My New EM11g Book is in stock now

I am pleased to say my first EM11g book is in stock and is being delivered now.

Thanks to all my readers for their patience. The book is not very expensive,

only $19.95 USD (30% off if ordered now).

http://www.rampant-books.com/book_1001_advanced_techniques_oem_grid_control.htm

Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control: Advanced OEM Techniques for the Real World

Oracle’s Enterprise Manager Grid Control is recognized as the IT Industry’s leading Oracle database administration and management tool. It is unrivalled in its ability to monitor, manage, maintain and report on entire enterprise grids that comprise hundreds (if not thousands) of Oracle databases and servers following an approach that is consistent and repeatable.

However, Enterprise Manager Grid Control may seem daunting even to the most advanced Oracle Administrator. The problem is you know about the power of Enterprise Manager but how do you unleash that power amongst what initially appears to be a maze of GUI-based screens that feature a myriad of links to reports and management tasks that in turn lead you to even more reports and management tasks?

This book shows you how to unleash that power.

Based on the Author’s considerable and practical Oracle database and Enterprise Manager Grid Control experience you will learn through illustrated examples how to create and schedule RMAN backups, generate Data Guard Standbys, clone databases and Oracle Homes and patch databases across hundreds and thousands of databases. You will learn how you can unlock the power of the Enterprise Manager Grid Control Packs, PlugIns and Connectors to simplify your database administration across your company’s database network, as also the management and monitoring of important Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and the nuances of all important real-time change control using Enterprise Manager.

There are other books on the market that describe how to install and configure Enterprise Manager but until now they haven’t explained using a simple and illustrated approach how to get the most out of your Enterprise Manager. This book does just that.

Covers the NEW Enterprise Manager Grid Control 11g.

Regards,

Porus.

Latest List of my Published White Papers and Technical Articles on OTN

Many of you have asked me for a full list of all my published technical articles/white papers on the Oracle Technical Network (OTN), for easy reference. Here is the latest list as of Oct 2012. I have placed the white papers at the top, and the articles are in chronological order in the article list. The latest article on Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c, published in October 2012, is right at the bottom of the list. A couple of these articles were even in the most popular OTN article list in 2009.

My Published White Papers on Oracle Technology Network (OTN)

White Paper: Advanced Uses of Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g
White Paper: Managing Oracle Applications with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g

My Published Articles on Oracle Technology Network (OTN)
Using Grid Control with Filer Snapshotting
Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control Architecture for Very Large Sites
Oracle RMAN Backups: Pushing the "Easy" Button
Patch a Thousand Databases, Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control
Easy Disaster Proof Production with Grid Control
Using Oracle GoldenGate for Real-Time Data Integration
Mask Your Secrets Using Oracle Enterprise Manager
Manage Mass Provisioning Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control

Overview of Oracle EM Management Packs

Provision Your Oracle RAC Systems Using Oracle Enterprise Manager
NEW!! Ease the Chaos with Automated Patching: Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c

Happy Reading

No one manages Oracle technology better than Oracle

There are several features in Oracle EM that third-parties do not have.

For eg., the EM Tuning pack has the SQL Profile. The SQL Profile contains auxiliary information collected by the ATO for a SQL statement and compensates for missing or stale statistics or errors in optimizer estimates, and is able to improve performance of even packaged application SQL without changing the code. No other non-Oracle software has this.

Oracle EM is also integrated with My Oracle Support in a way no other software can match and this is a big plus point.

The Application Management Suite for Oracle EBS can manage cloning, patching and customizations, in a way no other software can match. And there are App Mgt Suites for EBS, PeopleSoft and Siebel.

No one manages Oracle technology better than Oracle, and that is a fact. Management has to decide if they want to bypass all that EM has to offer, or they want to use it. It makes sense to use EM. The Oracle stack is best managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager.

For more information, please refer to my OTN article:

Overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager Management Packs

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/oem-packs-overview-195704.html

New Article on Data Masking published on OTN

Friends, a new article I wrote on the Data Masking Pack of Enterprise Manager Grid Control has been published on August 2010 on the Oracle Technology Network. This is the article:

Mask Your Secrets Using Oracle Enterprise Manager

Please read and recommend to your friends. Thanks a lot.

My New Grid Control book

Friends,

I am pleased to announce that my new book "Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control: Advanced OEM Techniques for the Real World" is getting ready to be published soon (Fall 2010) by Rampant Techpress:

http://www.rampant-books.com/book_1001_advanced_techniques_oem_grid_control.htm

Please do recommend to all your friends and colleagues, it is a great handy book if you really want to make best use of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control.

I have based it on a lot of practical experience and I am sure it will be useful to a lot of you.

Regards,

Porus Homi Havewala
(Oracle ACE Director).

Final 2009 seminar on Oracle Performance Options, Products and Enterprise Manager Packs

This Friday, I conducted another interesting seminar which was S&I System's last Oracle seminar for the year. The topic was Oracle Performance Options, Products and Enterprise Manager Packs.

