Between the elephant ( the tradional image of the Hadoop framework) and the Oracle Iron Man (Big Data..) an english setter could be seen as the link to the right data

Data, Data, Data, we are living in a world where data technology based on popular applications , search engines, Webservers, rich sms messages, email clients, weather forecasts and so on, have a predominant role in our life.

More and more technologies are used to analyze/track our behavior, try to detect patterns, to propose us "the best/right user experience" from the Google Ad services, to Telco companies or large consumer sites (like Amazon:) ). The more we use all these technologies, the more we generate data, and thus there is a need of huge data marts and specific hardware/software servers (as the Exadata servers) in order to treat/analyze/understand the trends and offer new services to the users.

Some of these "data feeds" are raw, unstructured data, and cannot be processed effectively by normal SQL queries. Large scale distributed processing was an emerging infrastructure need and the solution seemed to be the "collocation of compute nodes with the data", which in turn leaded to MapReduce parallel patterns and the development of the Hadoop framework, which is based on MapReduce and a distributed file system (HDFS) that runs on larger clusters of rather inexpensive servers.

Several Oracle products are using the distributed / aggregation pattern for data calculation ( Coherence, NoSql, times ten ) so once that you are familiar with one of these technologies, lets says with coherence aggregators, you will find the whole Hadoop, MapReduce concept very similar.

Oracle Big Data Appliance is based on the Cloudera Distribution (CDH), and the Oracle Big Data Connectors can be plugged on a Hadoop cluster running the CDH distribution or equivalent Hadoop clusters.

In this paper, a "lab like" implementation of this concept is done on a single Linux X64 server, running an Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.4.0, and a single node Apache hadoop-1.2.1 HDFS cluster, using the SQL connector for HDFS.

The whole setup is fairly simple:

1. Install on a Linux x64 server ( or virtual box appliance) an Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.4.0 server
2. Get the Apache Hadoop distribution from: http://mir2.ovh.net/ftp.apache.org/dist/hadoop/common/hadoop-1.2.1.
3. Get the Oracle Big Data Connectors from: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/bdc/big-data-connectors/downloads/index.html?ssSourceSiteId=ocomen.
4. Check the java version of your Linux server with the command:

   java -version
    java version "1.7.0_40"
   Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_40-b43)
   Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.0-b56, mixed mode)
   

5. Decompress the hadoop hadoop-1.2.1.tar.gz file to /u01/hadoop-1.2.1
   
6. Modify your .bash_profile
   

   export HADOOP_HOME=/u01/hadoop-1.2.1
   export PATH=$PATH:$HADOOP_HOME/bin
   
   export HIVE_HOME=/u01/hive-0.11.0
   export PATH=$PATH:$HADOOP_HOME/bin:$HIVE_HOME/bin
   

   (also see my sample .bash_profile)
7. Set up ssh trust for Hadoop process, this is a mandatory step, in our case we have to establish a "local trust" as will are using a single node configuration
   
8. copy the new public keys to the list of authorized keys
   
9. connect and test the ssh setup to your localhost:
   
   
10. We will run a "pseudo-Hadoop cluster", in what is called "local standalone mode", all the Hadoop java components are running in one Java process, this is enough for our demo purposes. We need to "fine tune" some Hadoop configuration files, we have to go at our $HADOOP_HOME/conf, and modify the files:

    core-site.xml
                

    
    

    hdfs-site.xml
    

    
    

    mapred-site.xml
    

    
    
11. check that the hadoop binaries are referenced correctly from the command line by executing:

    
    hadoop  -version
    

    
12. As Hadoop is managing our "clustered HDFS" file system we have to create "the mount point" and format it , the mount point will be declared to core-site.xml as:

    The layout under the /u01/hadoop-1.2.1/data will be created and used by other hadoop components (MapReduce => /mapred/...) HDFS is using the /dfs/... layout structure

13. format the HDFS hadoop file system:
    
14. Start the java components for the HDFS system
    
15. As an additional check, you can use the GUI Hadoop browsers to check the content of your HDFS configurations:
    
    

    Once our HDFS Hadoop setup is done you can use the HDFS file system to store data ( big data : )), and plug them back and forth to Oracle Databases by the means of the Big Data Connectors ( which is the next configuration step).

    You can create / use a Hive db, but in our case we will make a simple integration of "raw data" , through the creation of an External Table to a local Oracle instance ( on the same Linux box, we run the Hadoop HDFS one node cluster and one Oracle DB).

