platform
Content
Executive Brief Infrastructure Readiness for Oracle E-Business Suite 11i
On the Web sun.com
Infrastructure Readiness for Oracle E-Business Suite 11i
Considerations for Successful Migration
Table of Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Planning an Upgrade to Oracle 11i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Deploying the LICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Ensuring High Availability for E-Business Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Upgrade Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Adopting the Logical Internet Computing Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Increased Hardware Requirements for Oracle 11i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Server Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Opportunity to Adopt New Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Service Provider Outsourcing or Hosting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 The Sun Advantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Sun Products Lead the Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Sun Programs and Services Offer Extensive Expertise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Sun’s Strong Alliance and Technical Synergy with Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Executive Summary P1
Chapter 1
Executive Summary
There are many reasons enterprises look to the Internet today. It can help them run their businesses more efficiently, expand markets, increase revenues, offer new services to retain existing customers and attract new ones, provide global information access, and increase their competitive advantage. Oracle E-Business Suite 11i features over 100 integrated applications that can help companies become e-businesses and realize the advantage of the Internet. For new Oracle customers, Oracle E-Business-Suite 11i may be an obvious choice. But existing Oracle customers face the seemingly daunting decision of upgrading from older Oracle releases to Oracle 11i. While the upgrade strategy and timing will vary for businesses, there are several compelling reasons to initiate the upgrade process. The increased functionality of Oracle 11i provides better solutions for businesses in the New Economy. In addition, the multi-tier, distributed Internet computing architecture employed by Oracle 11i enables global anytime/anywhere access. Other business-related issues can prompt companies to pursue an upgrade to Oracle 11i. Companies running older Oracle products may face a declining knowledge base for maintaining these applications. Some older products may be de-supported by Oracle, and upgrading will provide guaranteed support for ongoing business operations. Migration of a company’s business infrastructure is never trivial. The migration will likely include some challenges, but this can be mitigated with careful planning and implementation—and the end result can be a better business solution. Migrating to Oracle 11i provides the timely opportunity to review the entire computing architecture and overall operations, and to pursue adjustments for better performance and availability or reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). For example, a data center consolidation performed in tandem with an Oracle 11i upgrade can help ease the administration burden, reduce the TCO, and potentially improve performance and availability, while simultaneously gaining the increased functionality and support of Oracle 11i.
P2 Executive Summary
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Choosing the correct partner for the migration process is crucial, and Sun Microsystems is an outstanding choice for any company migrating to Oracle 11i. Sun offers a premier platform for running Oracle 11i: Sun servers and the Solaris™ Operating Environment (OE). Sun’s full range of binary-compatible servers offer industry-leading performance, scalability, and availability. Combining these powerful servers with the Solaris Operating Environment helps deliver the stability, performance, and predictability required by business-critical applications. Sun extends this platform advantage with a strong technical relationship with Oracle. Sun has extensive background and experience with Oracle implementations, and is one of Oracle’s biggest customers. Oracle, in turn, is a large Sun customer and has developed, tested, and deployed Oracle 11i on the Solaris platform. Sun’s in-house expertise and extensive consulting experience with customers in a wide variety of business situations drive successful programs and services. The iForce Solution Centers and iForce Competency Centers for Oracle (also known as the Sun and Oracle Applications Technology Center or SOATC) provide expertise and skills for correct sizing and configuration. Sun’s accomplished Professional Services staff can help design and develop a highly available technical infrastructure and assist in preparing and implementing successful upgrade plans. In addition, all major System Integrators, as well as many regional System Integrators, offer Oracle 11i software migration and implementation services to complement those from Sun’s iForce Centers. Choosing the right partner for an Oracle 11i implementation can minimize risk and provide a competitive edge. And Sun, with its broad coalition of System Integrator and ISV partners, has the products, services, and expertise to help companies succeed.
SM
Introduction P3
Chapter 2
Introduction
Businesses may consider an upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite 11i for many diverse reasons. They may be seeking the increased functionality that Oracle 11i provides, or the global information access of its Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA). Or perhaps de-support of an older Oracle release prompts a business to pursue an upgrade to Oracle 11i. Migrating to Oracle 11i also provides an opportunity to review a company’s computing architecture and business operations, and take advantage of advances in technology. Often upgrading the infrastructure along with the applications can lead to better performance, increased availability, and a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). While upgrading a large company’s business operations is not without challenges, the impact can be lessened by careful planning and teaming with partners like Sun who have the expertise, products, and skills to implement success. Planning an Upgrade to Oracle 11i Careful study and planning can help ensure a successful migration to Oracle 11i. At a high level, the general approach to upgrading includes determining requirements, designing the architecture, compiling a migration plan, and scheduling practice migrations. • Determine requirements—The upgrade process should begin with a comprehensive assessment. All requirements, including functionality needed to meet business operations as well as performance and availability goals, must be well-defined. Future directions and requirements should also be projected and included in the plan. • Design the architecture—After the requirements have been determined, IT personnel can design an architecture that meets these needs. This step includes appraising current hardware capabilities, business re-engineering, anticipating future needs, and considering platform upgrades that may be necessary to meet the defined requirements.
P4 Introduction
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Compile a migration plan—Concurrent with the architectural design, businesses can compile a migration plan that includes all development and testing that must occur. Oracle customizations must be analyzed, and converted or replaced with new functionality. New features must be tested to ensure integration with existing functionality. Personnel and process issues must also be considered, with an implementation plan that clearly addresses individual responsibilities and unambiguous procedures to be followed during the migration. • Practice migrations—Practice migrations are key to a successful Oracle 11i upgrade. Rehearsing and testing the upgrade procedure enables sites to find and fix potential problems, like unintended effects of existing customization or integration of new functionality. By fixing these issues early, companies can help streamline the actual upgrade process and reduce downtime of applications or services to users. The remainder of this paper describes the Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA) used by Oracle 11i, and discusses issues and other considerations of the migration process. This paper also describes Sun products and services, Sun’s expertise in both technology and Oracle Applications, and the strong relationship Sun has with Oracle—details which help make Sun a premier platform for running Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA) P5
Chapter 3
Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA)
Oracle 11i utilizes a logical three-tier software architecture (see Figure 1). Users employ thin clients with Java™ technology enabled browsers to access Web and application servers in the middle tier, which communicates with database servers in the third tier.
Web Server Web Application Server Application Server Application Server Middle-Tier Layer Back-End Database Server
Client/Browser Client/Browser
Firewall
Client/Browser Front-End
Figure 1.Three-tier Logical Internet Computing Architecture. This architecture is ideally suited for Web-delivery of applications, and can scale to support large numbers of concurrent users. Clients download Java applets and/or HTML content across the network, eliminating the need to manually install and maintain application software on each desktop. When application or system demands increase, components can be replicated and distributed across multiple servers in the middle tier. Database servers can be scaled independently of the middle-tier layer, with resources added as database demands increase. The architecture shown in Figure 1 is the logical software architecture; the actual physical hardware architecture may differ. For example, a single physical server can be used as both a Web and an Application server, particularly in smaller installations. Conversely, multiple servers can be used to support a single function shown in the logical architecture, such as a cluster of servers being used as the back-end database server.
