these components increase both complexity and costs for the organization.
Exalogic excels at consolidating many smaller, independent
servers into a larger shared environment. Through the use
of virtualization, Exalogic allows applications to have virtual
operating environments, yet they share the same hardware
and infrastructure resources. The applications dont even
realize they are in a shared, virtualized environment. By consolidating multiple smaller servers onto one or more Exalogic
servers, you can reduce the number of individual servers in a
datacenter and simplify administration which dramatically
drives down support and maintenance costs.
Datacenter consolidation is often a mandate in large government organizations as a cost-cutting measure. If you can consolidate, you will meet these mandates and reduce cost and
complexity.
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Chapter 2
Exalogics Optimized
Architecture
In This Chapter
Examining the Exalogic architecture
Explaining how Exalogic scales to serve large environments
Detailing the hardware components of Exalogic
n this chapter, we cover the role Exalogic plays in a typical IT environment. We discuss the types of applications
it supports and functionally what it does. Finally, we describe
the hardware characteristics of the Exalogic X2-2 machine.
What Is Exalogic?
Oracle Exalogic is an engineered hardware and software solution. Oracle has created an application platform solution
that benefits a wide range of todays packaged or custombuilt software systems. Understanding how Oracle Exalogic
machines are architected and operate lays the foundation for
using them effectively.
At its core, Oracle Exalogic performs the role of a high-
performance and very efficient consolidation platform for
the application tier. As such, it is typically used to run the
application, web, and middle-tier components of the following
software products and workloads:
Oracle Applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite,
PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards
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10
Oracle Fusion Middleware (FMW) applications such
as those using Oracle WebLogic J2EE server, SOA, and
Business Intelligence
Custom and third-party applications not using Oracle
Applications or Fusion Middleware products
During application processing, access to databases is the
norm. The database tier is very often Oracle, although support for non-Oracle databases is provided. Most frequently,
the Exalogic server will access standard single instance
Oracle databases, or clustered Oracle RAC databases, or
even the high-performance Oracle Exadata database machine.
Exalogic and Exadata rely on the same high-speed networking
backplane. As a result, any processing between the application and data tiers is performed fast and efficiently. Figure 2-1
shows an example of Exalogic application components.
WebLogic
Server
Coherence
Tuxedo
Solaris
In this example, Exalogic supports Fusion Middleware applications, Oracle Applications, and custom applications running on
top of the Exalogic Elastic Cloud Software and X2-2 hardware.
Not all components in Figure 2-1 need to be present to run
Exalogic; you can opt not to use WebLogic Server, Coherence,
or Tuxedo. A benefit of Exalogic is its flexibility to support
many different types of applications.
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11
Coherence Data Grid
JRockit and HotSpot JVMs
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Suite and Business
Process Management (BPM) Suite
WebCenter Collaboration and Content Management
Forms and Reports Services, Business Intelligence, and
Identity Management
Oracle Exalogic is a highly engineered and optimized hardware and software solution using these components and
characteristics:
Intel-based hardware servers called compute nodes with
memory and CPU and solid state disks integrated and
optimized for application tier workloads
Operating System (Oracle Solaris or Linux)
High-performance InfiniBand network connecting all components within Exalogic and other Engineered Systems
with low latency
Standard 10GbE-based client network and datacenter
connectivity
Shared disk storage based on a built-in Sun ZFS Storage
Appliance
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12
Exalogic Elastic Cloud Software, which is a set of crossstack software optimizations for optimized performance,
better throughput, simplified application provisioning,
and more
Extensive Management toolset
Clustering and virtualization capabilities
Optimized configuration and interoperability between all
components
Figure 2-2 shows how these components can fit together
within Exalogic.
Exalogic Components
Web Application Software
Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications
WebLogic Server
Coherence
Tuxedo
OHS
Solaris
Virtualization
CPU
Eighth Rack
Quarter Rack
Disk Storage
Half Rack
InfiniBand
Networking
Full Rack
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13
Exalogic X2-2
Oracle Exalogic is currently offered in the form of the X2-2
model. Each machine type can be loaded with Oracle Solaris
11 Express or Oracle Linux 5. Full, Half, Quarter, and Eighth
Rack sizes are available. Enterprise Manager Grid Control and
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14
Table 2-1
Resource
Eighth
Rack
Quarter
Rack
Half
Rack
Full
Rack
2-8 Racks
Xeon Cores
48
96
192
360
720-2880
Memory
384 GB
768 GB
1.5 TB
2.8 TB
5.622.4 TB
Flash Fire
SSD
128 GB
256 GB
512 FB
960 GB
1.97.7TB
Raw Disk
Storage
40 TB
40 TB
40 TB
40 TB
80320 TB
Compute
Nodes
(Servers)
16
30
60240
Chapter 3
Exalogics Capabilities
In This Chapter
Identifying performance-optimized components within Exalogic
Highlighting features within Exalogic to improve processing capabilities
Exploring administrative management tools and high availability
Enhanced Performance
Multiple components across the typical IT stack have been
optimized by Oracle specifically for the Exalogic platform.
