Best Practices for Running Oracle Databases in Solaris Containers 
by Ritu Kamboj and Roman Ivanov
January 2009
The Solaris™ Operating System (Solaris OS) includes support for Solaris Containers, a virtualization technology that provides isolated and secure runtime environments within a single Solaris OS instance. Using Solaris Containers, administrators can manage separate workloads, control resource usage, and maintain IP network
separation. These features can enable multiple applications, or even multiple instances of the same application, to securely coexist on a single system, providing potential server consolidation savings.
Both Oracle 9i R2 and 10g R2 databases have been certified to run in a Solaris Container. A licensing agreement between Sun and Oracle recognizes Solaris 10 OS capped containers as hard partitions. The ability to license only the CPUs or cores configured in a Solaris Container provides flexibility, consolidation opportunities, and possible cost savings.
This article addresses the following topics:
• "Solaris Containers" on page 1 provides an overview of Solaris Containers, including Solaris Zones and the Solaris Resource Manager.
• "Oracle License Model for Solaris Containers" on page 7 describes the licensing model supported by Oracle.
• "Creating a Solaris 10 Container" on page 8 provides directions for creating and configuring a non-global zone in a Solaris Container that is appropriate for deploying an Oracle database.
• "Special Considerations" on page 10 discusses guidelines for running an Oracle database in a Solaris Container.
Contents
- Best Practices for Running Oracle Databases in Solaris™ Containers
- Solaris Containers
- Oracle License Model for Solaris Containers
- Creating a Solaris 10 Container
- Special Considerations
- Summary
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgements
- References
- Ordering Sun Documents
- Accessing Sun Documentation Online
- Appendix A: Scripts to Create a Solaris Container
- README.txt
- The setenv.sh File
- The zone_cmd_template.txt File
- The create_zone_cmg.pl Script
- The create_container.sh Script
- Appendix B: Setting System V IPC Kernel Parameters
Ritu Kamboj is a Staff Engineer in ISV Engineering's Open Source Team at Sun Microsystems. She has over 12 years of experience in software development with expertise on database design, performance, and high availability. She has worked extensively on Sybase, Oracle, and MySQL databases. Recently her primary focus has been making MySQL run best on the Solaris platform.
Roman Ivanov joined Sun in January 2006. He is working in the ISV Engineering department helping Independent Software Vendors adopt Sun's technology and improve performance on Sun's hardware. His blog is available online at http://blogs.sun.com/pomah/.
The author would like to thank Alain Chéreau, Jeff Victor, and Fernando Castano for their contributions to this article.
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