Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Guide

This guide walks you through creating the following configuration as an example of using a cluster environment on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) .

• 2-node cluster & multi-NIC configuration
• Shared data space (using data mirroring through DataKeeper replication)
• IP resources, Oracle resources or PostgreSQL resources

This document is based on a configuration validated and tested by SIOS.

!Disclaimer: This guide outlines the general configuration of the LifeKeeper for Windows on a OCI environment. The items not documented herein presume either using the default setting or an arbitrary value. It is possible to configure a system with more OCI options. You can replace the default values with those appropriate to your environment and requirements.

Future compatibility

The contents of this document are based on tests performed on OCI as of April 2023. SIOS does not warranty the compatibility of these settings on future iterations of OCI or LifeKeeper. Refer to the corresponding documentation as necessary and update your settings accordingly.

Licenses

The procedures in this guide require licenses for the required software, including LifeKeeper for Windows, Oracle Database, and PostgreSQL.

Limitations

• In this configuration, network address translation (NAT) via Network Load Balancer is used for network communication. The TCP port number for NAT must be set to a fixed number in advance. Therefore, it is not possible to protect applications that may have problems with NAT communication on only fixed TCP port numbers. This includes the following applications:
  • Applications that use multiple connections to communicate with clients, those that dynamically change the server-side port number (e.g., FTP active mode)
  • Applications that use protocols other than TCP (UDP, ICMP, etc.) for communication.

Terminology

The terms used in this document are described as follows.

• Network Load Balancer (NLB) – A feature that provides load balancing between virtual machines that reside within OCI services or geographically confined virtual networks.

• VIP protected by IP resources – A virtual IP address created with LifeKeeper for Windows.

• VIP configured by NLB – The virtual IP address of the Network Load Balancing created on OCI.

• OCI private IP address – A private address used on an OCI Virtual Cloud Network (VCN)

Screenshots

The screenshots found throughout this document are intended to serve as a reference only and may be mixed for active and standby systems.

LifeKeeper for Windows Requirements in OCI

• LifeKeeper for Windows clusters rely on a Network Load Balancer (NLB) for communication with protected applications. The NLB needs two network adapters on each LifeKeeper node in order to work properly, therefore multiple network interfaces must be defined for each cluster node.