Oracle Big Data Appliance node layout

The Oracle Big Data Appliance ships in a full rack configuration with 18 compute nodes that you can use. Each node is a Sun X4-2L or a X3-2L server depending on the fact if you purchased a X4-2 or X3-2 Big data appliance. Both models do however provide you with 18 compute nodes.  The below image shows the rack layout of both the X3-2 and X4-2 rack. Important to note is that the number of servers is done bottom up. A starter rack has only 6 compute nodes and you can expand the rack with in-rack expansions of 6 nodes. Meaning, you can grow from 6 to 12 to a full rack as your capacity needs grow.

In every setup, regardless of the fact if you have a starter rack, a full rack or a rack extended with a single in-rack expansions of 6 nodes (making it a 12 node cluster), 1, 2 and 3 do have a special role. As we go bottom up, starting with node 1 we have the following software running on the nodes:

Node 1:

• First NameNode

• Zookeeper

• Failover controller

• Balancer

• Puppet master

• Puppet agent

• NoSQL database

• Datanode

Node 2:

• Second NameNode

• Zookeeper

• Failover controller

• MySQL backup server

• NoSQL Admin

• Puppet agent

• DataNode

Node 3:

• Job Tracker

• Zookeeper

• CMServer

• ODI Agent

• MySQL primary server

• Hue

• Hive

• Beeswax

• Puppet Agent

• NoSQL

• DataNode

Node 4 – till 6/12/18

• Datanode

• Tasktracker

• Cloudera manager Agent

• Puppet Agent

• NoSQL

Understanding what runs where is of vital importance when you are working with an Oracle Big Data appliance. It helps you understand what parts can be brought down without having to much effect on the system and which parts you should be more careful about. As you can see from the above list there are some parts that are made high available and there are some parts that will result in loss of service when brought down for maintenance.