P6 Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA)
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Deploying the LICA Customers who are planning to deploy the LICA need to consider and plan for all three tiers in the architecture. • Back-end (Database Server)—The back-end database server needs to have the sufficient resources to meet current load, including times of peak demand. It should also be scalable, to help satisfy increasing demands. Availability is also crucial for the database server: downtime at best reduces user productivity, and at worst can result in lost sales. Clustering, which uses multiple servers and automatic failure recovery, can be used to increase database availability and to reduce the recovery time in the event of a failure. Oracle Database with Real Application Clusters (RAC) is supported when using the Sun Cluster software, and can help companies meet their failover and load balancing requirements. • Middle Tier (Applications Server)—The middle tier provides services to users and communicates with the back-end database server. Companies have many options when configuring their middle tier. If multiple application servers are used, load balancing can be configured to help provide better and more consistent performance for users. Alternatively, companies may choose to deploy a single, larger server and configure it to provide the multiple services of the middle tier. This solution may be more costeffective and result in simpler administration, particularly for smaller sites. • Front-end (Thin Clients)—Currently, Oracle 11i supports PCs for use as thin clients. These clients use HTML browsers and run Java applets to interact with servers in the middle tier of the architecture. The use of thin clients simplifies administration as no application software, other than a browser, needs to be installed and maintained on the many distributed client machines. Ensuring High Availability for E-Business Suite Business applications must be available 24x7 in today’s competitive, global marketplace. Users and customers expect continual access, and businesses must ensure high availability for their applications and services to meet these expectations. High availability can be addressed at all levels in the LICA. Choosing reliable components, such as servers and storage, can provide high levels of availability. Advances in server hardware enable many newer models to continue operation after a single component failure. New operating system features provide increased availability with quicker recovery times and the ability to upgrade or modify the environment without bringing the system down. Employing RAID techniques, such as mirroring, and choosing reliable disk storage systems that enable hot-swapping of failed components increase data availability by allowing operation to continue uninterrupted after disk failures. Enterprises that require even higher levels of availability can include clustering solutions, like Sun Cluster 3.x, to improve overall availability by reducing failover time. Choosing the correct hardware and software infrastructure can provide increasingly high levels of availability. But even the most reliable hardware is no substitute for disaster planning. Backup and recovery plans must be clearly defined and conscientiously carried out, while disaster plans must be in place to help ensure continued operation after disasters that can halt operation of a data center.
Upgrade Roadmap P7
Chapter 4
Upgrade Roadmap
Current Oracle customers have the opportunity to review their overall implementation and infrastructure when moving to Oracle 11i. Some changes, such as adopting the LICA, are clearly required. Other changes may not be required, but can offer advantages and should be considered when architecting the next-generation solution. Adopting the Logical Internet Computing Architecture Current Oracle 10.7C (Character) and 10.7SC (SmartClient) customers will need to adopt the LICA when migrating to Oracle 11i. In the earlier SmartClient Architecture, presentation and user interface logic were located on each client machine (see Figure 2), which accessed data intensive logic and data management from the database server. In the LICA, the database server remains largely unchanged, while the user interface and user interface logic are further partitioned. User interface logic is moved from multiple distributed clients to a centralized middle tier, where it can scale and be more efficiently administered.
Oracle's Earlier SmartClient Architecture Presentation User Interface Logic Client/Browser Oracle's LICA Presentation User Interface Logic Data Intensive Logic Data Management Database Server Data Intensive Logic Data Management Client/Browser Front-End Application Server Middle-Tier Layer Database Server Back-End
Web
Figure 2.Moving from Oracle’s earlier SmartClient Architecture to the LICA.
P8 Upgrade Roadmap
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Moving from a two-tier architecture to the three-tier LICA requires rearchitecting and typically adding new servers, but it is often possible to retain existing hardware to protect current IT investment. For example: • If an existing machine has sufficient capacity, it can serve as the back-end database server and new machines can be added as middle tier application servers. • It may be more appropriate to utilize the original equipment as middle tier applications servers and invest in new, more highly available equipment for the back-end database servers. • It is also possible to consolidate the middle tier application server and the database server in one high-end server, although this is not recommended for disaster recovery. Each business situation is unique, and careful analysis is essential in designing an architecture that provides investment protection of existing hardware and meets required levels of service and availability. While migration to the LICA is not without its costs, it provides substantial benefits to users and businesses alike. Enterprises benefit from simplified administration and reduced operating costs associated with centralized application software. Users gain universal access from any Java technology enabled PC, a rich graphical user interface, and reduced desktop complexity and maintenance. Increased Hardware Requirements for Oracle 11i Storage Upgrading to Oracle 11i typically requires additional disk storage, primarily due to a change in the way Oracle is installing and delivering the software. In the new Oracle 11i software release, all applications—not only those that are currently licensed—are installed. This simplifies installation of patches and the addition of new applications in the future, but does require increased storage capacity. Additional disk storage and database table space is also required temporarily during the actual upgrade procedure. This interim requirement can be quite significant, and may be as large as three times the current implementation. Customers need to plan and allocate sufficient disk and table space before beginning the upgrade process, as it will fail if there are insufficient resources. CPU and Memory Virtually all software upgrades require increased CPU and memory requirements for optimal performance, and Oracle 11i is no exception. The new release provides greater functionality, but requires increased computing resources to do so. Because of the increased hardware requirements for Oracle 11i, customers may need to increase both CPU capacity and server memory to maintain current levels of performance. For example, a company may want to trade in older equipment to take advantage of better performing, next-generation platforms such as the Sun Fire™ servers and the Solaris Operating Environment. In addition to gaining the extra performance needed to meet the resource demands of Oracle 11i, customers would also gain in advances in availability and manageability. Choosing to upgrade to Oracle 11i does not automatically mandate replacing all existing hardware. However, it is necessary to review the existing configuration and determine what excess upgrade capacity is available. Careful analysis of current and anticipated sizing and capacity, a service provided by Sun’s dedicated competency centers, is a critical planning step for any upgrade process.
