1. DOAG Regio Freiburg Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c
... mal ohne Packs oder Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs – ist das überhaupt möglich / sinnvoll?
DOAG Regio Freiburg Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c
September 2012

2. Trivadis Facts and Figures – Robert Crames
Senior Consultant
Trivadis AG, Bern, since
Enterprise Manager Knowledge since EM 1.x
Trainer for Trivadis Courses
(O_EM_x (Enterprise Manager 2.2, 9.0, 9.2))
(O-GC_x (Grid Control 10g, 11g))
O-CC-12c (Cloud Control)
O-WLS-FR (Weblogic Server und Forms/Reports)
Several speeches at different conferences
Contact:
September 2012

3. AGENDA Introduction Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs General
Restricted-use license (DB, WLS, …)
Showing Management Pack Information
Enable / Disable Management Packs
Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs
Restrictions
Monitoring – but what …?
(No) Notification
September 2012

4. Oracle Licensing – Introduction
First of all: Prices are not shown here
If you have special questions please ask Trivadis Licensing Competence Center (
Second (Taken from Oracle® Enterprise Manager Licensing Information): “You cannot use the options, packs, reports, licensed repository views, or Command Line Interface (CLI) verbs described in these chapters without the appropriate licenses. Although these options, Management Packs, or products may be included in product CDs or downloads, or described in documentation that you receive, this does not authorize you to use them without the appropriate licenses”
Third: By default, all Packs are enabled (!)
Forth: Due to limitations of time, we must focus on Database related licensing – detailed information about other licenses can be found at oracle.com (The pdf has 336 pages)
September 2012

5. Oracle Licensing – Introduction
Fifth: Yes – we know ... Packs are necessary – and not licensable to Oracle Standard Edition But: This speech will not only demonstrate that it‘s not possible to monitor SE Databases / monitor Databases without Diagnostic Pack, it will
clarify some – possibly – unknown facts regarding licensing,
show what metrics are best practice to monitor
start a discussion about alternatives
September 2012

6. AGENDA Introduction Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs General
Restricted-use license (DB, WLS, …)
Showing Management Pack Information
Enable / Disable Management Packs
Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs
Restrictions
Monitoring – but what …?
(No) Notification
September 2012

7. Oracle Licensing – Restricted Use License
For Repository Database
EM 12c includes a restricted use license of an Oracle Database for use only with the EM Repository (or other complementary repositories) or as RMAN catalog database
Additional database options or servers for disaster recovery require separate licensing
An EM Repository in a Data Guard Environment requires to purchase a license for the standby site
If RAC is used, all additional databases must be licensed, plus for every node an additional Oracle RAC license is to purchase
For Weblogic Server
Use of WLS with OEM 12c is restricted to the servlet functionality without clustering for the OMS
September 2012

8. Oracle Licensing – Restricted Use License
For Virtual Assembly Builder
Never heard about? Oracle says: “Take multi-tier enterprise applications—for example, a Web server, application server, and database—and package them into self-contained, single-purpose virtual machines.”  Virtualisation
Is licensed, as long as the assemblies are deployed through EM 12c
For Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher and Business Intelligence Mobile
EM 12c includes restriced use of these tools, but only for use with EM functionalities and interfaces
September 2012

9. AGENDA Introduction Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs General
Restricted-use license (DB, WLS, …)
Showing Management Pack Information
Enable / Disable Management Packs
Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs
Restrictions
Monitoring – but what …?
(No) Notification
September 2012

10. Oracle Licensing – Show Info (1/4)
As with Oracle Enterprise Manager’s former releases, EM 12c comes with a possibility to show which Management Pack is necessary for a specific action in Enterprise Manager
September 2012

11. Oracle Licensing – Show Info (2/4)
Example
To view all management packs used for a specific target-page, use …
September 2012

12. Oracle Licensing – Show Info (3/4)
Example
Or, activate ‘Show Management Pack information’
September 2012

13. Oracle Licensing – Show Info (4/4)
Example
If You would like to know, what ’(‘DD’) means, klick ‘License Information’
September 2012

14. AGENDA Introduction Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs General
Restricted-use license (DB, WLS, …)
Showing Management Pack Information
Enable / Disable Management Packs
Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs
Restrictions
Monitoring – but what …?
(No) Notification
September 2012

