Tag: cloud

Databases Running in the Cloud

cloudI’ve been playing around with running databases in the cloud recently. It’s quite simplistic stuff, just to get a feel for it and investigate the possibilities of using it for some projects at work. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

Overview:

Oracle:

MySQL:

SQL Server:

It’s hard to differentiate between the cloud providers if you are just using them to provide a VM and self managing a system on it. It’s just another box provider.

In contrast the DBaaS offerings are much more interesting. I really like what Amazon are doing with RDS for Oracle/MySQL/SQL Server. I think these would work very well for *our* MySQL and SQL Server installations, which tend to be quite simple. I’m not sure I can live with some of the restrictions for RDS for Oracle, but that’s probably because I’m a snobby DBA type, who thinks he knows best. 🙂 The DBaaS for SQL Server on Azure is also really nice. You get less control than the RDS version, but maybe that’s a good thing.

You might have noticed I’ve not written much about Oracle Cloud yet. I should be getting a trial of the platform this month, so I will be able to fill in those gaps then.

Cheers

Tim…

Cloud Control : 12.1.0.7 Plugin Patch

I applied some of the 12.1.0.7 plugin patches to our Cloud Control installation today. We already have Cloud Control 12.1.0.4 installed, so this was just a case of updating the plugins.

Here’s a quick overview of what I did.

  • Backup up everything! Database and file system.
  • Setup > Extensibility > Self Update
  • Download the latest versions of the plugins. The minimum you can really get away with is “Oracle Database 12.1.0.7”,  “Oracle Cloud Framework 12.1.0.2” and “Oracle Fusion Middleware 12.1.0.7”. The Cloud Framework plugin is a dependency for the FWM plugin. Obviously, grab the extra plugins if you need them…
  • Setup > Extensibility > Plugins
  • Do a “Deploy On > Management Server” for the plugins you’ve downloaded. These require OMS downtime, so you will be monitoring progress using “./emctl status oms -details” from the “$OMS_HOME/bin” directory.
  • Wait until it is all running again.
  • Do a “Deploy On > Management Agent” for the DB and FMW plugins on just the cloud control server. I wanted to know it was all fine on this server before pushing out the updates to the agents on the monitored hosts.
  • Convince yourself nothing weird is happening.
  • Do a “Deploy On > Management Agent” for the DB plugin on any monitored database severs. Where possible I did Dev environments in one pass. Test environments in a second pass, then Prod environments.
  • Do a “Deploy On > Management Agent” for the FMW plugin on any monitored WebLogic severs. Once again, Dev, Test, Prod.

The plugin deploys to the OMS are a bit slow, but the deploys to the agents are pretty quick. Numbers will vary depending on your kit.

I much prefer the plugin patches to the main Cloud Control OMS and Agent patches as we (the DBAs) don’t have root or sudo access on the servers, so when we do the full-on patches we end up swamping the sysadmins with requests to run “root.sh” scripts. We don’t have to do that for the plugin patches.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle and the cloud. A brief history…

This morning I read this post about Oracle Cloud from Tuula Fai.

What really annoys me about this post is I was at Oracle OpenWorld (about 3 years ago) when Larry was on stage telling us that Cloud was a meaningless fad. Fast forward to OOW 2012 and it would be easy to believe that Oracle invented the cloud, as I mentioned here. At OOW 2012 he openly stated Oracle started to write Fusion Apps for the cloud 7 years ago. Dude! That is not true. You initiated a program to rewrite Fusion Apps to be a browser-based replacement for EBS, which then happily coincided with the whole cloud thing at a later date. At least this post acknowledges that could have been an accident…

I know companies, especially Oracle, like to spin things, but it really gets on my tits when they release posts like this that basically mock all of us who were present and actually witnessed the events as they unfolded.

This is not a criticism of Oracle’s current cloud offerings. If the post had just been one discussing the current and future cloud offerings that would be fine. It’s the mocking tone, suggesting we are all idiots for believing that Oracle were never anything but at the forefront of the cloud scene. Trying to spin Larry as a godfather of the cloud with statements like, “an industry segment he helped to create and in which he’s been immersed for 14 years”, is extremely disappointing.

Of course, history is written by the winners. We all know that Apple invented the MP3 player, smartphone and tablet. Likewise, Oracle invented the cloud. Anyone who says different is a moron… 🙁

Cheers

Tim…