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Hello Community People!

 

        Back in my first blog post, Who is this new guy? Meet Logan Rosenstein, the new OTN Systems Community Manager,  I mentioned the plan to improve the structure and organization of the Systems Community here on community.oracle.com. Over the last several months, I have been working with internal and external teams to come up with a draft structure that I will be implemented in small pieces over a long period of time. As these changes are made, we will be tweaking and updating it to make sure that its working well and that the community is happy. So, if there is a change that takes place, please tell me if you like/dislike it. Your feedback will really help me ensure that any changes we make are the best for the community.

 

        With that being said, our first update will take place on Wednesday. As you may have noticed, there is an absence of a "Networking" space to house discussion spaces and informational content. So, I have created one in our staging environment and will be pushing it live to the community this week. It has discussion spaces for General Discussion, Solaris Networking (already exists, but will be brought under the "Networking" space), and Linux Networking. It will also have informational spaces for Ethernet, InfiniBand, and Virtual Networking where we will post the latest OTN content for those product lines; such as white papers, how to instructional articles, specs and configuration support documents, and blogs from the teams.

 

To let us know what you think about the Networking space, starting Wednesday after it is pushed live, you can leave your feedback here: Networking Community Space Feedback

 

*These changes won't be perfect. They are a starting point for us to learn and grow. With your feedback, we can make sure we grow in the right direction.*

 

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Last week, Systems saw the addition of its newest Oracle ACE Associate to the growing list of experts. Please join me in welcoming Marcel Hofstetter, CEO of JomaSoft, to the ACE Community!

 

As CEO of JomaSoft, an Oracle Gold Partner, Marcel has been providing Solaris consulting, services, and products for the last 15 years. He speaks regularly at Oracle and Solaris user groups and events, and is proficient in Solaris, Solaris Virtualization, LDoms, Zones, and many other topics and products.

 

 

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Follow Marcel:

O_Linux_clr.bmpO_VM_clr.bmpLab: How To Migrate to Oracle VM and Oracle Linux from VMware and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

 

by Simon Coter with contributions from Christophe Pauliat, Olivier Canonge, and Doan Nguyen

 

This hands-on lab takes you through the best practices for migrating an existing Oracle Database workload from VMware to Oracle VM. It also walks you through how to migrate to Oracle Linux a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 guest exported from VMware by downloading Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel from Oracle's public yum server.

 

Published December 2013


To view the complete Hands-On Lab document, please go to: How to Migrate to Oracle Linux and Oracle VM



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In today’s Throwback Thursday, we will have a change of pace. Rather than posting an article that was published long ago, we wanted to share a new blog post by Oracle ACE Diego Aguirre about something old. Very, very old… so old in fact, that I wasn’t even in High School yet when he implemented it.

 

Today is a Bitter-Sweet day. It marks the death of something fantastic, which resulted in a significant upgrade. Ready to feel old? Have you heard of the Sun Fire 6800? Yup, it was one of those.

 

Today, November 19th 2015, Diego retired this beast in preparation for an upgrade to an M5-32. Now raise your glass as we salute the fallen and thank it for its 15 years of service. Farewell, you glorious purple beast.

 

 

To read Diego’s blog post, please visit: http://solaris4ever.blogspot.com.ar/2015/11/fin-de-un-equipo-con-historia.html

 

 

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O_Linux_clr.bmpA few months ago, I wrote Throwback Thursday: DTrace. What is it? How do I use it? which was a very popular post on the Oracle SysDev Hub. Since then, additional instructional materials have been developed that I felt would be very useful to add. A recent video added to the Oracle Learning Library (OLL), called "Using DTrace for Oracle Linux" featured a lot of great material if you are interested in using DTrace.

 

First off, what is DTrace? DTrace is a very popular dynamic tracing framework used to monitor and trace systematic problems in real-time. It allows SysAdmins to dynamically and safely observe live production systems for performance issues, including both applications and the operating system itself. DTrace users can also create custom programs with the D scripting language. DTrace uses "probes," that are released by DTrace "Providers," and are activated by a specific behavior to record and display requested information about kernel or user processes.

