FlashGrid Server (non-clustered) on Google Cloud. Deployment Guide – FlashGrid Help Center

rev. 26.05

1 Overview
    1.1 Key Benefits
    1.2 Key Components
    1.3 Infrastructure-as-Code Deployment
2 Prerequisites
    2.1 Service Account for Infrastructure Manager
    2.2 Uploading Oracle Installation Files to a Storage Bucket
    2.3 Preparing the VPC
3 Deploying FlashGrid Server
4 After Deploying
    4.1 Verifying a VM Instance Status
    4.2 OS User Accounts
    4.3 Finalizing Software Configuration
    4.4 Enabling Deletion Protection
    4.5 Installing an Additional Database Home
    4.6 Use of Anti-virus and Other Third-party Software
    4.7 Use of Automatic Configuration Tools
    4.8 Security Hardening
    4.9 Convert RHEL PAYG to BYOS License
5 Monitoring Instance Health
6 Before Going Live
7 Deleting a FlashGrid Server Deployment
8 Additional Documentation
9 Technical Support

1 Overview

FlashGrid Server is an engineered cloud system for running Oracle Databases in public clouds. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for system and database administrators deploying FlashGrid Server with Oracle Database on Google Cloud.

1.1 Key Benefits

Key benefits of using FlashGrid Server for running Oracle Database on Google Cloud VM instances

Automated and repeatable Infrastructure-as-Code deployment with the help of FlashGrid Launcher tool.
Operating system optimized in accordance with proven best practices for running Oracle Database.
Extensive validation for compatibility and reliable operation between the Google Cloud Compute Engine VMs, the OS, and the Oracle Database, including OS updates and Oracle patches.
Monitoring, logging, and diagnostics tools that help prevent and analyze reliability issues.
24x7 support for the entire infrastructure stack provided by engineers with Google Cloud, Linux OS, and Oracle Database expertise.

1.2 Key Components

Key components of FlashGrid Server on Google Cloud:

FlashGrid Storage Fabric software
FlashGrid Cloud Area Network software
Oracle Database: 26ai or 19c
Oracle Grid Infrastructure: 26ai or 19c
Operating Systems:
- Oracle Linux: 9 (UEKR7)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL): 8 or 9
Compute Engine VM instance types:
- General-purpose: c4, c4d, c3, c3d
- Memory-optimized: m4, m3
Disks: Hyperdisk Balanced and Balanced Persistent Disks

1.3 Infrastructure-as-Code Deployment

FlashGrid Server is delivered as Google Cloud Terraform modules that automate configuration of multiple components required for a database server. FlashGrid Launcher is an online tool that simplifies the deployment process by guiding through the server configuration parameters and generating Terraform modules.

Detailed information about FlashGrid Server for Oracle databases on Google Cloud is available on the following page:

FlashGrid Server For Oracle DB on Google Cloud

2 Prerequisites

2.1 Service Account for Infrastructure Manager

If you use Infrastructure Manager, create and configure a service account, for example for-infra-manager@your-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com. Grant the service account the Cloud Infrastructure Manager Agent role and any additional roles required by the resources in your deployment, such as Compute Admin for Compute Engine resources.

2.2 Uploading Oracle Installation Files to a Storage Bucket

During software initialization Oracle installation files will be downloaded from a storage bucket. The list of files that must be placed in the storage bucket will be shown in FlashGrid Launcher. The same storage bucket can be used for deploying multiple instances. If any of the required Oracle files is missing or inaccessible, then the software initialization will fail.

Enabling public access to the bucket allows FlashGrid Launcher tool to verify that all required files are accessible. To enable public access, add allUsers with Storage Object Viewer (or Storage Legacy Object Reader) to the bucket permissions.

If allowing public access to the bucket is not possible then create the bucket with uniform bucket-level access enabled and create a service account, for example download-oracle-files@your-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com. Grant that service account the Storage Object Viewer role on the bucket so the Compute Engine VM can download the required Oracle files. Then grant the Infrastructure Manager service account access as Service Account User:

Open Service Accounts in Google Cloud Console IAM and select your project.
Click on download-oracle-files@your-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com.
Click on the Principals with access tab.
Click Grant Access.
Add for-infra-manager@your-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com.
Select the Service Account User from the Role dropdown.
Click Save.

