Install Exasol on hardware

The first step after preparing the environment is to install the license node, also known as license server or management node. The license node enables the initial installation, configuration, and first boot of all other data nodes. After installing the license node you will be able to access EXAoperation in your web browser and proceed with the following steps in the installation process.

Prerequisites

• You have downloaded the Exasol ISO file from the Exasol Downloads page
• You have carried out the required Preparation steps

Procedure

Do the following to install the license node:

1. Boot up the Exasol ISO image.

   

2. At the command line prompt, type install and press ENTER.
3. Click on OK to acknowledge the unsupported hardware message (this is a CentOS message).

   

4. Enter the hard drive to install to and click on OK to confirm.

   Encrypting the device is optional but recommended. When Encrypt device is checked, you must provide a password for the disk when restarting the license server.

   

5. If there are multiple private networks, enter the number of networks in Number of tagged private VLANs and click on OK.

   

6. Select Install EXACluster OS on first boot and select OK.

   

7. Set a strong password for the maintenance user and click on OK.

   

8. Set the IP addresses of your network and click on OK (the IP address in the screenshot is an example).

   

9. Check that the network information is correct and change it if necessary. Click on OK to continue.

   

   The installation process will now start. Once it has completed, the system will restart automatically.

   

10. Boot up the system from the local hard drive.

Once you have completed these steps, you can get the IP address for the license node by logging in to the terminal (or over SSH) using the login name maintenance and the maintenance password you entered in the Create maintenance user dialog.

After you have configured access management you can configure the cluster network through the EXAoperation user interface. You can assign network settings for the cluster, such as the public network address, default gateway, NTP servers, and other variables. You can also add routes and additional networks if you make use of them.

Configuring the cluster network access include configuring the following settings: 

• System settings
• Install Exasol on hardware
• Install Exasol on hardware
• Server management

You can use the EXAoperation user interface (Configuration > Network) to configure these settings.

You should be logged into the EXAoperation interface as an admin user.

Additional networks

You can add the additional networks in Configuration > Network > Additional Networks. The networks can be:

• Private networks (CICN)
• Public networks (CSCN)

Each additional network interface group requires a separate VLAN and physical network interface on each node (MAC address). First, create a new VLAN and then assign the interface to the nodes using the node editor (Configuration > Nodes).

Do the following to add the additional networks:

1. In the EXAoperation interface, Select Configuration > Network.
2. Select the Additional Networks tab to add a public or private network.
3. Specify the following:
   • Description: a name for the network
   • MTU: The Maximum Transmission Unit for the VLAN. The VLAN MTU must be smaller or equal to the physical interface MTU.
   • Bonding network: Select a network to use for bonding (if applicable)
   • Network: IP address of the network (public network only). For example, 192.168.16.0/24

Server management

You can add and configure a SrvMgmt group if out-of-band management is used. Do the following:

1. In the EXAoperation interface, Select Configuration > Network.
2. Select the SrvMgmt tab.
3. In the Add SrvMgmt Group screen, configure the following parameters:
   • IPMI Type: select the type supported by the vendor you are using.
   • Name: Name of the IPMI Group. Once created, it can be later assigned to an interface (e.g. iLO, iDRAC) or a MAC address.
   • Public IPMI IP Addresses:
     • Option 1: The IPMI interfaces already have IP addresses assigned. Enable the check box and fill in IP addresses in the node editor. This requires the IPMI interfaces to be in the public network (CSCN) or a dedicated VLAN, which in both cases needs to be accessible from all cluster nodes.
     • Option 2: The IPMI interfaces are served from the cluster internal DHCP server Fill in the IPMI MAC address in the node editor. IPMI interfaces need to be located in the private network (CICN).
   • Username/Password: Credentials for the IPMI card.

After you have configured the cluster network, you can configure the monitoring services for Exasol. The monitoring services are managed using the EXAoperation interface. You can create and configure monitoring services, and you can set the warning and error threshold values for disk usage, swap usage and load.

