This section provides recommended steps to set up Oracle SOA Suite enterprise deployment on Kubernetes to eliminate single points of failure and to provide high availability.
Refer to the official Kubernetes documentation to set up a production-grade Kubernetes cluster. It is recommended to set up the control plane (Master) with three nodes and three worker nodes. See the Topology for more details.
kube-api
virtual server port and also to the front-end Oracle SOA Suite.You can use the Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite on-premise as a reference.
Refer to Obtain the Oracle SOA Suite Docker image to load the images on each worker node and tag appropriately.
A shared storage device must be used from the different worker nodes. This storage hosts the Oracle SOA Suite domain directory. Initially, a single storage location is used to create a persistent volume that will host the Oracle SOA Suite domain. Mount this shared storage (NFS/NAS) from all the worker nodes using the same mount path in all of them.
For example, mount NFS1 (10.10.0.21:/k8nfs) in all the worker nodes to a share directory /k8nfs
:
$ grep "k8nfs nfs" /etc/fstab
10.10.0.21:/k8nfs /k8nfs nfs rw,relatime,vers=3,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,namlen=255,hard,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=10.10.0.21,mountvers=3,mountport=2048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=none,addr=10.10.0.21
Later, steps are provided to configure a second storage location for high availability.
The installation and creation of the RAC database is out of the scope of this document. Once the database is configured, the appropriate services must be created to access the schemas from the middle tier. It is critical that a precise non-default/administration service is created for Oracle SOA Suite. Refer to Preparing the Database for an Enterprise Deployment in the Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite 12.2.1.4.
Follow the steps in the Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite to create two Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) instances in separate nodes from the worker nodes. To configure OHS with the back-end Kubernetes Oracle SOA Suite or Service Bus servers, you must use a port in the range of 30000 - 32767. You will use this port in the Oracle SOA Suite configuration scripts later on.
In this Kubernetes Enterprise Deployment Guide, OHS routes to node ports configured for each separate Oracle SOA Suite/Service Bus cluster in the SOA domain. OHS then routes to these node ports, which redirect to the pertaining server pods. The OHS directive for the configuration must disable DynamicServerList because the node ports are not really WebLogic listeners and it is the node port configuration that maintains an intelligent list of available WebLogic servers. The OHS directive for the soa-infra mount in OHS looks like this:
<Location /soa-infra>
WLSRequest ON
DynamicServerList OFF
WebLogicCluster workernode1:30801,workernode2:30801,workernode3:30801
WLProxySSL OFF
WLProxySSLPassThrough OFF
</Location>
Similarly, the other directives for other paths should reflect similar node port addresses.
You can either use BigIp F5 LBR or any standard LBR, such as CISCO. Refer to the Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite for the required virtual servers: Preparing the Load Balancer and Firewalls for an Enterprise Deployment. The on-premises Enterprise Deployment Guide provides a detailed list of virtual servers/listeners that can be used for optimum isolation of services and traffic. For Kubernetes, at a minimum you should have a virtual server/listener for Oracle SOA Suite using the OHS listeners as back-end pool.
Create the load balancer’s L7/http listener.
Create a back-end pool with the list of OHS nodes/ports that will be used by Oracle SOA Suite (do not use IPs, always use hostnames).
Enable the L7/http listener load balancer to route to the OHS back-end set/pool.
Configure the front-end load balancer to route to the OHS pool.
Coherence requires specific settings to create clusters in a Kubernetes environment. Refer to the steps provided in the WebLogic Kubernetes Operator documentation.
The steps to deploy WebLogic Kubernetes Operator and the Oracle SOA Suite domain are automated with the scripts. Refer to the README for details.