You will specify both the storage bucket and the service account in FlashGrid Launcher.

2.3 Preparing the VPC

When creating a new instance, you have two options:

Automatically create a new VPC.

This option is usually used for test systems isolated in their own sandbox VPCs. A VPC will be created together with the required subnet and firewall rules. By default, the VPC will be created with CIDR 10.100.0.0/16.
Create the instance in an existing VPC.

This option is used for majority of production deployments where other systems (e.g. app servers) share the same VPC as the instance. In the FlashGrid Launcher tool you will need to provide name of the subnet where the system will be placed. Existing Legacy networks are not supported. Optionally you may provide Network Tags and Secure Tag values. VPC firewall rules can use these as "target tags" to define which VMs a rule applies to; the rule then affects traffic to the VM's primary internal IP on that VPC network. Secure tags are organization-level tag keys and values managed through Resource Manager and IAM.

If you use an existing VPC, make sure the following prerequisites are met before creating an instance:

The VPC may have any CIDR that does not overlap with 192.168.0.0/16, for example 10.100.0.0/16. If you must use VPC with CIDR that overlaps with 192.168.0.0/16 then please request a customized configuration file from FlashGrid support.
The VPC has a subnet in the target region.
The subnet has Private Google Access configured.
Firewall rules allow ingress traffic on the following ports:
- Inbound: TCP port 22 for SSH access to the instance
- Inbound: TCP port 5901 if you choose to use VNC for creating a database using DBCA in GUI mode with direct connection (vs. SSH tunnel)
- Inbound: TCP port 1521 for database client and application server access
- Inbound access to the ports listed above must be allowed only from those source tags or IP ranges that require such access. Do not configure 0.0.0.0/0 as an allowed source in VPC firewall rules.
FlashGrid Server VM is configured to use VPC's MTU settings. For the best performance, it's recommended to set the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the VPC to 8896. However, ensure that these MTU settings do not interfere with other resources using the VPC.

3 Deploying FlashGrid Server

The FlashGrid Launcher tool simplifies instance deployment on Google Cloud Compute Engine by automating the following tasks:

Creating and configuring VPC, subnet, and firewall rules (optional)
Creating block storage volumes and launching Compute Engine VM instance
Installing and configuring FlashGrid Cloud Area Network
Installing and configuring FlashGrid Storage Fabric
Installing and patching Oracle Grid Infrastructure software
Configuring Grid Infrastructure
Installing and patching Oracle Database software
Creating ASM disk groups

To create an instance

Log in to Google Cloud Console with a user account that has the following privileges:
- Compute Admin
- Infra Manager Admin
- Storage Admin
Open FlashGrid Launcher tool:
- Start with one of the standard configurations at https://www.flashgrid.io/products/flashgrid-for-oracle-db-on-google-cloud/
- or, if you have a custom configuration file, upload it at https://latest.cloudprov.flashgrid.io/
Configure parameters for the deployment
If verification passes, then click Download Terraform button to download Terraform configuration.
Extract the downloaded Terraform module and upload the Terraform configuration to a Google Storage bucket.

Note: upload the extracted folder, not the downloaded archive file.
Go to the new Terraform deployment page in Infrastructure Manager.
Create a new deployment by supplying the Deployment ID, Region, and Service Account.
Set Source of Terraform configuration to GCS.
Set the Cloud Storage path (e.g. gs://your-bucket/path-to-terraform-directory) as the source for the Terraform configuration. Click Continue.
Fill in the Project ID in the Terraform Details section, then click the Create Deployment button to start the deployment.

Wait until creating the deployment completes.

Note: Cloud Build Logs may contain an error like

2025/10/16 16:27:15 [DEBUG] Loading disk type: hyperdisk-balanced
time="2025-10-16T16:27:15Z" level=error msg="error converting resource with address
module.flashgrid_cluster.google_compute_instance.cluster_instances[\"myhostname\"] and type
google_compute_instance : The zonal field for resource disks cannot be empty."

This error is considered benign and can be safely ignored if the deployment is completed successfully without other issues.

