For many enterprises, Oracle database modernization might mean performance enhancement, environment manageability, operational cost reduction, data mobility and so on. Setting up hybrid cloud Oracle database operation in Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud on FSx storage might provide all the answers and could be an excellent option to be seriously considered.
AWS is an established, mature public cloud provider. It offers Amazon RDS Custom for Oracle, a DaaS Oracle RDS custom solution for cloud native Oracle workloads with a certain flexibility. However, if you want to manage your own Oracle database, you can deploy an Oracle database with Amazon EC2 as compute and Amazon FSx as database storage to achieve on-premises like performance. Of course, hybrid cloud Oracle deployment is always an option if you want to take advantage of the benefits afforded both by on-premises and public cloud.
Better yet, NetApp® automation solutions, such as the NetApp Ansible automation toolkit, provide a fast track to help you reach your Oracle database modernization goals. In this blog post, I highlight how NetApp can help you manage your Oracle database workload and environment deployed to Amazon with EC2 compute and FSx storage by using the NetApp UI and Ansible automation toolkit.
End-to-end Oracle database hybrid cloud solutions with Amazon FSx storage
A typical enterprise Oracle database operation involves database deployment, data protection, disaster recovery, DevOps, database migration, and so on. As the public cloud continues to evolve, a readily available cloud resource is a natural resource pool to consider when it comes to your Oracle database infrastructure modernization. The end goal of your Oracle database infrastructure modernization might mean that you operate and manage your Oracle workload in the hybrid cloud where it makes the most business and economic sense.
NetApp Oracle database hybrid cloud solutions with AWS provide a complete and detailed package for all your Oracle deployment, protection, high availability (HA), business continuity, DevOps, and database migration needs. Let’s go through it one by one.
Solution architecture
The following diagram demonstrates the NetApp Oracle solutions with AWS EC2/FSx architecture at a high level.
Through a dedicated WAN connection and VPN, your data transfer in and out of AWS cloud is secured and protected. Your database workload can be highly mobile between on-premises and AWS cloud to adapt to changing business dynamics. By pushing a button, a pluggable Oracle database that supports a particular business application can be relocated with minimal downtime. Controlled routing on a VPN gateway allows or restricts the network traffic on databases deployed to the network segments of choice. The entire Oracle database environment is homogeneous between on-premises and AWS public cloud without any silo.
Solution use cases
1. Oracle database deployment
The NetApp solution team provides an automation toolkit that enables you easily deploy a recent version of Oracle 19c to both on-premises or an AWS cloud Amazon EC2 compute instance with ease.
The following links provide detailed documentation and a toolkit download.
Download: NetApp-Automation/na_oracle19c_deploy (github.com)
Instruction: Automated Oracle Deployment Solution Overview (netapp.com)
2. Data protection
With a hybrid cloud deployment, an ONTAP based on-premises Oracle database can be replicated to NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP® for AWS as a secondary location for data protection. For Oracle databases that are deployed to Amazon FSx storage, a secondary AWS standby location that is in different availability zones or regions can be leveraged for data protection (see the following section, “3. HA/disaster recovery”).
The following links provide detailed documentation and a toolkit download.
Download: NetApp-Automation/na_oracle19c_data_protection: Oracle 19c Data Protection (github.com)
Documentation: Automated Data Protection for Oracle Databases (netapp.com)
3. HA/disaster recover
FSx has built-in replication capability that can be setup for HA/disaster recovery for an Oracle database deployed in AWS cloud. An FSx storage cluster is designed with double redundancy so that both the primary and standby storage clusters are deployed in two different availability zones. Two data copies are sync mirrored between two zones for local HA. For DR, database volumes are replicated from a primary FSx cluster to a standby FSx cluster at a user-configurable interval for all Oracle binary, data, and log volumes. The solution provides an alternative process that closely delivers capabilities like those available from Oracle RAC and Data Guard deployment.
Best yet, the solution can be tested, validated at any time or as many times as you like. Our testing showed that even at very high rate of data changes such as during data loading, the standby site can be recovered and brought back to service within under 10 mins window.
The following links provide detailed documentation and a toolkit download.
Documentation: WP-7357: Oracle Database Deployment on EC2/FSx Best Practices Introduction (netapp.com)
4. DevOps
NetApp SnapCenter® provides a user-friendly UI and workflows for Oracle database cloning on an ad hoc basis by using a replicated standby database copy for dev/test operations in AWS cloud. This provides a full-size database copy for DevOps while incurring minimal storage costs.
Documentation: Getting started with SnapCenter (netapp.com)
Workflow for dev/test bursting to cloud (netapp.com)
5. Database migration to cloud
Oracle database migration can be complex and difficult endeavor. NetApp solution automation make it simple and straightforward for relocating your Oracle pluggable databases (PDBs) between on-premises and AWS cloud container databases (CDBs) with ease and minimal downtime. The solution leverages Oracle PDB hot clone technology, reroutes user sessions and connections from source PDB to target PDB automatically, thus reduces the app downtime regardless the size of database to be relocated.
The following links provide detailed documentation and a toolkit download.
Download: NetApp-Automation/na_ora_aws_migration: Oracle migration from on-premises to AWS cloud (github.com)
Documentation: NetApp-Automation/na_ora_aws_migration: Oracle migration from on-premises to AWS cloud (github.com)
Note: you can use the toolkit to migrated databases in either direction.
Using the Ansible automation toolkit
The Ansible automation toolkit is a declarative, state-based, idempotent configuration management platform. It uses simple to read/write YAML files to perform setup, configuration, and operation management of your Oracle environment. It is a powerful tool that is easy to use and with its low learning curve is ideal for a beginner.
If you are new to NetApp automation, please make sure that you review the this documentation before you download and execute the automation playbooks.
The NetApp Oracle database automation solution overcomes the complexities in hybrid cloud database operations and delivers the benefits of reducing time to value, implementing best practices, customizing databases, and eliminating human errors while improving database administrator productivity.
Where to go for help
The NetApp Oracle automation solution kit is supported with a community support slack channel at NetApp Community Support.