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Upgrade Roadmap P9
Server Consolidation Customers migrating to Oracle 11i should consider server consolidation as part of the migration process. Oracle recommends moving from multiple database instances to a single global instance. Migrating from multiple smaller database servers to a single larger database server fits well with this recommendation. Benefits of server consolidation can include improved information sharing and a competitive business advantage of more timely access to information. Server consolidation can also reduce the total cost of ownership for IT assets, as it is typically easier to manage a smaller number of large servers than a larger number of distributed, smaller servers. A reduced number of machines also results in simpler network configuration and associated gains in ease of management. Opportunity to Adopt New Technology Upgrading to Oracle 11i provides the opportunity to review an enterprise’s entire current environment. Certain changes may not be strictly required in order to upgrade, but might be beneficial in reducing costs or providing increased functionality, performance, and availability. The comprehensive business intelligence modules of Oracle 11i also provide new functionality and better visibility of business processes. It may be possible to reduce or replace complex integration issues with new modules of functionality provided in the Oracle 11i release. Enterprises may also benefit by taking advantage of recent advances in technology. For many installations, the current implementation is based on technology that is several years old and doesn’t include the latest in high availability, disaster recovery and backup strategies, storage management, or performance and operations. For example, businesses may want to evaluate the following products to see how they can help meet business goals: • Sun Cluster 3.x/Real Application Clusters (RAC)—provides increased availability through faster failover times; database can be run concurrently on multiple nodes, providing scalability. • Oracle Parallel Fail Safe/RACGuard—provides automated failover with bounded recovery time in conjunction with Oracle Parallel Server/RAC; also provides enhanced monitoring and fast client reconnections to minimize service interruptions after a failure. • Oracle8i Standby Database and Oracle9i Data Guard1—provide disaster recovery solutions. • Oracle Enterprise Manager—provides easier database management. • Oracle Application Manager (OAM)—provides easier monitoring and management by presenting a high-level view of the system, including application system status, configuration changes, and error conditions. • Sun’s latest servers and storage products—provide high performance, scalability, and availability through features such as Dynamic Reconfiguration (servers) and RAID (storage). • Linux—provides an inexpensive, open-source operating system solution.
1. Oracle Parallel Fail Safe was renamed RACGuard in Oracle 9i Database.
P10 Upgrade Roadmap
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
While adopting new technology can bring many benefits, the specific deployment environment and anticipated workload should be carefully considered before making changes. For example, although the Linux operating environment provides an open and cost-effective platform, it may not offer the security, scalability or robustness that the Solaris Operating Environment provides. Similarly, the adoption of the Oracle9i RAC solution should not be undertaken without deliberate study. While this product can provide excellent results in certain situations, its performance is workload dependent and it does not scale well for all applications. Service Provider Outsourcing or Hosting Migration planning is an ideal opportunity for businesses to consider using a Service Provider for their Oracle 11i implementation. Service Providers implement the underlying technical architecture and deploy applications which customers access remotely. With the Service Provider concentrating on the technology, companies are free to focus their efforts on running their business. Businesses who lack the technical expertise in-house, or who want better control over the costs of an upgrade, may find the Service Provider option attractive. Service Providers often have technology expertise that businesses currently don’t have or are reluctant to recruit and develop. Service Providers can help move to new technology and functionality, without requiring large up-front investments in new hardware and software or the ongoing expense of maintaining an IT staff skilled in both Oracle Applications and the underlying technical architecture. In addition, teaming with a Service Provider can make future upgrades easier, as another learning curve can be avoided. As partners of Sun, many third party Service Providers—including AT&T, Cable & Wireless, EDS, Appshop, Corio, BT Ignite, BellSouth, Telenor, and SingTel—can also provide application hosting options.
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The Sun Advantage P11
Chapter 5
The Sun Advantage
Choosing the right partner for your Oracle 11i implementation can provide a competitive edge, and Sun has the products, services, and expertise to help companies succeed. Sun Products Lead the Industry According to IDC, Sun is the leading provider of UNIX® servers worldwide. The vast majority of Service Providers make Sun their platform of choice, and over 40 percent of all Oracle Applications are deployed on the Sun platform. Industry-leading performance and scalability, combined with high availability and manageability, help make Sun’s servers, the Solaris Operating Environment, and Sun StorEdge™ storage products a premier platform for running Oracle 11i. Full Range of Scalable Sun Servers Sun offers a full range of scalable, and binary-compatible servers. These servers interoperate easily with other systems in today’s heterogeneous network environments, and deliver performance and scalability to accommodate changing business needs. Their highly integrated 64-bit UltraSPARC™ processors deliver exceptional performance for the most demanding workloads. Configurations of up to 106 processors are possible, and systems can be clustered to meet virtually any performance or reliability requirement. Sun servers also feature many capabilities that increase reliability, so that data and applications are available when needed. Redundant, hot-swappable components, such as power supplies and cooling systems, improve availability by enabling systems to continue operation after a hardware failure. Dynamic reconfiguration provides the capability to reconfigure the operating environment without service interruption, so that organizations can dynamically reconfigure systems to handle larger workloads or replace failed components. Alternate pathing automatically and transparently redirects I/O operations after a failure, allowing applications to continue without interruption after a failure in the primary data path. And Dynamic System Domains, available in Sun Fire and Sun Enterprise™ 10000 servers, enable a single system to be logically divided into multiple stand-alone domains, each running its own instance of the operating environment. Failures in one domain do not affect applications running in other domains, increasing availability and providing a reliable platform for running multiple environments simultaneously.
P12 The Sun Advantage
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Dynamic SGA and Remote Shared Memory (RSM) technology is also available on Sun servers, making the Sun platform ideally suited to running Oracle 11i. With Dynamic SGA, Oracle “responds” to a dynamic configuration on the server, and can grow and shrink automatically when a Solaris domain is resized. RSM, supported in the Sun Cluster 3.0 environment with SCI-PCI interconnects, compliments Oracle’s cache fusion technology, and enhances scalability and performance in clustered environments. With RSM, data is transferred via high-speed interconnects rather than via reading/writing to disk, resulting in significantly lower latency and improved performance. • Entry-level servers—Sun’s general-purpose, entry-level servers, such as the Sun Fire V880 server, are low-cost, widely scalable, and extremely reliable. Sun also offers Intel-based products that are competitive with other commodity products in the marketplace. • Midframe servers and midrange servers—The midrange Sun Fire V1280 server delivers enterprise-class scalability and availability at aggressive price points. Additionally, the Sun Fire 3800, 4800 and 6800 midframe servers bring mainframe-like features to the midrange server arena for applications that require the highest levels of reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS). • High-end servers—The Sun Fire12K server, Sun Fire 15K server, and Sun Enterprise 10000 server provide the RAS features and high performance demanded by mission critical applications. Combining attributes such as the fifth-generation of Dynamic System Domains and automated Dynamic Reconfiguration, these servers are flexible, high-volume, and high-throughput systems that are ideal for server consolidation. Solaris Operating Environment The Solaris Operating Environment is the established OS leader for availability, scalability, and security, delivering stability and predictability for business-critical applications. Features such as Solaris Live Upgrade, Hot Diagnostics, UNIX File System Logging, and Remote Console help reduce system downtime. Designed for multiprocessing and 64-bit capable, the Solaris software scales from smaller workgroup servers to massive SunPlex™ clusters with hundreds of CPUs. The Solaris platform also has many built-in security features, such as IPSec for system authentication and data encryption, industry-standard Kerberos for user authentication, and SunScreen™ software for comprehensive firewall protection. The Solaris Operating Environment also supports additional software components that increase overall availability and manageability: • Solaris Resource Manager software provides systems resource control, helping to ensure a consistent level of service to users and applications. • Solaris Bandwidth Manager software controls and allocates IP traffic priorities and bandwidth, ensuring greater network resource availability. • Sun Cluster software offers high availability through redundant hardware and automatic fault detection and recovery. Scalable data services, such as Real Application Cluster (RAC), can provide better and more consistent performance during peak demand and under growing computing loads.
