Overview
Oracle Database Appliance is the platform of choice for customers who want high availability, high performance, and simplicity without the complexity of building a stack from scratch. Viscosity values solutions that save you time and money, and ODA simplifies the deployment, maintenance, and support of high availability solutions while offering a fully integrated system of servers, storage, and networking. We help you scale without the headache of high costs and downtime, and we let you take advantage of deploying both database and application workloads in a single appliance on either a bare metal or virtualized platform. Capacity on demand licensing means you benefit from a complete solution that uses resources efficiently for multiple workloads.
Viscosity was named ODA Partner of the Year by Oracle Corporation, and we continue to be the partner of choice for Oracle on ODA implementations. As a senior leader at McAfee once said about working with us, “Viscosity has earned its place as a most valued partner for our IT department. Their professionalism and dedication allowed us to meet our commitments to internal business units and provide a better performing, better architected system.” That is the level of partnership we aim to deliver on every ODA engagement.
ODA Starter Services
Every successful ODA deployment begins with a clean startup. Viscosity manages and executes the installation and configuration of your ODA environment from the moment the rack lands on your data center floor. Starter services include installation planning, verifying and securing necessary network access, the full ODA installation and configuration, preparation of the Oracle Database Manager Configurator, deployment of the configuration determined during planning, installation of any necessary patches, and creation of a default Oracle database so you have a known good starting point.
Starter services also cover database migration to the ODA, including zero downtime migration paths, registering the ODA and databases with your existing Oracle Enterprise Manager environment, developing a backup and recovery strategy, providing an installation summary report, and performing consolidation planning and sizing based on your target workloads. For customers who also want cloud based backup, we include Oracle Cloud Back Up Service installation and configuration along with integration of the subscription.
ODA Implementation Services
Viscosity assists with ODA implementation using proven industry standard best practices, giving you maximum return on a significant technology investment. Our ODA experts start with architecture and planning by running a series of discovery sessions with your team before anything is installed. We cover your upgrade and migration options, assess database workload in terms of IOPS and throughput, review your service level requirements, and evaluate virtualization requirements where applicable.
Our RapidStart configuration validates the ODA environment after the initial rack and stack, ensuring that the network settings, OS configuration, Grid Infrastructure, and database software are correctly configured to your specifications and that patches are applied to the latest negotiated requirements. RapidStart takes a top down approach to installation planning, network architecture, RAC configuration, database software provisioning, patch application, license containment of CPU cores, database consolidation, Automated Service Request activation with Oracle Support, Hybrid Columnar Compression enablement for up to 50x compression, and Oracle Enterprise Manager registration and configuration for both the ODA and the databases running on it.
Database modernization and migration is where Viscosity really shines. We are the authors of The Data Guard Handbook and we evangelize Data Guard for both disaster recovery and zero downtime database migrations onto the ODA. If your database runs on Linux or Windows, we can use Data Guard for a same endianness migration. We are also the premier Quest SharePlex experts and certified Oracle GoldenGate experts, so near zero downtime migration from Linux platforms using Data Guard is well within our wheelhouse. If you want to upgrade your database during the migration, our team can run the upgrade using the same near zero downtime architecture, including a reverse replication back to the source database for peace of mind and an insurance policy.
For customers who want a virtualized ODA, we can virtualize Oracle workloads or applications with Oracle VM or KVM while containing Oracle licenses. Many customers virtualize on the ODA to adopt a unified solution with applications and database servers running on a single virtualized infrastructure. When customers choose this path, our base ODA services include network architecture for virtualization, patch application, Oracle Linux virtual machine creation as needed, and lights out monitoring enablement.
ODA Healthcheck
Viscosity’s ODA Healthcheck assesses the entire stack from ODA hardware, OS, RAC environment, and the database. The goal is to evaluate the ODA environment for redundancy and availability, and to leave you with detailed documentation that includes findings, methodology, and recommendations so you can implement best practices and procedures immediately.
