Tagging Oracle Database Instances

Instance tagging is a great way to manage and monitor instances.  It is also the way to do departmental billing and now with EC2 IAM resource level permissions a method to control the actions users and groups can perform on EC2 instances (more here: http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/07/08/announcing-resource-permissions-for-amazon-ec2-and-amazon-rds/)

Placing tags on EC2 instances is this easy:
aws ec2 create-tags --resources i-f0ef69c6 --tags "Key=Cost Center,Value=AWS"
aws ec2 create-tags --resources i-f0ef69c6 --tags "Key=tier,Value=database"
aws ec2 create-tags --resources i-f0ef69c6 --tags "Key=environment,Value=test"
aws ec2 create-tags --resources i-f0ef69c6 --tags "Key=email,Value=thomas.laszewski@gmail.com"

To view all instances (and the value) with the cost center tag issue the following command:

aws ec2 describe-tags --filters "Name=key,Values=Cost Center"

Most monitoring and billing tools (CloudHealth, Cloudcheckr etc) use tagging to manage, monitor, and report costs and usage.

AWS Cost Allocation Reporting

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=681641&sessionid=1&key=6926138D02D575421B054D213DEE4E7C&partnerref=AWSevents_v1&sourcepage=register

Simplify Cost Allocation Reporting with CloudCheckr on Amazon Web Services

As deployments scale, utilization and purchasing strategies become increasing important. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and CloudCheckr, an AWS Technology partner invite you to join this presentation to learn strategies that can enable finer control and cost management structures to improve your price-to-performance metrics. We'll provide an overview how customers today evaluate resource distribution and configurations to efficiently scale deployments using CloudCheckr. In particular, we'll address the differences between on-demand, reserved and spot instances and the most appropriate use for each.

Hadoop Cluster and Amazon EMR

Accenture calculated the total cost of ownership of a bare-metal Hadoop cluster and derived the capacity of nine different cloud-based Hadoop clusters at the matched TCO. The performance of each option was then compared by running three real-world Hadoop applications.  The full report is here:

http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-hadoop-deployment-comparison.aspx

There report compares the performance of both a bare-metal Hadoop cluster and Amazon ElasticMapReduce (Amazon EMR).

EBS data transfer costs to snapshot Oracle DB to S3

Obviously, there is a cost to snapshot your EBS volumes of your Oracle database and store them in S3 for backup and recovery.  This is the standard S3 cost of $.095 GB a month.  The cost can go down to $.055 when you store more data.  There is no cost to transfer the data in and out of S3 to and from EC2. 

AWS Storage options, cost, and SLA

A common question when moving from on premise to AWS is what are the storage options
 and how much they will cost.  A great place to calculate the cost is the Simple Monthly Calculator: http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html. 

Before you can calculate the cost you need to be aware of the options, cost of each option, when to use it, and SLAs:

a.   EBS: http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/ec2/ : Data Transfer, EBS standard and EBS PIOPS. Sample pricing:

                                                             i.     Data Transfer, EBS Standard, EBS PIOPS : http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/ebs/

                                                            ii.     Price is for allocated storage

                                                          iii.     SLA : annual failure rate (AFR) of between 0.1% – 0.5%, where failure refers to a complete loss of the volume

                                                          iv.     Common use cases: RDBMS (PIOPS), Application Server files (IOPS)

b.   S3 : http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/s3/

                                                             i.     First TB per month of storage: .095

                                                            ii.     Data transfer : Up to 10 TB .120 per GB + request prices (.005 per 1K requests)

                                                          iii.     Price is for used storage

                                                          iv.     SLA: 99.999999999% durability, 99.99% availability

                                                           v.     Common use cases: backups, multi media content, web logs, EMR jobs

c.    Glacier: http://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/

                                                             i.     First TB per month of storage: .01

                                                            ii.     Price is for used storage

                                                          iii.     SLA: 99.999999999% durability

                                                          iv.     Common use cases: archiving, long term storage

d.   Instance storage : Included in price of instance

                                                             i.     Common use cases: web server files (instance disk storage), data warehouses (Redshift runs on instance storage), RDBMS (instance SSD..with redundancy), temporary files

VPN costs for connections and data

VPC has no cost associated. However, if you want to extend your data center or provide a secure IPSec tunnel through a VPN client, you need to add in costs for the VPN connection and data transfer costs over the VPN tunnel.   This is the first place to look at to decipher VPN connection cost: http://aws.amazon.com/vpc/pricing/.  The cost is $0.05 per VPN Connection-hour + standard AWS data transfer charges for all data transferred via the VPN Connection. For example, if you have 2 VPN connections the cost for those connections would be:  .05x24x365.25x2(2 connections) / 12 = ~73.05 + data transfer.

Now for the data transfer out piece:  On data transfer out for VPN connection, the cost is .12 per GB for less then 10 TB a month per connection..  So, two connection each at 1 TB a month would be $245.76 a month.  

Quickbooks on AWS

Running Quickbooks on AWS/EC2 is easy. It is also easy to migrate your data from on premise and online Quickbooks.