SSH to the instance with your username.
The welcome message will show the current initialization status of the instance: in progress, failed, or completed.
If initialization is still in progress, then wait for it to complete (this includes Oracle software installation and configuration). You will receive a broadcast message when initialization completes or fails. Software initialization takes approximately 30 minutes, this includes Oracle software installation and configuration.

Note: for deploying FlashGrid Server with SELinux please refer to the Knowledge Base article How to configure SELinux mode during system deployment.

4 After Deploying

4.1 Verifying a VM Instance Status

On an instance run flashgrid-health-check command to verify that the instance status is Good and all checks are passing.

[fg@myhostname ~]$ flashgrid-health-check

HealthCheck 20.9.1.57074 #7226b34d571618368a70c9af809e5f150f8c67ba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Check: ASM DiskGroup status
    myhostname: OK
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      GroupName  Status  Mounted   Type    TotalMiB  FreeMiB  OfflineDisks  LostDisks  Resync  ReadLocal  Vote
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      DATA       Good    AllNodes  EXTERN  6144      6028     0             0          No      Enabled    N/A
      FRA        Good    AllNodes  EXTERN  6144      6040     0             0          No      Enabled    N/A
      GRID       Good    AllNodes  EXTERN  5120      5020     0             0          No      Disabled   N/A
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check: Alerts in Storage Fabric logs in the last 7 days
      myhostname: OK

Check: Available memory
      myhostname: OK : avail mem: 27.7%

Check: Check db memory settings
      myhostname: OK

Check: Check local_listener for each db
      myhostname: OK

Check: Check tnsnames.ora
      myhostname: OK

Check: Flashgrid CLAN check
      myhostname: OK

Check: Free system disk space
      myhostname: OK : /u01: avail 66%, /: avail 90%

Check: Kernel taint check
      myhostname: OK

Check: SF node status
      myhostname: OK

Check: Swap disabled
      myhostname: OK : Swap disabled

Check: System config file modifications
      myhostname: OK

Check: System services
      myhostname: OK

Check: Unexpected or 3rd party RPMs installed
      myhostname: OK

Check: Unexpected or 3rd party services enabled
      myhostname: OK

4.2 OS User Accounts

During software initialization the following OS user accounts are created:

fg - the user account for running some of the FlashGrid Storage Fabric or FlashGrid Cloud Area Network utilities. The user fg has sudo rights.
grid - Grid Infrastructure (GI) owner. GI environment variables are preconfigured.
oracle - Database home owner. Database environment variables, except ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_UNQNAME, are preconfigured. After creating a database, you can configure ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_UNQNAME by editing /home/oracle/.bashrc file.

Note that no passwords are configured for any users. Also, password based SSH authentication is disabled in /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Key-based authentication is recommended for better security. Creating passwords for any user is not recommended.

User fg has sudo rights and allows switching to any other user without requiring a password (which is not configured by default). Example:

sudo su - grid

4.3 Finalizing Software Configuration

See the Knowledge Base article Creating a Database for instructions.

Note: ACFS support on RHEL may require an additional Oracle Clusterware patch. Please refer to Oracle KB129209 for ACFS patch information.

4.4 Enabling Deletion Protection

If the instance is for production use, then it is strongly recommended to enable deletion protection for the Compute Engine VM instance. If you did not enable deletion protection in FlashGrid Launcher during deployment, follow the steps below to enable it now.

Edit main.tf in the Terraform folder and set deletion_protection = true
Upload the updated main.tf to the Google Cloud Storage bucket used by the deployment, choosing Overwrite.
Open Infrastructure Manager and select the deployment that corresponds to the Compute Engine VM instance.
Click Edit and then Update and wait until the deployment update completes.

4.5 Installing an Additional Database Home

In most cases manual installation of database software is not required. However, if you need to install an additional database home, then follow Oracle Database documentation for installing the database software.

4.6 Use of Anti-virus and Other Third-party Software

If anti-virus software must be used, then it is recommended to configure it in a way that avoids putting any files in quarantine. Automatic quarantine of files creates risk of the system downtime in case of a false positive detection on a critical system file on a Compute Engine VM instance.

