Oracle GoldenGate 12c Silent Installation

In my last article, I demonstrated the steps to install Oracle GoldenGate 12c software in Graphical Mode, thanks to my friend "Juan Andres Mercado" who reminded me for Oracle GoldenGate silent installation because it is possible you may not find graphical access to some critical Data Center environments to install in Graphical Mode so the only option to install Oracle products would be in silent mode.

Oracle GoldenGate silent installation is similar to other oracle product's silent or Text based installation like we do for Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RDBMS installations using a response file. All we need to do is to create a response file to be used for silent installation. Oracle already provides a sample response file (Disk1/response/oggcore.rsp) with Oracle GoldenGate software package which can be used to create a new response file or we can modify the existing sample response file to be used for our Oracle GoldenGate silent installation.


I used the existing sample response file for this demo by adjusting the required parameters to be used as per its need and requirements.

Below is the sample response file I have used and have highlighted the parameters which are required and needed to modify for the silent installation.



Sample Response File:
==================

 bash-4.1$ cat /u01/oggcore.rsp   
 ####################################################################  
 ## Copyright(c) Oracle Corporation 2014. All rights reserved.   ##  
 ##                                ##  
 ## Specify values for the variables listed below to customize   ##  
 ## your installation.                       ##  
 ##                                ##  
 ## Each variable is associated with a comment. The comment    ##  
 ## can help to populate the variables with the appropriate    ##  
 ## values.                            ##  
 ##                                ##  
 ## IMPORTANT NOTE: This file should be secured to have read    ##  
 ## permission only by the oracle user or an administrator who   ##  
 ## own this installation to protect any sensitive input values.  ##  
 ##                                ##  
 ####################################################################  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Do not change the following system generated value.   
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 oracle.install.responseFileVersion=/oracle/install/rspfmt_ogginstall_response_schema_v12_1_2  
 ################################################################################  
 ##                                      ##  
 ## Oracle GoldenGate installation option and details             ##  
 ##                                      ##  
 ################################################################################  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Specify the installation option.  
 # Specify ORA12c for installing Oracle GoldenGate for Oracle Database 12c and  
 #     ORA11g for installing Oracle GoldenGate for Oracle Database 11g   
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 INSTALL_OPTION=ORA11g  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Specify a location to install Oracle GoldenGate  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 SOFTWARE_LOCATION=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/ogg_home  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Specify true to start the manager after installation.   
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 START_MANAGER=true  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Specify a free port within the valid range for the manager process.  
 # Required only if START_MANAGER is true.  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 MANAGER_PORT=7800  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Specify the location of the Oracle Database.  
 # Required only if START_MANAGER is true.  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 DATABASE_LOCATION=/u01/app1/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1  
 ################################################################################  
 ##                                      ##  
 ## Specify details to Create inventory for Oracle installs          ##  
 ## Required only for the first Oracle product install on a system.      ##  
 ##                                      ##  
 ################################################################################  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Specify the location which holds the install inventory files.  
 # This is an optional parameter if installing on  
 # Windows based Operating System.  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 INVENTORY_LOCATION=/u01/app1/oraInventory  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 # Unix group to be set for the inventory directory.   
 # This parameter is not applicable if installing on  
 # Windows based Operating System.  
 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 UNIX_GROUP_NAME=oinstall  

In above sample response file, following parameters are used for silent installation.

INSTALL_OPTION=This parameter is used to choose the option whether you want to install Oracle GoldenGate for Oracle Database 11g or Oracle Database 12c. To install Oracle GoldenGate for Oracle Database 11g, you would need to specify its value as ORA11G or ORA12C to install Oracle GoldenGate for Oracle Database 12c. I have used the value ORA11G as I am installing Oracle Goldenate for Oracle Database 11g.

SOFTWARE_LOCATION: Specify the Oracle GoldenGate Home location for this parameter.

START_MANAGER: Specify true if you want Oracle GoldenGate Manager process to start upon completion of Oracle GoldenGate or false if you don't want the Manager process to start automatically after Oracle GoldenGate installation.

MANAGER_PORT: Specify Manager port number on which your Oracle GoldenGate Manager process will run and listen remote GoldenGate connections.

DATABASE_LOCATION: Specify Oracle Database Home location for which you are installation Oracle GoldenGate software to capture changed data from or want to replicate the changes to.

INVENTORY_LOCATION: Specify Oracle Inventory location here.

UNIX_GROUP_NAME: Specify Oracle OS user group.



Once you are done with the preparation of response file, in my case, I have placed my response file at /u01/oggcore.rsp location. Go to the Oracle GoldenGate extracted software location and run the /runInstaller in silent mode to install Oracle GoldenGate software as below.

