Users can deploy Astera Data Stack on Oracle Cloud through two methods.
First, open the site which houses the Oracle Cloud Marketplace. Simply click here to be redirected to the website.
It will look like this,
Go to the search bar and type “Astera”, then select Go.
You will now be led to a screen with two Astera Software products present.
Select Astera and a new window will open.
If you scroll down, you can see information regarding the product as well as various videos and documentation related to it.
Under the Provider tab, you can see information regarding the company itself.
Click on Get App.
You will be taken to a new window where you will be asked to sign in to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Account.
Select Commercial Market and click Sign In. It will redirect you to another location.
Now, the Oracle Cloud site will open.
Note: If you are not already signed in, it will ask you to sign in to Oracle Cloud first. Otherwise, it is going to take you directly towards the site.
At the bottom of the page, we have these tabs:
Overview: Provides an overview of the product as well as its documentation and videos.
Provider: Provides information on the company itself.
More Apps: This shows other apps by Astera apart from this one.
Usage Information: Provides step-by-step instructions on how to use the product.
Once done, scroll back up and select Version and Compartment
For Version, select the default value and for Compartment, select astera (root).
Select Launch Instance and you will be taken to the next screen.
Next, fill in the following details:
Name: Name of the instance being created. We are using the name ‘AsteraOCI’
Create In Compartment: The compartment in which it is going to be created. We are using the compartment ‘astera (roots)’
Placement – Availability Domain: This helps determine which shapes are available. It will be kept as the default one; ‘AD1’
Show Advanced Options: These are extra options for the Availability domain. They will be kept as default.
Scroll down and specify the following information:
Image: This is the product that is being used. Here, it will be Astera.
Shape: The specifications of the Virtual Machine, depending on the application.
We have selected “VM.Standard2.2” for our application.
The rest of the options will remain default.
Click Select Shape and it will be selected.
Next, we will select the Networking options. They will all remain set to default.
Scroll down to the Boot Volume options.
They will also be kept as default.
Click Create.
It will now start to create the Virtual Machine.
Note: It can take 5 to 10 minutes for creation.
The Virtual Machine has been created. You can now use the remote desktop connection to connect to it. The credentials are generated once the machine is created.
Once connected with the machine, you can install Astera Data Stack on it.
Note: Start ‘Astera Integration Server 8’ from Services first.
To start, enter the Oracle Cloud login page and sign in. Once you are signed in, a new screen will appear.
Click on the three lines next to the search bar located at the top, select Compute, and then click Instances.
A new window will open.
Here, you can add a new instance or use an existing one.
Select the Compartment as “astera (roots)” and select Create Instance
Here, we see a screen like the one in the previous method.
Write a name of your choice, select the compartment as astera (roots), and select default placement.
The next section is the Image and Shape section.
For Image, we will select Windows Server 2016 Standard,
Select Image and head to the Shape option.
We have selected 4 OCPUs and 16 GB memory.
Select Shape and head to the next option.
The networking options will remain set as default.
Scroll to the Boot Volume section and select Specify a custom boot volume size.
We are keeping it at 60GB.
Once done, Click Create and it will start to create the Virtual Machine.
Note: With Oracle Cloud, the user also must install the SQL Server alongside since it does not offer it by default.
To learn more about the installation of a SQL database and configuration of an SQL server, click here.
To learn more about the installation of Astera, click here.
This concludes our discussion on the deployment of Astera Data Stack on Oracle Cloud, both through the Oracle Cloud Marketplace and Manually.
Microsoft Azure is an on-premise, hybrid, and future-ready cloud solution. The azure cloud platform has cloud services designed to build, run, and manage applications across multiple clouds. It provides scalable and high-performance cloud computing experience with virtual machines and SQL databases for testing and deployments.
You can now deploy and configure Astera on Microsoft Azure Cloud either through the Azure Marketplace or using virtual machines on Azure Cloud.
In this article, we will cover:
Deploying Astera Data Stack using Azure Marketplace on Azure Cloud
Deploying Astera Data Stack manually on Azure Cloud
To continue, please login to the Microsoft Azure portal here.
Follow the steps below to deploy Astera Data Stack using Azure Marketplace once you login to your Azure portal.