Any proprietary kernel modules installed by third-party software create risks to reliable operation of the system. Such proprietary kernel modules are not tested or supported by FlashGrid, Red Hat, or Oracle. Proprietary kernel modules may consume kernel resources and may create instability, especially under high load. Symptoms may include kernel crashes, network disruptions, storage i/o disruptions, and server brown-out. If such reliability issue is encountered and no other root cause can be readily identified, FlashGrid support reserves the right to request removal of all proprietary kernel modules before continuing investigation.

4.7 Use of Automatic Configuration Tools

Automatic configuration tools (e.g. Ansible, Salt, etc.) must be used with extra care. Incorrect modification of a critical system file (e.g. /etc/resolv.conf) may cause system downtime. Note that many critical system configuration files are protected with immutable attribute and have warnings in them. Do not remove the immutable attribute or allow automatic modification of such files unless absolutely necessary.

4.8 Security Hardening

The system is deployed using Linux images that have main security best practices implemented by default. The following steps are recommended, in case additional security hardening is required.

For applying a different hardening profile, the following steps are recommended:

Request FlashGrid support to review the list of required changes.
Back up an instance.
Implement the required changes.
Restart the instance.
Verify health of the system as user fg:
```
flashgrid-health-check
```
In case of errors, roll back the changes or restore the system from backup

4.9 Convert RHEL PAYG to BYOS License

If RHEL is used, a Compute Engine VM instance is provisioned with a RHEL PAYG license attached. To adopt BYOS, the RHEL license must be removed as per the procedure documented by Google Cloud, following server deployment.

5 Monitoring Instance Health

The following methods of monitoring system health are available:

flashgrid-health-check utility checks multiple items including database configuration, storage, OS kernel, config file modifications, errors in the logs, and other items that may affect health of the system or could help with troubleshooting. It is recommended for manual checks only.
FlashGrid Node Monitor service is part of the flashgrid-diags package. It provides monitoring of various system health indicators, including CPU utilization, available memory, and clocks.
Alerts about failures are recorded in system log and can be analyzed by 3rd-party tools.
Email alerts can be configured in FlashGrid Launcher and sent to one or several email addresses. See the Knowledge Base article Configuring email for FlashGrid notifications.
FlashGrid Node Monitor can send alerts and diagnostic uploads via HTTP/HTTPS to a remote endpoint, with support for routing through an HTTP proxy. Node Monitor detects a condition, then sends either an email alert and/or an HTTP/REST request to a monitoring/alerting service.
ASM disk group monitoring and alerting via Oracle Enterprise Manager.

6 Before Going Live

Before switching the system to live use (run commands as user fg):

Confirm that only minimally required access to the server is allowed in network security settings, and remove any unnecessary access
Verify health of the instance: flashgrid-health-check
Confirm that email alerts are configured and delivered: flashgrid-node test-alerts
Upload diags to FlashGrid support: flashgrid-diags upload-all
Stop the instance and back it up.
Start the instance and do final check of the system health: flashgrid-health-check

7 Deleting a FlashGrid Server Deployment

To delete a FlashGrid server deployment

Disable VM deletion protection in Terraform if it was enabled:
- Edit main.tf in the Terraform folder and set deletion_protection = false
- Upload the updated main.tf to the Google Cloud Storage bucket used by the deployment, choosing Overwrite.
- Open Infrastructure Manager and select the deployment that corresponds to the Compute Engine VM instance
- Click Edit and then Update and wait until the deployment update completes.
Delete the deployment:
- In Infrastructure Manager, click Delete for the deployment and confirm the deletion.

8 Additional Documentation

FlashGrid Server on Google Cloud Knowledge Base

FlashGrid Server on Google Cloud Backup Best Practices

FlashGrid Storage Fabric CLI Reference Guide

FlashGrid Cloud Area Network CLI Reference Guide

9 Technical Support

For technical help with FlashGrid Server please open a support request.

To expedite troubleshooting please also collect and upload diagnostic data to the secure storage used by FlashGrid support by running the following command as user fg:

flashgrid-diags upload-all

For reporting emergency type of issues that require immediate attention please also use the 24/7 telephone hotline: +1-650-641-2421 ext 7. Please note that use of the 24/7 hotline is reserved for emergency situations only.

Support Tiers and SLA details document: FlashGrid Technical Support Services.

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