These were the topics I covered. The clients were introduced to many new Oracle concepts for the first time.

• Partitioning Option, and improvements in 11gR2
• Parallel Query Option, and improvements in 11gR2
• Advanced Compression Option (11g), and Hybrid Columnar Compression in 11gR2
• Active Data Guard (11g)
• In-memory Database Cache (Times-Ten), and it's Grid in 11gR2
• Enterprise Manager Diagnostics and Tuning Packs
  

The following Enterprise Manager packs were also demonstrated in live demos:

• Service Level Management Pack
• Configuration Management Pack
• Diagnostics and Tuning Packs
• Remedy Connector
  

I also demo'ed the new Enterprise Manager feature of SQL Monitoring of long-running SQL in 11g databases, which suitably impressed the attendees.

A number of clients immediately expressed interest in using the Service Level Management and Configuration Management packs for their hundreds of database targets, and discussed Grid Control architecture for such large systems.

The 2009 list of successful Oracle seminars conducted by S&I Systems can be seen on:

http://www.si-asia.com/marketing/oracleworkshops2009/

Grid Control manages the Lot

Ray Payne,  Principal Architect, Oracle Infrastructure at The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, mentioned in an answer to a LinkedIn question: 

We are finding that Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control and various management packs and plug-ins are pretty comprehensive. We are using for Database, Operating System, Middleware, Applications (EBusiness Suite and Peoplesoft), as well as our EMC Storage and F5 BigIP load balancers. Comprehensive, and all in one tool supported by one vendor. 

I fully support and second what Ray has said. Grid Control indeed manages the lot.

Bare Metal Provisioning

Just saw a blog by Johan Louwers in which he speaks of moving to Oracle

Enterprise Linux by kick-starting from an image of Linux on the network:

http://johanlouwers.blogspot.com/2008/08/kickstart-oracle-unbreakable-linux.html

Good decision to move to Oracle Enterprise Linux. I wonder though, did he consider using the Provisioning Pack of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, and the "bare metal provisoning" feature which can create Linux servers out of bare metal based on a Gold image. That would have saved him from re-inventing manually what Oracle has already done with Grid Control.

Question on Sybase plugin for Grid Control

Rajesh asked this question:

===========================================
Hi, I'm trying to configure Sybase ASE plug-in for OEM Grid control. Have downloaded the plug-in and imported into OEM Grid (in setup ---> Management Plug-in's section). The question is about the below section of the pre-requisites which says the apart from OEM Grid Control, we also need to have the agent for windows.
*****************************
-Oracle Management agent for Windows 10.2.0.1 or higherYou can install the agent on the same computer as Sybase Adaptive Server (referred to as local agent monitoring), or you can install the agent on a different computer from Sybase Adaptive Server (referred to as remote agent monitoring).
*****************************
Does it mean do we need to install the agent software on the Sybase host (our Sybase ASE runs on Linux) and if so, do we need to install Agent software for Linux? Do we need to install that as Sybase user or do we need to create the Oracle account on the server? Documentation is not clear on this area. Can someone who installed and configured the plug-in for ASE explain this? Thanks, Rajesh
===========================================

Rajesh, you need to install the Oracle EM10g Agent software on your target Sybase linux server. Install it as the oracle user in its own home. The agent is required for all targets, treat that as a general rule. All the Best.

EM Packs and Plug-Ins

Many people do not realize how powerful Enterprise Manager Grid Control
has become, with the ability to monitor and manage almost anything. This
is done via Enterprise Manager Packs and Plug-Ins.

These are the main licensable packs for Grid Control, ie, using these
packs needs a licence fee, most people pay per processor:

• Diagnostic Pack
• Tuning Pack
• Provisioning Pack
• Change Management Pack
• Configuration Management Pack
• Data Masking Pack

Most of the Dbas using Grid Control may have used the Diagnostic Pack and
Tuning Pack that are the most commonly used packs for performance issues.
Some of these packs can be used for the database, application server as
well as other infrastructure, for eg, the diagnostic pack.

A number of Dbas may also have used the Provisioning pack, which is used for
patch application, Oracle software cloning, RAC provisioning. The Change
management pack has also been used by some Dbas for comparing
schemas, databases, and dictionary baselines.

The Configuration Management Pack and Data Masking Pack are quite new,
we would love to hear from Dbas who have used these and what their
experience is.

Other packs available for Grid Control are:

• Diagnostic Pack for non-Oracle middleware
• Oracle Linux Management Pack
• SOA Managment Pack
• Identity Management Pack
• Service Level Management Pack
• Business Intelligence Management Pack
• Management Pack for E-Business Suite
• Management Pack for Peoplesoft Enterprise
• Management Pack for Siebel

Then there are a host of Plug-Ins for the Netapps Filer, EMC Clarion, EMC Symmetrix DMX, MS Exchange Server, BEA Weblogic, MS Sql Server, IBM Websphere and so on.

Full details are on http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oem/datasheets.html