The Sun Advantage P13
Scalable Storage Solutions Sun offers a wide range of scalable storage solutions, from desktop and workgroup storage, to high performance and high capacity midrange and data center solutions. Protecting mission-critical data is imperative, and Sun has high-quality data protection products for backup, archive, and disaster recovery. In addition, Sun provides a comprehensive set of products and services to simplify storage area network (SAN) management, optimize resource utilization, and help lower total cost of ownership for storage. Sun is a member of the Oracle Storage Compatibility Program (OSCP), a program designed to ensure Oracle database compatibility with specialized storage technologies. Products such as Sun StorEdge Network Data Replicator (SNDR) and Instant Image are qualified, providing assurance that these products are fully supported and safe to use with Oracle implementations. Sun’s data center and midrange storage product families provide a range of powerful and reliable solutions for Oracle 11i implementations: • Data center storage—The Sun StorEdge 9900 series delivers complete storage solutions for data center environments. Designed for extreme availability, performance, scalability, and manageability, the series is ideal for lower total cost of ownership through storage consolidation. Oracle’s Hardware Assisted Resilient Data (HARD) technology is available on the Sun StorEdge 9900 series, helping to avoid data corruption and thereby increasing data and application availability. • Midrange storage—The Sun StorEdge product family delivers data center-class storage performance and reliability to midrange environments. The StorEdge 3900 and 6900 series, StorEdge T3 Array and StorEdge A5200 provide complete storage solutions with high availability, exceptional performance, integrated storage virtualization, cost-effective scalability, and easy management to help address increasing demands while minimizing storage TCO. Sun Programs and Services Offer Extensive Expertise Sun has a strong relationship with Oracle, understands the technology environment, and has the necessary expertise and skills to help configure the infrastructure for a successful upgrade. Programs such as the iForce Competency Center for Oracle (also known as the Sun and Oracle Application Technology Center) and iForce Solution Centers provide valuable insights for sizing and configuration of new installations. Sun’s Professional Services can help develop and implement successful upgrade plans, bringing Oracle implementations to a successful conclusion. The iForce Competency Centers for Oracle The Sun iForce Competency Centers for Oracle can help reduce the risk of upgrade failure by supplying in-depth tuning and performance analysis, capacity planning, and accurate sizing and configuration information. The centers leverage the knowledge base of both companies, offering extensive experience in core technologies such as Solaris, network management, and High Availability (HA) solutions, as well as Oracle databases and applications.
P14 The Sun Advantage
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The iForce Competency Center for Oracle combines the in-depth experience of its staff with state-of-the-art technology and comprehensive services to aid customers in their Oracle implementations. Because the iForce Competency Center has extensive experience dealing with a wide variety of customers, business situations, and applications, it can provide superior recommendations and best practices advice. The iForce Competency Center personnel follow current developments and changes in Oracle applications, and are aware of new functionality, recent patches, and features which are newly supported or no longer supported. Proof-of-Concept with Sun’s iForce Solution Centers Sun’s iForce Solution Centers are designed to help customers utilize the company’s Internet experience and proven methodology for building and deploying best-of-breed solutions. iForce Solution Centers can assist with proof-of-concept demonstrations, which show viable combinations of products, systems, and services needed for a business solution. Reference architectures—end-to-end tested, tuned, and integrated solutions—serve as recommended solutions, providing a solid base configuration which customers can tailor to their specific requirements. Sun’s Professional Services Drives Successful Implementations Sun’s Professional Services (PS) organization has both the Oracle Applications skills as well as the extensive technology expertise to aid in successful Oracle upgrades and implementations. Skilled staff located world-wide are experts at designing and building the infrastructure for Oracle Applications implementations, and can help customers efficiently design a highly available technical architecture to accommodate Oracle’s LICA. Sun then partners with System Integrators and Oracle, who can deliver complementary expertise in the areas of business functionality, data conversion and module configuration. This synergy helps enable well-integrated, highly scalable, reliable solutions with the peak performance to meet the demands of inter-networked business computing. Sun PS has a specific service offering for customers who need assistance with their Oracle 11i upgrade. The Oracle 11i Upgrade Service includes base platform design and architecture, backup and disaster recovery design, storage design, system performance review and acceptance, and a system management and operations review. Once the new architecture and design have been approved, Sun PS provides configuration, implementation, and deployment services. As customers plan and implement their upgrade, Sun continues to deliver outstanding customer support. To enhance our mission critical support offering, Sun and Oracle have co-located senior support engineers in a Joint Escalation Center. These engineers provide support to customers for interoperability issues on a 24x7 basis, worldwide. Sun can also provide assistance with upgrades to the latest Solaris version and training on all new Sun technologies. Together, these comprehensive offerings smooth the upgrade to Oracle 11i, and help guarantee successful ongoing operations. Sun’s Strong Alliance and Technical Synergy with Oracle Sun has a strong and well-established relationship with Oracle. Oracle 11i is implemented with Java technology, which was developed by Sun, and was built and tested on the Sun platform. Oracle is one of Sun’s largest customers running Oracle applications, and has deployed their internal Oracle 11i ERP Applications on the Sun and Solaris platform. Sun is also one of Oracle’s largest customers, and runs its ERP mostly on Oracle. Sun is currently migrating to Oracle 11i, and this experience and expertise feeds back to Sun Professional Services and iForce Solution Centers, and is passed along to customers.
