Choosing a Java vendor in Lifecycle Manager

In all cases, it is the customer’s responsibility to ensure they are running an appropriately licensed Java runtime that is compatible with DSE. OpenJDK users can potentially maintain compliance at no incremental cost beyond what is required to use the operating system itself, but it is ultimately the customer’s responsibility to understand and maintain compliance with their licensing obligations.

If LCM is used to install and configure DSE on a cluster, LCM manages the Java installation by default. In OpsCenter 6.0.0-6.5.x, LCM installs the latest public version of the Oracle Java 8 runtime. LCM installs the OpenJDK 8 runtime provided by the operating system as a .deb or .rpm package.

LCM automatically migrates existing clusters from the Oracle Java 8 runtime to the OpenJDK 8 runtime in addition to installing OpenJDK for newly installed clusters. No action is necessary to perform this migration, which occurs automatically the first time an install or upgrade job is run on each node of a cluster.

Not all supported platforms provide an OpenJDK 8 package that is compatible with DSE 6.0 through DSE 6.8. For example, Ubuntu 14.04 does not provide this package. On such platforms, LCM jobs might initially fail after upgrading to OpsCenter 6.8. In these cases, take one of the following actions:

If LCM is used to install and configure DSE on a cluster, but manage-java was previously unselected in the Java Setup page of all relevant config profiles, LCM continues to respect that selection. No action is necessary. LCM does not attempt to install a Java runtime, and Java can be installed outside of LCM as a prerequisite prior to running an install job.

By default, LCM manages the installation of the Java runtime. To determine how Java is managed for a specific cluster, inspect all relevant configuration profiles, select the Java Setup tab, and review whether the manage-java checkbox is selected.

Previous versions of LCM are still capable of installing the Oracle Java 8 runtime, provided it is available for download from Oracle or from a privately-hosted custom URL. Starting in April 2019, commercial users cannot obtain a no-cost license from Oracle, and must purchase a license from Oracle directly, or migrate to an alternative Java runtime.

Upgrading to OpsCenter 6.8 or greater provides a migration path to using the OpenJDK 8 runtime provided by the operating system as a .deb or .rpm package.

In all cases, it is necessary to run an appropriately licensed Java runtime that is compatible with DSE. This necessity could require changes in how Java is licensed and deployed by your organization.