The healthcheck reviews ODA utilization and capacity along with the general health of the ODA compute nodes and storage. It assesses any OVM environment in place and reviews the operating system across software versions, patch levels, installed OS packages, kernel parameters, shared memory configuration, ASM configuration, huge pages settings, and access points and security configurations. The RAC review covers patches for Grid Infrastructure and RDBMS homes along with ASM disk group attributes and ASM initialization parameters. Finally, the database environment review checks undocumented parameter settings and initialization parameters, database release and patch levels including PSUs, Release Updates, Bundle Patches, and one off patches, database configuration and resource allocation, TNS configuration, database statistics, backup procedures, IOPS, throughput, and the overall security of the database environment.
ODA Platinum Support
The ODA is an engineered system that includes compute, networking, storage, Oracle Cluster, and database preconfigured in a single appliance. You need an integrated support service that matches that standard and keeps your systems delivering for the business. Viscosity provides end to end ODA Platinum Support services at a fixed rate, and we guarantee that your ODA environments are administered against the recognized industry standards for enterprise security, database security, and application performance.
Platinum Support provides complete solution coverage including your Oracle and ODA server software, the server and storage hardware, integrated software such as firmware, and the Oracle Linux operating system. Coverage includes a review of the general database workload, IOPS and throughput calculation, latency assessment, database size and capacity review, and review of any OVM infrastructure in place. Customers with OVM on the ODA gain assurance that shared repositories are started on both nodes and that virtual machines restart on their respective nodes.
In addition to the complete support essentials, customers who subscribe to Viscosity’s Managed Services alongside Platinum Support receive 24×7 remote fault monitoring, accelerated response and restore targets, 10 minute alert notification, 15 minute alert escalation and integration with your IT helpdesk, 30 minute joint debugging sessions, remote patch deployments twice per year, and the option to negotiate patching up to four times per year.
Our specialized ODA Enterprise Support team provides 24×7 access to experts who leverage years of production experience to deliver fast answers and proven solutions. Essential product updates for integrated software such as firmware and covered software give you access to critical security patches, bug fixes, feature enhancements, and any new releases that become available while your support coverage is active. Our team provides patches twice a year, including analyzing the ODA environment for patch readiness, planning the patching schedule around your business requirements for downtime and recovery, confirming adequate file system space, updating software versions, patch levels, and OS packages, applying BIOS updates, hardware driver updates, firmware patches, and ILOM updates as needed, applying patches for Grid Infrastructure and the RDBMS home, and running full post patching validation on Grid Infrastructure, ASM, and the Oracle home.
Oracle’s scripted hardware diagnostic capabilities provide lights out monitoring, automated service requests, and configuration details that enable targeted proactive advice. When hardware service is required, Viscosity coordinates with you and the local Oracle service engineers to deliver on site hardware support for your ODA and storage hardware. Customers can also coordinate direct meetings with Oracle ACE Directors and Oracle ACEs on our team to discuss database technology roadmaps and upgrade strategy.
Platinum Service Extensions
Platinum Support can be extended with additional architecture and planning work, database modernization and migration engagements, and Viscosity End User Performance Monitoring which gives you visibility into what your application users actually experience in production. Customers extending monitoring into their applications can detect where end users are hitting friction through trend analysis rather than waiting for tickets to come in. Existing Platinum Support customers also receive discounted access to our complete ODA Managed Services, letting you augment or substitute your internal DBAs, system administrators, and storage administrators with a team that has a direct line to our performance tuning architects.
Why Viscosity Technology
Viscosity understands that when you purchase an ODA, you are making a significant investment and you expect significant results. We focus on making sure you get the most out of that investment as quickly and painlessly as possible. Our Engineered Systems experts have extensive experience on large and complex projects, they understand the importance of delivering on time and within budget, and our cost effective service offering ensures that your mission critical systems are performing at their optimum capability from day one.