Questions and Answers from Oracle Webinar: Simplify Database Lifecycle Management with Oracle

Dear Friends,

On March 21st, the ancient New Year or Navroz day for many countries on our planet that celebrates the spring equinox as the auspicious start of the year, I was the speaker at an Oracle Webinar "Simplify Database Lifecycle Management with Oracle".

The webinar was very well received, with 140+ registrations and 95 attendees on the day and time itself. There were a number of good questions asked at the end of the webinar, and as per my usual practice, I am posting the answers on the blog for the reference of everyone. Enjoy!!

Question:
Is an out of place upgrade of grid control OMS possible from 11g to 12c?

Answer:
Yes, this is possible. Please refer to the upgrade methods described in the Cloud Control Upgrade Guide http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/upgrade.121/e22625/overview_upg_approaches.htm#CJAHJGJI

Question:
I was told that 12c OMS will support only targets where 12.1.0.1 agent is installed. Is this correct? If so, does this agent version can monitor 9i databases?

Answer:
Yes, 12c OMS will only support 12c agents. It cannot talk to 11g agents. This is because the agent has been revamped to a modular architecture. For eg. even a database plug-in needs to be deployed now to an agent running on a database server, previously this was in-built. So now it is easier to deploy a new db plug-in. for eg when the 12c db comes along.  Regarding the target db version, yes, the 12c agent with the db plug-in can manage 9i, 10g, 11g databases.

Question:
It is interesting to know about EM 12c, but ERP like SAP does not have this features in built for the only reason could be Licenses, or limiting functionality given by Oracle so that we are only limited with features provided by SAP only.

Answer:
Certain EM Packs can be used depending on the SAP license you have. I would suggest to speak with your local SAP representative.

Question:
Question related to licensing: We are using Oracle RAC Standard Edition and DbConsole. To what extent (excluding the additional OEM license packs) are we entitled to use the OEM 12c?

Answer:
Configuration of metric thresholds and viewing alerts in the console are part of base EM. This is known as basic monitoring, you can use that. However since since you can't use/license the packs with standard one edition, you can't use pack features such as notifications.  Neither can you use the advanced features such as configuration management, EM patching provisioning, change management, or tuning. You can see the features in each pack at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/license.121/e24474/ch2_db_mgmt.htm

Question:
Can I have multiple Gold image at different instance of time?

Answer:
Yes, definitely. You can have multiple Gold images at any time. Suppose you had a Gold image created 3 months ago with an older CPU (critical patch update), you can now create a second one with the new CPU. Likewise, you can have a Gold image for a 10g database, or 11.1, or 11.2, and also gold images for different operating systems, eg. different ones for Linux, Solaris, AIX, etc.

Question:
Hi Porus, does EM 12c has the facility to tune the parameter? What about the static parameter.

Answer:
With the Diagnostics/Tuning Pack licence, when you run ADDM and the Tuning/Access advisors, advice is given on how to best tune your system and your SQL. This will include some of the init parameters for eg. cursor_sharing, the memory parameters, optimizer parameters, etc. Would recommend trying it out.

Question:
How can we provision the golden database in EM and use that for deployments

Answer:
You mean the Gold Copy. It is possible to take a reference database system, and create a Provisioning Profile from that. The Profile can then be used as input by the Provisioning Designer when he/she launches a deployment procedure to create a single-instance or RAC database, and then locks down the inputs, saving the procedure and publishing it to a Provisioning Operator. The operator is then able to use the locked down procedure to create new database installations and new databases either for single-instance or RAC. This requires the licence of the Database Lifecycle Management pack (DBLM).

Question:
Please share the upgrade methodology of 11g Grid to 12c Grid

Answer:
There are two methods, the one-system approach or the two-system approach. You can upgrade from EM10g or 11g to EM12c. Please read the Upgrade Guide http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/upgrade.121/e22625/toc.htm for further details.

Question:
Honestly, I would liked to see 12c 3-4 years back. Does Oracle have R&D dept and what can be delivered? R&D must be present, but how much investment to come up with market demand? like SAP.

