Overview

The Oracle VM Templates for Oracle Database provides a framework that fully automates the creation of a Single Instance, Oracle Restart (Single Instance/HA) or Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) configurations in an Oracle VM environment. In a matter of minutes the versatile and powerful Oracle VM Templates for Oracle Database can be cloned into any number of VMs which could be deployed as a Single Instance, Oracle Restart (Single Instance/HA) or Oracle RAC of any number of nodes.

Oracle RAC is an option to the award-winning Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. Oracle RAC is a cluster database with a shared cache architecture that overcomes the limitations of traditional shared-nothing and shared-disk approaches to provide highly scalable and available database solutions for all your business applications. Oracle RAC is a key component of the Oracle Enterprise grid architecture.

The templates are designed to provide a fast and easy way of deploying Single Instance or Oracle RAC cluster in Oracle VM for test as well as production environments. The templates are available in the following versions (ordered by template release date):

• [Nov 2019] Single Instance & Oracle RAC 19c Enterprise/Standard Edition, including Oracle Grid Infrastructure Release Update (19.5.0.0.191015) & Oracle Linux 7 Update 7 - Available from My Oracle Support under Patch number 29990890 for 64-Bit Oracle Linux
  • DOC: Oracle VM 3 Deployments; DOC: Template Basic Info & FAQs
• [Nov 2019] Single Instance & Oracle RAC 18c Enterprise/Standard Edition, including Oracle Grid Infrastructure Release Update (18.8.0.0.191015) & Oracle Linux 7 Update 7 - Available from My Oracle Support under Patch number 29769998 for 64-Bit Oracle Linux
  • DOC: Oracle VM 3 Deployments; DOC: Template Basic Info & FAQs
• [Nov 2019] Single Instance & Oracle RAC 12c Release 2 Enterprise/Standard Edition, including Oracle Grid Infrastructure Release Update (12.2.0.1.191015) & Oracle Linux 7 Update 7 - Available from My Oracle Support under Patch number 29770007 for 64-Bit Oracle Linux
  • DOC: Oracle VM 3 Deployments; DOC: Template Basic Info & FAQs
• [Nov 2019] Single Instance & Oracle RAC 12c Release 1 Enterprise Edition , including Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patch Set Update (12.1.0.2.191015) & Oracle Linux 6 Update 10 - Available from My Oracle Support under Patch number 29770000 for 64-Bit Oracle Linux
  • DOC: Oracle VM 3 Deployments; DOC: Template Basic Info & FAQs
• More versions available, see My Oracle Support Note ID 1185244.1

NOTE: It is supported to mix Oracle & OS disks to obtain desired combination.

For more information about the Oracle VM Templates for Oracle Database, refer to My Oracle Support note ID 1185244.1

The entire installation is automated, requesting minimal information (e.g. node names, IP addresses, etc.) from the user. Fully automated build of a Single Instance environment or a cluster (OVM3: Using the Deploycluster tool, OVM2: directly from Dom0) are possible, including automated network setup for N-node clusters.
The final Single Instance or cluster configuration adheres to the best practices for production systems (assuming the production implementation was chosen) as described in the "Oracle Real Application Clusters in Oracle VM environments" technical white paper.