Find Marketplace on your portal either through the Portal Menu or by searching for it in the search bar.
In the search bar on the Marketplace window, search for Astera. You will get the link to Astera Virtual Machine.
If you open Astera in the Marketplace window, it will give you options to either create your own virtual machine or start with a pre-set configuration. You can choose from the options as required.
It comes with an overview, plan and pricing, usage information, support, and reviews for more information.
Note: If you deploy it through the marketplace, you have to skip the image selection option in Basics settings and the SQL Server Settings because the credentials have already been configured. The credentials are as follows: MS SQL Database Username: Trial MS SQL Database Password: Trial1234567
Follow the steps below to deploy Astera Data Stack manually using virtual machines on the Azure portal once you login.
Find Virtual Machines on your portal either through the Portal Menu or by searching for it in the search bar.
Once the Virtual Machines window opens, go to Create, and select Virtual Machine.
You are now redirected to a settings and configurations page for the virtual machine that you want to create. The following steps are involved in the configuration:
Subscription: Pay-as-you-go
Resource Group: You can either create a new resource group or select one from your already existing resource groups.
Virtual Machine Name: Name your virtual machine.
Region: Select your region
Availability options: Keep default.
Image: Select See All Images. You will be redirected to the Azure Marketplace. Here, search for SQL Server Microsoft Corporation.
Note: You can select any image officially sourced by Microsoft that is MSSQL 2005 or later on Windows server 2012 R2 or later.
Sizes: You can refer to the system requirements document to select the size, click here.
Username: Set a username to access the virtual machine.
Password: Set a password to go with the username.
Inbound Port Rule: Keep default.
Licensing: Keep default.
Keep all settings under the Disks settings set to default.
Here, everything will stay as default. You will only have to a create a Public IP. Select create new to do this. A side pane will open where you can create your public IP address. Name your IP address and leave its other settings as default.
Leave everything set to default in the Management settings.
Leave everything set to default in the Advanced settings.
All settings in this section should be set as default.
You can optimize Storage Configurations as per your requirements.
If you have the SQL Server License, you can provide that by selecting Yes.
You can create tags here if you require, or skip this section.
If your settings pass the validation checks, you will be directed to the Review + Create window. Select Create to create your virtual machine.
You can now connect to the created virtual machine by using the Public IP we created in the Networking section on your remote desktop.
Once connected to the virtual machine, you can now install Astera Data Stack on it.
To download the trial of Astera, click here.
To learn more about the installation of Astera, click here.
Note: Once you have created the virtual machine, you can connect to the SQL database through the Administrator Account credentials that you provided earlier in the Basics section while configuring the virtual machine.
This concludes deploying Astera Data Stack on Microsoft Azure cloud.
Microsoft Azure is an on-premise, hybrid, and future-ready cloud solution. The azure cloud platform has cloud services designed to build, run, and manage applications across multiple clouds. It provides scalable and high-performance cloud computing experience with virtual machines and SQL databases for testing and deployments.
You can now deploy and configure Astera on Amazon Web Services (AWS) using virtual machines on AWS.
To continue, please login to the AWS Management Console here.
Follow the steps below to deploy Astera using virtual machines on the AWS Management Console once you login.
Type EC2 in the search bar to find the virtual servers in the Cloud.
Next, click on Launch Instance button on the EC2 page.
You are now redirected to a configurations page for the virtual machine instance you want to create. Rename the launched instance and browse for AMIs.
You can browse for your desired AMIs using the filters provided. In our case, we will be selecting a windows server with SQL installed for Astera.
Next, select the instance type from the drop down. It is recommended to have at least 16 GiB RAM and 4 vCPUs and the ability to support SQL. So, select c3.2xlarge instance type. The option also has windows/linux pricing mentioned on it.
Next, click on Create New Key. This will generate a downloading key file which allows for setting administrator password.
This opens a key pair dialogue. Specify a name and create the key pair. The key pair file is downloaded.
For the network settings, you can leave these at default unless you want to use an existing security group or provide IPs for connection accordingly.
Next, you can configure the storage settings as per your requirement and launch the instance.
The instance is launched after a few seconds. Click on View all Instances,
AWS proceeds with applying some checks on the instance and this can take a while. You can monitor the progress in the list.