Answer:
EM 12c builds on the experience of EM 10g and 11g. I have been using EM since the PC-based days of Oracle Server Manager in the 1990s and I would say it has definitely got better. There is no tool in the market that can do everything. Oracle technology is very complex and Oracle EM is the best to manage the Oracle stack.

Question:
Do you have any plugin for big data appliances.

Answer:
No EM12c plug-in exists for Big Data yet. However, as far as I am aware, the Big Data Appliance is using the X4270M2, Oracle Linux, and an application stack made of hadoop, java, nosql, R, connectors, HDFS.  Enterprise Manager Ops Center comes out of the box ready to help with the hardware and OS part of the stack. If you want to do configuration management, Enterprise Manager has a highly extensible configuration framework to capture configurations and retain a history of configuration changes.

EM also has a provisioning framework that can be used to generically provision applications. There is also an extensible user defined metric capability (UDM) that can be used to capture and alarm value matches.
These capabilities can be used to monitor and manage Big Data today. You can also use Cloudera Manager to monitor the Hadoop stack.

Question:
What are the steps to clone agent ?

Answer:
Please refer to the chapter ""Cloning Oracle Management Agent"" in the Cloud Control Advanced Installation and Configuration Guide. The link is:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/install.121/e24089/clone_agent.htm

Question:
Hi I got few questions, it would be better if you could clarify me on these areas
1) OEM 12c Doesn't require and agents running on each target?
2) Will it support the targets on different time zones?
3) What about the Oracle Inventory status while cloning

Answer to Question 1:
To have fully managed targets, the 12c agents need to be installed. In initial discovery, you can use an IP scan in EM to find targets and probable software running on them, this is done via IMAP protocol. Then, you need to promote these targets from unmanaged to managed, this deploys the agent.
Note that you can have a shared agent - refer to http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/install.121/e24089/install_agent_usng_shrd_hm.htm#CACHFCGE which is in the Cloud Control Advanced Installation and Configuration Guide. This chapter describes how you can install a Shared Agent with the help of a central, shared Oracle home location of an existing Oracle Management Agent (Management Agent) that is installed on an NFS-mounted drive.

Answer to Question 2:
Yes, you can have management agents in different time zones. The Managemet Agent uses the time zone set in emd.properties file. Resetting the time zone for an agent is explained in http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e24473/emctl.htm#BABJAJGF which is the Cloud Control Administrator's Guide.

Answer to Question 3:
Yes, the Oracle inventory will be updated on the target server when cloning. This is Oracle who has written the deployment procedure so they are aware of what needs to be done in the Oracle inventory, most definitely.

Question:
It is possible to Add new RAC node through EM?

Answer:
Yes, you can extend a RAC cluster and add a new RAC node via EM. Please see http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/em.121/e27046/prov_extend_racdb.htm#CHDCCJDA which is ""Extending Oracle Real Application Clusters"" in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Lifecycle Management Administrator's Guide 12c .

Question:
Can we configure DB replication using EM ?

Answer:
Yes. This is a part of the base database management features of Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c. You can configure and manage movement of data between databases using features such streams, replication, data pump. Please see http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/license.121/e24474/ch11_base_functionality.htm

Question:
Regarding agentless discovery. How does OEM know that particular server is the one I need to do discovery on? Should we need to give the IP or server name?

Answer:
Yes, IP scan requires the IP address or range of IP addresses. This uses the NMAP protocol.

Question:
Can u please brief us on Licencing of 12c EM

Answer:
You can install EM12c on a separate server(s) for free, there is no cost for the Oracle database or OMS software on the EM servers provided you dont use the EM database for any other application.
If you use Data Guard or RAC for the EM database, then the EE license and RAC licence is payable.

The base installation of Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c includes several features free of charge WITH the purchase of ANY Oracle software license or Support contract.

The release of EM 12c makes several licensing changes. Some features that were part of licensed packs are now included in the base functionality. Please look at this chapter http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/license.121/e24474/ch11_base_functionality.htm in the Licensing Information 12c guide, which outlines the list of features that are included with the base functionality of Oracle Enterprise Manager.

