This is the documentation for Cloudera Manager 5.1.x. Documentation for other versions is available at Cloudera Documentation.

Oracle Database

If you want to use an Oracle database, follow these procedures.

Collecting Oracle Database Information

Installing, configuring, and maintaining an Oracle database should be completed by your organization's database administrator. In preparation for configuring Cloudera Manager to work with Oracle databases, gather the following information from your Oracle DBA:

  • Host Name - The DNS name or the IP address of the host where the Oracle database is installed.
  • SID - the name of the database that will store Cloudera Manager information. This database could contain schema that would store information for the Cloudera Manager Server, Activity Monitor, Reports Manager, and Cloudera Navigator.
  • User name - a user name for each schema that is storing information. This means you might have four unique usernames for the four schema.
  • Password - a password corresponding to each user name.

You will use the Oracle database information that you have gathered to configure the external database to work with the Cloudera Manager Server.

Configuring the Oracle Server

Adjust Oracle Settings to Accommodate Larger Clusters

Cloudera Management services require high write throughput. Depending on the size of your deployments, your DBA may need to modify Oracle settings for monitoring services. These guidelines are for larger clusters and do not apply to Cloudera Manager configuration database and to smaller clusters. Many factors contribute to whether to reconfigure your database settings, but in most cases, if your cluster has more than 100 hosts, you should consider making the following changes:
  • Enable direct and asynchronous I/O by setting the FILESYSTEMIO_OPTIONS parameter to SETALL.
  • Increase the RAM available to Oracle by changing the MEMORY_TARGET parameter. The amount of memory to assign depends on the size of Hadoop cluster.
  • Create more redo log groups and spread the redo log members across separate disks/LUNs.
  • Increase the size of redo log members to be at least 1 gigabyte.

Modify the Maximum Number of Oracle Connections

Work with your Oracle database administrator to ensure appropriate values are applied for your Oracle database settings. You must determine the number of connections, transactions, and sessions to be allowed.

Allow 100 maximum connections for each database and then add 50 extra connections. For example, for two databases set the maximum connections to 250. If you store five databases on one host (the databases for Cloudera Manager Server, Activity Monitor, Reports Manager, Cloudera Navigator, and Hive Metastore), set the maximum connections to 550.

From the maximum number of connections, you can determine the number of anticipated sessions using the following formula: 

sessions = (1.1 * maximum_connections) + 5

For example, if a host has two databases, you anticipate 250 maximum connections. If you anticipate a maximum of 250 connections, plan for 280 sessions.

Once you know the number of sessions, you can determine the number of anticipated transactions using the following formula: 

transactions = 1.1 * sessions

Continuing with the previous example, if you anticipate 280 sessions, you can plan for 308 transactions.

Work with your Oracle database administrator to apply these derived values to your system.

Using the sample values above, Oracle attributes would be set as follows: 

alter system set processes=250;
alter system set transactions=308;
alter system set sessions=280;

Ensure Your Oracle Database Supports UTF8

The database you use must be configured to support UTF8 character set encoding. One way your DBA might implement UTF8 character set encoding in Oracle databases is using the dbca utility. In such a case, when creating a database, the characterSet AL32UTF8 option might be used to specify proper encoding. Consult with your DBA to ensure UTF8 encoding is properly configured.

Having collected information about your Oracle database, installed the Oracle JDBC, considered having database settings adjusted, and ensured UTF-8 encoding is enabled, proceed to Installing Cloudera Manager, CDH, and Managed Services.

Installing the Oracle JDBC Connector

You must install the JDBC connector on the Cloudera Manager Server host, as well as hosts to which you assign the Activity Monitor, Reports Manager, Hive Metastore, Sentry Server, and Cloudera Navigator Audit Server server roles.

Cloudera recommends that you assign all roles that require databases on the same host and install the connector on that host. While putting all such roles on the same host is recommended, it is not required. You could install a role, such as Activity Monitor on one host and other roles on a separate host. In such a case you would install the JDBC connector on each host running roles that access the database.

  1. Download and install the ojdbc6.jar file, which contains the JDBC driver. There are different versions of the ojdbc6.jar file. You must download the version that is designed for:
  2. Copy the appropriate JDBC JAR file to /usr/share/java/oracle-connector-java.jar for use with the Cloudera Manager databases (for example, for the Activity Monitor, and so on), and for use with Hive. 
    $ mkdir /usr/share/java (if necessary)
$ cp /tmp/ojdbc6.jar /usr/share/java/oracle-connector-java.jar

Creating Databases for Activity Monitor, Reports Manager, Hive Metastore, Sentry Server, and Cloudera Navigator Audit Server

Create databases and user accounts for components that require databases:
  • If you are not using the Cloudera Manager installer, the Cloudera Manager Server.
  • Cloudera Management Service roles:
    • Activity Monitor (if using the MapReduce service)
    • Reports Manager
  • Each Hive Metastore
  • Sentry Server
  • Cloudera Navigator Audit Server

You can create these databases on the host where the Cloudera Manager Server will run, or on any other hosts in the cluster. For performance reasons, you should typically install each database on the host on which the service runs, as determined by the roles you will assign during installation or upgrade. In larger deployments or in cases where database administrators are managing the databases the services will use, databases may be separated from services, but do not undertake such an implementation lightly.

The database must be configured to support UTF-8 character set encoding.

Note the values you enter for database names, user names, and passwords. The Cloudera Manager installation wizard requires this information to correctly connect to these databases.

Page generated September 3, 2015.