 

"Using DTrace for Oracle Linux," which is a great short video you can watch in the same time it takes to debate whether which Star Trek spinnoff is better, Deep Space Nine or Voyager (roughly 15-20 minutes) before someone rage quits and storms out of the room, features how-to instructions on:

  • Subscribe to the DTrace channel on ULN
  • Install the DTrace software packages
  • Load the DTrace kernel modules
  • List DTrace probes
  • Use the DTrace command line interface
  • Run DTrace scripts
  • Access the DTrace guide and DTrace tutorial

 

To learn more about DTrace for Oracle Linux:

 

The Oracle Learning Library (OLL) allows you to search for online learning content covering Oracle products. The content ranges from videos, tutorials, articles, demos, step-by-step instructions to accomplish a specific task to in-depth, self-paced interactive learning modules. The content is developed by Oracle developers as well as trusted community members. New content is uploaded daily. Bookmark the OLL, and check out the Oracle Learning YouTube channel.

 

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linux_penguin_with_logo.gifAnnouncing the general availability of Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 Quarterly Update 7 

By Michele Casey on - Nov 13, 2015 

                                 

We are pleased to announce the availability of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 Quarterly Update 7 (UEKR3U7) for Oracle Linux 6 and Oracle Linux 7. This is the seventh quarterly update release for UEK Release 3 (Version 3.8.13-118) and includes driver updates and a consolidation of fixes for bugs and security issues.

 

Some notable highlights include:

 

  • For Oracle Linux 7 installations, support has been included for network teaming, which includes active-backup, broadcast, load-balancing and round-robin modes
  • Continued enhancements for Linux containers including the introduction of the new LXC flag --privileged=rt which allows the administrator the ability to run real-time processes
  • Support for Intel® Broadwell processors
  • Xen improvements, including updates to netfront and netback drivers
  • Device driver updates (e.g. storage devices, network cards) from key partners, such as:
    • Broadcom
    • Chelsio
    • Emulex
    • Intel®
    • Mellanox
    • QLogic
    • VMware

 

For more information about this release, please refer to the release notes.

 

The source code is available on our public git repository.

o-tech-network-otn-systems-hub-clr_800x201.pngAs the title suggests, THE NOVEMBER SYSTEMS COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER IS OUT!

 

If you didn't receive it, you can view it in your browser here: Oracle Technology Network: Systems Newsletter - November 2015

 

Want to receive future newsletters? Click Here to SUBSCRIBE!

 

Additionally, per my last blog post, Things Be-a-Changin' - "OTN Garage" Will be Called "OTN Systems Hub" Very Soon!, "Soon" has come and gone! The URLs for the OTN Systems social pages has changed. Please be sure to update any bookmarks that you may have. If you followed or liked any of those pages, no action is needed to remain a follower/liker.

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/otnsystemshub/

Twitter @OTNSystemsHub: https://twitter.com/OTNSystemsHub

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OTNSystemsHubOTN

 

Have a great weekend!

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Hi Y'all,

 

As I have mentioned a few months ago, the OTN Garage name will be changing to OTN Systems Hub. This is an effort to make the community social channels name be a little bit more easily recognizable to newcomers, and help them understand the contents of the community. We have designed new artwork and logos to go along with this change to highlight the Systems topic areas and improve the communities visibility. To be clear, this isn't an Oracle mandated sales marketing hostile takeover. This is just my effort to help with the community organization and help those newbies find the information that they are looking for. This will have zero impact on the content we create or share. OTN content policy remains the same and we pride ourselves in being a community-centric group that focuses on educational resources and developer...um.....development.

 

Changes that are happening very soon:

  1. Twitter: @OTN_Garage will be renamed to @OTNSystemsHub and the artwork/profile pictures will be updated.
  2. Facebook: Page name will change from OTN Garage to OTN Systems Hub, and the cover photo and profile picture will be updated.
  3. YouTube/G+: Channel name will change from OTN Garage to OTN Systems Hub, and the cover photo and profile picture will be updated.
  4. OTN Garage Blog: The blog will be archived and will remain visible here on the community platform via a dedicated section. And a URL redirect will be placed on the old blog URL to forward traffic to the OTN Systems Hub.

 

If you already follow or like any of those social channels, there is no need to re-like the new name. All existing followers will transfer over. However, the URL to those pages WILL be changing so please update any bookmarks that you may have in your browser or Rolodex once the change has been made. I will keep the links on the Oracle SysDev Hub updated so if you ever lose 'em, just head over there and re-gram 'em.

 

Thanks for hanging in there during the transition.

 

- Logan Rosenstein, OTN Systems Community Manager

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EDIT: NEW URLS ARE READY!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/otnsystemshub/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OTNSystemsHub

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OTNSystemsHubOTN

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VirtualBox 5.0 Maintenance Release 10 is out now with major improvement; which include a large number of improvements and bug fixes.