Anything beyond those features is payable. Look at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/license.121/e24474/ch2_db_mgmt.htm#BABGAFHD for the Enterprise Database Management licences. This chapter explains the database packs like Diagnostics, Tuning, Lifecycle Management, Data Masking, and so on. This guide "Oracle Enterprise Manager Licensing Information" on http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/license.121/e24474/toc.htm is good enough.

Question:
Can we configure & monitor Oracle EBS Sevices & processes on OEM?

Answer:
Yes, definitely.  You can use the Enterprise Manager Application Management Suite (AMS) for E-Business to monitor and manage E-Business, including cloning, patch management and customization management. For further information please see the white paper I wrote "Managing Oracle Applications with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g" http://www.oracle.com/us/products/enterprise-manager/managing-oracle-apps-404877.pdf

Question:
Does this integrate with SQL Developer Data Modeler for capturing changes from base system?

Answer:
A change plan can be created by the developer in SQL Developer, who then submits it, which the DBA can then access in Enterprise Manager 12c, approve, and synchronize another database with that change plan for eg. the developer can make changes on development, put the changes in a change plan, and the DBA can approve and apply on a test database, followed by production later. Please see section 1.15 Change Manager Support in SQL Developer in the Oracle SQL Developer User's Guide at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E25259_01/appdev.31/e24285.pdf

Question:
Benifits of agent cloning?

Answer:
Benefits are obvious. If you want to install an additional Management Agent that is identical to the existing well-tested, pre-patched, and running Management Agent, then the best option is to clone the existing instance. This saves time and effort in patching a fresh installation all over again and bringing it to the current state. Please refer to the chapter ""Cloning Oracle Management Agent"" in the Cloud Control Advanced Installation and Configuration Guide. The link is:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/install.121/e24089/clone_agent.htm

Question:
SAP sometime does not recognize the schema provided by Oracle directly. So when you install Oracle for SAP, EM does not come along with it.

Answer:
Certain EM Packs can be used depending on the SAP license you have. I would suggest to speak with your local SAP representative.

Question:
Will Oracle support for this free basic tool?

Answer:
Oracle EM Base licence for basic monitoring and basic database management is only free if you have purchased some Oracle software licence and support. For eg. say there is an Oracle Database Enterprise Edition in your company, it has been purchased and you have the support license purchased too per year (that is the only way you can upgrade to new versions and get patches from Oracle). Then, you can call Oracle Support and also ask them to help with basic EM issues to do with basic monitoring and basic database management. IF you dont have a support contract all all, you cannot do this since you wouldnt have a CSI number in the first place.

Question:
Where can I see the list of features for which I have paid the licences?

Answer:
Certain things are free, look at the earlier answer in this post for the Licensing question. If you have paid licenses for packs like Diagnostics, Tuning, etc, because Oracle products have never had a licence key, there is no way you can check inside the product. You need to ask your Oracle sales representative as to what licences your company has purchased.

Question:
Is golden gate replication managed by EM?

Answer:
The Oracle Golden Gate (OGG) plug-in for Em 12c will be released in the near future. However, there is an existing "management pack" for OGG that you can use. Please see the pdf on http://www.oracle.com/us/products/middleware/data-integration/goldengate/059449.pdf
This will help you to monitor and manage OGG. However this is not EM but a separate product.

Question:
As per today webcast patch cloning possible through cloned oracle home ... basically my question how does that work ..

Answer:
This is known as "out of place" patching. Basically you select a patch or multiple patches into a patch plan, and say you want out of place patching. You then have to specify a new Oracle Home on the target server. When you deploy the patches, Oracle Enterprise Manager first clones the existing home, makes a copy of it, and then patches the copy. During this time, there is no downtime. When you schedule the last stage, EM will shut the database, switch it to the new home and start it from the new home, and run the post-patch SQL on the database. This reduces downtime. However, space is required for the cloned homes.

Question:
Can we upgrade EM 12c from EM 10g Rel2?

Answer:
Yes, the database version must be 10.2.0.4 or above for upgrade to 11.2.0.1 and 11.2.0.2. Please see ""Upgrading Databases"" http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/em.121/e27046/upgrade_db.htm#CHDJGJJC in the  Lifecycle Management Administrator's Guide for 12c.

