1z0-902 Oracle Exadata Database Machine X9M Implementation Essentials Questions and Answers

Exadata Secure RDMA Fabric isolation is a feature that allows you to use virtualization on the X9M-2 platform while maintaining security and isolation between multiple tenants or VM clusters. Secure Fabric isolation works by creating a dedicated network partition and VLAN ID for each Database VM cluster, which is used for cluster networking between the database servers in the VM Cluster. This ensures that the network traffic of each VM cluster is isolated from the others, and it prevents unauthorized access to the data or resources of other VM clusters. Secure Fabric isolation can also be used for other purposes such as client networking, Data Guard traffic, but it's mainly used to provide security and isolation between multiple tenants or VM clusters.

According to Oracle’s documentation1, Exadata Secure RDMA Fabric Isolation is a feature that enables strict network isolation for Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) clusters on Exadata Database Machine systems that use RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE). Exadata Secure RDMA Fabric Isolation uses RoCE VLANs to ensure that network packets from one VM cluster cannot be seen by another VM cluster. VLAN tag enforcement is done at the KVM host level, which means that security cannot be bypassed by any software exploits or misconfiguration on the database server VMs1.

Therefore, the statement that is true about how Exadata Secure RDMA Fabric isolation is used in X9M-2 with virtualization enabled is:

With Secure Fabric isolation, each Database VM cluster uses a dedicated network partition and VLAN ID for cluster networking between the database servers in the VM Cluster. This provides security and isolation between multiple tenants or VM clusters.

For Exadata systems, hardware monitoring for components like the motherboard, memory, power, fans, and network cards on the database nodes is managed through the Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM). The ILOM provides built-in thresholds and sensor readings that are automatically recognized by Oracle Enterprise Manager.

These thresholds and alerts are already configured within ILOM for Exadata components, ensuring seamless integration with Enterprise Manager for alerting and monitoring purposes​.

Enterprise Manager uses these pre-set ILOM thresholds and does not require additional configuration for monitoring hardware components. Therefore, administrators benefit from preset alerting mechanisms that are sufficient for comprehensive hardware status visibility​.

To drop all celldisks on all the storage servers in an X9M-2 quarter rack, you should use the CELLADMIN account, which has the necessary privileges to perform this task. You can use the CELLCLI command-line interface to drop the celldisks. The best way to do this is by calling CELLCLI on all cells using DCLI (Oracle Database Command Line Interface) which allows you to run commands on multiple servers at once. Alternatively, you can use an administrator-created storage server user with appropriate privileges on celldisk objects by calling CELLCLI on all cells using exadcli. It is not recommended to use the CELLMONITOR account, as it has a more limited set of privileges. It is also important to note that EXACLI is not a valid tool for this task

https://docs.oracle.com/en/engineered-systems/exadata-database-machine/dbmmn/maintaining-exadata-storage-servers.html

In the Exadata X9M-2 configuration:

High Capacity (HC) Storage Server: Each HC storage server is equipped with 4 x 6.4 TB NVMe flash cards. These flash cards serve as a cache layer to accelerate I/O performance, especially for read-heavy and mixed workload environments. This configuration combines large storage capacity with NVMe flash for optimal data processing.

Extreme Flash (EF) Storage Server: Each EF storage server contains 8 x 6.4 TB NVMe flash cards, which provides extremely high IOPS and low latency. This configuration is designed for applications demanding high-performance flash storage, making it suitable for intensive OLTP and analytical workloads.

Database Server Flash Storage: The Exadata X9M-2 database servers themselves do not include flash storage as part of their default configuration, which aligns with option D. However, since option E is correct, we do not include D as the other correct answer​​.

Oracle Auto Service Request (ASR) on Exadata Database Machines is designed to proactively monitor and detect hardware and software issues. When a problem is detected, ASR Manager automatically opens a service request (SR) with Oracle Support. The primary focus of ASR is on hardware assets, such as storage servers, database servers, and network components, as well as software assets related to Exadata System Software and Oracle Database configurations​​.

