Tag Archives: Microsoft

Oracle and Microsoft to Interconnect Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure

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On the 5th of June 2019, both Oracle and Microsoft made a joint announcement on the interconnection between Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure:

Oracle’s Press Release
Microsoft Press Release

The key aspects of the announcement are:

  1. A direct interconnect between Oracle Cloud and Azure Cloud, starting in Oracle’s Ashburn (North America) region and Azure Washington DC (US East) region, with plans to expand additional regions in the future*.
  2. Unified identity and access management, via a unified single sign-on experience to manage resources across both Oracle Cloud and Azure.
  3. Supported deployment of custom applications and packaged Oracle applications (such as JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and E-Business Suite typically referred to as Oracle Applications Unlimited) in Azure Cloud with the Oracle databases (such as RAC, Exadata, Autonomous Database) deployed in the Oracle Cloud.
  4. A collaborative support model for customers leveraging these new capabilities.

*With only one region available in both Oracle and Azure, this will allow for failure in a Availability Domain in Oracle Cloud and/or Availability Zone in Azure Cloud but not a failure of a whole region in either.  So until more regions are added, Disaster Recover will be limited to Availability Domains/Availability Zones:

oracle-azure-connectivity

Figure 4 from Oracle’s blog “Overview of the Interconnect Between Oracle and Microsoft“.

What does this mean?

In a nutshell, for those customers who have Microsoft Azure as their Cloud platform of choice, can now migrate their application tier to Microsoft Azure, whilst migrating the database tier i.e. Oracle database (mandatory for Application Unlimited) without having to worry about the all important latency (high-throughput, low-latency as stated in Oracle’s blog post).  It is however unclear if there will be any charge for outbound/inbound traffic between the clouds, but it does seem from the documentation and blog post that both Oracle’s dedicated FastConnect and Azure’s dedicated ExpressRoute are required, which are both fix rate products.  It also helps those customers who require the favourable database licensing on the Oracle Cloud, more info can be found in my blog post here.

This is certainly a step towards the trend of multi-cloud/hybird-cloud platforms.

More info can be found regarding this announcement from our Version 1’s blog post here.

Another interesting read from SearchCloud Computing in regards to this announcement.

 

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

VT-x is not available (VERR_VMX_NO_VMX) on VirtualBox after Windows 10 Update

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So in the mist of writing my “RMAN Back to Basics” series, I got the following error when trying to start my Virtual Machine in Oracle’s VirtualBox:
VirtualBox_VERR_VMX_NO_VMX

“Failed to open a session for the virtual machine dc1sbxdb001

VT-x is not available (VERR_VMX_NO_VMX).
Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: ConsoleWrap
Interface: IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}”

I was like, “How’s this possible?  I only just used my Virtual Machines yesterday!“.

Then I remembered Windows 10 had advised me it wanted to restart my laptop for some Windows Updates.  Probably something my work had pushed out.  So at the end of the day, I did “Update and restart” and it did take some time and several restarts.  Then I shutdown my laptop for the day.

After some googling, it seemed it was to do with Microsoft Hyper-V, so I followed my own instructions from my blog post:
Disabling Microsoft’s Hyper-V to use Oracle’s VirtualBox

And “Voilà” after a reboot my Virtual Machine started back up, so I could continue my blog series 🙂

Seems like in one of the Windows Update, Microsoft had decided to re-enable Hyper-V which I had previous had off on boot.

 

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

Moving file location of an Oracle database whilst preserving file permissions on Windows

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You may want to move an Oracle database from one location to another on a Windows Server, for example one drive to another.  But it’s important to keep all the file permissions preserved, so Oracle can access.

To do this, is simple using xcopy with certain switches as explained in this Microsoft article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/323007/how-to-copy-a-folder-to-another-folder-and-retain-its-permissions