Question:
Our Organization is trying to deploy on 10g for its Microfinance business, which one is most suitable ot us in terms of technology and price and Technology

Answer:
I would recommend Oracle Enterprise Edition 11.2 and not 10g. Always use the latest version, it continues in support longer. Older versions eventually need to pay extended support if they are not upgraded, and older versions will run into this scenario sooner than the newer versions.

Question:
How does EM 12c compare with VMware tools? How about Oracle VM versus VMWare?

Answer:
EM 12c is able to manage the Oracle stack much more deeply than any other product. In the EMC VMware world, they can monitor a Vmware machine but only at the machine level - the products used may be unaware of the internal state of the Oracle database inside the machine. Whereas, Oracle EM can fully manage Oracle Databases on our supported and certified Oracle VM hypervisor product.

Regarding VMware, see Metalink Note 249212.1 – “Oracle Support Policy Regarding VMware”, which states, “"Oracle has not certified any Oracle Software on VMware virtualized environments”. On the other hand, Oracle has announced certification of key Oracle products including Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Applications, and Oracle Real Application Clusters with Oracle VM Server for x86.

Oracle EM provides integrated management of the physical and virtual infrastructure whereas VMware’s management is primarily for the virtual infrastructure with very limited capabilities for the rest of the IT stack. Oracle VM is less costly and is more performant (less overhead) than VMware. Oracle VM 3.0 is four times more scalable than the latest VMware offering, supporting up to 128 virtual CPUs per virtual machine, at a fraction of the cost. When compared to VMware vSphere5 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux guest VMs, Oracle VM 3.0 running Oracle Linux guest VMs is four times less expensive. Oracle VM is free to download, has zero license cost, and affordable, enterprise-quality support is offered through a simple subscription model per server.

Question:
What is the architecture used for large installations of Enterprise Manager?

Answer:
When used for thousands of targets, you can use multiple management services fronted by a load balancer and back-ended by a repository database server which may or may not be a clustered RAC database. So the architecture is fully scalable.

Question:
Is it possible to set up Data Guard using Enterprise Manager?

Answer:
Yes, of course. This and other DBA tasks, like setting up RMAN backups, can be simplified and automated by simply answering wizard questions. Time savings are enormous.

Question:
Can you compare as well as synchronize reference data using the change management capabilities of DBLM?

Answer:
Yes, but only data comparison can currently be done via the Enterprise Manager console. Data synchronization can only be done via the command line i.e. using the DBMS_COMPARISON package.

Question:
Can you perform auto discovery on a range of IP addresses behind a firewall?

Answer:
Yes, but you need to use an agent for the auto discovery which is also behind the same firewall.

Question:
Is it possible to patch the Oracle RAC databases on Exadata using out of place patching?

Answer:
Absolutely yes, however regular RAC databases are not supported for out of place patching at this point.

Question:
Is there a master note for Installation of Enterprise Manager 12c?

Answer:
Yes, please see this document in My Oracle Support (MOS):
Master Index for Cloud Control Oracle Management Service (OMS) and Repository Installation, Upgrade and Patching [ID 1363769.1]

Regards,

Porus.

New EM12c White Paper on Monitoring Strategies published

Friends,

The Product Management Team of Oracle Enterprise Manager just published on OTN a monitoring white paper "Strategies for Scalable, Smarter Monitoring using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control".

It's meant to provide guidance/best practices to customers who would like to use the EM12c monitoring features -- admin groups, template collections, monitoring templates, incident rules, incident manager.

The paper is available in the Enterprise Monitoring section of the EM OTN pages. Here is a link to the paper.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oem/sys-mgmt/wp-em12c-monitoring-strategies-1564964.pdf

Looks like a great white paper and will fill a gap in the monitoring space.

Regards,

Porus.

Bangkok seminars on EM12c Cloud Control

Friends,

Here are some photos on the EM12c Cloud Control Overview/New Features seminar that I recently conducted in Bangkok Thailand, for Oracle customers in the morning followed by Oracle partners in the afternoon.

We covered the EM 12c Overview, Architecture, Database Lifecycle Management pack, Test Data Management pack, Oracle Cloud Overview, and New features of 12c in all of these. The updated PDF can be downloaded from this Mediafire link.