16. Download some public "big data", I use the site: http://france.meteofrance.com/france/observations, from where I can get *.csv files for my big data simulations :).

    Here is the data layout of my example file:

    

    Download the Big Data Connector from the OTN (oraosch-2.2.0.zip), unzip it to your local file system (see picture below)

    
17. Modify your environment in order to access the connector libraries , and make the following test:
    
    

    [oracle@dg1 bin]$./hdfs_stream
    Usage: hdfs_stream locationFile
    [oracle@dg1 bin]$
    

18. Load the data to the Hadoop hdfs file system:

    hadoop fs  -mkdir bgtest_data
    hadoop  fs  -put obsFrance.txt bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt
    hadoop fs  -ls  /user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt       
    [oracle@dg1 bg-data-raw]$ hadoop fs -ls  /user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt
    
    Found 1 items
    -rw-r--r--   1 oracle supergroup      54103 2013-10-22 06:10 /user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt
    
    [oracle@dg1 bg-data-raw]$hadoop fs -ls  hdfs:///user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt
    
    Found 1 items
    -rw-r--r--   1 oracle supergroup      54103 2013-10-22 06:10 /user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt
    

19. Check the content of the HDFS with the browser UI:
    
20. Start the Oracle database, and run the following script in order to create the Oracle database user, the Oracle directories for the Oracle Big Data Connector (dg1 it’s my own db id replace accordingly yours):

    #!/bin/bash
    export ORAENV_ASK=NO
    export ORACLE_SID=dg1
    . oraenv
    sqlplus /nolog <<EOF
    CONNECT / AS sysdba;
    CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY osch_bin_path  AS  '/u01/orahdfs-2.2.0/bin';
    CREATE USER BGUSER IDENTIFIED BY oracle;
    GRANT CREATE SESSION, CREATE TABLE TO BGUSER;
    GRANT EXECUTE ON sys.utl_file TO BGUSER;
    GRANT READ, EXECUTE ON DIRECTORY osch_bin_path TO BGUSER;
    CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY BGT_LOG_DIR as '/u01/BG_TEST/logs';
    GRANT READ, WRITE ON DIRECTORY BGT_LOG_DIR to BGUSER;
    CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY BGT_DATA_DIR as '/u01/BG_TEST/data';
    GRANT READ, WRITE ON DIRECTORY BGT_DATA_DIR to BGUSER;
    EOF
    

21. Put the following in a file named t3.sh and make it executable,

    hadoop jar $OSCH_HOME/jlib/orahdfs.jar \
    oracle.hadoop.exttab.ExternalTable \
    -D oracle.hadoop.exttab.tableName=BGTEST_DP_XTAB \
    -D oracle.hadoop.exttab.defaultDirectory=BGT_DATA_DIR \
    -D oracle.hadoop.exttab.dataPaths="hdfs:///user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt" \
    -D oracle.hadoop.exttab.columnCount=7 \
    -D oracle.hadoop.connection.url=jdbc:oracle:thin:@//localhost:1521/dg1 \
    -D oracle.hadoop.connection.user=BGUSER \
    -D oracle.hadoop.exttab.printStackTrace=true \
    -createTable  --noexecute
    

    then test the creation fo the external table with it:

    [oracle@dg1 samples]$ ./t3.sh
    
    ./t3.sh: line 2: /u01/orahdfs-2.2.0: Is a directory
    Oracle SQL Connector for HDFS Release 2.2.0 - Production
    Copyright (c) 2011, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
    Enter Database Password:]
    The create table command was not executed.
    The following table would be created.
    CREATE TABLE "BGUSER"."BGTEST_DP_XTAB"
    (
     "C1"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C2"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C3"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C4"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C5"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C6"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C7"                             VARCHAR2(4000)
    )
    ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
    (
       TYPE ORACLE_LOADER
       DEFAULT DIRECTORY "BGT_DATA_DIR"
       ACCESS PARAMETERS
       (
         RECORDS DELIMITED BY 0X'0A'
         CHARACTERSET AL32UTF8
         STRING SIZES ARE IN CHARACTERS
         PREPROCESSOR "OSCH_BIN_PATH":'hdfs_stream'
         FIELDS TERMINATED BY 0X'2C'
         MISSING FIELD VALUES ARE NULL
         (
           "C1" CHAR(4000),
           "C2" CHAR(4000),
           "C3" CHAR(4000),
           "C4" CHAR(4000),
           "C5" CHAR(4000),
           "C6" CHAR(4000),
           "C7" CHAR(4000)
         )
       )
       LOCATION
       (
         'osch-20131022081035-74-1'
       )
    ) PARALLEL REJECT LIMIT UNLIMITED;
    The following location files would be created.
    osch-20131022081035-74-1 contains 1 URI, 54103 bytes
           54103 hdfs://localhost:19000/user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt
    

22. Then remove the --noexecute flag and create the external Oracle table for the Hadoop data.

    Check the results:

    
    The create table command succeeded.
    