Template Highlights

• NEW in 2019 Templates:
  • Oracle Linux 7.7 UEK Release 5 Update 2 (UEK R5U2): 19.5.0.0.191015, 18.8.0.0.191015 and 12.2.0.1.191015 Templates Released!
  • Oracle Linux 6.10 UEK4: 12.1.0.2.191015 Templates Released!
  • Oracle Linux 7.7 UEK Release 5 Update 2 (UEK R5U2): 19.4.0.0.190716, 18.7.0.0.190716 and 12.2.0.1.190716 Templates Released!
  • Oracle Linux 6.10 UEK4: 12.1.0.2.190716 Templates Released!
  • Oracle Linux 7.6 UEK Release 5 Update 2 (UEK R5U2): 19.3.1.0.0, 18.6.0.0.190416 and 12.2.0.1.190416 Templates Released!
  • Oracle Linux 6.10 UEK4: 12.1.0.2.190416 Templates Released!
• NEW in 2018 Templates:
  • 18.4.0.0.181016 (Oracle Linux 7.5 UEK5), 12.2.0.1.181016 (Oracle Linux 7.5 UEK5), 12.1.0.2.181016 (Oracle Linux 6.10 UEK4) Templates released
  • 12.2.0.1.180417, 12.1.0.2.180417, 11.2.0.1.0.180417 Templates released
  • Latest Oracle Linux 7 Update 5 & Oracle Linux 6 Update 9 with UEK Release 4 Update 7 includes latest fixes (Spectre/Meltdown).
• NEW in 2017 Templates:
  • 12.2.0.1.0 & 12.2.0.1.170814 (RU1) Templates released (ASM on NAS support, same template supports EE & SE)
  • Latest Oracle Linux 7 Update 4 & Oracle Linux 6 Update 9 both with UEK4 Update 5 and latest Oracle Database/Grid Infrastructure PSUs
• NEW in 2016 Templates:
  • Latest Kernel UEK4 (4.1.12) enabled by default
  • SSH key setup supports rsa, dsa, ecdsa or ed25519
• Deploycluster tool provides fully automated end-to-end Single Instance and Oracle Real Application Clusters deployments on Oracle VM 3
• All versions of the DB/RAC Templates are fully supported on Oracle VM 3 and Oracle VM 2, subject to current support policies.
• The Oracle VM templates use a minimal installation of Oracle Linux 7 or Oracle Linux 6 system images. Only basic RPM packages are installed.
• Mixing and matching the OS and the Oracle disks is supported and easy to achieve.
• The Oracle VM templates can be used to build a Single Instance or clusters of any number of nodes which includes Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Database, and Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM), patched to the latest, recommended patches.
• The environment comes loaded with Swingbench, Oracle Cluster Health Monitor, OS Watcher, ASMLib rpms, and more tools.
• During the installation process an Oracle Single Instance or RAC database instance is created on all nodes by default.
• Any number of nodes or instances can be added or removed from the cluster using a single command.

DeployCluster Tool

Oracle VM 3 users can benefit from the DeployCluster tool which now fully supports Single Instance, Oracle Restart (SIHA) or RAC deployments. The tool leverages the Oracle VM 3 API so that given a set of VMs it quickly boots them up sends the needed configuration details, and an automated Single Instance or cluster build is initiated, without requiring the user to login to Dom0, any of the involved VMs or Oracle VM Manager.

Documentation for Oracle VM 3 users: DeployCluster Tool

Note: For Deploycluster to function properly, an OVMAPI enabled OS disk (released since 2012) must be used in an Oracle VM 3 Manager and Server framework.

Use DeployCluster version 3.x for deployments on Oracle VM 3.3/3.4 or higher; use DeployCluster version 2.x for deployments on Oracle VM 3.2 or lower.

Single Instance and Oracle 12c support comes with deploycluster version 2.0 or above.

See DeployCluster documentations for additional details.

My Oracle Support note ID 1185244.1

Related Technology

• Oracle Clusterware
• Oracle Automatic Storage Management
• Oracle VM
• Oracle VM Templates
• Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)
• Oracle Database in Oracle Cloud Marketplace

Oracle Software Delivery Cloud Instructions

• Visit http://edelivery.oracle.com/oraclevm
• Complete your registration information (Name, Company Name, Email Address and Country) and click on the download agreement
• Search for "DB/RAC OVM Templates"
• Click Add to Cart on the selected version, then click CHECKOUT
• Scroll down, Read and click AGREE to license terms, then click CONTINUE
• Download all zip files, unzip and read the readme located in first zip file.

Note: For large downloads, or for functionality such as download resuming, the use of a download manager is highly recommended.