[oracle@DRsrv Disk1]$ ./runInstaller -silent -responseFile /u01/oggcore.rsp -showProgress
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking Temp space: must be greater than 120 MB.   Actual 2520 MB    Passed
Checking swap space: must be greater than 150 MB.   Actual 4095 MB    Passed
Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2017-10-16_01-52-22PM. Please wait ...[oracle@DRsrv Disk1]$ No protocol specified
You can find the log of this install session at:
 /u01/app/oraInventory/logs/installActions2017-10-16_01-52-22PM.log

Prepare in progress.
..................................................   9% Done.

Prepare successful.

Copy files in progress.
..................................................   55% Done.
..................................................   62% Done.
..................................................   69% Done.
..................................................   74% Done.
..................................................   79% Done.
..................................................   85% Done.
..........
Copy files successful.

.

.

.

Link binaries in progress.
..........
Link binaries successful.

Setup files in progress.
..................................................   90% Done.

Setup files successful.
The installation of Oracle GoldenGate Core was successful.
Please check '/u01/app/oraInventory/logs/silentInstall2017-10-16_01-52-22PM.log' for more details.

Configuring and starting manager... in progress.
..................................................   100% Done.

Configuring and starting manager... successful.
Successfully Setup Software.




The installation of Oracle GoldenGate Core was successful.

Please check '/u01/app1/oraInventory/logs/silentInstall2017-07-30_09-26-10PM.log' for more details.

Successfully Setup Software.

Once the Oracle GoldenGate Installation completes successfully, run the orainstroot.sh script located in oraInventory location.

[root@prodsrv app]# /u01/app1/oraInventory/orainstRoot.sh 
Changing permissions of /u01/app1/oraInventory.
Adding read,write permissions for group.
Removing read,write,execute permissions for world.

Changing groupname of /u01/app1/oraInventory to oinstall.
The execution of the script is complete.

Validating Oracle GoldenGate Installation:
----------------------------------------------------

You can verify what all Oracle products are installed on your server just by looking at your Oracle inventory file.


First identify your Oracle inventory location as below.

[root@prodsrv ~]# cat /etc/oraInst.loc
inventory_loc=/u01/app1/oraInventory
inst_group=oinstall


Once you identified Oracle Inventory location then go to your Oracle Inventory location and get the contents of inventory.xml file to see the installed oracle products on your server.

[root@prodsrv ContentsXML]# pwd
/u01/app1/oraInventory/ContentsXML


[root@prodsrv ContentsXML]# cat inventory.xml
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 1999, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved. -->
<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<INVENTORY>
<VERSION_INFO>
   <SAVED_WITH>11.2.0.3.0</SAVED_WITH>
   <MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>
</VERSION_INFO>
<HOME_LIST>
<HOME NAME="OraDb11g_home1" LOC="/u01/app1/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1" TYPE="O" IDX="1"/>
<HOME NAME="OraHome1" LOC="/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/ogg_home" TYPE="O" IDX="2"/>
</HOME_LIST>
<COMPOSITEHOME_LIST>
</COMPOSITEHOME_LIST>
</INVENTORY>
[root@prodsrv ContentsXML]#

In above contents from inventory.xml file, you can see an Oracle Home added for our Oracle GoldenGate product as highlighted.


Another simplest way to validate your Oracle GoldenGate software installation quickly is to go to Oracle GoldenGate Home and invoke Oracle GoldenGate command line Interface to check the status of Manager process.

 $cd $OGG_HOME  
 -bash-4.1$ pwd  
 /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/ogg_home  

 -bash-4.1$ ./ggsci  
 Oracle GoldenGate Command Interpreter for Oracle  
 Version 12.2.0.1.1 OGGCORE_12.2.0.1.0_PLATFORMS_151211.1401_FBO  
 Linux, x64, 64bit (optimized), Oracle 11g on Dec 12 2015 00:54:38  
 Operating system character set identified as UTF-8.  
 Copyright (C) 1995, 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.  
 GGSCI (prodsrv) 1>  

 GGSCI (prodsrv) 1> info all  
 Program   Status   Group    Lag at Chkpt Time Since Chkpt  
 MANAGER   RUNNING                        
 GGSCI (prodsrv) 2>   

 GGSCI (prodsrv) 2> view param mgr  
 PORT 7800  
 GGSCI (prodsrv) 3>   

As you can see above that Oracle GoldenGate Installation has been performed successfully in silent mode and working fine.

Oracle GoldenGate 12c Installation

..............................I wanted to write few sample papers for my friends who just wonder to get started with Oracle Golden Gate so I thought to start writing it now for those who are looking for it.

Here I would explain the steps to install Oracle Golden Gate software for Oracle Database 11g which would be applicable to both source and target replication servers.