These are the customer seminar shots in the Crowne Plaza Hotel Meeting room:

This is the partner seminar shot in the Oracle office.

Regards,

Porus.

Oracle Exadata Management — Diary of an Exadata DBA

By Scott McNeil

I recently had the chance to sit down with Deba Chatterjee, Senior Product Manager, Database Manageability to talk about Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and how it's making Oracle Exadata management easier for DBAs. He had a great analogy that I wanted to share. "To describe how Enterprise Manager is making Exadata management simple and less complex, is by using an approach we call, 'Exadata Aware Database Performance Analysis'. The best way to illustrate how this works, is to use real-world scenarios," Deba added. Here is one of those scenarios—an excerpt from the diary of an Exadata DBA. November 15th, Late Evening Database performance has suddenly dropped becoming very poor. The same reports that were running fine a couple of hours ago are now taking forever to complete. The boss just left me a message that the CRM analytics director was pretty upset and wants to know why we have a performance problem. I checked the queries and the execution plans both look the same with lots of smart scans and cell offloading. Suddenly, the response time has gone south and I cannot figure out why? My first step was to look at the database performance page in Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, which now comes with built-in Oracle Exadata support. Hey, what do I have here in the I/O tab? The Exadata system health button is red, that's not good. What's happening? I clicked the button and it took me to the Exadata health triage page, this is where I can see if I have potential issues such as; Load imbalance ASM related problems Cell software or hardware failures Cell configuration issues Network related failures The red Oracle Exadata system health button indicates potential issues impacting database performance. Next, I noticed that the network status was red, it must be a network issue, right? I quickly checked the administration screen in the Infiniband Target Home page, and saw we had a degraded port in the Port Details status section. I disabled the bad port and allowed the network traffic to automatically fail over to its peer. I'll have to look into this later, for now I just wanted to get the system up and running. View of the degraded port in Infiniband Switch Schematic. I quickly re-checked the Exadata system health status again, it showed all green—looks like everything was working, problem solved. I called my boss back to give him the good news that the database performance was back up. I sure am glad all these things are integrated; otherwise I would have been here all night trying to figure this out.

How Can You Capitalize on Oracle's New Database Solutions?

How Can You Capitalize on Oracle's New Database Solutions?

You’re invited to join senior Oracle Database leaders for a live chat explaining what the latest product innovations coming out of Oracle OpenWorld mean for you and your business.

Get real-time advice and answers to your top questions:

• In-Memory Databases or Big Data?
• Engineered or DIY Systems?
• Appliances or machines?
• Private or public clouds?
• SQL or NoSQL?

Bring your database questions and learn how you’ll benefit from new product advances. Join the conversation -- register now for one of the two live sessions.

Session 1: From Oracle OpenWorld to Your Enterprise—Capitalizing on the Vision
Tues, October 18, 10am US Pacific

Session 2: From Oracle OpenWorld to Your Enterprise—Capitalizing on the Vision
Wed, October 19, 7:30am in India, 10am in China, 1pm in Sydney
(NOTE: SESSION 2 is better for APAC time zone)

Space is limited so register today using the link below:

http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=350793&s=1&k=51928AE8D947EABC86C7B629DEC6A1EC&partnerref=APACAce

Regards,

Porus.

Oracle Enterprise Manager NEW VERSION Launch Event on Monday

Join Oracle Enterprise Manager launch event on Monday 3rd October at 5 PM pacific time.

Live : http://bit.ly/qC1C6y Online : http://bit.ly/rdwW9O #OOW11

11g OCM certification achieved

Friends,

I am pleased to announce that I am now an Oracle 11g OCM (Oracle Certified Master), after passing the 1 day upgrade exam, in addition to my Oracle 10g OCM certification.

Regards,

Porus.

Enterprise Manager for Oracle Technology on Oracle VM

Regarding the ongoing debate about using Oracle technology on VMware (a non-Oracle third party product), for such an environment, Oracle will only support issues that "are known to occur on the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware,"

"If a problem is a known Oracle issue, Oracle support will recommend the appropriate solution on the native OS," this is as per a Metalink document which adds "If that solution does not work in the VMware virtualized environment, the customer will be referred to VMware for support."