15. Oracle Licensing – Enable/Disable Packs (1/4)
Enterprise Manager Packs can be enabled or disabled
It’s not possible to enable / disable parts of packs
Enable / Disable can be done by …
Management Pack Access Page under Setup in EM 12c
For Diagnostic Pack / Tuning Pack only: CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS init parameter (beginning with 11g databases)
Per Default, all packs are enabled (!)
September 2012

16. Oracle Licensing – Enable/Disable Packs (2/4)
Pack access can be granted either by using a ‘Target Based’ approach, via ‘Pack Based Patch Update’ or defining ‘Auto Licensing’
Use ‘Target Based’ access to enable or disable access for each target …
September 2012

17. Oracle Licensing – Enable/Disable Packs (3/4)
… or use pack based batch update to enable or disable selected packs for all targets associated with the specified target type
September 2012

18. Oracle Licensing – Enable/Disable Packs (4/4)
‘Auto Licensing’ is the option to use, when Pack Access should be granted automatically, when a new target is discovered …
September 2012

19. AGENDA Introduction Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs General
Restricted-use license (DB, WLS, …)
Showing Management Pack Information
Enable / Disable Management Packs
Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs
Restrictions
Monitoring – but what …?
(No) Notification
September 2012

20. Monitoring Oracle SE Databases - Restrictions
When using Oracle SE Databases, licensing of Packs (or parts of) is neither an option nor possible at all
The most important pack is, without question, Database Diagnostic Pack
Diagnostic Pack includes several Features …
September 2012

21. Monitoring Oracle SE Databases - Restrictions
That results in loss of possibility (1 of 4)
... to view and monitor any AWR related information  no ADDM  no Performance Tab because of the missing Diagnostic Pack Features: ADDM and AWR
... to notify (neither mail, nor os-commands, nor pl/sql, nor SNMP)
... to define Notification Rules (means, You are not able to define any metric violation / event you will be informed of)
... to define schedules (when to send a message to a specific address) because of the missing Diagnostic Pack Feature: Event/Alert Notification: Notification Methods, Rules and Schedules
September 2012

22. Monitoring Oracle SE Databases - Restrictions
That results in loss of possibility (2 of 4)
... to define User Defined Metrics (new: Metric Extensions)  no application related monitoring because of the missing Diagnostic Pack Feature: User Defined Metrics
... to setup Blackouts  no possibility to suspend collection and notification, in case of planned outages because of the missing Diagnostic Pack Feature: Blackouts / Planned Outages
September 2012

23. Monitoring Oracle SE Databases - Restrictions
That results in loss of possibility (3 of 4)
... to define Monitoring Templates  it‘s not possible to define Metric Thresholds as standard settings for all targets of a specific target type because of the missing Diagnostic Pack Feature: Monitoring Templates
... to create / run / view Diagnostic , Performance or Event-Reports  no possibility to create Reports, showing information about current Metric Violations, nor to send those reports to a mail address, nor because of the missing Diagnostic Pack Feature: Diagnostic , Performance or Event-Reports
September 2012

24. Monitoring Oracle SE Databases - Restrictions
That results in loss of possibility (4 of 4)
... to define self defined notification methods  it‘s not possible to develop and setup own methods of notification because of the missing Diagnostic Pack Feature: Database and repository views / tables / api‘s that store/expose the above data
... of monitoring / collecting historical data  You must manually deactivate collecting historical data when defining metric thresholds (separate checkbox when clicking on edit in a metric‘s detail pane)
September 2012

25. AGENDA Introduction Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs General
Restricted-use license (DB, WLS, …)
Showing Management Pack Information
Enable / Disable Management Packs
Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs
Restrictions
Monitoring – but what …?
(No) Notification
September 2012

26. Licensing of … Middleware Enterprise Management (1/2)
Generally
Whether Diagnostic Pack is available or not, a basic monitoring (without notification) is always possible. Results of that monitoring are visible on the homepage of a target and on the summary page of Enterprise Manager
September 2012

27. Licensing of … Middleware Enterprise Management (1/2)
Generally
Trivadis has an own definition for a monitoring best practice
This best practice defines what (and how) but not the tool which is used
September 2012

28. Monitoring - Best Practice – Enterprise Manager  Monitor? What? Who?
There is a huge amount of metrics and policies – for every target type
… most of them to monitor performance issues
… if we would activate all metrics and all policies, there would be a flood of mails (no one could handle)
… and, some questions have to get asked …

29. Monitoring - Best Practice – Enterprise Manager  Monitor? What? Who?
What metrics are of interest for us?
Who will define the warnings- and alarmlimits in a group of DBAs
… and who is responsible for transforming these limits into real metric settings
What metric settings are of interest for notification?
… and what is the preferred notification method to use in that case?