See all the details with a complete list of bug fixes: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog

Download Now: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads


The following items were fixed and/or added:

  • VMM: improved support for certain Intel Atom CPUs (bug #14773)
  • VMM: system register emulation fix (5.0 regression; bug #14515)
  • GUI: fixed immediate screenshot issue (bug #14108)
  • GUI: fixed another 3D overlay window reparenting issue when the VM is switched to fullscreen mode on X11 hosts
  • GUI: fixed help index (bug #14722)
  • GUI: fixed state synchronization issue in the VM manager window when VM was paused from its runtime window
  • Audio: fixed suspending/resuming audio streams on VM pause/unpause (bug #14784)
  • Audio: properly reset AC97 audio streams, otherwise there is silence until a non-48 kHz stream is played
  • Audio: fixed a small emulation quirk of the AD1980 codec of the HDA device to make recent linux guests work (bug #14653)
  • USB: serveral fixes for the xHCI controller
  • USB: fixed a crash under certain conditions on hosts with Linux kernels older than version 3.3
  • USB: better identification of certain USB devices
  • NAT: support TCP in DNS proxy (bug #14736)
  • NAT Network: fixed sporadic crashes on Windows hosts (bug #13899)
  • API: when creating differencing images (e.g. as part of a snapshot or cloning a VM) use the same disk image variant as the parent image if possible, which means that e.g. a diff image for a  VMDK image split into 2 GB files will also be split (bug #14764)
  • API: event queue handling fixes preventing loss of certain events at runtime (e.g. new webcam attached), particularly important on Mac OS X hosts
  • Webcam: passthrough fix for certain devices (Windows hosts only)
  • VBoxManage: don't crash on snapshot restorecurrent / edit if the VM has no snapshots
  • VBoxManage: don't crash on controlvm addencpassword (bug #14729)
  • Mac OS X hosts: use the correct kernel on certain hosts
  • Windows hosts: fixed VRDP external authentication
  • Windows hosts: allow to use a shared folder path with extended-length path prefix (5.0 regression; bug #14651)
  • Windows hosts: fix a crash in the netfilter host driver under certain conditions (bug #14799)
  • Windows host installer: documented and fixed public properties which can be used to control the installation to some extent
  • Windows host installer: fixed not starting the actual installation when showing the version information or help dialogs
  • X11 Additions: added basic support for X.Org Server 1.18 (3D requires additional fixes)

O_VM_clr.bmpImplementing Root Domains with Oracle VM Server for SPARC

ORACLE TECHNICAL WHITEPAPER  |  NOVEMBER  2015

 

This paper describes how to implement an increasingly useful type of virtualization known as root domains. It also describes an operational model where root domains can be used in conjunction with Oracle Solaris Zones for maximum performance and a high degree of flexibility.

 

Root domains are a type of logical domain and are characterized by the fact that they own one or more PCIe root complexes and, therefore, do not share I/O components with other logical domains. System resources are merely divided among the domains (rather than being virtualized and shared). This type of virtualization is unique to the SPARC platform and offers a number of benefits, specifically bare-metal performance (that is, without virtualization overhead) and lower interdependence among domains.

 

Oracle Solaris Zones technology is a feature of Oracle Solaris, and this paper describes how to use them in a complementary, layered fashion with root domains. In this model, root domains form the lower layer, and zones form the second layer above the domains. The combination allows for highly flexible and effective virtualization, resource management, workload isolation and mobility.

 

The main objective of this paper is to introduce the root domain model as one of the architectures that the Oracle VM Server for SPARC product supports. It has a number of benefits, as well as a number of restrictions. The architectural decisions for how to best deploy Oracle VM Server for SPARC technology is driven by business needs and requirements, and might involve a combination or hybrid approach.... [Click here to read more.]

 

Additional Resources:

 

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     With the recent announcement of Oracle Exadata X5-8 availability, a fitting #ThrowbackThursday post would be comparing it to the original Oracle Exadata V1. V1, which was made available back in 2008 at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, was a feat of engineering. It was part of a product family that was comprised of 2 components, the HP Oracle Database Machine, and the HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server.

 

 

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The HP Oracle Database Machine.