Conclusion P15
Chapter 6
Conclusions
Migrating to Oracle E-Business Suite 11i brings increased product functionality and support for new e-business applications. Just as importantly, migrating to Oracle 11i provides the opportunity for businesses to re-evaluate their current implementation and seek improvements to better meet their business goals. Consolidating servers can result in easier administration and lower TCO. Upgrading to new servers, like the Sun Fire servers, or adopting new technology, like Sun Cluster, can result in improved performance, higher availability, and increased serviceability. Sun is the clear choice for any company migrating to Oracle 11i. Sun’s servers and the Solaris Operating Environment provide an outstanding platform for running Oracle 11i, delivering the stability, performance, and predictability required by business-critical applications. Sun extends this platform advantage with a strong technical relationship with Oracle and extensive Oracle expertise. Sun’s Professional Services and programs like Sun’s iForce Competency Centers for Oracle and iForce Solution Centers have the necessary skills to design, implement, and deploy leading-edge Oracle solutions. Choosing the right partner for an Oracle 11i implementation can minimize risk and provide a competitive edge, and Sun has the products, technology skills, and expertise to help businesses succeed. References Sun Microsystems, Inc. posts product and services information on its World Wide Web Home page at: www.sun.com. For more information related to Sun’s Oracle services, please see the following Web sites: • www.sun.com/oracle • www.sun.com/iFORCE The following Oracle Web sites contain information on Oracle 11i: • www.oracle.com/applications • www.oracle.com/appsnet/technology/upgrade/content.html
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Infrastructure Readiness for Oracle E-Business Suite 11i
Considerations for Successful Migration
Table of Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Planning an Upgrade to Oracle 11i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Deploying the LICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Ensuring High Availability for E-Business Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Upgrade Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Adopting the Logical Internet Computing Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Increased Hardware Requirements for Oracle 11i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Server Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Opportunity to Adopt New Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Service Provider Outsourcing or Hosting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 The Sun Advantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Sun Products Lead the Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Sun Programs and Services Offer Extensive Expertise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Sun’s Strong Alliance and Technical Synergy with Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Executive Summary P1
Chapter 1
Executive Summary
There are many reasons enterprises look to the Internet today. It can help them run their businesses more efficiently, expand markets, increase revenues, offer new services to retain existing customers and attract new ones, provide global information access, and increase their competitive advantage. Oracle E-Business Suite 11i features over 100 integrated applications that can help companies become e-businesses and realize the advantage of the Internet. For new Oracle customers, Oracle E-Business-Suite 11i may be an obvious choice. But existing Oracle customers face the seemingly daunting decision of upgrading from older Oracle releases to Oracle 11i. While the upgrade strategy and timing will vary for businesses, there are several compelling reasons to initiate the upgrade process. The increased functionality of Oracle 11i provides better solutions for businesses in the New Economy. In addition, the multi-tier, distributed Internet computing architecture employed by Oracle 11i enables global anytime/anywhere access. Other business-related issues can prompt companies to pursue an upgrade to Oracle 11i. Companies running older Oracle products may face a declining knowledge base for maintaining these applications. Some older products may be de-supported by Oracle, and upgrading will provide guaranteed support for ongoing business operations. Migration of a company’s business infrastructure is never trivial. The migration will likely include some challenges, but this can be mitigated with careful planning and implementation—and the end result can be a better business solution. Migrating to Oracle 11i provides the timely opportunity to review the entire computing architecture and overall operations, and to pursue adjustments for better performance and availability or reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). For example, a data center consolidation performed in tandem with an Oracle 11i upgrade can help ease the administration burden, reduce the TCO, and potentially improve performance and availability, while simultaneously gaining the increased functionality and support of Oracle 11i.
P2 Executive Summary
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Choosing the correct partner for the migration process is crucial, and Sun Microsystems is an outstanding choice for any company migrating to Oracle 11i. Sun offers a premier platform for running Oracle 11i: Sun servers and the Solaris™ Operating Environment (OE). Sun’s full range of binary-compatible servers offer industry-leading performance, scalability, and availability. Combining these powerful servers with the Solaris Operating Environment helps deliver the stability, performance, and predictability required by business-critical applications. Sun extends this platform advantage with a strong technical relationship with Oracle. Sun has extensive background and experience with Oracle implementations, and is one of Oracle’s biggest customers. Oracle, in turn, is a large Sun customer and has developed, tested, and deployed Oracle 11i on the Solaris platform. Sun’s in-house expertise and extensive consulting experience with customers in a wide variety of business situations drive successful programs and services. The iForce Solution Centers and iForce Competency Centers for Oracle (also known as the Sun and Oracle Applications Technology Center or SOATC) provide expertise and skills for correct sizing and configuration. Sun’s accomplished Professional Services staff can help design and develop a highly available technical infrastructure and assist in preparing and implementing successful upgrade plans. In addition, all major System Integrators, as well as many regional System Integrators, offer Oracle 11i software migration and implementation services to complement those from Sun’s iForce Centers. Choosing the right partner for an Oracle 11i implementation can minimize risk and provide a competitive edge. And Sun, with its broad coalition of System Integrator and ISV partners, has the products, services, and expertise to help companies succeed.
SM
Introduction P3
Chapter 2
Introduction
Businesses may consider an upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite 11i for many diverse reasons. They may be seeking the increased functionality that Oracle 11i provides, or the global information access of its Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA). Or perhaps de-support of an older Oracle release prompts a business to pursue an upgrade to Oracle 11i. Migrating to Oracle 11i also provides an opportunity to review a company’s computing architecture and business operations, and take advantage of advances in technology. Often upgrading the infrastructure along with the applications can lead to better performance, increased availability, and a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). While upgrading a large company’s business operations is not without challenges, the impact can be lessened by careful planning and teaming with partners like Sun who have the expertise, products, and skills to implement success. Planning an Upgrade to Oracle 11i Careful study and planning can help ensure a successful migration to Oracle 11i. At a high level, the general approach to upgrading includes determining requirements, designing the architecture, compiling a migration plan, and scheduling practice migrations. • Determine requirements—The upgrade process should begin with a comprehensive assessment. All requirements, including functionality needed to meet business operations as well as performance and availability goals, must be well-defined. Future directions and requirements should also be projected and included in the plan. • Design the architecture—After the requirements have been determined, IT personnel can design an architecture that meets these needs. This step includes appraising current hardware capabilities, business re-engineering, anticipating future needs, and considering platform upgrades that may be necessary to meet the defined requirements.
P4 Introduction
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Compile a migration plan—Concurrent with the architectural design, businesses can compile a migration plan that includes all development and testing that must occur. Oracle customizations must be analyzed, and converted or replaced with new functionality. New features must be tested to ensure integration with existing functionality. Personnel and process issues must also be considered, with an implementation plan that clearly addresses individual responsibilities and unambiguous procedures to be followed during the migration. • Practice migrations—Practice migrations are key to a successful Oracle 11i upgrade. Rehearsing and testing the upgrade procedure enables sites to find and fix potential problems, like unintended effects of existing customization or integration of new functionality. By fixing these issues early, companies can help streamline the actual upgrade process and reduce downtime of applications or services to users. The remainder of this paper describes the Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA) used by Oracle 11i, and discusses issues and other considerations of the migration process. This paper also describes Sun products and services, Sun’s expertise in both technology and Oracle Applications, and the strong relationship Sun has with Oracle—details which help make Sun a premier platform for running Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA) P5
Chapter 3
Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA)
Oracle 11i utilizes a logical three-tier software architecture (see Figure 1). Users employ thin clients with Java™ technology enabled browsers to access Web and application servers in the middle tier, which communicates with database servers in the third tier.
Web Server Web Application Server Application Server Application Server Middle-Tier Layer Back-End Database Server
Client/Browser Client/Browser
Firewall
Client/Browser Front-End
Figure 1.Three-tier Logical Internet Computing Architecture. This architecture is ideally suited for Web-delivery of applications, and can scale to support large numbers of concurrent users. Clients download Java applets and/or HTML content across the network, eliminating the need to manually install and maintain application software on each desktop. When application or system demands increase, components can be replicated and distributed across multiple servers in the middle tier. Database servers can be scaled independently of the middle-tier layer, with resources added as database demands increase. The architecture shown in Figure 1 is the logical software architecture; the actual physical hardware architecture may differ. For example, a single physical server can be used as both a Web and an Application server, particularly in smaller installations. Conversely, multiple servers can be used to support a single function shown in the logical architecture, such as a cluster of servers being used as the back-end database server.