Below is where I needed to move oradata from u: drive to g: drive:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>xcopy u:\oradata g:\oradata /O /X /E /H /K
Does G:\oradata specify a file name
or directory name on the target
(F = file, D = directory)? d
U:\oradata\PEPM\CONTROLFILE\O1_MF_FD9ZRZBP_.CTL
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_PEPM_ST_FDW1GL8P_.DBF
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_PEPM_TS_FDW1GX6J_.DBF
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_PERFSTAT_FDWHDK7L_.DBF
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_SYSAUX_FD9ZHRHO_.DBF
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_SYSTEM_FD9ZL3SK_.DBF
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_TEMP_FD9ZST99_.TMP
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_UNDOTBS1_FD9ZO4DD_.DBF
U:\oradata\PEPM\DATAFILE\O1_MF_USERS_FD9ZO361_.DBF
U:\oradata\PEPM\ONLINELOG\O1_MF_1_FD9ZS2RH_.LOG
U:\oradata\PEPM\ONLINELOG\O1_MF_2_FD9ZS9P3_.LOG
U:\oradata\PEPM\ONLINELOG\O1_MF_3_FD9ZSJDT_.LOG
12 File(s) copied

C:\Windows\system32>

And fast_recovery_area from v: drive to i: drive:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>xcopy v:\fast_recovery_area i:\fast_recovery_area /O /X /E /H /K
Does I:\fast_recovery_area specify a file name
or directory name on the target
(F = file, D = directory)? d
V:\fast_recovery_area\PEPM\CONTROLFILE\O1_MF_FD9ZRZGM_.CTL
V:\fast_recovery_area\PEPM\ONLINELOG\O1_MF_1_FD9ZS67G_.LOG
V:\fast_recovery_area\PEPM\ONLINELOG\O1_MF_2_FD9ZSDYD_.LOG
V:\fast_recovery_area\PEPM\ONLINELOG\O1_MF_3_FD9ZSMS6_.LOG
4 File(s) copied

C:\Windows\system32>

Without using this method, you would have to manually set the permissions, which is time consuming and error prone.

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

 

Disabling Microsoft’s Hyper-V to use Oracle’s VirtualBox

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If you want to use Oracle’s VirtualBox on Windows 10, you first need to disable Microsoft’s Hyper-V.  I’ve used VirtualBox many times in the past but on the likes of Windows 7, where Hyper-V isn’t installed by default as part of the O/S.  It seems on Windows 10 Enterprise, Hyper-V is installed by default and is started as part of the bootup.

Hyper-V blocks all other Hyper Visors like VirtualBox from calling VT hardware, therefore it’s required for it to be disabled.

To check

Run ‘bcdedit’ in Command Prompt as Admin:

C:\Users\anwarz>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-GB
inherit {globalsettings}
badmemoryaccess Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
default {current}
resumeobject {a14884a8-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 10
locale en-GB
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {a14884aa-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
displaymessageoverride Recovery
recoveryenabled Yes
badmemoryaccess Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \WINDOWS
resumeobject {a14884a8-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard
hypervisorlaunchtype Auto

C:\Users\anwarz>

You’ll see it say ‘Auto‘ for hypervisorlaunchtype, this means it was enabled to load at boot.  So if this option wasn’t changed since last boot, then Hyper-V is enabled.

To Disable

Run the following command in Command Prompt as Admin:

C:\Users\anwarz>bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Users\anwarz>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-GB
inherit {globalsettings}
badmemoryaccess Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
default {current}
resumeobject {a14884a8-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 10
locale en-GB
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {a14884aa-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
displaymessageoverride Recovery
recoveryenabled Yes
badmemoryaccess Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \WINDOWS
resumeobject {a14884a8-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard
hypervisorlaunchtype Off

C:\Users\anwarz>

You’ll see it say ‘Off‘ for hypervisorlaunchtype, this means it is now disabled to load at boot.  However, the current boot had this enabled and therefore requires you to reboot to not have Hyper-V loaded.

To Enable

Run the following command in Command Prompt as Admin:

C:\Users\anwarz>bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Users\anwarz>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-GB
inherit {globalsettings}
badmemoryaccess Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
default {current}
resumeobject {a14884a8-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 10
locale en-GB
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {a14884aa-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
displaymessageoverride Recovery
recoveryenabled Yes
badmemoryaccess Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \WINDOWS
resumeobject {a14884a8-6117-11e7-a334-f430b9153789}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard
hypervisorlaunchtype Auto

C:\Users\anwarz>

You’ll see it say ‘Auto‘ for hypervisorlaunchtype, this means it is now enabled to load at boot.  However, the current boot had this disabled and therefore requires you to reboot to have Hyper-V loaded.

Just a note, I’ve not got anything against Hyper-V, we use it quite frequently, it’s stable, however in this instance, I want to use VirtualBox which I am more accustomed for certain features 🙂

Related Blog Posts

Install Oracle’s VirtualBox

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)