    CREATE TABLE "BGUSER"."BGTEST_DP_XTAB"
    (
     "C1"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C2"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C3"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C4"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C5"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C6"                             VARCHAR2(4000),
     "C7"                             VARCHAR2(4000)
    )
    ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
    ( 
       TYPE ORACLE_LOADER
       DEFAULT DIRECTORY "BGT_DATA_DIR"
       ACCESS PARAMETERS
       (
         RECORDS DELIMITED BY 0X'0A'
         CHARACTERSET AL32UTF8
         STRING SIZES ARE IN CHARACTERS
         PREPROCESSOR "OSCH_BIN_PATH":'hdfs_stream'
         FIELDS TERMINATED BY 0X'2C'
         MISSING FIELD VALUES ARE NULL
         (
           "C1" CHAR(4000),
           "C2" CHAR(4000),
           "C3" CHAR(4000),
           "C4" CHAR(4000),
           "C5" CHAR(4000),
           "C6" CHAR(4000),
           "C7" CHAR(4000)
         )
       )
       LOCATION
       (
         'osch-20131022081719-3239-1'
       )
    ) PARALLEL REJECT LIMIT UNLIMITED;
    
    The following location files were created.
    
    osch-20131022081719-3239-1 contains 1 URI, 54103 bytes
    
           54103 hdfs://localhost:19000/user/oracle/bgtest_data/obsFrance.txt
    

    This is the view from the SQL Developer:

    

    and finally the number of lines in the oracle table, imported from our Hadoop HDFS cluster

    SQL> select count(*) from "BGUSER"."BGTEST_DP_XTAB";
                      
    COUNT(*)
    ----------
          1151
    
    

In a next post we will integrate data from a Hive database, and try some ODI integrations with the ODI Big Data connector. Our simplistic approach is just a step to show you how these unstructured data world can be integrated to Oracle infrastructure.

Hadoop, BigData, NoSql are great technologies, they are widely used and Oracle is offering a large integration infrastructure based on these services.

Oracle University presents a complete curriculum on all the Oracle related technologies:

NoSQL:

• Introduction to Oracle NoSQL Database
• Using Oracle NoSQL Database

Big Data:

• Introduction to Big Data
• Oracle Big Data Essentials
• Oracle Big Data Overview

Oracle Data Integrator:

• Oracle Data Integrator 12c: New Features
• Oracle Data Integrator 11g: Integration and Administration
• Oracle Data Integrator: Administration and Development
• Oracle Data Integrator 11g: Advanced Integration and Development

Oracle Coherence 12c:

• Oracle Coherence 12c: New Features
• Oracle Coherence 12c: Share and Manage Data in Clusters

Oracle Coherence 12c:

• Oracle GoldenGate 11g: Fundamentals for Oracle
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g: Fundamentals for SQL Server
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g Fundamentals for Oracle
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g Fundamentals for DB2
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g Fundamentals for Teradata
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g Fundamentals for HP NonStop
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g Management Pack: Overview
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g Troubleshooting and Tuning
• Oracle GoldenGate 11g: Advanced Configuration for Oracle

Other Resources:

• Apache Hadoop : http://hadoop.apache.org/ is the homepage for these technologies.
• "Hadoop Definitive Guide 3rdEdition" by Tom White is a classical lecture for people who want to know more about Hadoop , and some active "googling " will also give you some more references.

About the author:

Eugene Simos is based in France and joined Oracle through the BEA-Weblogic Acquisition, where he worked for the Professional Service, Support, end Education for major accounts across the EMEA Region. He worked in the banking sector, ATT, Telco companies giving him extensive experience on production environments. Eugen currently specializes in Oracle Fusion Middleware teaching an array of courses on Weblogic/Webcenter, Content,BPM /SOA/Identity-Security/GoldenGate/Virtualisation/Unified Comm Suite) throughout the EMEA region.