Exalogic Virtual Tea Break Snippets - What Next After a Exalogic Clean Install

Having installed your Exalogic with the 2.0.1.x software you now have a fairly empty system that simply contains the Control Stack and nothing else. At this point we need to consider what your next steps should be and what we need to define and create before building you Virtual environment. This short blog will provide some recommendations for what you define / build and when based on a number of Exalogic installations. If this sequence is followed then you should have everything in place before your create your first vServer.

The key assumption of this blog entry is that you have spent time designing you virtual landscape and and know what External access etc is required for the resulting system.

Create ELAdmin and CloudAdmin Users

Following the installation of your Exalogic Environment the environment will be configured with a single root user. This should only be used a single time to create the ELAdmin and CloudAdmin users. These user should be created with the following Roles:

• ELAdmin : Exalogic System Admin , Cloud Admin and User Management Admin Roles
  
• CloudAdmin : Cloud Admin and User Management Admin Roles.

Once these are created the root login should not be used; the combination of the two users, above, provides all the functionality required on your Exalogic Rack.

Creating Client Access EoIB Networks

Before we can access the vServers we will create they will need 10GB Access to your network. By default during the Installation we create a single 10GB E0IB network that is used to access Exalogic Control Stack. This network will be on its own VLAN an must not be used to access your client vServer. Instead we will need to create 1 or more Client EoIB 10 GB VLAN tagged networks to be used with your client vServers.

Create vServer Types

Although during the installation of the Exalogic Virtual environment 3 default vServer Types are created these are likely not to match the requirements of your system. Therefore you should review your requirements and create vServer Types that are appropriate to your requirements.

Create Common Account

By design vServer Template files are installed on an Account by Account basis but this can lead to the same template being installed multiple times. Rather than install the same template in each account we can create a common account that uses no resources but is simply a place holder account that will be used to store common vServer Templates.

Import Server Template

The install process for Exalogic Virtual will place an example vServer Template on the ZFS Storage appliance. This should be uploaded to the Common Account and switched to Public.

Create Custom Template

If the standard example vServer Template does not meet the needs of your environment then a new Template should be created based on the example template. We need to base this on the example because it has a number of Exalogic specific rpms and functionality built in. Detailed instruction for creating your own custom templates can be found in the Exalogic 2.0.1 documentation or in my associated blog entry Modifying the Default Shipped Template.

Once you have created your template(s) then they should be uploaded to the common account.

Create Accounts (Tenancies)

Now we have all the common requirements in place we ca being to build the Accounts (Tenancies) that are specific to your environment.

Create Distribution Groups

Distribution Groups are the only method within Exalogic Virtual environment that allows you to force a cluster of vServers to run on separate Compute Nodes. These must be created before the vServers and a vServer will need to be added to a Distribution Group during it's creation.

Create Private vNets

The vServers we create within an Account may need to communicate internally across the Infiniband network and to do this we will need to create one or many Private vNets that will be assigned during vServer creation.

Create Volumes / vServers

At this point we can now create our Volumes, if required, and vServers allocating all the appropriate resources defined above. Then install software ass appropriate.