P6 Logical Internet Computing Architecture (LICA)
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Deploying the LICA Customers who are planning to deploy the LICA need to consider and plan for all three tiers in the architecture. • Back-end (Database Server)—The back-end database server needs to have the sufficient resources to meet current load, including times of peak demand. It should also be scalable, to help satisfy increasing demands. Availability is also crucial for the database server: downtime at best reduces user productivity, and at worst can result in lost sales. Clustering, which uses multiple servers and automatic failure recovery, can be used to increase database availability and to reduce the recovery time in the event of a failure. Oracle Database with Real Application Clusters (RAC) is supported when using the Sun Cluster software, and can help companies meet their failover and load balancing requirements. • Middle Tier (Applications Server)—The middle tier provides services to users and communicates with the back-end database server. Companies have many options when configuring their middle tier. If multiple application servers are used, load balancing can be configured to help provide better and more consistent performance for users. Alternatively, companies may choose to deploy a single, larger server and configure it to provide the multiple services of the middle tier. This solution may be more costeffective and result in simpler administration, particularly for smaller sites. • Front-end (Thin Clients)—Currently, Oracle 11i supports PCs for use as thin clients. These clients use HTML browsers and run Java applets to interact with servers in the middle tier of the architecture. The use of thin clients simplifies administration as no application software, other than a browser, needs to be installed and maintained on the many distributed client machines. Ensuring High Availability for E-Business Suite Business applications must be available 24x7 in today’s competitive, global marketplace. Users and customers expect continual access, and businesses must ensure high availability for their applications and services to meet these expectations. High availability can be addressed at all levels in the LICA. Choosing reliable components, such as servers and storage, can provide high levels of availability. Advances in server hardware enable many newer models to continue operation after a single component failure. New operating system features provide increased availability with quicker recovery times and the ability to upgrade or modify the environment without bringing the system down. Employing RAID techniques, such as mirroring, and choosing reliable disk storage systems that enable hot-swapping of failed components increase data availability by allowing operation to continue uninterrupted after disk failures. Enterprises that require even higher levels of availability can include clustering solutions, like Sun Cluster 3.x, to improve overall availability by reducing failover time. Choosing the correct hardware and software infrastructure can provide increasingly high levels of availability. But even the most reliable hardware is no substitute for disaster planning. Backup and recovery plans must be clearly defined and conscientiously carried out, while disaster plans must be in place to help ensure continued operation after disasters that can halt operation of a data center.
Upgrade Roadmap P7
Chapter 4
Upgrade Roadmap
Current Oracle customers have the opportunity to review their overall implementation and infrastructure when moving to Oracle 11i. Some changes, such as adopting the LICA, are clearly required. Other changes may not be required, but can offer advantages and should be considered when architecting the next-generation solution. Adopting the Logical Internet Computing Architecture Current Oracle 10.7C (Character) and 10.7SC (SmartClient) customers will need to adopt the LICA when migrating to Oracle 11i. In the earlier SmartClient Architecture, presentation and user interface logic were located on each client machine (see Figure 2), which accessed data intensive logic and data management from the database server. In the LICA, the database server remains largely unchanged, while the user interface and user interface logic are further partitioned. User interface logic is moved from multiple distributed clients to a centralized middle tier, where it can scale and be more efficiently administered.
Oracle's Earlier SmartClient Architecture Presentation User Interface Logic Client/Browser Oracle's LICA Presentation User Interface Logic Data Intensive Logic Data Management Database Server Data Intensive Logic Data Management Client/Browser Front-End Application Server Middle-Tier Layer Database Server Back-End
Web
Figure 2.Moving from Oracle’s earlier SmartClient Architecture to the LICA.
P8 Upgrade Roadmap
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Moving from a two-tier architecture to the three-tier LICA requires rearchitecting and typically adding new servers, but it is often possible to retain existing hardware to protect current IT investment. For example: • If an existing machine has sufficient capacity, it can serve as the back-end database server and new machines can be added as middle tier application servers. • It may be more appropriate to utilize the original equipment as middle tier applications servers and invest in new, more highly available equipment for the back-end database servers. • It is also possible to consolidate the middle tier application server and the database server in one high-end server, although this is not recommended for disaster recovery. Each business situation is unique, and careful analysis is essential in designing an architecture that provides investment protection of existing hardware and meets required levels of service and availability. While migration to the LICA is not without its costs, it provides substantial benefits to users and businesses alike. Enterprises benefit from simplified administration and reduced operating costs associated with centralized application software. Users gain universal access from any Java technology enabled PC, a rich graphical user interface, and reduced desktop complexity and maintenance. Increased Hardware Requirements for Oracle 11i Storage Upgrading to Oracle 11i typically requires additional disk storage, primarily due to a change in the way Oracle is installing and delivering the software. In the new Oracle 11i software release, all applications—not only those that are currently licensed—are installed. This simplifies installation of patches and the addition of new applications in the future, but does require increased storage capacity. Additional disk storage and database table space is also required temporarily during the actual upgrade procedure. This interim requirement can be quite significant, and may be as large as three times the current implementation. Customers need to plan and allocate sufficient disk and table space before beginning the upgrade process, as it will fail if there are insufficient resources. CPU and Memory Virtually all software upgrades require increased CPU and memory requirements for optimal performance, and Oracle 11i is no exception. The new release provides greater functionality, but requires increased computing resources to do so. Because of the increased hardware requirements for Oracle 11i, customers may need to increase both CPU capacity and server memory to maintain current levels of performance. For example, a company may want to trade in older equipment to take advantage of better performing, next-generation platforms such as the Sun Fire™ servers and the Solaris Operating Environment. In addition to gaining the extra performance needed to meet the resource demands of Oracle 11i, customers would also gain in advances in availability and manageability. Choosing to upgrade to Oracle 11i does not automatically mandate replacing all existing hardware. However, it is necessary to review the existing configuration and determine what excess upgrade capacity is available. Careful analysis of current and anticipated sizing and capacity, a service provided by Sun’s dedicated competency centers, is a critical planning step for any upgrade process.
