Good Feedback

Good Feedback on my book from a reader in the USA:
"I must  mention that this is THE book I have ever read and digested in the field of cloud control through Oracle Enterprise Manager, I am very impressed how categorically  it has explained the core details."
Thanks Friend.
http://www.packtpub.com/oracle-enterprise-manager-12c-cloud-control/book

Answers to Your Common Database Performance Questions

By Scott McNeil on Jan 15, 2013

An Interview with Oracle Database Manageability Expert, Deba Chatterjee

Throughout the year we hear from lots of customers and get many questions about managing Oracle Database. In this blog, I thought I would try and provide some answers to common diagnostics and tuning questions with the help of our product manager and residence expert for Oracle Database Manageability, Deba Chatterjee. Deba has a wealth of database performance tuning experience both inside and outside of Oracle managing large data warehouses. Deba is responsible for Oracle Diagnostics Pack for Database and Oracle Tuning Pack for Database. I recently sat down with Deba and had a chat about database manageability.

Scott McNeil: Deba, we get many people asking questions about database performance—many still don't know about all the deep diagnostics capabilities Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c has to offer for Oracle Database. Capabilities such as; Compare Period ADDM, Real-Time ADDM, Active Session History (ASH) Analytics Real-Time SQL Monitoring, using Metric Extensions, and SQL Tuning Advisor—how do customers get all these capabilities for their database?

Deba Chatterjee: We recently ran a webcast: Maximize Oracle Database Performance with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c: Top 10 Tips and Tricks that explains how many of these features work. I highly recommend people watch the webcast to get a better understanding of the capabilities you mentioned. But the short answer is: for Compare Period ADDM, Real-Time ADDM, Metric Extensions you need to license Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Diagnostics Pack for Database. For Real-Time SQL Monitoring, SQL Tuning Advisor, you will need the Oracle Tuning Pack for Database.

Scott McNeil: Another question customers repeatedly ask is around Cloud Control and Database Control. Deba, can you explain the difference between Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (formerly Grid Control) and Database Control.

Deba Chatterjee: Although they belong to the same family of products there is a fundamental difference between the two. Database Control can be used to manage only a single database with which it has been configured, while Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c allows you to manage all your databases under the same centralized management console. Plus Cloud Control lets you manage not only all your databases but your entire application and technology stack too, whether it's in a private cloud or in a traditional environment.

How do you modify the Metric Value History retention in Enterprise Manager? For example; Enterprise Manager only shows the last 7 days, how do you display longer than 7 days?

Deba Chatterjee: There are various retention times based on the type of metric data:

• Raw metric data: default retention time is 7 days
• Hourly aggregated metric data: default retention is 31 days
• Daily aggregated metric data: default retention is 12 months

Refer to the documentation here, if you want to change the default retention time.

For Compare Period ADDM, how do you relate that in the context of system load?

Deba Chatterjee: In the resource usage tab, you can check the system CPU, Memory, I/O and interconnect (for RAC databases) utilizations across the 2 comparison periods in the same database.

Does Compare Period ADDM take into account the average read and average write in order to identify why the variance is happening in performance?

Deba Chatterjee: Compare Period ADDM uses database time to compare the performance across two periods. It does not compare based on average read or write times.

Does Enterprise Manager have the ability to create customized performance graphs? For example; can you create a graph for CPU usage in the last 24 hours on a given Host?

Deba Chatterjee: This is possible through the information publisher or BI publisher reports. As for the CPU usage, the chart is available out-of-the box in the target page for hosts.

How do you connect to the database itself when it’s hung and won't allow any extra connections? Do you use command line? Can you use ADDM even though the database is hung?

Deba Chatterjee: When the database is hung, you can connect to it using the diagnostic connection mode in Real-Time ADDM. The agent that is used to monitor the database makes the connection. No, command line is used. You have to use Real-Time ADDM for the connection.

Is Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c compatible with older versions of the database?

Deba Chatterjee: You can use Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c to monitor Oracle Database versions: 9.2.0.8, 10.1.0.5, 10.2.0.4, 10.2.0.5, 11.1.0.7, 11.2.0.1, 11.2.0.2, and 11.2.0.3.