Creating a monitoring service includes the following steps: 

Add a log service (Information ALL)

1. In EXAoperation interface, select Services > Monitoring.
2. Click Add button in the Add Log Service section.

   

3. In the Minimum Log Priority list box, select Information.
4. Select all the EXAClusterOS Services available and click the right arrow to add them to the log service.
5. Set the default time interval to 10m.
6. Set the Description to Information ALL.
7. Click Add to add the log service.

Add a log service (Information excluding LOAD)

1. In EXAoperation interface, select Services > Monitoring.
2. Click Add button in the Add Log Service section.

   

3. In the Minimum Log Priority list box, select Information.
4. Add all the services except LOAD service from the EXAClusterOS Services.
5. Set the default time interval to 10m.
6. Set the Description to Information without LOAD.
7. Click Add to add the log service.

Set threshold values

Do the following to change the current threshold values:

1. In EXAoperation interface, select Services > Monitoring.
2. Click Edit button in the Threshold Values section.

   

3. Set the warning and error thresholds values in the Monitor Threshold section.

   

4. Click Apply.

To learn more about monitoring services, see Monitoring.

After you have created a monitoring service, you can create the first data node. The settings that you configure here can be copied to create further nodes in the system.

To create the first data node, you have to perform the following tasks:

• Create a node
• Configure the node disk layout
• Install a node

IP address numbering

When you create a new node, you assign it an internal number and an external number. These numbers determine the IP address of the node on the private and public networks respectively.

• Node number: Determines the last octet of the node’s IP address on the private network (cluster-internal network).
• External number: Determines the last octet of the node’s IP address on the public network (client-side network). This is done by adding the external number assigned to the node to the last octet of the public network address.

Example:

Public IP address + External Number = Node IP address

Public network IP	Network mask	External number	Node IP
10.70.0.50	255.255.255.0 (24)	34	10.70.0.84
10.70.0.70	255.255.255.0 (24)	1	10.70.0.71

Disk layout

The disk layout for a node is configured during the node setup. For a data node, the following four partitions are required:

• OS partition (d00_os): EXACluster OS is installed on this partition. It is an ext4 filesystem with journaling, and is AES 256 encrypted. It should be assigned at least 50 GiB of space.
• Swap partition (d01_swap): Used for swap data. It should be assigned at least 4 GiB of space.
• Data partition (d02_data): Used for database logs and coredumps. It is an ext4 filesystem with journaling. It should be assigned at least 50 GiB of space.
• EXAStorage partition (d03_storage): Used for persistent and temporary database data. It is an EXAStorage partition and runs on one or more physical disks.

For a physical cluster, how you set up your disk layout depends on the hardware setup you have selected - a RAID Mirror with a Software RAID, or a hard drive with a dedicated OS disk.

RAID mirror with software RAID

All hard drives are the same size, and are used by all partitions (OS, Data, Swap and Storage). You configure the node disks as follows:

• Add all disks to the OS, Swap, Data and Storage partitions
• OS, Swap and Data have a disk RAID of 'RAID 0'
• Storage has a disk RAID of 'None'

Example : RAID mirror with software RAID (Dell R710)

HDD with dedicated OS disk

The OS, Swap and Data partitions have a dedicated hard drive. The hard drive for these partitions is usually smaller than the hard drives for the Storage partition. You configure the node disks as follows:

• Add the dedicated hard drive to the OS, Swap and Data partitions
• Add all other hard drives to the Storage partition
• OS, Swap and Data use the dedicated OS disk
• Storage has a disk RAID of 'None'

Example : HDD with dedicated OS disk (Dell R720XD)

Create a node

Follow these steps to create/add node(s) to the Exasol system:

1. In EXAoperation, go to Configuration > Nodes. The Cluster Nodes screen is displayed.



2. Click Add. The Add EXACluster node screen is displayed.



3. Configure the details of the node being added. For a full description of each property, refer to Configure node properties section.
4. Click Add to add the node. The new node is listed with the status To Install.