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Upgrade Roadmap P9
Server Consolidation Customers migrating to Oracle 11i should consider server consolidation as part of the migration process. Oracle recommends moving from multiple database instances to a single global instance. Migrating from multiple smaller database servers to a single larger database server fits well with this recommendation. Benefits of server consolidation can include improved information sharing and a competitive business advantage of more timely access to information. Server consolidation can also reduce the total cost of ownership for IT assets, as it is typically easier to manage a smaller number of large servers than a larger number of distributed, smaller servers. A reduced number of machines also results in simpler network configuration and associated gains in ease of management. Opportunity to Adopt New Technology Upgrading to Oracle 11i provides the opportunity to review an enterprise’s entire current environment. Certain changes may not be strictly required in order to upgrade, but might be beneficial in reducing costs or providing increased functionality, performance, and availability. The comprehensive business intelligence modules of Oracle 11i also provide new functionality and better visibility of business processes. It may be possible to reduce or replace complex integration issues with new modules of functionality provided in the Oracle 11i release. Enterprises may also benefit by taking advantage of recent advances in technology. For many installations, the current implementation is based on technology that is several years old and doesn’t include the latest in high availability, disaster recovery and backup strategies, storage management, or performance and operations. For example, businesses may want to evaluate the following products to see how they can help meet business goals: • Sun Cluster 3.x/Real Application Clusters (RAC)—provides increased availability through faster failover times; database can be run concurrently on multiple nodes, providing scalability. • Oracle Parallel Fail Safe/RACGuard—provides automated failover with bounded recovery time in conjunction with Oracle Parallel Server/RAC; also provides enhanced monitoring and fast client reconnections to minimize service interruptions after a failure. • Oracle8i Standby Database and Oracle9i Data Guard1—provide disaster recovery solutions. • Oracle Enterprise Manager—provides easier database management. • Oracle Application Manager (OAM)—provides easier monitoring and management by presenting a high-level view of the system, including application system status, configuration changes, and error conditions. • Sun’s latest servers and storage products—provide high performance, scalability, and availability through features such as Dynamic Reconfiguration (servers) and RAID (storage). • Linux—provides an inexpensive, open-source operating system solution.
1. Oracle Parallel Fail Safe was renamed RACGuard in Oracle 9i Database.
P10 Upgrade Roadmap
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
While adopting new technology can bring many benefits, the specific deployment environment and anticipated workload should be carefully considered before making changes. For example, although the Linux operating environment provides an open and cost-effective platform, it may not offer the security, scalability or robustness that the Solaris Operating Environment provides. Similarly, the adoption of the Oracle9i RAC solution should not be undertaken without deliberate study. While this product can provide excellent results in certain situations, its performance is workload dependent and it does not scale well for all applications. Service Provider Outsourcing or Hosting Migration planning is an ideal opportunity for businesses to consider using a Service Provider for their Oracle 11i implementation. Service Providers implement the underlying technical architecture and deploy applications which customers access remotely. With the Service Provider concentrating on the technology, companies are free to focus their efforts on running their business. Businesses who lack the technical expertise in-house, or who want better control over the costs of an upgrade, may find the Service Provider option attractive. Service Providers often have technology expertise that businesses currently don’t have or are reluctant to recruit and develop. Service Providers can help move to new technology and functionality, without requiring large up-front investments in new hardware and software or the ongoing expense of maintaining an IT staff skilled in both Oracle Applications and the underlying technical architecture. In addition, teaming with a Service Provider can make future upgrades easier, as another learning curve can be avoided. As partners of Sun, many third party Service Providers—including AT&T, Cable & Wireless, EDS, Appshop, Corio, BT Ignite, BellSouth, Telenor, and SingTel—can also provide application hosting options.
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The Sun Advantage P11
Chapter 5
The Sun Advantage
Choosing the right partner for your Oracle 11i implementation can provide a competitive edge, and Sun has the products, services, and expertise to help companies succeed. Sun Products Lead the Industry According to IDC, Sun is the leading provider of UNIX® servers worldwide. The vast majority of Service Providers make Sun their platform of choice, and over 40 percent of all Oracle Applications are deployed on the Sun platform. Industry-leading performance and scalability, combined with high availability and manageability, help make Sun’s servers, the Solaris Operating Environment, and Sun StorEdge™ storage products a premier platform for running Oracle 11i. Full Range of Scalable Sun Servers Sun offers a full range of scalable, and binary-compatible servers. These servers interoperate easily with other systems in today’s heterogeneous network environments, and deliver performance and scalability to accommodate changing business needs. Their highly integrated 64-bit UltraSPARC™ processors deliver exceptional performance for the most demanding workloads. Configurations of up to 106 processors are possible, and systems can be clustered to meet virtually any performance or reliability requirement. Sun servers also feature many capabilities that increase reliability, so that data and applications are available when needed. Redundant, hot-swappable components, such as power supplies and cooling systems, improve availability by enabling systems to continue operation after a hardware failure. Dynamic reconfiguration provides the capability to reconfigure the operating environment without service interruption, so that organizations can dynamically reconfigure systems to handle larger workloads or replace failed components. Alternate pathing automatically and transparently redirects I/O operations after a failure, allowing applications to continue without interruption after a failure in the primary data path. And Dynamic System Domains, available in Sun Fire and Sun Enterprise™ 10000 servers, enable a single system to be logically divided into multiple stand-alone domains, each running its own instance of the operating environment. Failures in one domain do not affect applications running in other domains, increasing availability and providing a reliable platform for running multiple environments simultaneously.
P12 The Sun Advantage
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Dynamic SGA and Remote Shared Memory (RSM) technology is also available on Sun servers, making the Sun platform ideally suited to running Oracle 11i. With Dynamic SGA, Oracle “responds” to a dynamic configuration on the server, and can grow and shrink automatically when a Solaris domain is resized. RSM, supported in the Sun Cluster 3.0 environment with SCI-PCI interconnects, compliments Oracle’s cache fusion technology, and enhances scalability and performance in clustered environments. With RSM, data is transferred via high-speed interconnects rather than via reading/writing to disk, resulting in significantly lower latency and improved performance. • Entry-level servers—Sun’s general-purpose, entry-level servers, such as the Sun Fire V880 server, are low-cost, widely scalable, and extremely reliable. Sun also offers Intel-based products that are competitive with other commodity products in the marketplace. • Midframe servers and midrange servers—The midrange Sun Fire V1280 server delivers enterprise-class scalability and availability at aggressive price points. Additionally, the Sun Fire 3800, 4800 and 6800 midframe servers bring mainframe-like features to the midrange server arena for applications that require the highest levels of reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS). • High-end servers—The Sun Fire12K server, Sun Fire 15K server, and Sun Enterprise 10000 server provide the RAS features and high performance demanded by mission critical applications. Combining attributes such as the fifth-generation of Dynamic System Domains and automated Dynamic Reconfiguration, these servers are flexible, high-volume, and high-throughput systems that are ideal for server consolidation. Solaris Operating Environment The Solaris Operating Environment is the established OS leader for availability, scalability, and security, delivering stability and predictability for business-critical applications. Features such as Solaris Live Upgrade, Hot Diagnostics, UNIX File System Logging, and Remote Console help reduce system downtime. Designed for multiprocessing and 64-bit capable, the Solaris software scales from smaller workgroup servers to massive SunPlex™ clusters with hundreds of CPUs. The Solaris platform also has many built-in security features, such as IPSec for system authentication and data encryption, industry-standard Kerberos for user authentication, and SunScreen™ software for comprehensive firewall protection. The Solaris Operating Environment also supports additional software components that increase overall availability and manageability: • Solaris Resource Manager software provides systems resource control, helping to ensure a consistent level of service to users and applications. • Solaris Bandwidth Manager software controls and allocates IP traffic priorities and bandwidth, ensuring greater network resource availability. • Sun Cluster software offers high availability through redundant hardware and automatic fault detection and recovery. Scalable data services, such as Real Application Cluster (RAC), can provide better and more consistent performance during peak demand and under growing computing loads.