After successful Oracle SOA Suite domain creation and starting the servers, check the pods and the different services created. Once the Oracle SOA Suite managed servers reach RUNNING state (the pods are ready), check typical Oracle SOA Suite URLs using the front-end load balancer:
SOA pods and services deployed and ready:
$ kubectl get all -n soans
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/soaedgdomain-adminserver 1/1 Running 0 47h
pod/soaedgdomain-create-soa-infra-domain-job-6pq9z 0/1 Completed 0 68d
pod/soaedgdomain-soa-server1 1/1 Running 0 2d2h
pod/soaedgdomain-soa-server2 1/1 Running 0 2d2h
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/soaedgdomain-adminserver ClusterIP None <none> 30012/TCP,7001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-adminserver-ext NodePort 10.104.20.22 <none> 30012:30012/TCP,7001:30701/TCP 31d
service/soaedgdomain-cluster-osb-cluster ClusterIP 10.100.97.127 <none> 9001/TCP 68d
service/soaedgdomain-cluster-soa-cluster ClusterIP 10.101.101.113 <none> 8001/TCP 68d
service/soaedgdomain-cluster-soa-cluster-node-port NodePort 10.105.51.223 <none> 8001:30801/TCP 68d
service/soaedgdomain-osb-server1 ClusterIP 10.110.81.153 <none> 9001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-osb-server2 ClusterIP 10.103.220.112 <none> 9001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-osb-server3 ClusterIP 10.97.50.117 <none> 9001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-osb-server4 ClusterIP 10.98.48.247 <none> 9001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-osb-server5 ClusterIP 10.102.137.176 <none> 9001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-soa-server1 ClusterIP None <none> 8001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-soa-server2 ClusterIP None <none> 8001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-soa-server3 ClusterIP 10.105.108.74 <none> 8001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-soa-server4 ClusterIP 10.109.191.102 <none> 8001/TCP 2d4h
service/soaedgdomain-soa-server5 ClusterIP 10.107.2.99 <none> 8001/TCP 2d4h
NAME COMPLETIONS DURATION AGE
job.batch/soaedgdomain-create-soa-infra-domain-job 1/1 4m24s 68d
To increase the flexibility in moving Oracle SOA Suite or Service Bus pods around in the Kubernetes cluster, we use node selectors where odd server pods (soa_server1, soa_server3, soa_server5, and so on) are assigned to node selector 1 and even server pods (soa_server2, soa_server4, soa_server6, and so on) are assigned to node selector 2. The resulting configuration is:
To use this configuration, follow these steps:
Stop the Oracle SOA Suite domain. Refer to Scripts to start and stop a domain.
Mount NFS1 in all even worker nodes and NFS2 in all odd worker nodes as in the diagram above. For example:
MOUNT ON ODD NODE
[opc@olk8-w1 ~]$ grep "k8nfs nfs" /etc/fstab
10.10.0.21:/k8nfs /k8nfs nfs rw,relatime,vers=3,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,namlen=255,hard,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=10.10.0.21,mountvers=3,mountport=2048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=none,addr=10.10.0.21
MOUNT ON EVEN NODE
[opc@olk8-w2 ~]$ grep "k8nfs nfs" /etc/fstab
10.10.0.27:/k8nfs2 /k8nfs nfs rw,relatime,vers=3,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,namlen=255,hard,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=10.10.0.27,mo untvers=3,mountport=2048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=none,addr=10.10.0.27
MOUNT ON ODD NODE
[opc@olk8-w3 ~]$ grep "k8nfs nfs" /etc/fstab
10.10.0.21:/k8nfs /k8nfs nfs rw,relatime,vers=3,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,namlen=255,hard,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=10.10.0.21,mountvers=3, mountport=2048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=none,addr=10.10.0.21
Copy the domain mount to an NFS replica, NFS2 (this can be done through a snapshot or through direct sftp/secure copy).
For example, if the domain is deployed in /k8nfs
hosted by NFS1, after stopping the domain, secure copy the data present at /k8nfs
on NFS1 to /k8nfs2
on NFS2:
$ cd /k8nfs
$ scp -R * user@[NFS2]:/k8nfs2
Label the odd nodes for NFS1 and the even nodes for NFS2.