Source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3270/2898906857_2b1e8fc4d5_b_d.jpg

Credit: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikereys/ plαdys]

From the original press release:

  • HP Oracle Database Machine is pre-configured for performance, pre- tuned, and certified for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition tools and Oracle Real Application Clusters. Complete configurations can be ordered from Oracle, with hardware support by HP. The HP Oracle Database Machine is a high-performance system configured for data warehousing that includes a grid of eight database servers featuring: 64 Intel processor cores, and Oracle Enterprise Linux; and a grid of 14 HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers that include up to 168 terabytes of raw storage and 14 GB/sec data bandwidth to the database servers.

 

  • HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers are key performance enablers for the database machine and can be ordered separately if customers have an existing data warehouse and merely require the storage enhancements. Customers can build data warehousing solutions using HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers, which feature industry-standard components including two Intel processors, up to 12 TB of raw storage and InfiniBand connectivity delivering 1 GB/sec of data bandwidth per storage server.

 

  • The HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server uses a massively parallel architecture to dramatically speed up Oracle data warehouses by shifting the data-intensive part of query processing away from Oracle Database Servers and closer to the data.

 

  • HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers deliver 10x or more performance improvements in data-intensive query processing, have virtually unlimited I/O scalability, are easier to optimize for data warehousing, and provide mission-critical availability and reliability.
To read the press release announcing Oracle Exadata V1 back from September 2008, check out: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/017557_EN

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/017557_EN

While that was amazingly impressive back in 2008, the recent advancements really show the growth of the Exadata product and the engineering breakthroughs that have happened over the year with Oracle and Sun Microsystems engineers hammering away at the sprockets, whatnots, and dodads with heavy mallets.

 

The Oracle Exadata X5-8, which is now available, boasts 576 CPU cores! That’s over 500 more than the V1, and can achieve up to 263 GB per second of SQL Flash Bandwidth in the full rack “Extreme Flash” configuration.

 

To read up on the Oracle Exadata X5-8, please visit the official Press Release here: https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/exadata-x5-8-110415.html

Additional Resources:

 

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Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 12.59.12 PM.png       Available today, the new Oracle Exadata Database Machine X5-8 is the latest in the X5 family of engineered systems. Oracle Exadata integrates hardware and software to deliver the highest performance database deployments at the lowest cost. Each Oracle Exadata X5-8 system offers up to 576 CPU cores, more than 1.3 petabytes of disk storage or 180 terabytes of ultra fast PCIe flash, and up to 24 terabytes of memory. Oracle Exadata X5-8 is ideal for in-memory databases, large data warehouses, or demanding OLTP workloads. The high compute, storage and memory capacity of the Oracle Exadata X5-8 is designed for large-scale private cloud database initiatives, enabling large numbers of databases with varied workloads to be consolidated onto a single Exadata system, resulting in greatly reduced operational and management costs.... [Click here to read the official press release]

Additional Resources:

Monitoring Oracle Exadata Storage Servers

by ACE Brian Bream and Suzanne Zorn

This article describes how to use Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control and command-line utilities to monitor Oracle Exadata Storage Servers.

Published September 2014

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If you proactively monitor the components in Oracle Exadata Database Machine (also called Oracle Exadata), you can keep your system highly available and running at peak performance.  This article shows you how to do that with Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c and command-line utilities.... [Click here to read more]

 

Full Article: How to Monitor Oracle Exadata Storage Servers

 

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I am going to claim it, however bold it may be...

 

Oracle OpenWorld 2015 was a huge success!

 

Hundreds of thousands of people from all corners of the industry and the globe made a bee-line for downtown San Francisco last week for what turned out to be a series of amazing sessions, keynotes, product announcements, and events. If you missed it, don't fret, we got what you need right here. Below are some of the major highlights for Systems, and be sure to follow our social channels (OTN Systems Hub and OTN Garage) where we will continue to push out the latest followup news.

 

Here are some of the MANY major announcements that came out of the bay area last week:

 

And, here are a few of the must-see videos from the show:

 

Interview with Wim Coekaerts, SVP of Linux and Virtualization Engineering discussed the updates to Oracle OpenStack for Oracle Linux and Open source at Oracle with SiliconANGLE Media team at theCube, at Oracle OpenWorld 2015 in San Francisco:

 

John Fowler Interviews with theCube at Oracle OpenWorld | SPARC M7, Security, Software in Silicon, Performance....

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A full wrap-up with a lot of video links, including a TON from the hardware teams, will be sent out in our next Systems Newsletter. Be sure to subscribe today and not miss out!

 

To Subscribe to the newsletter, visit: https://profile.oracle.com/myprofile/account/secure/update-account.jspx?subcat=subcat_technicalroles

 

 

 

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