End of 2012

Year in review As we end 2012, in closing I have not posted much due to work and many activities wrapping up the year. My new Oracle R12 EBS book is available and ready for folks to learn the tips and tricks for Oracle R12 Financials from Oracle Press. Each year I pursue a new goal and try to master or improve a skill or ability. This keeps me sharp and motivated and happy. Last year, I learned to scuba dive. Right now, I am learning to fly! My goal by 2013 is to pass my checkride and obtain my private pilot license. I have always had a passion for aviation and aeronautics. I am doing this purely as a hobby and do not want to be a professional pilot. For one, the pay is quite low until one has a decade of experience and two, I like working in technology as a job better than to fly planes for a living. I also will be focused on bring new events to the NoCOUG Oracle User Group in the bay area and northern California for Oracle users who want to learn new developments in database technology from Oracle. Happy Holidays and best wishes to all for a safe, peaceful and prosperous 2013! Cheers, Ben

Quick tip: Cloning Oracle 11gR2 RAC node in Oracle VM 3.0.3

Oracle VM 3.0.3 Server and Manager provide you with the ability to clone virtual machines quickly and easily. However, as of yet, there is not live hot clone facility available. The Oracle RAC VM must be powered off before you perform the clone operation.

There are two options available for cloning within Oracle VM: simple clone and advanced clone. Simple clone takes a quick snapshot of the VM to be copied to the new clone. Advanced provides you with the ability to create a custom clone process based on a menu driven GUI that you can create based on your requirements for cloning VM images.

Upgrading Oracle VM 3.0.3 to latest patchset

Recently I had to upgrade an older version of Oracle VM 3.0 to the latest patch version to resolve some bugs in the initial releases of OVM 3.0. Below are the steps that I followed to perform the upgrade.


1. Download the patchset from Oracle Support (http://support.oracle.com)
2. Unzip the patch to the OVM Manager /tmp directory
3. backup config files for OVM Manager:

. Back up/copy the Oracle VM Manager configuration file located at:
# /u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/.config

4. Mount the ISO image for the upgrade:

# mount -o loop V29654-01.iso /mnt
# cd /mnt
# ls
components runUpgrader.sh upgrade
#

Upgrade OVM 3.x to OVM 3.0.3:

# ./runUpgrader.sh
Oracle VM Manager 3.0.3.126 upgrade util

Oracle VM Manager is running ...

Verifying installation status ...
Read Oracle VM Manager config file ...
Skipping database upgrade for the same product version (3.0.3 to 3.0.3)
Found Oracle VM Manager install files ...
Found Oracle VM Manager upgrader ...
Found Oracle WebLogic Server ...
Found Java ...
Using the following information :
Database Host : localhost
Database SID : XE
Database LSNR : 1521
Oracle VM Schema : ovs
Oracle VM Manager UUID : 0004fb00000100004bd6b7c313170105
Current Build ID : 3.0.3.126
Using /tmp/workdir.hcUHL29831 for backup and export location.
Using /tmp/patchdir.Rvea29832 for patching.
Undeploying previous version of Oracle VM Manager application ...
Undeploying Oracle VM Manager help ...

Note: make sure that OVM Manager is up and running during the upgrade!

Once completed, the version should look like this:




In my next series of posts for OVM 3.0.3, I will discuss how to deploy Oracle 11gR2 RAC environment as well as use the new features for OVM 3.0.3 such as live migration and converting P2V- physical to virtual as well as managing an OVM 3.x environment.

Uploading templates for OVM 3.0.3 to ftp server

Dear readers,

Its been a while since I've blogged due to many busy demands between work, finishing a new Oracle book and scuba diving. Recently, I setup a new Oracle VM 3.0.3 environment and the interface and tools have changed quite a bit since I last worked with OVM 2.2 version. One challenge is that now in OVM 3.0.3 you have to upload the VM templates via a web http or ftp server and no longer can you copy the Oracle VM templates over to the /OVS/seed_pool directory on the OVM server. In my case, I hit a wall of frustration trying to import a template for OVM 3.0.3 via a Windows FTP server. The solution for importing Oracle VM 3.0.3 templates into OVM manager is to use the following ftp string:


ftp://domainname%5Cusername:password@url-path

in our case we have:

ftp://oraben%5Coracle:mypassword@winftpserver.benoracle.com/V25331-01.zip

In my experience, OVM Manager prefers that you use the root base directory of the ftp server.
Otherwise you will have server access denied errors and the template import operation will fail.

Once you have imported the template into OVM 3.0.3 you will see a screen similar to the following:



Hope this helps. Stay tuned for a continuation of my series on tips and tricks for Oracle VM 3.0.3