According to the web search results123, the storage servers in an Exadata Database Machine are mainly used for processing data at the storage level and offloading some SQL operations from the database servers. Therefore, the two activities that are supported on the storage servers are:

A. changing the root password

E. configuring secure shell user equivalency for the cellmonitor user

https://docs.oracle.com/en/engineered-systems/exadata-database-machine/dbmso/exadata-introduction.html

For adding a new RAC (Real Application Clusters) VM cluster to an existing Oracle Exadata X9M-2 deployment, you can utilize the Oracle Exadata Deployment Assistant (OEDA). OEDA is available in two interfaces:

OEDA Web-based Configuration Tool: This web-based interface facilitates the configuration of Exadata environments, supporting both physical and virtual deployments. The graphical interface helps in defining VM clusters, including RAC clusters, and ensures the configuration aligns with Oracle best practices​.

OEDA Command Line Interface (CLI): For more advanced or automated tasks, the command-line interface (oedacli) allows for precise control over the deployment process. It supports various configuration actions such as adding or removing clusters, resizing ASM disk groups, and managing VM clusters​.

These tools are specifically designed for Exadata configurations and provide a streamlined approach for deploying and managing RAC clusters in both physical and virtualized environments.

According to Oracle.com documents or resources, the four actions that you should take before proceeding with applying updates to your Exadata Database Machine are:

A. Consult My Oracle Support note 888828.1 to determine the current recommended Exadata software release123.

B. Check the Exadata Critical Issues My Oracle Support note 1270094.1 for any issues not added to the latest version of exachk453.

C. Run exachk and resolve only WARNINGS that you have not seen before3.

D. Run the appropriate patchmgr preqequisite check step for each component being updated3.

Your customer needs to ensure that their data is available on the Exadata machine during updates. The customer wants to be able to update one server at a time but still be protected against single-node server failure. This means that they need a redundancy level that can tolerate at least one disk failure without losing data availability or performance. Therefore, the best option for them is normal redundancy . Normal redundancy provides two-way mirroring by default, which means that each data extent has a primary copy and a mirror copy on different disks in different failure groups1. A failure group is a subset of disks within a disk group that are likely to fail at the same time due to common dependencies2. On Exadata Database Machine , each Storage Server is considered as a failure group by default2. This means that if one Storage Server fails or needs to be updated , the data on its disks can still be accessed from another Storage Server that has the mirror copies of the same data extents2. Therefore, normal redundancy ensures data availability and performance during updates or single-node server failures.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/engineered-systems/exadata-database-machine/sagug/exadata-administering-asm.html

Once the physical disk has been replaced, you will need to create a new celldisk and griddisks on the replaced physical disk. After the griddisks have been dropped from the associated ASM diskgroups, you can then add the griddisks back into the ASM diskgroup they used to be a member of and rebalance the data on the effected griddisks. Finally, you should verify that the griddisks located on the physical disk have been successfully dropped from the associated ASM diskgroups.

https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/engineered-systems/exadata/exadata-x9m-2-ds.pdf

The CELLCLI CALIBRATE command can be used to check the health of all flash cards in the storage server, and it should be run after logging in as the celladmin user. The hardware monitoring using the storage server ILOM should also be used to check for errors and other potential issues with the flash cards. The CELLCLI list LUN DETAIL command should not be used to identify a damaged or failing flash card, since it will not provide any information about the health of the flash card.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/engineered-systems/exadata-database-machine/dbmmn/index.html

This command is based on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine X9M Implementation Essentials Official Text Book and other resources. This command sets the power state of the system to ON and starts the storage server. It is the only command that is able to start the storage server remotely. All the other commands are incorrect or require the user to be physically present in the data center.