Is SQL Performance Analyzer part of Oracle Database 11g or do you need to use Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c?

Deba Chatterjee: SQL Performance Analyzer is built into the database and provides command line APIs. However, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c provides the complete orchestration needed to capture the SQL tuning set, run the performance trials, and then to create a performance comparison report.

How do you enable Enterprise Manager to monitor and send alerts to the DBAs for a "Runaway Query?”

Deba Chatterjee: You can use EM to monitor runaway queries and send alerts using Metric Extensions which rely on the data captured in SQL Monitoring. The method was explained in this webcast presentation.

How do you create a report for all the SQL running in an instance during a 30 minute timeframe? Can you export this to a spreadsheet?

Deba Chatterjee: ASH stores sampled (1 seconds in memory or 10 seconds on-disk) SQL. However ASH is meant to capture the high load SQL statements so it won’t have all SQL statements.

Do you recommend enabling automatic gathering of SQL baselines as a preventative measure of SQL regression?

Deba Chatterjee: No. This would be overkill. Identify the queries that frequently change plans and then create SQL plan baselines.

If a server has multiple database instances, what is the best way to effectively do resource allocation?

Deba Chatterjee: There is no silver bullet. Carefully study your database load and decide on use of services, instance caging and resource managers to manage load on servers.

When using SQL Performance Analyzer, do you create the baseline first before the code change is deployed or at peak DB time?

Deba Chatterjee: These are two different problems. While testing for Code change, the baseline should be created before the code is deployed. While testing for an upgrade scenario the baseline needs to be created at a peak DB time.

Is there a metric to monitor ASM disk group utilization at the cluster level?

Deba Chatterjee: Yes. ASM Disk Group Usage metric is what you can use. (See image below)

Can Oracle Enterprise Manager’s alerts be configured to monitor elements in the audit trail such as table creation or table drop?

Deba Chatterjee: Yes, these type of alerts can be configured using Metric Extensions.

By Scott McNeil on Jan 15, 2013

Printing Errata

I have received a copy of my new EM12c book
and while going through it, I found a printing error on page 308.
This is in Chapter 10 which is titled "Ease the Chaos with
Exadata Management". On page 308, there are two paragraphs on the page
(2nd and 3rd paragraphs from the top of the page) that mention that
the “BP1” patch is recommended. The same page also mentions in the fourth
paragraph that Release 2 is recommended. The paragraphs mentioning BP1
were supposed to be removed during the final edit, however due to a
edtorial slip they were not. This is confusing to the reader since
there are two conflicting recommendations on the same page. So,
I have decided to make things clear to the reader.

The paragraphs that should be ignored/removed are as follows:

"For Exadata discovery, the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12cinstallation is
recommended to be on Bundle Patch 1(BP1)if it is not already on that patch level.
Note that applying the BP1 will not change the EM12cversion, since it is not a new
release or even a patch set of Enterprise Manager. The method to verify that the bundle
patch has been applied is to use the opatch utility in the OMS home. In the opatch
output, you should see that the BP1 patch has been applied, which is patch 13242773.

"Otherwise, please refer to the My Oracle Support(MOS)reference document for
applying the BP1 patch. The document ID is 1393173.1, and it is titled Enterprise
Manager Cloud Control Workbook for Applying Bundle Patch 1 (February 2012) and
12.1.0.2 Plugins."

Please ignore these paragraphs. I have asked for them to be removed in all
future printed versions of the book and also the e-book version.

My new EM12c Book Now Available

Friends,

I am pleased to say that my new EM12c book has finally been published and is now available, both as a printed book and as an e-book. 

http://www.packtpub.com/oracle-enterprise-manager-12c-cloud-control/book
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c: Managing Data Center Chaos


This is the first published EM12c book in the world. 

Among the many positive comments I have received, a DBA says "yes,i have already bought a copy of the book. Its really good ....Thanks for publishing such a Good book on Enterprise Manager 12c."