Some information on running Quickbooks on AWS/EC2 here:
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=364272

Next step is to create an EC2 instance:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/EC2Win_GetStarted.html

You will be running Quickbooks on an AWS EC2 Windows instance and then be using RDP (Microsoft Remote Desktop) to access your AWS online Quickbooks application:
Details on accessing Windows EC2 instances here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/LaunchingAndUsingInstancesWindows.html

1. Migrating data from on premise Quickbooks to AWS:

Transfer Files to Windows Server Instances from Windows

You can work with your instance the same way you would work with any Windows server. For example, you can transfer files between an Amazon EC2 Windows instance and your local Windows computer using the local file sharing feature of Windows Remote Desktop. If you enable this option in your Windows Remote Desktop Connection software, you can access your local files from your Amazon EC2 Windows instances. You can access local files on hard disk drives, DVD drives, portable media drives, and mapped network drives. For information about this feature, go to the Microsoft Support website or go toThe most useful feature of Remote Desktop I never knew about on the MSDN Blogs website.

2. Migrating data from Quickbooks online edition:
http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/HOW12246

You will most likely need more Windows and Quickbooks licenses:

1. By default, can have two concurrent RDP users on Windows. Can connect more then two users but need to change licensing….

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverTS/thread/8987ad6d-5d19-44a9-8835-16208127fdd5/

2. Quickbooks licensing information can be found here:

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/INF12724

Oracle on AWS costs of Oracle on AWS and licensing management

Here are two common questions in regards to Oracle pricing and licensing on AWS:

1. How can they determine the pricing for an instance launched from an Oracle AMI e.g. https://aws.amazon.com/amis/oracle-database-11g-release-2-11-2-0-1-enterprise-edition-64-bit?

The bottom line: The pricing are the standard EC2, data out traffic, and storage + cost of Oracle licenses (or no cost of Oracle licenses if they have their own)

2. How do they manage BYOL or using unused licenses in practical terms? (afaik they have to BYOL for Oracle on EC2)

The bottom line : It is up to the customer to make sure they are not violating Oracle licensing policies.

IT budget and energy

It was predicted that by 2012 up to 40% of the budget of IT enterprise infrastructure would be spent on energy.   

From: M. D. Dikaiakos, D. Katsaros, P. Mehra, G. Pallis, and A. Vakali. “Cloud computing: distributed internet computing for IT and scientific research.” IEEE Internet Computing, 13(5):10–13, 2009.

Not sure if this has come true but is a big number.

Getting started with Oracle EBusiness Suite on AWS

Here are the links to get you started with Oracle EBusiness Suite on AWS (EC2 only, RDS not supported):

1. Oracle on AWS FAQ - 

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/cloud/faq-098970.html

2. Landing page on AWS - 

http://aws.amazon.com/oracle/

3. Oracle Amazon Machine Imagines - 

There are Oracle Enterprise Linux, Database and WebLogic AMIs on the AWS web site but you are best to create your own AMI with the OS of your choice and install EBusiness Suite on this base instance.https://aws.amazon.com/amis?ami_provider_id=4&selection=ami_provider_id . You can find the latest OEL AMIs, for OEL 5.9 and 6.4, at the bottom of this web page: http://aws.amazon.com/oracle/  

4. EC2 Instances available - 

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

5. EC2

Pricing - http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/ec2/

6. Pricing calculator - 

http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html

Key Considerations:

1. Oracle licensing : You bring your own license.  You can not buy a license from AWS. Your Oracle license that you bring or purchase from Oracle can be an Oracle ULA, ELA, or perpetual licenses.  More on licensing can be found here: 

http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/01/oracle-licensing-on-aws.html

2. The bulk of the AWS cost is composed of EC2 compute, storage (EBS and S3) and network (data transfer out). The pricing calculator above can give you an estimate of AWS cost.

3. Oracle support on AWS : 

 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/cloud/faq-098970.html#support

Gettings started with Oracle DB on AWS

Here are some links to get you started with Oracle database on AWS (EC2 and RDS):

• Oracle on AWS FAQ - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/cloud/faq-098970.html
• Landing page on AWS - http://aws.amazon.com/oracle/
• Oracle Amazon Machine Imagines - https://aws.amazon.com/amis?ami_provider_id=4&selection=ami_provider_id.  You can find the latest OEL AMIs, for OEL 5.9 and 6.4, at the bottom of this web page: http://aws.amazon.com/oracle/        
• Marketplace AMIs - Can be found here:  https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/ref=srh_navgno_search_box?page=1&searchTerms=oracle+database+12c
• AWS EC2 Instances (you manage the database) - http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/
• AWS EC2 Pricing - http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/ec2/
• AWS Pricing calculator - http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html
• AWS RDS (managed database) - http://aws.amazon.com/rds/oracle/
• 10g Database - This can only be run on EC2 as RDS does not support 10g.
• Licensing - http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/cloud-licensing-070579.pdf
• AWS RDS limitations - http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Concepts.DBEngine.Oracle.html
• Download and use the Oracle Database on AWS reference implementation - Oracle Database 11g on Amazon EC2 Implementation Guide
• Review the presentations here - http://www.slideshare.net/tomlaszewski