Installation, Configuration, and Instance Management
This domain covers the NDB provisioning workflow and the day-2 operations that keep database instances healthy: registering clusters, building profiles, provisioning database server VMs (DSVMs), and managing lifecycle actions such as start, stop, patch, clone, scale, and delete.
Provisioning building blocks
- Software profile: engine type and version plus the OS image. It pins what gets installed.
- Compute profile: vCPU and memory for the DSVM.
- Network profile: VLAN, IP address management, DNS, and NTP settings.
- Database parameter profile: engine parameters such as SGA target, tempdb size, or shared_buffers.
- Provisioning then creates the DSVM, installs the engine, applies the parameter profile, and registers the instance in NDB for management.
Worked example
Provision Oracle 19c for a reporting database with 8 vCPU and 64 GB RAM. Choose a software profile containing Oracle 19c on the approved Linux image, a compute profile of 8 vCPU/64 GB, a network profile on the database VLAN, and a parameter profile setting sga_target and pga_aggregate_target. Reasoning: the software profile fixes engine and OS compatibility; the compute profile sizes the VM; the parameter profile controls engine memory independently of VM memory; the network profile supplies resolvable DNS and consistent NTP. After provisioning, validate listener registration and run a baseline query before handing the instance to the application team.
Traps
- Accepting default profiles without checking engine version, OS image, or time zone.
- Sizing VM memory without leaving headroom for the OS and engine overhead.
- Forgetting DNS and NTP; patching and cloning later fail or drift.
- Deleting an instance without confirming a usable snapshot or clone exists.