For example, add the label diskgroup=dg1
for NFS1 and diskgroup=dg2
for NFS2:
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-w1 diskgroup=dg1
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-w2 diskgroup=dg2
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-w3 diskgroup=dg1
Verify the added labels using the following command:
$ kubectl get nodes --show-labels
Sample output is:
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION LABELS
olk8-m1 Ready master 10d v1.XX.X beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux,kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,kubernetes.io/hostname=olk8-m1,kubernetes.io/os=linux,node-role.kubernetes.io/master=
olk8-m2 Ready master 10d v1.XX.X beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux,kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,kubernetes.io/hostname=olk8-m2,kubernetes.io/os=linux,node-role.kubernetes.io/master=
olk8-m3 Ready master 10d v1.XX.X beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux,kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,kubernetes.io/hostname=olk8-m3,kubernetes.io/os=linux,node-role.kubernetes.io/master=
olk8-w1 Ready <none> 10d v1.XX.X beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux,diskgroup=dg1,kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,kubernetes.io/hostname=olk8-w1,kubernetes.io/os=linux,name=admin
olk8-w2 Ready <none> 10d v1.XX.X beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux,diskgroup=dg2,kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,kubernetes.io/hostname=olk8-w2,kubernetes.io/os=linux,name=wls1
olk8-w3 Ready <none> 10d v1.XX.X beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux,diskgroup=dg1,kubernetes.io/arch=amd64,kubernetes.io/hostname=olk8-w3,kubernetes.io/os=linux,name=wls2
To assign the appropriate selectors in the domain:
a. Edit the domain (domain.yaml
).
b. Alter the managed servers section for all the managed servers configured in the cluster, sample for soa_server1
and soa_server2
as shown below:
managedServers:
- serverName: soa_server1
serverPod:
nodeSelector:
diskgroup: dg1
- serverName: soa_server2
serverPod:
nodeSelector:
diskgroup: dg2
c. Apply the domain.yaml
changes:
$ kubectl apply -f domain.yaml
IMPORTANT: Once this redundant PV configuration is in use, all changes that reside out of the config directory in the domain will need to be copied/synced to the secondary NAS mount manually. The managed servers using NFS2 in the diagram above will replicate only configuration changes that modify files/artifacts under the
$DOMAIN_HOME/config
directory. The rest of changes are NOT copied automatically by the WebLogic infrastructure.
For example, if you deploy an ear
and specify an upload or stage directory out of the config
directory, the ear
files will NOT be copied by WebLogic). Fileadapter composites
will place output files in mounts accessible from the pods. The mount point and PV/PVC for the different Oracle SOA Suite server file locations need to be the same, hence a different one from the one used for the $DOMAIN_HOME location.
When using block volume mounts for the Docker/CRIO images, it may occur that the mount takes time to complete on reboot. This is the case block volume with mount point being affected by network and storage latency. In this case, it is required to adjust the priority and dependency of the process on reboot, otherwise Docker will start and many images will be missing. To resolve this issue:
Identify the systemd units for the mounts that the container will depend on, including the NFS where the Oracle SOA Suite domain will reside. Identify mount systemd units in the Operating System:
$ cat /etc/fstab | grep "docker ext4"
UUID=c07d39e4-5d8f-47af-b936-bf276cc43664 /docker ext4 defaults,_netdev,nofail 0 2
$ ls /run/systemd/generator/ | grep docker
docker.mount
scratch-docker.mount
Add the units to the Docker/CRIO service as a dependency in the AFTER list. Identify mount systemd units in the operating system expand source:
$ cat /lib/systemd/system/docker.service | grep After
After=network-online.target firewalld.service containerd.service docker.mount
This guarantees that the container will start only after the required mount is ready.
For each of the Oracle SOA Suite (soa_cluster
) and Service Bus (osb_cluster
) clusters, set the appropriate front-end address as follows:
Sign in to the WebLogic Administration Console.
Navigate to domain_name -> environment -> clusters.
Click the cluster name.
Click the HTTP tab.