Golden Gate:
Oracle GoldenGate is a comprehensive software package for real-time data integration and replication in heterogeneous IT environments. The product set enables high availability solutions, real-time data integration, transactional change data capture, data replication, transformations, and verification between operational and analytical enterprise systems.

In addition to the Oracle GoldenGate core platform for real-time data movement, Oracle provides the Management Pack for Oracle GoldenGate—a visual management and monitoring solution for Oracle GoldenGate deployments—as well as Oracle GoldenGate Veridata, which allows high-speed, high-volume comparison between two in-use databases.


 - Instructions for installing Oracle Golden Gate, click here

 - Download relevant version of Oracle Golden Gate from OTN Click Here or edelivery

 - I downloaded Oracle Golden Gate 12c software and staged inside /u01 mount point on source database server as below.

 cd /u01  
 -bash-4.1$ ls -ltr  
 -rwxrwxr-x. 1 oracle oinstall 475611228 Jun 3 2016 fbo_ggs_Linux_x64_shiphome.zip 

Next step is to unzip the downloaded Oracle Golden Gate software and navigate to the Oracle Golden Gate extracted folder as below.

cd /u01/fbo_ggs_Linux_x64_shiphome/Disk1

-bash-4.1$ ls -ltr
total 16
drwxr-xr-x.  4 oracle oinstall 4096 Dec 12  2015 install
drwxr-xr-x. 11 oracle oinstall 4096 Dec 12  2015 stage
-rwxr-xr-x.  1 oracle oinstall  918 Dec 12  2015 runInstaller
drwxrwxr-x.  2 oracle oinstall 4096 Dec 12  2015 response
-bash-4.1$ 

Now, here actual installation of Oracle Golden Gate will begin as follows. Run ./runInstaller to start with Oracle Golden Gate Installation.

-bash-4.1$ ./runInstaller 
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking Temp space: must be greater than 120 MB.   Actual 3221 MB    Passed
Checking swap space: must be greater than 150 MB.   Actual 4095 MB    Passed
Checking monitor: must be configured to display at least 256 colors.    Actual 16777216    Passed
Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2017-07-29_04-11-58PM. Please wait ...-bash-4.1$ 

Once you start the runInstaller to install Golden Gate, following Oracle Golden Gate installation wizard will appear. Choose the appropriate Golden Gate option for database version you want to install. Here in this demo, I'm installing Oracle Golden Gate for Oracle Database 11g. Click Next.

At below screen of Golden Gate Installation wizard, choose the right Software Location which would be your Oracle Golden Gate Home, by default, Start Manager check box would be selected that means Golden Gate Manager will be started on completion of Oracle Golden Gate software installation.

In Database Location box, provide your source/target Oracle Database Home location that you want to capture or replicate to. For Manager Port option, you can choose appropriate port for your Golden Gate manager, 7809 is the default port for Oracle Golden Manager and I used that one for this demo. Click Next.

Below is the screen of Oracle Golden Gate Install wizard shows all details you provided above for it's installation. Click on Install.

Installation progresses as below.

As below screen depicts, Oracle Golden Gate Installation completed successfully.

As of now, we have installed Oracle Golden Gate software for Oracle Database 11g, now we would validate the installation of Oracle Golden Gate software as follows.

Go to Oracle Golden Gate Home and run ./ggsci to start Golden Gate Command Line Interface.

 -bash-4.1$ pwd  
 /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 

 
 -bash-4.1$ ./ggsci  
 Oracle GoldenGate Command Interpreter for Oracle  
 Version 12.2.0.1.1 OGGCORE_12.2.0.1.0_PLATFORMS_151211.1401_FBO  
 Linux, x64, 64bit (optimized), Oracle 11g on Dec 12 2015 00:54:38  
 Operating system character set identified as UTF-8.  
 Copyright (C) 1995, 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.  
 GGSCI (prodsrv) 1>   

Run info all Golden Gate command to check the status of Golden Gate Manager and extract processes.

 GGSCI (prodsrv) 1> info all  
 Program   Status   Group    Lag at Chkpt Time Since Chkpt  
 MANAGER   RUNNING                        
 GGSCI (prodsrv) 2>  

As we can see above that our Oracle Golden Gate software installed and Manager process is running so in order to configure it to get ready for database change capture, follow the below steps to create all Golden Gate sub-directories/files which are needed for it to work ahead.