The Sun Advantage P13
Scalable Storage Solutions Sun offers a wide range of scalable storage solutions, from desktop and workgroup storage, to high performance and high capacity midrange and data center solutions. Protecting mission-critical data is imperative, and Sun has high-quality data protection products for backup, archive, and disaster recovery. In addition, Sun provides a comprehensive set of products and services to simplify storage area network (SAN) management, optimize resource utilization, and help lower total cost of ownership for storage. Sun is a member of the Oracle Storage Compatibility Program (OSCP), a program designed to ensure Oracle database compatibility with specialized storage technologies. Products such as Sun StorEdge Network Data Replicator (SNDR) and Instant Image are qualified, providing assurance that these products are fully supported and safe to use with Oracle implementations. Sun’s data center and midrange storage product families provide a range of powerful and reliable solutions for Oracle 11i implementations: • Data center storage—The Sun StorEdge 9900 series delivers complete storage solutions for data center environments. Designed for extreme availability, performance, scalability, and manageability, the series is ideal for lower total cost of ownership through storage consolidation. Oracle’s Hardware Assisted Resilient Data (HARD) technology is available on the Sun StorEdge 9900 series, helping to avoid data corruption and thereby increasing data and application availability. • Midrange storage—The Sun StorEdge product family delivers data center-class storage performance and reliability to midrange environments. The StorEdge 3900 and 6900 series, StorEdge T3 Array and StorEdge A5200 provide complete storage solutions with high availability, exceptional performance, integrated storage virtualization, cost-effective scalability, and easy management to help address increasing demands while minimizing storage TCO. Sun Programs and Services Offer Extensive Expertise Sun has a strong relationship with Oracle, understands the technology environment, and has the necessary expertise and skills to help configure the infrastructure for a successful upgrade. Programs such as the iForce Competency Center for Oracle (also known as the Sun and Oracle Application Technology Center) and iForce Solution Centers provide valuable insights for sizing and configuration of new installations. Sun’s Professional Services can help develop and implement successful upgrade plans, bringing Oracle implementations to a successful conclusion. The iForce Competency Centers for Oracle The Sun iForce Competency Centers for Oracle can help reduce the risk of upgrade failure by supplying in-depth tuning and performance analysis, capacity planning, and accurate sizing and configuration information. The centers leverage the knowledge base of both companies, offering extensive experience in core technologies such as Solaris, network management, and High Availability (HA) solutions, as well as Oracle databases and applications.
P14 The Sun Advantage
©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The iForce Competency Center for Oracle combines the in-depth experience of its staff with state-of-the-art technology and comprehensive services to aid customers in their Oracle implementations. Because the iForce Competency Center has extensive experience dealing with a wide variety of customers, business situations, and applications, it can provide superior recommendations and best practices advice. The iForce Competency Center personnel follow current developments and changes in Oracle applications, and are aware of new functionality, recent patches, and features which are newly supported or no longer supported. Proof-of-Concept with Sun’s iForce Solution Centers Sun’s iForce Solution Centers are designed to help customers utilize the company’s Internet experience and proven methodology for building and deploying best-of-breed solutions. iForce Solution Centers can assist with proof-of-concept demonstrations, which show viable combinations of products, systems, and services needed for a business solution. Reference architectures—end-to-end tested, tuned, and integrated solutions—serve as recommended solutions, providing a solid base configuration which customers can tailor to their specific requirements. Sun’s Professional Services Drives Successful Implementations Sun’s Professional Services (PS) organization has both the Oracle Applications skills as well as the extensive technology expertise to aid in successful Oracle upgrades and implementations. Skilled staff located world-wide are experts at designing and building the infrastructure for Oracle Applications implementations, and can help customers efficiently design a highly available technical architecture to accommodate Oracle’s LICA. Sun then partners with System Integrators and Oracle, who can deliver complementary expertise in the areas of business functionality, data conversion and module configuration. This synergy helps enable well-integrated, highly scalable, reliable solutions with the peak performance to meet the demands of inter-networked business computing. Sun PS has a specific service offering for customers who need assistance with their Oracle 11i upgrade. The Oracle 11i Upgrade Service includes base platform design and architecture, backup and disaster recovery design, storage design, system performance review and acceptance, and a system management and operations review. Once the new architecture and design have been approved, Sun PS provides configuration, implementation, and deployment services. As customers plan and implement their upgrade, Sun continues to deliver outstanding customer support. To enhance our mission critical support offering, Sun and Oracle have co-located senior support engineers in a Joint Escalation Center. These engineers provide support to customers for interoperability issues on a 24x7 basis, worldwide. Sun can also provide assistance with upgrades to the latest Solaris version and training on all new Sun technologies. Together, these comprehensive offerings smooth the upgrade to Oracle 11i, and help guarantee successful ongoing operations. Sun’s Strong Alliance and Technical Synergy with Oracle Sun has a strong and well-established relationship with Oracle. Oracle 11i is implemented with Java technology, which was developed by Sun, and was built and tested on the Sun platform. Oracle is one of Sun’s largest customers running Oracle applications, and has deployed their internal Oracle 11i ERP Applications on the Sun and Solaris platform. Sun is also one of Oracle’s largest customers, and runs its ERP mostly on Oracle. Sun is currently migrating to Oracle 11i, and this experience and expertise feeds back to Sun Professional Services and iForce Solution Centers, and is passed along to customers.
Conclusion P15
Chapter 6
Conclusions
Migrating to Oracle E-Business Suite 11i brings increased product functionality and support for new e-business applications. Just as importantly, migrating to Oracle 11i provides the opportunity for businesses to re-evaluate their current implementation and seek improvements to better meet their business goals. Consolidating servers can result in easier administration and lower TCO. Upgrading to new servers, like the Sun Fire servers, or adopting new technology, like Sun Cluster, can result in improved performance, higher availability, and increased serviceability. Sun is the clear choice for any company migrating to Oracle 11i. Sun’s servers and the Solaris Operating Environment provide an outstanding platform for running Oracle 11i, delivering the stability, performance, and predictability required by business-critical applications. Sun extends this platform advantage with a strong technical relationship with Oracle and extensive Oracle expertise. Sun’s Professional Services and programs like Sun’s iForce Competency Centers for Oracle and iForce Solution Centers have the necessary skills to design, implement, and deploy leading-edge Oracle solutions. Choosing the right partner for an Oracle 11i implementation can minimize risk and provide a competitive edge, and Sun has the products, technology skills, and expertise to help businesses succeed. References Sun Microsystems, Inc. posts product and services information on its World Wide Web Home page at: www.sun.com. For more information related to Sun’s Oracle services, please see the following Web sites: • www.sun.com/oracle • www.sun.com/iFORCE The following Oracle Web sites contain information on Oracle 11i: • www.oracle.com/applications • www.oracle.com/appsnet/technology/upgrade/content.html
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