Oracle RAC with Enterprise Manager Grid Control workshop

We just conducted an extremely successful Oracle RAC with Enterprise Manager Grid Control workshop at my company S&I Systems Singapore, jointly with Oracle. For details of this and future workshops, please see:

http://kamerad.parsizoroastrianism.com/S_and_I_GridControlWorkshopSeries2009_Porushh.htm
(Note: this URL is a new one from the URL I had supplied a few days ago).

Thanks to Oracle demonstration services known as TDS, hitherto available only to Oracle Pre-Sales but now avaialable to Oracle Certified Partners as well, we were able to show Grid Control in action managing a 4-node 11g RAC cluster database. We showed the easy addition and management of Cluster database services and their mapping to preferred and available instances, and the failover of the service to the available instance when the preferred instance is shut down.

We also demonstrated easy performance diagnosis and tuning of the RAC database using Grid Control. Also, a quick glance was taken at the Deployment Procedures supplied by Oracle for Rolling upgrades of the RAC database and also of the Oracle Clusterware. We also showed the Configuration managment capabilities that captured a history of changes at the server, cluster as well as database level. Thus, we consider Grid Control to be essential for efficient RAC database and cluster management.

The Enterprise Manager packs that would be essential for the above operations would be the Diagnostic / Tuning / Configuration Managment / Provisioning Packs.

Survey on Enterprise Manager :Patch Automation - Recoverability

Oracle is conducting a survey on Enterprise Manager :Patch Automation - Recoverability

Survey URL : http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229F23FFEF3

Can you please take 10 minutes to give your inputs/feedback. The survey captures your recommendation on how recoverability should be for Patching.This survey creates a direct impact on the upcoming EM product's patch automation experience.

Note,Survey closes on 23rd July 2009. Really appreciate a quick turn around.

We really appreciate your help in making Better Products

Thanks and Regards,

Hari

Hari prasanna Srinivasan Sr.Product Manager

Oracle

New One-Off Patch on top of 10.2.0.5 for Patch Automation

Download the latest one-off patch introducing fixes on Patch Automation feature from Enterprise Manager 10.2.0.5(Patch Number: 8653501)

Download the patch and apply it on one/all of the OMS server. Make sure you complete the additional steps in the readme.

Patch Summary

This one-off patch is applicable on top of 10.2.0.5 Enterprise manager, the patch introduces:

1. Enhanced Pre-requisites checks to standard deployment procedures,which can be invoked in Analyze mode to verify the applicability of the patch on the database environment.

Run the Deployment Procedures in Analyze Mode to do complete patchability check before the actual patching cycle. The below two modes are seen in the Review page during the Deployment procedure execution.

On submitting in ‘Analyze’ mode, the pre-req checks are run and you could check for the results with recommendations under RESULTS tab

2. Two new reports, accessible under Reports tab:
a. EM Target Patchability Report: Provides a comprehensive report on the automated patchability of the database environment managed by Grid control.
b. Patching Deployment Procedure Execution Summary Report: Provides a summary view of the deployment procedure's execution status across the given time period.

Deployment Procedures that are modified by the patch,
1. 'Patch Oracle Database'
2. 'Patch Oracle RAC - Rolling'
3. 'Patch Oracle RAC - All Nodes'
These procedures are accessible under 'Patching through Deployment Procedures'
in 'Deployments' page and versioned 5.1.

Related Metalink Note: 427577.1 : OMS and Agent Patches required for setting up Provisioning,Patching and Cloning in 10.2.0.3 to 10.2.0.5 GC

del.icio.us Tags: Patching,One-off

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 Vote-a-Session

Please vote for the following Oracle OpenWorld 2009 session on Oracle Mix.

S308732 Dell IT's Implementation of Oracle Enterprise Manager Patch
Provisioning

In order to do that, you must create an account on Mix. Go to:
https://mix।oracle.com/oow/proposals/10416-dell-it-s-implementation-of-oracle-enterprise-manager-patch-provisioning
Voting ends on midnight, July 3।

Another Fine Blog on Grid Automation

I just noticed another fine blog on Grid Automation:

http://blogs.oracle.com/gridautomation/

This blog is focussed on Enterprise Manager - Configuration Management and Provisioning, and is masterminded by Hariprasanna Srinivasan, who is the product manager for EM - Provisioning and Patch Automation pack.

Please do visit the blog.

Oracle ACE Director Meeting in USA

On an invitation from Oracle Corporation, I attended the Oracle ACE Director meeting at the Oracle HQ in Redwood Shores, California.

Oracle had everyone at the meeting sign a non-disclosure agreement so we cant say much about what was discussed. The main discussions were on Fusion Middleware.

One interesting probability for the future is that Weblogic server will be big in everything - including Enterprise Manager. This will enable Grid Control to scale enormously.

The ACE Director meeting was followed by the ODTUG conference in Monterey, California where I met industry stalwarts such as Tom Kyte, Don Burleson, and Cary Millsap.

A few photos of my trip to the Oracle HQ are enclosed.

RMAN via GRID CONTROL Article published on OTN

An RMAN via GRID CONTROL Article of mine has been published on the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). The article, based on real world experience, shows the power of Grid Control in setting up and scheduling RMAN backups of your database.

Architect: Grid
Oracle RMAN Backups: Pushing the "Easy" Button
By Porus Homi Havewala
How to redesign the setup and scheduling of Oracle RMAN backups the "easy" way, using Oracle Enterprise Manager
Published April 2009
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/havewala-rman-grid.html

Please read. Hope you enjoy the article.