Configure the node disk layout

You can follow the below steps to configure a node disk layout: 

1. In EXAoperation, go to Configuration > Nodes and click on the node link.
2. The Node Information screen is displayed.
3. Click Disks. The Disk Information screen is displayed.
4. Click Edit to edit the disk. Configure the following for each partition: 
   • Disk devices: The physical disk(s) that the storage disk runs on. Click Add for each device to add to the partition.
   • Disk RAID: Redundancy of the disk.
   • Disk encryption: Select the encryption to be used for the partition.
   • Disk Label: Name for the partition as it should appear in screens across EXAoperations.
   • Size of disk: The maximum space in GiB available to the partition.

   The way you configure the disks depends on your hardware setup (refer to Disk Layout). You have the following two options:

   RAID mirror with software RAID

   Partition	Disk device to assign	Disk RAID	Disk size
   OS	All	RAID 0	50GiB
   Swap	All	RAID 0	4GiB
   Data	All	RAID 0	50 GiB
   Storage	All	Select 'None'	Leave blank

   Hard drive with dedicated OS disk

   Partition	Disk device to assign	Disk RAID	Disk size
   OS	Dedicated HDD	Select 'None'	50GiB
   Swap	Dedicated HDD	Select 'None'	4GiB
   Data	Dedicated HDD	Select 'None'	Leave blank
   Storage	Dedicated HDD	Select 'None'	Leave blank

5. Click Apply to save your changes.

Install a node

Follow these steps to install node(s).

1. In EXAoperation, go to Configuration > Nodes to open the Cluster Nodes screen.

The node you have just added should be displayed as To Install in the State/Op. column. If not, select the node, and select Set Install Flag from the Actions ... drop down list, and click Execute.



2. Start the node up so that it can complete the installation process. Depending on if you use IPMI or not, you have two options:

Option	Steps
No IPMI installed: start node manually	Physically power on the relevant node in the cluster.
IPMI is installed: start node using EXAoperation	Go to Configuration > Nodes. Select the new node and select Startup from the Actions ... drop down list. Click Execute to install the node and start it up

3. The node is shown as Running in the State/Op. column.

After you have created the first data node, you can add additional nodes to your system.

Follow these steps to create/add node(s) to the Exasol system:

1. In EXAoperation, go to Configuration > Nodes. The Cluster Nodes screen is displayed.



2. Click Add. The Add EXACluster node screen is displayed.



3. Configure the details of the node being added. For a full description of each property, refer to Configure node properties section.
4. Click Add to add the node. The new node is listed with the status To Install.

After you have created the nodes you need to activate them.

Follow these steps to activate nodes:

1. In EXAoperation, go to Configuration > Nodes. The new nodes are lists with the status Running and To install.



2. Select the new nodes, and select Set active flag from the Actions ... drop down list.



3. Click Execute to set the new nodes to active.The State/Op. of the new nodes should be Running and Active.

   

After you activated the data nodes you need to start the EXAStorage service.

Follow these steps to start EXAStorage:

1. In EXAoperation, go to Services > EXAStorage.

   When the storage service is not running, the screen looks as follows:

   

2. Click on Startup Storage Service. The storage service starts up and the screen looks like this after a few minutes:

   

3. Select all disks, then click on Add Unused Disks to make sure that all disks are included when creating a volume in the next step.

   

When you have started EXAStorage you can create the data and archive volumes for your system.

For more information on how to create archive volumes, see Create local archive volume and Create remote archive volume.

After you have created the data and archive volumes, you can activate the license by uploading the license through EXAoperation interface.

To activate a license, the license server must be installed and you should have a valid license file.

Follow these step to upload and activate your license file:

1. Go to Configuration > Software.
2. In the License tab, click Choose File...

   

3. Browse for the license file, select it and then click Upload.
4. Next, to activate the license file, you need to stop and start the database. For more information, refer to the Start a database section.