Enter the Frontend Host and Frontend Port details.
Note: Set the front-end details for each cluster and for the Administration Server.
Data sources in the default deployment for Oracle SOA Suite on Kubernetes use generic data sources. With ONS auto-registration in 12.2 Database and later, it is only necessary to enable FAN for the data sources to convert to GridLink (GLDS). You can do this by using the WebLogic Administration Console or the following command and restarting the Administration Server and the managed servers:
grep -L fan-enabled $domain_home/config/jdbc/*.xml | xargs sed -i "s/<\/jdbc-data-source>/<jdbc-oracle-params><fan-enabled>true<\/fan-enabled><\/jdbc-oracle-params><\/jdbc-data-source>/g"
After the change is applied, verify that all data sources are marked as GridLink Data Sources
in the WebLogic Administration Console.
Refer to the on-premises Enterprise Deployment Guide for steps to configure Automatic Service Migration.
NOTE: This step is applicable to any Kubernetes system using
coredns
regardless of Oracle SOA Suite deployment. However, the worker node creation is implicit in the setup, hence it is applied in this context (post Oracle SOA Suite deployment).
Configure replicas for cordens
to spawn both control plane and master plane. If a restore operation is performed on the control plane, worker nodes may stop working properly. If the coredns
lands entirely in the worker nodes, the control plane may not function correctly if they are brought down for maintenance. Place at least two coredns
pods on the control plane and another two on the worker nodes. The coredns
footprint is low.
VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
146268 41684 29088 S 0.3 0.1 25:44.04 coredns
According to the CoreDNS documentation, you can estimate the amount of memory required for a CoreDNS instance (using default settings) with the following formula:
MB required (default settings) = (Pods + Services) / 1000 + 54
Hence, first label nodes in both control and worker plane.
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-m1 area=dnsarea
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-m2 area=dnsarea
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-m3 area=dnsarea
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-w1 area=dnsarea
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-w2 area=dnsarea
$ kubectl label nodes olk8-w3 area=dnsarea
And then update the coredns
deployment to use topology spread constraints
NOTE: Topology spread constraints is beta starting in Kubernetes v1.18
First, enable the feature gate in kube-api
server and in kube-scheduler
. Then, modify the coredns
deployment for an appropriate spread of pods across worker and control plane nodes.
The coredns
topology spread config details are:
Click below for sample updated coredns deployment:
The labels and spread topology changes are:
labels:
foo: bar
k8s-app: kube-dns
topologySpreadConstraints:
- labelSelector:
matchLabels:
foo: bar
maxSkew: 1
topologyKey: area
whenUnsatisfiable: DoNotSchedule
This guarantees an even distribution across the master and worker nodes, so that if the control plane is restored, the worker pods will continue without issues and the other way around.
Sample resulting coredns
distribution:
$ kubectl get pods -A -o wide | grep coredns
kube-system coredns-84b49c57fd-4fz4g 1/1 Running 0 166m 10.244.1.20 olk8-m2 <none> <none>
kube-system coredns-84b49c57fd-5mrkw 1/1 Running 0 165m 10.244.4.76 olk8-w2 <none> <none>
kube-system coredns-84b49c57fd-5zm88 1/1 Running 0 165m 10.244.2.17 olk8-m3 <none> <none>
kube-system coredns-84b49c57fd-nqlwb 1/1 Running 0 166m 10.244.4.75 olk8-w2 <none> <none>
By default, the liveness probe is configured to check liveness every 45 seconds, which might cause requests to be routed to backend pods that are no longer available during outage scenarios. Recommended to adjust liveness probe values so that on hard node failures pods are marked as down faster. To configure a more aggressive probe, edit the domain and change the serverPods.livenessProbe
values to the following:
livenessProbe:
failureThreshold: 1
initialDelaySeconds: 30
periodSeconds: 5
successThreshold: 1
timeoutSeconds: 3
Refer WebLogic Kubernetes Operator documentation for details on how to customize the liveness probe.