Oracle EM 12c Release 2 Now Available

Last week, on September 13 2012, Oracle announced general availability of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2. The release introduces unique capabilities for deploying and managing business applications in an enterprise private cloud, such as Java Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), enhanced business application management, and integrated hardware-software management for Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Release 2 is now available on the OTN Download Page. This is the first major release since the EM 12c launch in October of 2011. This release contains many new features and enhancements in areas across the board. It is also the first ever Enterprise Manager release available on all platforms simultaneously.

Installation and Upgrade:

• All major platforms have been released simultaneously (Linux 32 / 64 bit, Solaris (SPARC), Solaris x86-64, IBM AIX 64-bit, and Windows x86-64 (64-bit) )
• Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.2 is a complete release that includes both the EM OMS and Agent versions of 12.1.0.2.
• Installation options available with EM 12.1.0.2: The user can do a fresh Install or an upgrade from versions EM 10.2.0.5, 11.1, or 12.1.0.2 ( Bundle Patch 1 not mandatory).
• Upgrading to EM 12.1.0.2 from EM 12.1.0.1 is not a patch application (similar to Bundle Patch 1) but is achieved through a 1-system upgrade. 

Documentation:

• The Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Introduction Document provides a broad overview of capabilities and highlights "What's New" in EM 12.1.0.2. The direct link for what's new is : http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e25353/whats_new.htm#CEGIFFGA

• You can easily upgrade EM Release I to EM Release II by following the instructions in the Upgrade guide at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/upgrade.121/e22625/toc.htm

• You can also watch the upgrade webcast on the OTN at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oem/grid-control/ondemand-webcast-100686.html 

• All updated Oracle Enterprise Manager documentation can be found on OTN 

New Capabilities and Features Increase Cloud Control: There are enhanced management capabilities for enterprise private clouds.Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2 introduces new capabilities to allow customers to build and manage a Java Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud based on Oracle WebLogic Server, including guided set up of a PaaS Cloud, self-service provisioning, automatic scale out, and metering and chargeback;

Enhanced lifecycle management capabilities for Oracle WebLogic Server enables synchronized patching and configuration file management to help ease management of multi-domain web environments;

Integrated hardware-software management for Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud through features such as rack schematics visualization and integrated monitoring of all hardware and software components.

New management capabilities for business-critical applications include: A new Business Application (BA) target type and dashboard with flexible definitions provides a logical view of an application's business transactions, end-user experiences and the cloud infrastructure the monitored application is running on;

Oracle Real User Experience Insight has been enhanced to provide reporting capabilities on client-side issues for applications running in the cloud and has been more tightly coupled with Oracle Business Transaction Management to help ensure that real-time user experience and transaction tracing data is provided to users in context.

Several key improvements address ease of administration, reporting and extensibility for massively scalable cloud environments including dynamic groups, self-updateable monitoring templates, and bulk operations against many events, etc.

New and Revised Plug-Ins:

Several plug-Ins have been updated as a part of this release resulting in either new versions or revisions. 

Plug-In Name	Version
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Database	12.1.0.2 (revision)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Fusion Middleware	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Chargeback and Capacity Planning	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Fusion Applications	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Virtualization	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Exadata	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Cloud	12.1.0.4 (new)