The implications of these statements are very serious. If there is an unknown issue, the client will be asked to reproduce the issue on non-VMware! VMware is not certified by Oracle for any of its single-instance or RAC databases. So, running Oracle production on a uncertified platform like VMware is not recommended and responsible IT managers would certainly prefer certified platforms. I know, if I was an IT manager, I would not want to put Oracle production on uncertified systems simply because of support issues. And for those VMware enthusiasts who say this is ok since Oracle doesnt certify any non-Oracle hardware anyway, I would say their equating VMware with hardware is very wrong. It is software, like an OS, rather than hardware. So would you run a production Oracle database on an uncertified OS? I guess not.

Of course, if virtualization is required, use Oracle VM and the issue is solved - Oracle will support the full stack, from virtualization software to app server to database. And we can also go inside the virtual machine and do performance analysis of the database, and deep management using Enterprise Manager! The third-party VMware has nothing like these powerful Oracle deep management tools to manage Oracle technology.

On another note, I just installed Oracle VIRTUAL BOX on Windows and am astonished how easy and flexible it is to use, instead of VMware workstation. My personal opinions of course in all my comments.

Publisher says Outstanding Orders to be filled soon

Friends,

I have heard back from the publisher today. They have printed enough copies to fill the demand. All outstanding orders should be filled within the next two weeks. The demand was higher than expected and caught them off guard. That is actually good news that the book is selling better than expected. Moving forward there will be sufficient copies available to satisfy everyone.

Thanks for the great support from all my readers.

You can place an order for the book by clicking on the title below. An out of stock warning may appear right now, but you can safely ignore that. A description of the book is as follows.

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 stack (application to disk) 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, middle-ware and servers following an approach that is consistent and repeatable, as well as the Oracle Applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and so on.

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.

Regards,

Porus.

New White Paper Published "Managing Oracle Applications with EM"

Friends,

I am pleased to announce that a brand new white paper of mine has been published this month (June 2011) on the Oracle Technical Network (OTN):

White Paper: Managing Oracle Applications with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g

This white paper delves into the four Oracle Application Management Suites for Oracle’s E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne products and examines the many management capabilities that they offer for Oracle Applications. It is geared towards Oracle application managers and application administrators, with a goal to provide a clear understanding of the immense advantages and benefits the Application Management suites have to offer. It is a fantastic introduction to these powerful Application Management Suites of Oracle Enterprise Manager. Enjoy the world of Oracle EM !

Some comments in LinkedIn groups:

"Many congrats and really appreciate the efforts for the documentation on E-Biz related features. Highly informative. Its indeed a powerful EM :-)."

"Nice improvement over previous versions of EM! "

"This white paper is very useful for our jobs!"

"Hey .. Great white paper very valuable."

"Thanks for sharing this, very useful."

Thanks people for appreciating the white paper.

Regards,

Porus.

Agent Performance

A friend writes:

"Do you have any tips for keeping the emagent from making a bad situation worse. For instance when everything is working well emagent hardly takes any CPU or memory, but once the host or db's start getting a high load emagent seems to start using more CPU than just about anything else. It's kind of counter intuitive to me, that something designed to monitor and notify you about problems actually becomes the problem when a server becomes short on resources."

My response:

One point to remember is that you should always upgrade to the latest version of the agent. For eg. If your central OMS is on EM11g, then your agents should also be EM11g agents and not EM10g agents. Upgrading to the latest version at the agent level will also fix some performance issues for the agent.

The issue you describe happens when there is a contention for resources at both sides. Make sure the agent is properly configured, it has enough free disk space to store its temporary work, etc. Remember the agent pre-requisites should always be followed - for eg, if you install the EM 10g agent on a box running Oracle 9i, you must ensure the OS is patched etc upto the level required if you were installing an Oracle 10g database on the same box. All such pre-requisites for an Oracle 10g database should be followed in such a case.

Many times the prerequisites are not followed, and the agent then struggles to perform on the older boxes since the OS is not patched to the level required, some packages are older than the requirement, swap space is lower than required, etc. Then, there are performance issues. So please check the setup first.

