OpenText Analytics Database 26.2.x – Vertica on Microsoft Azure

Setup: Recommended Azure VM types and operating systems

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recommended Azure VM types

Vertica supports a range of Microsoft Azure virtual machine (VM) types, each optimized for different purposes. Choose the VM type that best matches your performance and price needs as a user.

Note

The GS VMs are not available in all regions, or from the Azure Marketplace.

You can use them by following the manual deployment steps described in Manually deploy Vertica on Microsoft Azure.

For the best performance in most common scenarios, use one of the following VMs:

Virtual Machine Types	Virtual Machine Size
Memory optimized	DS13_v2 DS14_v2 DS15_v2 D8s_v3 D16s_v3 D32s_v3
High memory and I/O throughput	GS3 GS4 GS5 E8s_v3 E16s_v3 E32s_v3 L8s L16s L32s

Virtual Machine Types

Virtual Machine Size

Memory optimized

DS13_v2

DS14_v2

DS15_v2

D8s_v3

D16s_v3

D32s_v3

High memory and I/O throughput

GS3

GS4

GS5

E8s_v3

E16s_v3

E32s_v3

L8s

L16s

L32s

Recommended Azure operating systems

For best performance, use one of the following operating systems when deploying Vertica on Azure:

Red Hat 7.3 or later
CentOS 7.3 or later. The Azure Marketplace solution as of this writing (June 2017) is based on CentOS 7.3.1611.

For more information, see Supported platforms.

Setup: Eon Mode on Azure prerequisites

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Before you can create an Eon Mode database on Azure, you must have a database cluster and an Azure blob storage container to store your database's data.

You can create an Eon Mode database on a cluster that is hosted on Azure. In this configuration, your database stores its data communally in Azure Blob storage. See Eon Mode to learn more about this database mode.

Note

If you have an existing Enterprise Mode database, you can migrate it to an to Eon Mode database running on Azure. See Migrating an enterprise database to Eon Mode.

Cluster requirements

Before you can create an Eon Mode database on Azure, you must provision a cluster to host it. See Configuring your Vertica cluster for Eon Mode for suggestions on choosing VM configurations and the number of nodes your cluster should start with.

Storage requirements

An Eon Mode database on Azure stores its data communally in Azure blob storage. Vertica only supports block blob storage for communal data storage, not append or page blob storage.

You must create a storage path for Vertica to use exclusively. This path can be a blob container or a folder within a blob container. This path must not contain any files. If you attempt to create an Eon Mode database with a container or folder that contains files, admintools returns an error.

You pass Vertica a URI for the storage path using the azb:// schema. See Azure Blob Storage object store for the format of this URI.

You must also configure the storage container so Vertica is authorized to access it. Depending on authentication method you use, you may need to supply Vertica the with credentials to access the container. Vertica can use one of following methods to authenticate with the blob storage container:

Using Azure managed identities. This authentication method is transparent—you do not need to add any authentication configuration information to Vertica. Vertica automatically uses the managed identity bound to the VMs it runs on to authenticate with the blob storage container. See the Azure AD-managed identities for Azure resources documentation page in the Azure documentation for more information.

If you provide credentials for either of the other two supported authentication methods, Vertica uses them instead of authenticating using a managed identity bound to your VM.

Note

If your Azure VMs have more than one managed identity bound to them, you must tell Vertica which identity to use when authenticating with the blob storage container. Vertica gets the identity to use from a tag set on the VMs that it is running on.

On your VMs, create a tag with its key named VerticaManagedIdentityClientId and its value to the name of a managed identity bound to your VMs. See the Use tags to organize your Azure resources and management hierarchy page in the Azure documentation for more information.
Using an account name and access key credentials for a service account that has full access to the blob storage container. In this case, you provide Vertica with the credentials when you create the Eon Mode database. See Creating an Authentication File for details.
Using a shared access signature (SAS) that grants Vertica access to the storage container. See Grant limited access to Azure Storage resources using shared access signatures (SAS) in the Azure documentation. See Creating an Authentication File for details.

For details on how Vertica accesses Azure blob storage, see Azure Blob Storage object store.

Azure Blob Storage encryption

Eon Mode databases on Azure support some of the encryption features built into Azure Storage. You can use its encryption at rest feature transparently—you do not need to configure Vertica to take advantage of it. You can use Microsoft-managed or customer-managed keys for storage encryption. Vertica does not support Azure Storage's client-side encryption and encryption using customer-provided keys. See the Azure Data Encryption at rest page in the Azure documentation for more information about the encryption at rest features in Azure Storage.

Setup: Deploy Vertica from the Azure Marketplace

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Deploy Vertica in the Microsoft Azure Cloud using the Vertica Data Warehouse entry in the Azure Marketplace. Vertica provides the following deployment options:

Eon Mode: Deploy a Management Console (MC) instance, and then provision and create an Eon Mode database from the MC. For cluster and storage requirements, see Eon Mode on Azure prerequisites.
Enterprise Mode: Deploy a four-node Enterprise Mode database comprised of one MC instance and three database nodes. This requires an Azure subscription with a minimum of 12 cores for the Vertica Marketplace solution.

