Build your own Private Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Platform/Infrastructure as a Service Cloud using Oracle VM Templates: Step by Step Installation & Configuration Guide

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Cloud Computing

This article is part of the "Cloud Setup Guide" series of documents published by the author. All versions of each software component are bleeding edge and the latest at the time of this document being published.

Cloud Computing is all the rage/hype these days: My apologies for the extra-long title but, i couldn't find a shorter way of making the point. Why did i use the term "Platform / Infrastructure as a Service" in the title, instead of just one deployment model? Because, depending on your definition/understanding/usage of a virtualized and elastic platform of E-Business Suite R12, it is my opinion that this article/guide qualifies for both.

To energize/motivate you to practice this guide yourself and to put into perspective, the market share for the various emerging layers of Cloud Computing in the next 3-5 years are forecasted/expected to be in the tens of billions, if not more. Cloud Computing is not a revolution, rather an evolution: in many aspects it is a re-branding, re-organization and re-presentation of various components in the overall IT ecosystem. Here are a few salient characteristics/features of an IT cloud:

• Dynamic, Elastic, Agile and Scalable
• Multi-tenant, Secure & Reliable
• Metered Service-based models

Four models of deployment are currently prevalent/In-use:

• Private Cloud: Characterized by clouds on private networks (May someday replace the traditional Data-Center term).
• Public Cloud: Shared (Typically Virtualized) resources over the Internet.
• Hybrid Cloud: A mix/hotch-potch/conglomerate of Private/Public Cloud models.
• Community Cloud: Organizations forming a shared cloud for common needs/goals/purposes.

Five layers of Cloud Computing are broadly identified according to general consensus:

• Server layer: Hardware/Software: CPUs, RAM etc.
• Client layer: Desktops, OSs, browsers etc.
• Application layer: aka Software as a Service (SaaS) provides applications (typically multi-tenant) over the Internet.
• Platform layer: aka Platform as a Service (Paas) provides a computing platform by implementing/providing the whole solution stack. This has been identified by Oracle as the sweet spot of Cloud Computing in the years to come.
• Infrastructure layer: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides the entire computing infrastructure/ecosystem usually through virtualization.

So what exactly is a Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Cloud and how do you build/practice one at home?

This Step-By-Step Guide along with other dependent/child guides, details a series of steps to build one. For all practical purposes, Oracle's current/future direction is to make the Oracle VM Suite as the foundation of their Cloud Computing/Virtualization strategy: therefore, we will get a good handle on setting up/deploying the entire Oracle VM stack as part this article.

This document is organized into the following parts:

PART 1 – Planning/Requirements/Prerequisites for your E-Business Suite R12 Cloud

PART 2 – Download Oracle VM Templates for E-Business Suite R12

PART 3 – Copy/Inflate/Concatenate the Oracle VM Template files to the OVM Server

PART 4 – Import the Oracle VM Templates for E-Business Suite R12

PART 5 – Provision/Create the Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Virtual Machines

PART 6 – Configure your Cloud Infrastructure: Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Virtual Machines

PART 7 – Test/Verify your Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Cloud Infrastructure