Installing the Oracle GoldenGate files

1. Run the command shell/terminal.
2. Change directories to the Oracle Golden Gate Home directory.
3. From the Oracle GoldenGate directory, run the GGSCI program.
./ggsci

4. In GGSCI prompt, issue the following command to create the Oracle Golden Gate working directories.

GGSCI (prodsrv) 2> CREATE SUBDIRS  
 Creating subdirectories under current directory /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1  
 Parameter files        /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirprm: already exists  
 Report files          /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirrpt: already exists  
 Checkpoint files        /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirchk: already exists  
 Process status files      /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirpcs: already exists  
 SQL script files        /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirsql: already exists  
 Database definitions files   /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirdef: already exists  
 Extract data files       /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirdat: already exists  
 Temporary files        /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirtmp: already exists  
 Credential store files     /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dircrd: already exists  
 Masterkey wallet files     /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirwlt: already exists  
 Dump files           /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/dirdmp: already exists  
 GGSCI (prodsrv) 3>   

Note : I had already one setup of Oracle Golden Gate running on my system previously hence it displays that 

all directories are already exist so just ignore it here for now.

So far, we have installed Oracle Golden Gate software for Oracle Database 11g and created all required SUBDIRS for further configuration.

Note : Follow the same process to install Oracle Golden Gate software on target database server when you need to replicate change captured from source database.

In next article, I will be publishing how to configure Oracle Golden Gate for Uni-directional replication between two Oracle databases.

My Interview @Bank of America

Well, here I wanted to explain about my experience of interview process held at Bank of America. I wanted to share this experience so that other upcoming interviewees can have an idea before appearing for an interview there.

It was quite exciting recruiting process from starting to end. I received a call from recruiter, Nilima Pange, regarding the position available for the post of Sr. Analyst and agreed to schedule an interview call for a telephonic discussion after knowing the requirement they have. At scheduled time, I received interview call and it started with a warm introduction.

Excellent technical discussion started from areas of

•        General database discussions – majorly database concepts, Architecture
•         Oracle Real Application Cluster 11g (RAC)
•         Data Guard – Physical standby database, Snapshot standby and Cascade Standby database.
•         Recover Manager (RMAN) – Backup & Recovery
•         Data Pump – Tradition export/import Vs Data Pump
•         Performance Tuning and Troubleshooting
•         Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and its benefits

This interview discussion went up to 1 hour.

It was very interesting technical discussion and it ended with a little fun and good luck by the interviewer.

A day after first technical round, I received a follow up call by recruiter that I was gone through the first technical round of interview and next technical discussion would be the face to face at their Office premise, Gurgaon location.

Well, I would like to say that two things always excite me much in my life always, the first is sitting in an exam and the 2^nd one is to be interviewed, no matter if I miss the answer of some questions but it leads to a new level of learning. It actually reveals about me that where I stand once I get its result, and it works as a mentor where do I need to improve myself if I missed something out there.

I reached at the “Bank of America” venue at Gurgaon facility for the face to face technical discussion. I waited (well, your patience is your power) for my turn to get interviewed as multiple interview schedules were there and interview rooms were occupied already. It was a video conference from Hyderabad and it again started with a warm introduction and welcoming me there for the technical discussion, two interviewers were there to interview in this 2^nd round of technical discussion, and it was the final one.

And again technical discussion started with areas of followings:

•             Data Guard – Troubleshooting scenarios (Only real time problem solving approach)
•         Oracle Real Application cluster 11g Release 2(various scenarios from this area)
•         Automatic Storage Management (ASM)
•         Backup & Recovery scenarios – RMAN and Data Pump
•         Database Performance tuning scenarios
•         Database Migration Methodologies – RMAN & Data Pump and across RDBMS version
•         Oracle database Upgrade Methods - 9i>10g>11g>12c
•         Oracle Database Patching – RAC and non-RAC databases
•         Database cross-platform migration
•         Data Pump new features and performance enhancement from earlier versions.
•         Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control – Consolidated monitoring and its benefits.
•         Oracle Cloud – Cloud services and its merits
•         Oracle Exadata Database Machine – its unique features.
•         Linux Shell scripting,
•         Oracle RAC troubleshooting on windows platforms – ASM and RDBMS.
•         Oracle Golden Gate replication
•         Bundle of general database discussions J

This second round of interview held for around 1 hour and 28 minutes, and the most unique thing was that we (the interviewers & me) were having smile on our faces during whole interview process – it was great thing J

Finally, there was a great positive feedback from interviewer in the end of the technical discussion and they wished me all the best for further processing J

And two days after second round of technical discussion, I received call from recruiter and had discussion about HR stuffs and was invited for the offer and I was requested to submit my all required documents for further offer processing and verification and finally received my offer letter in next few days.

I thanks to the recruiter, Nilima Pange, who has been so smooth in whole recruitment process and it is amazing the way she interacts step by step….Excellent J

I will be joining Bank of America on 21 July 2017 J

Thanks,

-Raj Kumar Kushwaha