The Enterprise Mode deployment uses the MC primarily as a monitoring tool. For example, you cannot provision and create a database with an Enterprise Mode MC. For information about creating and managing an Enterprise Mode database, see Create a database using administration tools.

Create a deployment

Eon Mode and Enterprise Mode require much of the same information for deployment. Any information that is not required for both deployment types is clearly marked.

1. Select the deployment type

Sign in to your Microsoft Azure account. From the Home screen, select Create a resource under Azure services.
Search for Vertica Data Warehouse and select it from the search results.
On the Vertica Data Warehouse page, select one of the following:
- To deploy an MC instance that can manage an Eon Mode database, select Vertica Data Warehouse, Eon BYOL.
- To deploy an Enterprise Mode database, select Vertica Data Warehouse, Enterprise BYOL.
On the next screen, select Create.

After you select your deployment type, the Basics tab on the Create Vertica Data Warehouse page displays.

2. Add project and instance details on the basics tab

Provide the following information in the Project details and Instance details sections:

Subscription: Azure bills this subscription for the cluster resources.
Resource group: The location to save all of the Azure resources. Create a new resource group or choose an existing one from the dropdown list.
Region: The location where the virtual machine running your MC instance is deployed.
VerticaManagement ConsoleUser: Eon Mode only. The administrator username for the MC.
SSH public key for OS Access: Provide the SSH public key associated with the Vertica User, for command line access to the virtual machine.
Password for MC Access: Enter a password to log in to Management Console. Note that Management Console requires that you change your password after the initial login.
Confirm password: Reenter the value you entered in Password for MC Access.
Select Next: Virtual Machine Settings >.

3. Select virtual machine settings

Provide the following information on the Virtual Machine Settings tab:

Management Console VM size: Select Change size to customize the VM settings or select the default. For a list of VM types recommended by use case, see Recommended Azure VM types and operating systems.
Storage account of Eon DB: Eon Mode only. The storage account associated with the database deployment.
Number of Vertica Cluster nodes: Enterprise Mode only. The number of nodes to deploy in the cluster, in addition to the MC instance.
Vertica Node VM size: Enterprise Mode only. Select the VM type to deploy in your cluster. Use the default or select Change size to customize the VM settings. For a list of VM types recommended by use case, see Recommended Azure VM types and operating systems.
Total RAW storage per node: Enterprise Mode only. Select the amount of storage per node from the dropdown list. Each VM has a set of premium data disks that are configured and presented as a single storage location.
Select Next: Network Settings >.

4. Select network settings

Provide the following information on the Network Settings tab:

Virtual Network: The virtual network that hosts the Vertica cluster. Create a new virtual network or select an existing one from the dropdown list.
If you select an existing virtual network, Vertica recommends that you already created a subnet to use for the deployment.
First subnet: The subnet for the associated Virtual Network. Create a new subnet or select an existing one from the dropdown list.
Public IP Address Resource Name: Each VM is configured with a publicly accessible IP address. This field allows you to specify the resource name for those IP addresses, and whether they are static or dynamic. The first public IP address resource is created exactly as entered, and associated with the VerticaManagement Console. Azure appends a number from 1 to 16 to the resource name for each additional Vertica cluster node created. This number associates each VM with a resource.
Domain Name Label for Management Console: Because each VM has a public IP address, each node requires a DNS name. Enter a prefix for the name. The first DNS name is created exactly as entered, and associated with the VerticaManagement Console. Azure appends a number from 1 to 16 to the DNS name for each Vertica cluster node created. That number associates each VM with a resource. Azure adds the remaining part of the fully qualified domain name based on the location where you created the cluster.
Select Next: Review + create >.

5. Verify on review + create

As the Review + create page loads, Azure validates your settings. After it passes validation, review your settings. When you are satisfied with your selections, select Create.

Access the MC after deployment

After your resources are successfully deployed, you are brought to the Overview page on Home > resources-name > Deployments. You must retrieve your Management Console IP address and username to log in.

From the Overview page, select Outputs in the left navigation.
Copy the Vertica Management Console URL and Vertica Management Console user name*.
Paste the Vertica Management Console URL in the browser address bar and press Enter.
Depending on your browser, you might receive a warning of a security risk. If you receive the warning, select the Advanced button and follow the browsers instructions to proceed to the Management Console.
On the VerticaManagement Console log in page, paste the Vertica Management Console user name, and enter the Password for MC Access that you entered on Basics > Project details when you were deploying your MC instance.

Delete a resource group

For details about the Azure Resource Manager and deleting a resource group, see the Azure documentation.

Setup: Manually deploy Vertica on Microsoft Azure

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Manually creating a database cluster for your Vertica deployment lets you customize your VMs to meet your specific needs. You often want to manually configure your VMs when deploying a Vertica cluster to host an Eon Mode database.

To start creating your Vertica cluster in Azure using manual steps, you first need to create a VM. During the VM creation process, you create and configure the other resources required for your cluster, which are then available for any additional VMs that you create.