by Jim Hannan (@HoBHannan)
In my previous post I discussed tools to automate deployments for virtualized Oracle workloads. I outlined some of the current industry methods and their tools. In this blog post I will take a deeper look at one of those tools, Oracle’s DBCA (Database Configuration Assistant). I cannot advocate for DBCA being the perfect solution for every company, but I think majority of IT teams will find it very well suited for their deployments. Before jumping into DBCA, we should first quickly revisit the table from the last blog post. The table below outlines the opportunities for automation. Each step has various methods available to it. In this blog we are targeting the final step, automated deployment of the Oracle database after the virtual machine and software has been deployed.
Table 1 - Oracle Automated Deployment and Tools
|
Steps |
Tool(s) |
|
Create a virtual machine |
[1] Standard – Create VM through vSphere client of APIs (this step involves the process of allocating memory, CPU and storage) |
|
Boot virtual machine |
[1] Boot off media [2] Network boot and receive boot image from network server [3] Deploy virtual machine from template (template contains base OS with no additional software) |
|
Automated OS install |
[1] Linux kickstart [2] Spacewalk [3] VMware template with base image
|
|
Scripts for customization |
[1] OS scripts to further customize the guest OS. Often includes network settings and deployment of organization scripts for managing Oracle. |
|
Oracle software install |
[1] Oracle Universal Install with a response file [2] Zip of Oracle home with CPU patch already applied. Requires the creation of an Oracle inventory |
|
Oracle Database |
[1] Use Oracle DBCA command line [2] Deploy Oracle database from zip files. |
Most DBAs are familiar with DBCA and the GUI wizard. Probably less familiar is DBCA's ability to run silently from the command line. The command line options really lend themselves to automation. You can create a database template or a catalog of templates. In the following example I have created the template SAND-forblog.dbc. This is stored with the other default templates. After creating and selecting the configuration you can than override the setting by using DBCA command line options. An example of overriding a parameter is changing the character set or datafile location. From the command line you can type “dbca –help” to get a full list of options. I have listed some of the key options in the table below. Remember this command line options can override settings defined in the template, very flexible.
Creating the database:
|
[oracle@oel63-64-11g Desktop]$ dbca -silent -createDatabase -templateName SAND-forblog.dbc -gdbname FORBLOG -sid FORBLOG -responseFile NO_VALUE -sysPassword oracle -systemPassword oracle -storageType ASM -asmSysPassword oracle -diskGroupName DATA |
Output of the database creation:
|
Copying database files 1% complete 3% complete 35% complete Creating and starting Oracle instance 37% complete 42% complete 47% complete 52% complete 53% complete 56% complete 58% complete Registering database with Oracle Restart 64% complete Completing Database Creation 68% complete 71% complete 75% complete 85% complete 96% complete 100% complete Look at the log file "/opt/oracle/cfgtoollogs/dbca/FORBLOG/FORBLOG.log" for further details. |
You can delete a database with the command:
|
[oracle@oel63-64-11g Desktop]$ dbca -silent -deleteDatabase -sourceDB FORBLOG -sysDBAUserName sys -sysDBAPassword oracle |
And output of the delete command:
|
Output Connecting to database 4% complete 9% complete 14% complete 19% complete 23% complete 28% complete 47% complete Updating network configuration files 48% complete 52% complete Deleting instance and datafiles 76% complete 100% complete Look at the log file "/opt/oracle/cfgtoollogs/dbca/DEV2.log" for further details. |
I thought it would be worth mentioning that customers that have successfully implemented automation typically have matured their processes first by building standards. This reminds me of software development. First, build the flow chart (standard process), and then look for automation opportunities.
If you have any questions about DBCA automation or previous topics I can be reached on twitter @HoBHannan.