Restarting the database by clicking the Restart button will not activate the license file. You need to stop and start the database.

After you have uploaded a license for Exasol, you can create a database on a data volume.

The data volume must be created before creating a database. There can be only one database per data volume.

Follow these steps to create a database:

1. In EXAoperation, go to Services > EXASolution and click Add.
2. Configure the following database properties.

   Database Properties	Description
   DB Name	A label for the database, e.g. 'prod_db1'.
   Active Nodes	The number of active nodes to use for the database. For example, if the system is 4+1, the number of active nodes is 4 (with one reserve node). The value you set here must be the same as the number of nodes you set when creating the data volume (Number of Master Nodes field).
   Node List	Select all the nodes that the database will use, including the reserve node, and add them to the list on the right. The system recognizes the top nodes in the list based on the number of Active Nodes you specify as the active nodes. All other nodes are seen as reserve nodes. For example, in a 4+1 setup, the number of active nodes is 4. The top 4 nodes in the Node List are active, and the remaining node is the reserve. Although the number of nodes used must be the same for the data volume and database, the actual nodes used can differ. For example, if the data volume uses nodes 11,12, 13, 14 and 15, the database might use 11, 13, 14, 16 and 17.
   Runtime disk	Select the disk configured for 'Data' (used for database log files, etc.).
   Version	The version of EXASolution that the database should use. This is usually the latest available version.
   Auditing	Select this check box to save the text of all executed SQL statements (up to 2MB per statement) in the EXA_STATISTICS schema.
   EXAStorage Data Volume	The data volume the database will run on. This is the data volume that you set up in the Create Data and Archive Volumes (Create local archive volume and Create remote archive volume).
   Restore Delay	The amount of time the system will wait after a failure before restoring data to the now-active reserve node. Enter a value and a unit of time measurement ("s", "m", "h", etc.). If you enter '0', the restore will be instantaneous in the event of an outage. If you enter no value in this field, there will be no restore - the reserve node will be pushed in as per the failsafety functionality, but no data restore will occur. The recommendation is 10 minutes ("10m").
   Max Volume Size (GiB)	It's the maximum volume size for the database and used if there is more than one database running in the cluster. It ensures that each database has dedicated disk space available. Exasol recommends leaving this field empty if you only have one database in the cluster. However, you need to specify this parameter if you have a disk subsystem that is used across the cluster by multiple databases. It prevents the database from using volume more than the specified value. If the database reaches this quota, the database is shut down. To calculate the maximum volume size, you can use the following formula. DATA Volume Size + TEMP Volume Size = MAX Volume Size
   Network Interfaces	Select and add the network interfaces the database will use and add them to the list on the right. If you select no interfaces, all available network interfaces will be used.
   LDAP Server URLs	If database users will be authenticated using LDAP servers, enter the server URLs here (separated by a comma for multiple servers).
   Connection Port	TCP software port for the database instance.
   DB RAM (GiB)	The amount of RAM that should be made available for the database instance.
   Extra DB Parameters	This is an optional field to specify database parameters. For example, if you specify -forceProtocolEncryption=1, Exasol will deny connection requests from all unsecured connections. If you want additional database parameters, contact Exasol Support.

3. Click Add to add the database.

   

4. To propagate the database to the cluster nodes, go to Services > EXASolution and click on the database instance you have just added.
5. Select Create from the Actions list box and click Submit to create the database instance.

   

   The nodes have a State of 'Selected' or 'Reserve'.

6. Select Startup from the Actions list box and click Submit to start the database instance.

After you complete all the steps of installation procedure, you can create a backup schedule for your system.

Learn how to create a schedule to automatically start backups.

Backup scheduling is based on full backups and incremental backups. For more information, see Backup essentials.

Backup schedules use the same format as cron jobs. For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron.

Do not stop the database while a backup is in progress.

Do not add or remove nodes on the archive volume or on the data volume being backed up while a backup is in progress.

For more information about backup schedules, see Create backup schedule.