Once the checks are passed, right click on the instance and go to Security->Get Windows Password.
Browse for the Key Pair file downloaded earlier.
Click on Decrypt password.
You can now copy the username and password to use with the instance.
Go back to the instance and copy the Public IPv4 Address to connect your RDP.
You can now connect to the created virtual machine by using the Public IP we created in the Networking section on your remote desktop.
Once connected to the virtual machine, you can now install Astera on it.
To download the trial of Astera, click here.
To learn more about the installation of Astera, click here.
Note: Once you’ve created the virtual machine, you can connect to the SQL database through the Administrator Account credentials that you provided earlier in the Basics section while configuring the virtual machine.
This concludes deploying Astera Data Stack on Amazon Web Services.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) presents an easy and quick way to deploy applications on Azure datacenters securely. AKS allows for operating and governing on-premise, edge and multicloud Kubernetes clusters all from itself. To learn more about the AKS, visit this site.
In this article, we will cover how to create and set up an AKS cluster for the Astera Server.
Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster using Azure GUI.
Go to your Azure Organization portal to set up AKS for the Astera Server.
Go to the search bar from your dashboard on Azure and type Kubernetes Service.
Create a new cluster in AKS by selecting Create a Kubernetes cluster.
While creating the AKS cluster, create a new Resource group by clicking on the Create new option below the drop-down for the Resource group.
Next, provide the Kubernetes Cluster name. Also, specify the Region based on where the resource group is created.
Let the other options, Cluster preset configuration, Availability zones, Kubernetes version and API server availability remain as default.
Select the primary node pool’s Node Size, and Scale Method as described below.
Note: Make sure that you have enough cores available in the region for that particular machine family when selecting the machine size. This can be done by checking in the Quotas section. To go to the Quotas section, open the portal in a new tab, search for ‘quotas’ and after opening quotas, select Compute.
Now go to the Networking Tab and select Azure CNI as the Network Configuration.
Create a New virtual Network by selecting the Create New option and set the properties as illustrated below and click OK.
Now go to the Review + Create Tab to validate the options chosen. Once validated, click on Create to start deployment for the AKS cluster.
To add a worker node, navigate to the Node Pool which appears in the left pane on the opening of the cluster post-creation.
Now add a node pool, name it, select User mode and OS. Also select Machine size and scaling method as illustrated below.
Note: Make sure that you have enough cores available in the region for that particular machine family when selecting the machine size. This can be done by checking in the Quotas section. To go to the Quotas section, open the portal in a new tab, search for ‘quotas’ and after opening quotas, select Compute.
Open and copy the Astera YAML syntax.
Note: YAML file containing Docker Hub’s public repositories link (asteracloud/asteraintegration:9.1.2-443)
Next, go to Workloads in your AKS cluster, click on the Create option and select the option Create with YAML as illustrated in the image below.
Paste the earlier copied syntax from the YAML file as described below.
The above process will take approximately 10 minutes to create services and ingress as illustrated below.
When the service is ready, you can verify them in your browser as shown.
To enable monitoring directly from one of your AKS clusters in the Azure portal, do the following:
In the Azure portal, select All services.
In the list of resources, begin typing Containers. The list filters based on your input.
Select Kubernetes services.
In the list of Kubernetes services, select a service.
On the Kubernetes service overview page, select Monitoring - Insights.
On the Onboarding to Azure Monitor for Containers insights page, if you have an existing Log Analytics workspace in the same subscription as the cluster, select it in the drop-down list. The list preselects the default workspace and location that the AKS container is deployed to in the subscription.
Select Use managed identity if you want to use managed identity authentication with the Azure Monitor agent.
After you’ve enabled monitoring, it might take around 15 minutes before you can view operational data for the cluster.
After Setting Up Monitoring, you’ll be able to monitor the Insights for your AKS Cluster by navigating to the Insights Tab under Monitoring to view:
You may also setup customized alerts depending on your requirements from the Alerts Tab under Monitoring.
Select Enable recommended alert rules.
You may customize the alert settings depending on your requirements and provide an email to receive the alerts. Once configured select Enable.
This concludes our discussion on setting up, verifying and monitoring an Astera server deployment on AKS.