The given command uses a for loop with ipmitool to issue ping commands sequentially to a range of IP addresses in the management network:

for j in {01..23}; do ipmitool sunoem cli "set /SP/network/test ping=192.168.1.1$j"; done

This script verifies the connectivity of the ILOM management network before the Exadata installation. Each server’s Service Processor (SP) is tested for reachability, confirming that the management network setup is operational across the full rack .

Oracle ASR covers a range of hardware components on Exadata Database Machines to ensure rapid response and issue resolution. The covered hardware components include critical parts such as:

Fan Trays: These are essential for cooling Exadata components and are covered by ASR in case of failures​.

System Controller (SC): Integral to the operation of Exadata storage servers, SC failures are reported by ASR to ensure the overall system’s reliability and availability​.

I/O Boards: ASR actively monitors and responds to failures in I/O boards, which are crucial for data processing and connectivity within Exadata storage servers​.

The ASR system is optimized to handle hardware-related issues proactively, ensuring that critical components are continuously monitored and replaced as necessary.

When preparing a site for an Exadata Database Machine, several precautions ensure both the safety of the installation and the optimal performance of the equipment. These precautions include:

Avoiding High-Interference Equipment: Installing near devices like photocopy machines, which can emit electromagnetic interference (EMI), is not a specified precaution for Exadata installations. However, attention should be given to site requirements for temperature, power, and proper grounding connections .

In contrast, other site requirements include exclusive grounding for Exadata racks, avoiding direct sunlight exposure, and ensuring grounding resistance is less than 10 ohms for shared grounding to minimize electrical risks.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/21/ladbi/db-on-exadata.html

Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) Cloud Control provides comprehensive monitoring and management for Exadata Database Machines, including:

Support for Database Machine Storage Expansion Racks: EM Cloud Control seamlessly integrates with the Storage Expansion Rack, allowing administrators to monitor both primary and expansion storage environments together, which is essential for large-scale deployments​.

Minimal Agent Installation: Cloud Control needs only one Oracle Management Agent on one compute node to monitor the entire Database Machine cluster, covering all compute and storage nodes. This is due to Exadata’s interconnect and resource-sharing capabilities, enabling centralized monitoring with minimal setup requirements​​.

D. ASR can upload configuration metadata to support problem resolution1.

E. ASR Manager opens a service request (SR) automatically after sensors detect hardware faults1

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37710_01/doc.41/e23333/toc.htm

https://docs.oracle.com/en/engineered-systems/exadata-database-machine/dbmso/new-features-exadata-system-software-release-23.html

C. OEDA deployment steps include calibrate cells, create cell disks, and resecure machine2.

D. OEDA sets up key-based authentication for the root user by using the setuprootssh.sh utility included with OEDA2.

High Capacity (HC) Storage Server: The Exadata X9M-2 HC storage server is configured with a combination of hard disks and flash memory, providing a balance of storage capacity and performance.

It includes 12 x 18 TB hard disk drives, which totals 216 TB of raw disk capacity​.

For flash storage, it has 4 x 6.4 TB PCIe flash cards totaling 25.6 TB of flash storage. This configuration uses NVMe Flash Accelerator F680 cards optimized for database caching​​.

The persistent memory in the HC server totals 1.5 TB, enhancing performance for OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) workloads by providing ultra-fast access speeds compared to traditional flash storage​.

Extreme Flash (EF) Storage Server: The EF storage server in the Exadata X9M-2 model is an all-flash storage server designed for high IOPS and low latency, making it ideal for performance-intensive workloads.

This configuration contains 8 x 6.4 TB PCIe flash cards, providing a raw capacity of 51.2 TB of high-performance flash storage​.

In terms of persistent memory, it includes 756 GB of Intel Optane Persistent Memory. This enhances flash storage performance by offloading data processing directly to persistent memory​​.

The Exadata X9M-2 storage configurations—both HC and EF—are optimized for different workload requirements. The HC configuration caters to larger datasets needing high storage capacity, while the EF configuration is designed for workloads requiring high throughput and minimal latency.