Please have a look at the updated chapter of contents:

Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Chaos at Data Centers 
Chapter 2: Enter Oracle Cloud Control
Chapter 3: Ease the Chaos with Performance Management
Chapter 4: Ease the Chaos with Configuration Management and Security Compliance
Chapter 5: Ease the Chaos with Automated Provisioning
Chapter 6: Ease the Chaos with Automated Patching
Chapter 7: Ease the Chaos with Change Management
Chapter 8: Ease the Chaos with Test Data Management
Chapter 9: Ease the Chaos with Data Masking
Chapter 10: Ease the Chaos with Exadata Management
Chapter 11: Real-life Examples and Case Studies, and It's a Wrap: The Future is the Cloud
Index

Preface

Chapter 1: Chaos at Data Centers
Team effort
Common solutions used in data centers
Summary

Chapter 2: Enter Oracle Cloud Control
The Grid – where the cloud came from
Overview of version 12c
Striking new features in 12c
Bonus sections

Chapter 3: Ease the Chaos with Performance Management
Laying the foundation
Top activity
Testing infrastructure changes
SQL Monitoring
Doctor in the database
Real-Time ADDM
Compare Period ADDM
Active Session History (ASH) analytics
Summary

Chapter 4: Ease the Chaos with Configuration Management and Security Compliance
Lifecycle management
Auto discovery
Inventory
Detailed configuration
Search capability
History and compares
Topology
Custom configurations
Client configurations
Compliance
Compliance library
Configuration and compliance reporting
Summary

Chapter 5: Ease the Chaos with Automated Provisioning
Lifecycle management
First steps: Software Library
Provisioning library
Provisioning profiles
Deployment procedures
Customization
Lock down
Configuration details
Compliance standards
Granting permissions to the Provisioning Operator
Running EM as the Provisioning Operator
Running the procedure
Other possibilities
Summary

Chapter 6: Ease the Chaos with Automated Patching
Recommended patches
Patch plan
Out-of-place patching
Pre-patching analysis
Deployment
Plan template
Patching roles
Refreshes
Other patching procedures
Reporting
Summary

Chapter 7: Ease the Chaos with Change Management
Change management
Schema comparison
Schema Change Plan
Schema synchronization
Synchronization rules and mode
Synchronization results
Executing the synchronization
Synchronization without a Change Plan
Data comparison
Continuous comparison
Use cases
Summary

Chapter 8: Ease the Chaos with Test Data Management
Test Data Management
Creating packages
Creating the Application Data Model
Data subsetting
Applications
Table rules
Rule parameters
Space estimates
Pre/Post subset script
Generate subset
Benefits and capabilities
Summary

Chapter 9: Ease the Chaos with Data Masking
Finding sensitive data
Creating data masking definitions
New capabilities
Adding columns to mask
Defining the masking format
Advanced options
Generated Script
Scheduling the job
Testing the results
Format library
Benefits and capabilities
Summary

Chapter 10: Ease the Chaos with Exadata Management
Meeting the challenges
Discovering Exadata
Adding the hosts
Adding non-host targets
Adding the cluster and databases
Monitoring and managing Exadata
Database machine resource utilization
Exadata grid
Infiniband network
Database performance pages
Total capabilities
Summary

Chapter 11: Real-life Examples and Case Studies, and It's a Wrap: The Future is the Cloud
Case study – telecom
Case study – pharmaceutical
Case study – computer manufacturer
Case study – online store
Case study – financial institution
Case study – university
Future of cloud computing
Summary

Index


You can get the book via the Packt website, or, if you prefer Amazon, the Paperback version is available, or the Kindle version. Packt also has a PDF version.

Enjoy the world of Enterprise Manager.

Regards,

Porus.

Latest List of Published White Papers and Articles

A number of my readers 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 January 2014. I have placed the white papers at the top, and the articles are in chronological order in the article list. The latest white paper and articles on Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c are included in the list. A couple of the earlier 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
NEW!! White Paper: Advanced Uses of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c

My Published Articles on Oracle Technology Network (OTN)
Using Grid Control with Filer Snapshotting (republished in 12c version, link below)
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
NEW!! Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c with Filer Snapshotting

NEW!! Set Up and Manage Oracle Data Guard using Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c

NEW!! Back Up a Thousand Databases Using Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c

Happy Reading!!

