Oracle Database Appliance - My case for Solaris

I just got to try out the Oracle database appliance (ODA).  It's supposed to be quick and easy to setup and get it running.  We've run into some intial hiccups, but this is a POC box and I'm not going to give Oracle grief here.

Here are my quick thoughts

Pros:
1.  Extremely easy to setup (hardware perspective)
2.  Very cost effective.
3.  Comes with lots of Storage and now allows expansion into another Storage Shelf.

Cons:

1.  Only Oracle Linux.  No Solaris.
2.  Only one ASM across all the databases.
3.  Patching has to be done in a particular order.  You can't simply patch Db, you need to patch hardware, OS and such, before you get to the Db patching (There is a hierarchy)
4.  When you start patching, depending upon what you're patching, ALL Databases need to be shutdown.  This is very hard to do, especially when you have multiple applications using Dbs hosted on the ODA.

So - where is Solaris and why you ask.

1.  Solaris 10 / 11 allows you to run Oracle RAC clusters in Zones.
2.  With Solaris, you can have Zones running your Oracle RAC, and multiple Oracle RAC instances can be spun up, especially with MULTIPLE ASMs running.  This will immediately allow you to patch your infrastructure one node at a time.
3.  The bonded connections with Solaris 11 makes it incredibly simple to work with.  This link specifically: Network Virtualization High Availability made me think of ODA on Solaris a lot more.
4.  Solaris 11 allows you to add disks to zones without a reboot (a big Solaris 10 limitation).
5.  Zones allow you to CPU cage.
6.  The Hardware is all based off the Sun systems.
7.  You can use ZFS for all OS disks.
8.  You can get away from the clunky OVM DOM0 world that the ODA appliance uses now.
9.  You can effortlessly do virtualization and use the VM Templates.
10.  CloudFS partition would be effortless too - just make a new ZPOOL and you're done!
11.  All this can be tied into Oracle Enterprise Manager & Oracle Ops Center for the hardware.
12.  All the patching can be made so much more effortless.

Solaris 10 x86 - Grub not loading

I have a Solaris 10x86 install which failed all attempts after a reboot with ZFS

After a lot of trial and error, I finally did the below from the Grub menu and it worked.

grub> find /sbin/init
grub> root (hd1,0,a)  <<---this a="" command.="" find="" hd1="" is="" of="" output="" p="" the="">grub> kernel$ /platform/i86pc/multiboot -B $ZFS-BOOTFS
grub>module /platform/i86pc/boot_archive
grub> boot

An example of the menu.lst at /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst

#---------- ADDED BY BOOTADM - DO NOT EDIT ----------
title Solaris 10 10/09 s10x_u8wos_08a X86
findroot (pool_rpool,0,a)
kernel$ /platform/i86pc/multiboot -B $ZFS-BOOTFS
module /platform/i86pc/boot_archive
#---------------------END BOOTADM--------------------
#---------- ADDED BY BOOTADM - DO NOT EDIT ----------
title Solaris failsafe
findroot (pool_rpool,0,a)
kernel /boot/multiboot -s
module /boot/amd64/x86.miniroot-safe
#---------------------END BOOTADM--------------------

Apache 64-bit on Solaris 10 & Weblogic

Solaris 10 comes with Apache 32- bit by default.  This was a surprise.

My task here is to get Apache 64-bit and then hook it up to Weblogic on the SSL channel.  I will detail the Apache + Weblogic SSL communication.  Setting up Weblogic to listen on SSL is a different post, that I may or may not write up :)

I will be installing apache at /usr/local/apache (Many folks like to install it at /usr/local/apache2 etc, but I'm keeping it simple here)

I have a staging directory to compile / install the required packages.  This is a Whole Root zone, with Solaris 10 fully installed with all the packages on the Global Zone.

I need
0. Apache 2.2.4 -- I tried Apache 2.4 and as of this writing is not supported with the mod_wl.so library.
1.  PCRE (Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions Library)
2. Apr
3. Apr-utils

A gist of what is required is available on Apache's documentation site ( Apache Documentation for Installation )

For PCRE, I downloaded it from: PCRE
Download APR & APR-UTIL from here.

Initial settings on the terminal

export CFLAGS="-m64"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/sfw/lib/sparcv9"

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/sfw/lib/sparcv9:/usr/local/lib/sparcv9 

the CFLAGS setting is  really important, otherwise, you wont get it compiled in 64 bit.  Make sure your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LDFLAGS point to the accurate directories.

Compiling PCRE

This installs PCRE in /usr/local/pcre

/root/apache-compilation/pcre-8.33
./configure --disable-cpp CFLAGS="-m64 -g"
make
make install

Compiling APR

/root/apache-compilation/apr-1.4.8
./configure
make
make install

APR gets installed in /usr/local/apr.  The CFLAGS setting set in the environment should carry on.

Compiling APR-UTIL

/root/apache-compilation/apr-util-1.5.2
./configure --with-apr=/usr/local/apr
make
make install

Compiling Apache
I use the prefix /usr/local/apache  - but some people prefer to use "apache2".  Make it your own.  The prefix designates where apache gets installed.

/root/apache-compilation/httpd-2.2.24
./configure --with-apr=/usr/local/apr --with-apr-util=/usr/local/apr --prefix=/usr/local/apache --enable-mods-shared=most --enable-ssl --with-ssl=/usr/sfw
make
make install

After the installation, I like to test to make sure its 64 bit (as I've gotten bitten a number of times).

# cd /usr/local/apache/modules
# file mod_vhost_alias.so
mod_vhost_alias.so:     ELF 64-bit MSB dynamic lib SPARCV9 Version 1, dynamically linked, not stripped, no debugging information available

That tells you its a 64 Bit file.

To get Weblogic working, I copied the wls 1.1 plugins *.so files (which are only 64 bit) to the /usr/local/apache/modules directory.  Then followed the instructions from Oracle here

Good luck.  Comments are welcome.