Oracle on AWS white papers

Some great new Oracle on AWS white papers:

      Best Practices for running Oracle Database on Amazon Web Services
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/best-practices-for-running-oracle-database-on-aws.pdf
Advanced Architectures for Oracle Database on Amazon EC2
http://d3ulk6ur3a3ha.cloudfront.net/enterprise-marketing/Oracle/AWSAdvancedArchitecturesforOracleDBonEC2.pdf
Strategies for Migrating Oracle Database to AWS
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/strategies-for-migrating-oracle-database-to-aws.pdf
Determining the IOPS Needs for Oracle Database on AWS
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/determining-iops-needs-for-oracle-database-on-aws.pdf
Choosing the Operating System for Oracle Workloads on Amazon EC2
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/choosing-os-for-oracle-workloads-on-ec2.pdf

AWS Elastic Beanstalk basics

When first getting started with AWS Elastic Beanstalk here are some basic things to know

1. Logging : In Java, logging is done using the Apache Commons Logging framework. Logs can be captured with Apache Log4j or any other component that supports Apache Commons Logging.

2. Custom AMIs can be used : The process is documented here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/using-features.customenv.html

3. RDS support: Amazon RDS Oracle, MySQL and SQL Server databases can deployed as part of you Elastic Beanstalk application. 

4. Launch New Environment to get OS patches : Amazon periodically updates the AMIs that were used to build the server instances, but servers can’t be updated while their running. When you launch a new environment, you get the updates.
5. Load Balancing : The Elastic Beanstalk service creates the load balancer for you.
6. Auto Scaling : The service creates the auto scaling configuration and group for you.

7..Custom configuration : Example Uses for YAML Configuration 

• Define custom environment variables beyond PARAMx
• Identify files to be downloaded to hosts 
• Can automatically unpack downloaded archive files
• Specify software to install Specify which services should run on hosts 
• Create and run scripts 
• Create and configure AWS resources

More on Elastic Beanstalk here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/Welcome.html

Oracle Database AMIs

An easy way to Bring Your Own License (BYOL) to AWS and start running the Oracle Database is to utilize the AWS Marketplace AMIs.  There are six AMIs for Oracle 12c and 11g.  Standard Edition One, Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition versions are available for both 12c and 11g. All these Marketplace AMIs, use PIOPS with a provisioning of 500 IOPS.  The OS system is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5. The AWS Marketplace AMIs can be found here:

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/ref=sp_navgno_search_box?page=1&searchTerms=oraclempbyol

AWS RDS : Changing OS time zone

This entry helps you change the database time zone: http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/08/aws-rds-timezone.html

However, it does not address changed the operating system time zone.  With RDS, the OS timezone can’t be changed (UTC, by design).  Each database engine supports different functions that query OS (for Oracle it is sysdate),   database engine, or session level parameters for timezone information . 

Here’s a quick synopsis of each DB engine’s datetime function details which identifies which calls are OS, database instance, or session based and which include timezone information or if its implied:

·         MySQL: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/date-and-time-functions.html

·         Oracle: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14225/ch4datetime.htm#g1010984

·         SQL Server: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186724.aspx

EC2 instances life cycle

Here is a mapping of server hardware lifecycle to AWS EC2:

1. Start : On AWS - ec2-start-instances  

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-StartInstances.html

Note: This is different then instantiating an instance for the the first time (from an AMI).  The command for this is ec2-run-instances.

2. Reboot : On AWS - ec2-reboot-instances

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-RebootInstances.html

(If a Linux/UNIX instance does not cleanly shut down within four minutes, Amazon EC2 will perform a hard reboot)

Note: Instance reboots are reboots of your virtual instance, and are equivalent to an operating system reboot.  You can also reboot your instance from the operating system of your instance. More here: http://serverfault.com/questions/350581/differences-between-reboot-and-ec2-reboot-instances

3. Hard kill : ec2-stop-instances 

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-StopInstances.html

4.AWS option : ec2-terminate-instances http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-TerminateInstances.html

Note: This would be like throwing away a machine but keeping the hard drive.

Tagging instances can be done at anytime using the ec2-create-tags command.

AWS getting started with groups and users

A common question is when first setting up and AWS environment is how to prevent developers, OS administrators, DBAs, architectures and all the different roles you may have in your organization from having the correct privileges.  You use IAM group and users.  You would create a developer group.  Ignore roles to start with as these are for AWS services to access other services  (example: EC2 accessing S3) and cross account access.  Then add policies to the group (use policy generator or select a template). Then add each developer as individual users and adding them to the developer group.

Good resource for all of your questions….You can explicitly manage roles and policy

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/IAMBestPractices.html

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/cross-acct-access-walkthrough-creategroup.html

Nice blog entry here:
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/message.jspa?messageID=197920

EBS volume encryption

Here are two companies that offer EBS volume encryption:

1. SafeNet ProtectV

     A. Support for boot volume encryption

     B. Good integration with Hardware Security Modules (HSM)

     C. Somewhat limited OS support  

2. Trend Micro SecureCloud

      A. Good support for RAID arrays

      B. Supports IAM roles for EC2 Instances, HSM support 
      C. Support for root volume encryption

           D. Supports AWS Storage Gateway as well as EBS volumes

Cloud Migrations using Racmi

Here is company that can move 'as is' (lift and shift) from on premise to AWS : www.racemi.com.

Oracle AMI OS, database or weblogic version not available

Because there are so many permutations of Oracle databases, weblogic servers, and operating systems the Oracle AMIs (https://aws.amazon.com/amis?ami_provider_id=4&page=1&selection=ami_provider_id) can not possible have many of the configurations customers run.  Therefore, it is necessary to create a new AMI with the correct operating system and Oracle software:
We can always create a new one.  This is for a different Linux OS but shows the process (http://www.idevelopment.info/data/AWS/AWS_Tips/AWS_Management/AWS_10.shtml)