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.

Please help this humanitarian work in India

Dear Friends,

As part of the humanitarian activities by the Enterprise Manager Blog, we like to recommend Mr. Krishnan of India who is a young humanitarian who cooks food himself and then travels on the streets of Chennai (India) to feed with his own hands, the mentally challenged people who may be lying on the streets of the city.

You can help this noble man to do his Godly work by visiting his website http://www.akshayatrust.org/and making a donation either in Indian Rupees or foreign currency.

Regards,

Porus.

Recorded Webcast on Proactive Database Management with Enterprise Manager

Dear Readers,

I recently conducted a webcast on "Proactive Database Management with Enterprise Manager". It was attended by over 155 people from all over the world with more than 75 questions asked about Enterprise Manager, there is a lot of interest in this fantastic product. You can now watch this webcast on demand. The registration link to watch the on demand Webcast is :

http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=297321&s=1&k=1C4D0481409A8E243271EF2ECA0C3287

It will ask you to register first (free), and after you do so, it will allow you to launch the webcast.

Regards,

Porus.

My latest OTN Article: Provision Your Oracle RAC Systems Using Oracle Enterprise Manager

Friends,

A new technical article written by myself has just been published on the

Oracle Technology Network (OTN):

Provision Your Oracle RAC Systems Using Oracle Enterprise Manager

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/havewala-rac-provisioning-253418.html

(Published January 2011)

Learn how to seamlessly provision multi-node Oracle RAC systems in a

totally automated manner - including provisioning of RAC databases.

Have a look and spread the word.

Regards,

Porus.

EM Packs Overview Article featured in Database Application Developer Newsletter

My latest OTN Article "Overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager Management Packs" is featured in Oracle's Database Application Developer Newsletter of Jan 2011 (see attached link).

Database Application Developer Newsletter January 2011

http://www.oracle.com/us/dm/63869-dad-nl-209775.html?msgid=3-3138049431

How does Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control do so much across so many different systems? The answer is through the use of licensable Management Packs, Monitoring Plug-ins, and Connectors. This article provides an overview of how all the pieces fit together.

A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year: Feed small schoolchildren in India

A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our readers all over the world. All the Best to you in your personal and professional lives.

As part of our social responsibilities:

Please help to feed small schoolchildren in India and support education of the masses. Akshaya Patra is doing a marvellous job in India, please help.

http://www.akshayapatra.org/weshallovercome/

1 meal per day is all it takes to increase education and uplift India, please join hands with Akshay Patra to support children’s development in India.

Oracle Database 11g Interactive Quick Reference

Oracle has just released the Oracle Database 11g Interactive Quick Reference, which is sure to be a big hit among DBAs. You can download it from this link:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/sbpozvrb7yn9wf8/db11g-interactivequickref-187977.zip

This is an interactive quick reference for the many DBA views, architecture and Background Processes in 11g.

OTN Bulletin "popular author"

Just noticed this OTN Bulletin in which Justin Kestelyn (OTN Editor in Chief) mentions:

"Although he’s relatively new to the OTN editorial scene, Oracle ACE Director Porus Homi Havewala became a popular author in 2009. His articles about the optimal use of Oracle Enterprise Manager for enterprise management have proven to be crowd-pleasers."

Thanks Justin for calling me a popular author, and thank you my readers for making me one!

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue-archive/2010/10-mar/o20bulletin-088115.html

Now an Oracle Certified Master

Friends,

I am pleased to announce I have passed the practical 2 day OCM exam and am now an Oracle Certified Master. I received my certificate today.

My OCM details are here. This link was updated later on.

This is from the Oracle University website:

The Oracle Database 10g Administrator Certified Master Exam (OCM) is the industry's most advanced Database Administrator certification. The OCM is a two-day performance test that requires participants to complete a series of scenarios and resolve technical and failure problems within a live Oracle 10g database environment. An Oracle Certified Master is a top-level Oracle expert who has in depth technical knowledge of the Oracle data server and industry experience managing mission critical Oracle database systems and applications. An OCM is looked upon as an expert within their organization, amongst their peers and across the industry.

Regards,

Porus.