New Enterprise Manager Article published on Oracle Technical Network (OTN)

Friends,

I am pleased to announce that a new article of mine has been published in October 2012 on the Oracle Technical Network (OTN).

Ease the Chaos with Automated Patching: 
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/oem/havewala-patching-oem12c-1864147.html

This is excerpted from my new book "Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c: Managing Data Center Chaos", published by Packt Publishing. Enjoy the world of Enterprise Manager!!

Regards,

Porus.

Private Cloud: Putting some method behind the madness

By Sudip Datta on Oct 09, 2012

Finally, I decided to join the blogging community. And what could be a better time to start than the week after OpenWorld 2012. 50K+ attendees, demonstrations, speaker sessions and a whole lot of buzz on Oracle Cloud..It was raining clouds in this year's Openworld. I am not here to write about Oracle's cloud strategy in general, but on Enterprise Manager's cloud management capabilities. This year's Openworld was the first after we announced the 12c Cloud Control and we were happy to share the stage with quite a few early adopters. Stay tuned for videos from our customers and partners, I will post them as they get published.

I met a number of platform administrators in Oracle-DBAs, Middleware Admins, SOA Admins...The cloud has affected them all, at least to the point where it beckoned more than just curiosity..Most IT infrastructure are already heavily virtualized (on VMWare and on others including Oracle VM), and some would claim they are already on “cloud” (at least their Sysadmins told them so). But none of them were confident of the benefits because their pain points continued to grow.. Isn't cloud supposed to ease those? Instead, they were chasing hundreds of databases running on hundreds of VMs, often with as much certainty propounded by Heisenberg. What happened to the age-old IT discipline around administration, compliance, configuration management?

VMs are great for what they are. I personally think they have opened the doors to new approaches in which an application stack gets provisioned and updated. In fact, Enterprise Manager 12c is possibly the only tool out there that can provision full-fledged application as VM Assemblies. In this year's Openworld, customers talked on how they provisioned RAC and Siebel assemblies, which as the techies out there know, are not trivial (hearing provisioning time for Siebel down from weeks to hours was gratifying indeed). However, I do have an issue with a "one-size fits all" approach to cloud. In a week's span, I met several personas:

• Project owners requiring an EC2 like VM instance for their projects
• Admins needing the same for Sparc-Solaris.
• DBAs requiring dedicated databases for new projects
• APEX Developers needing just a ready-to-consume schema as a service
• Java Developers looking for a runtime platform
• QA engineers needing a fast clone of their production environment

If you drill down further, you will end up peeling more layers of the details. For example, the requirements for Load testing and Functional testing are very different. For Load testing the test environment should ideally be the same as the production. You shouldn't run production on Exadata and load test on a VM; they will just not be good representations of one another. For Functional testing it does not possibly matter.

DBAs seem to be at the worst affected of the lot. It seems they have been asked to choose between agile provisioning and  faster runtime performance. And in some cases, it is really a Hobson's choice, because their infrastructure provider made no distinction between the OLTP application and the Virtual desktop! Sad indeed. 

When one looks at the portfolio of services that we already offer (vanilla IaaS, VM Assembly based PaaS, DBaaS) or have announced (Java PaaS, Instant Cloning, Schema-aaS), one can possibly think that we are trying to be the "renaissance man" ! Well I would have possibly digested that had it not been for the various personas that I described above.

Getting the use cases right is very important for an application such as cloud management. We iterate and iterate over these over and over again and re-validate them in CABs (Customer Advisory Boards). We consider over the major aspects of tenancy: service placement, resource isolation (can a tenant execute an expensive SQL and run away with all the resources), quota and security. We, in Engineering, keep reminding ourselves that we are dealing with enterprise clouds. We owe it to our customer base !

In the coming posts, I will drill down more into each of the services. In the meanwhile, here are some collateral and  demos for starters with EM 12c.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oem/cloud-mgmt/index.html

Sudip Datta

(Senior Director of Product Management, Oracle Enterprise Manager)

The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.