This close engineering and integration between hardware and
software is possible because Oracle owns many of the technologies From Apps to Disk and can address limitations in
how various layers of the stack interact.
One key item with Exalogic is that you do not have to make
changes to your applications to see performance benefits
simply moving to Exalogic will improve performance of most
applications. Enhancements within Exalogic are at the hardware, software, network, and integration levels; they touch all
parts of an application. Any application running on Exalogic
can see performance improvements as long as it is supported
on the Exalogic platform. This allows a very rapid time to
value for customers moving to Exalogic.
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16
Processing times improve and the application runs
faster. This makes sense because as components run
faster, processes finish faster which is what many customers expect.
Efficiencies within applications are increased. Because
Exalogic is a faster platform, less raw processing power
is needed to support intense applications. This allows for
a smaller, simpler implementation to support the same
application workload.
Many customers will experience both faster performance
and a more efficient system because of the move to Exalogic.
Coupled with the fact that customers do not need to modify
their applications to take advantage of Exalogic, the benefits
of a move to Exalogic are both tangible and immediate.
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17
Switches
Gateways
Host Channel Adapters
Firmware
Device drivers
Operating System extensions
Software libraries
Exabus eliminates previous network performance boundaries
that have the greatest impact on overall system performance.
By reducing the network wait time, applications run extremely
fast and fewer computing resources are required, thus
improving overall efficiency. Exabus benefits can be seen from
the web server component to the storage tier. It is considered
part of the special sauce that makes Exalogic run so fast and
be so efficient.
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18
Operating systems
Exalogic comes with either Oracle Solaris or Oracle Linux.
Although these operating systems (OS) are certainly installed
on non-Exalogic machines, the installed software images
have specific Exalogic software, firmware, and device drivers. Furthermore, any software installed on Exalogic such as
Oracle Fusion Middleware has specifically been tested and
certified for the underlying OS. Tuned networking parameters,
such as enlarged Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size,
allow for larger packets and faster communications, which is
just one example of Exalogics specific enhancements.
Improvements in Application
Responsiveness, Capacity, and
Database Communication
Several optimizations have occurred within Exalogic to allow
more stable and improved communication between application
servers and databases. These optimizations promote a more
stable environment for users in which any internal failures are
masked and failover is transparent. Furthermore, enhancements
in communication to the database tier allow for improved application performance, capacity, and responsiveness.
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19
Session replication
As a user works on a web-based application connected to a
web application server, that users session data is important. If
a failure occurs, the session data can be lost and the user will
need to redo what he was doing before the failure. WebLogic
actively replicates that session data to a secondary WebLogic
server so that if a failure occurs, the session is picked up
transparently on the second server. The benefit is, the user
doesnt lose his work.
Within Exalogic, that replication speed and scale are
improved via the Exabus InfiniBand fabric using the Sockets
Direct Protocol (SDP). A faster network speed with larger mes sages allows for improved session replication and scalability
between WebLogic Servers.
RAC integration
Integration with Oracle RAC (Real Application Cluster) databases has been improved and simplified. Active GridLink for
RAC improves performance between WebLogic and RAC databases by allowing the WebLogic server to interface directly
with Oracle RAC protocols. This provides for improved loadbalancing and failover across RAC nodes. In the event of a
failure with a RAC node, the failover to a surviving node is
faster and more transparent. Overall configuration of the data
sources within WebLogic is also improved, thus making management simpler.
The database communication and RAC integration optimizations take effect in particular when you utilize the Exadata
database machine as the database tier. Remember that many
of the same architectural optimizations within Exalogic are
also found in Exadata.
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20
Management Tools
Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) is the basis for most management and monitoring activities within Exalogic. EM can
monitor and manage everything from hardware components
to deploying a new release of a web application to a WebLogic
server or instances of E-Business Suite or PeopleSoft. Optional
integration with Oracle Support allows for download and
installation of patches in addition to software health checks.
EM Grid Control (EMGC) is the tool specifically used for management of web application server software components and
applications. EM OpsCenter (EMOC) and Oracle Integrated
Lights Out Manager (ILOM) are focused on managing physical
hardware, OS, and networking components.
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Chapter 4
22
Simplifying Operations
Application and systems management, patching, and operations
are greatly simplified due to automation and preconfigured
components. Integration with Oracle Support and rich administrative tools reduce administration complexity and costs.
Visit oracle.com/Exalogic for more on Oracles engineered
solutions for your datacenter.
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dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.