Ravello Blog Oracle PeopleSoft Application on Ravello

Oracle PeopleSoft OverviewOracle's PeopleSoft applications are designed to address the most complex business requirements. They provide comprehensive business and industry solutions, enabling organizations to increase productivity, accelerate business performance, and a lower cost of ownership.PeopleSoft Enterprise Solution consists of several core components which are required for functioning of PeopleSoft. All these core components are interconnected and send/receive data and information required for processing of business needs.The PeopleSoft Internet Architecture is comprised of these main server types:RDBMSPeopleSoft Application Server(s)PeopleSoft Process Scheduler(s)Web server(s)The following diagram illustrates the relationship between the elements of the PeopleSoft Internet Architecture.[caption id="attachment_7024" align="aligncenter" width="940"] Fig. 1: Oracle PeopleSoft architecture[/caption]Why PeopleSoft on Ravello?Enterprises running PeopleSoft environment in their datacenter, typically need many copies of the PeopleSoft environment. Typically for every 1 production instance of the PeopleSoft in their datacenter, enterprises have 5-8 copies of this environment for pre-production use-cases such as development, testing, staging and running User Acceptance Tests. However, most of the pre-production environments are not needed 24x7, but only for a few hours. For such ephemeral needs, it doesn't make economic sense to invest in a data-center based environment. Ravello provides a great platform for such use-cases that need ephemeral environments by offering data-center-like capabilities on public cloud (ability to run VMware VMs with Layer 2 networking). This helps enterprises reduce their infrastructure costs for such ephemeral workloads.Oracle PeopleSoft Application on RavelloA common scenario to deploy Oracle PeopleSoft on VMware ESXi on-prem in a multi-node setup is with 4 nodes housing PeopleSoft components - database, application, process scheduler and pia server) - one on each of the VMs. The deployment diagram for the implementation:In this on-prem deployment, we had Oracle Linux 7.1 running on ESXi VMs with the following topology. Each of the VMs was configured with 4vCPU and 8GB RAM with two different network subnets configured:192.168.56.0/24 - public network192.168.1.0/24 - application network[caption id="attachment_7025" align="aligncenter" width="940"] Fig. 2: Deployment diagram[/caption]Setting up imported VMs into RavelloAs a first step, we import the 4 VMs that were setup on the on-prem VMware environment into Ravello's VM Library, and then create a new application by dragging the VMs onto the canvas - one database server, one application server, one process scheduler server and one pia serve node - namely, 'db-server', 'app-server', 'prcs-server and 'pia-server' respectively.[caption id="attachment_7026" align="aligncenter" width="602"]Fig. 3: Building the application with the imported VMs[/caption]The resources (vCPUs, RAM) allocated to each of the VMs was automatically preserved when imported into Ravello VM library.On the network tab, Ravello automatically re-creates the network as it was setup in the data-center based on the meta-data associated with the VM disk images.[caption id="attachment_7027" align="aligncenter" width="586"] Fig. 4: Network view of the application[/caption]We will now make sure all the settings in each VM are as per our expectation. Let us take a look at 'db-server' in the Ravello UI.Let us start with the 'General' tab. Make sure that the hostname field is populated and it matches to the hostname in the VM.[caption id="attachment_7028" align="aligncenter" width="274"] Fig. 5: General tab for db server [/caption]Under the 'Disks' tab, Controller we select is a para-virtualized controller for better performance.[caption id="attachment_7029" align="aligncenter" width="275"] Fig. 6: Disks tab for db server[/caption]Under the 'NICs' section, we select para-virtualized devices for each of the NICs for better performance. PeopleSoft application requires a 'public network' interface and a 'application network' interface per node. As pointed out earlier, we have used a separate subnet to handle application traffic. We verify that all the NICs are present and configured correctly for each of the nodes with the right IP configuration.[caption id="attachment_7030" align="aligncenter" width="276"] Fig. 7: Public interface for db server[/caption][caption id="attachment_7031" align="aligncenter" width="279"] Fig. 8: Private interface for db server[/caption]We have enabled 'http' and 'ssh' service for pia server and the application server are part of the Oracle PeopleSoft application by enabling port 8000 and port 22 on the 'Services' tab. Similarly, we have enabled 'ssh' service for database server and process scheduler server.[caption id="attachment_7032" align="aligncenter" width="277"] Fig. 9: External services[/caption]Next, we 'Edit and Verify' all the VMs on the application in a similar fashion. Once this is done, the application is ready to be published.Publish the application to bring up the VMs in the public cloud either using 'Cost-optimized' or 'Performance-optimized' selection.Starting Up the Oracle PeopleSoft ApplicationOracle PeopleSoft application requires to follow the sequence in starting the different components of the PeopleSoft application servers (database server, application server, process scheduler and web server) in an order, to access the PeopleSoft application.Ravello provides the functionality to start the PeopleSoft application in a sequence by clicking a single button.Follow the steps to set up the sequence for PeopleSoft application startup.Select the PeopleSoft application and click on "settings" then click on "+ Add Stage"[caption id="attachment_7033" align="aligncenter" width="556"] Fig. 10: VMs Start Order[/caption]Provide the stage name and time to schedule the start up for next stage[caption id="attachment_7034" align="aligncenter" width="423"] Fig. 11: Create New Stage[/caption]Click on the "VMs List" and select the VM.[caption id="attachment_7035" align="aligncenter" width="572"] Fig. 12: View the List of VMs[/caption]Choose the VM and click on "move VM to"[caption id="attachment_7036" align="aligncenter" width="579"] Fig. 13: Select VM to add into the stage[/caption]Select the stage to move the VM[caption id="attachment_7037" align="aligncenter" width="608"] Fig. 14: Move the VM to the Stage[/caption]Verify all the stages created and associated VMs[caption id="attachment_7038" align="aligncenter" width="614"] Fig. 15: List all the Stages[/caption]Verifying the Oracle PeopleSoft running on RavelloStart the application published on Ravello and start the application services from each VM are part of the Oracle PeopleSoft application.[caption id="attachment_7039" align="aligncenter" width="602"] Fig. 16: Start Oracle PeopleSoft Application[/caption]Confirming that Database and listener service is up and running[caption id="attachment_7040" align="aligncenter" width="556"] Fig. 17: Database and listener status[/caption]Browse the Oracle PeopleSoft Application using pia server.[caption id="attachment_7041" align="aligncenter" width="553"] Fig. 18: Pia server login[/caption]Login to the Oracle PeopleSoft Application using pia server[caption id="attachment_7042" align="aligncenter" width="551"] Fig. 19: Application login[/caption]Oracle PeopleSoft HCM application is fully functional on Oracle Ravello cloud. All type of HCM functionality is available and accessible, for example you can see the all team member are part of a particular team by clicking on "My Team" tab.References:Know more about Oracle PeopleSoft ApplicationThe post Oracle PeopleSoft Application on Ravello appeared first on The Ravello Blog.