30. Monitoring - Best Practice – Enterprise Manager
Monitoring - Best Practice – Enterprise Manager  Monitoring – a few basics …
Metric Alerts are always visible on the targets homepage (where the problem has occured)
Notifications can only send to (via) Administrators
Notification Methods define what possibilities of transporting messages are available ( , OS-Commands, PL/SQL …)
A Notification Rules defines, what alerts will be send – any administrator can create a Notification Rule and/or subscribe to that
With a Notification Schedule, You define when to get an and the - adress you wish to use on a certain point in time

31. Monitoring – Best Practice – Enterprise Manager  … keep in mind …
First rule of thumb: Monitor as less as possible but as much as necessary
Second rule of thumb: monitor all other stuff only when there is a reason for that
Means: Do not monitor all metrics Grid Control offers – this would lead into a situation, where You‘ll receive thousands of messages (per hour) … Monitor just what is really of interest
For the ‚daily business‘, the focus is on availability monitoring
Do performance monitoring only in case of performance issues
You‘ll find on the next slides our best practices to monitor an oracle environment

32. Monitor, but what?  RDBMS
Release
Kontext EM
Metric Name EM
10.x & 11.x
Database Instance
Archive Area Used (%)
 (Database Component Status)
 (File Status)
Instance Status
Usable Flash Recovery Area (%)
Owner's Invalid Object Count
10.x
Generic Alert Log Error
11.x
Generic Incident
Tablespace Space Used (%)
 (Tablespace Status)

33. Monitor, but what?  RDBMS
Release
Kontext EM
Metric Name EM
10.x
Database Instance
Data Block Corruption Alert Log Error
11.x
Oracle Data Block Corruption

34. Monitor, but what?  Hosts
Release
Kontext EM
Metric Name EM
all
Host
CPU Wait Time (%)
CPU Utilization (%)
Disk Device Busy (%)
Filesystem Space Available (%)
Memory Utilization (%)
Status
Swap Utilization (%)

35. Monitor, but what?  Listener
Release
Kontext EM
Metric Name EM
all
Listener
Data Block Corruption Alert Log Error
Oracle Data Block Corruption
TNS Error

36. Monitor, but what?  Agent
Release
Kontext EM
Metric Name EM
all
Agent
Count of targets not uploading data
CPU Usage (%)
Resident Memory Utilization (KB)
Status

37. AGENDA Introduction Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs General
Showing Management Pack Information
Enable / Disable Management Packs
Restricted-use license (DB, WLS, …)
Monitoring Oracle Database Without Packs
Restrictions
Monitoring – but what …?
(No) Notification
September 2012

38. Monitoring Oracle SE Databases – (No) Notification
Generally
I asked Oracle (excerpt of the mail):
EM does not support Monitoring Oracle SE Databases in terms of notification using a notification method, because notification methods are part of Diagnostic Pack which is not licensable for Standard Edition. That's, in fact, ridiculous - Oracle Database Without Packs are usually not less important than EE DBs.
My questions are:
- Is Oracle's License Team aware of that fact? And if Yes - what's the reason behind?
Or am I allowed to use Notification Methods for SE's, too?”
And what about environments where a customer has either SE and EE Databases licensed? I need urgently an answer
September 2012

39. Monitoring Oracle SE Databases – (No) Notification
Generally
Oracle‘s answer (excerpt of the mail):
I have gone through your statements and questions and have deemed this rather to be a question around product design. From a technical point of view there may be many options that do work very well with DB Standard Edition. However, from a licensing point of view it is not allowed to use these options with Standard Edition.
Hence, the answer to your question about whether you are allowed to use Notification with SE is clearly “No”. And whether we are aware of this fact, yes, we are. However, regarding the reason for this, we don’t know and can only make educated guesses.
September 2012

40. Conclusion – Licensing
It’s still necessary to license packs … that means EE
Licensing has not changed – most of the interesting features are included in a pack (thus leading to the necessity to license)
It’s easy to find out, what Packs Enterprise Manager is using and which license is necessary
Keep an eye on Your EM 12c (and former releases) regarding used packs – by default, all packs are enabled!
Keep an eye on Your monitoring solution even if it’s not Enterprise Manager – the necessity of a Pack is given here, too!
It is as it is: All packs are optional, but, as with every EM Release before, Diagnostic Pack is a MUST! And with SE it’s simply not possible to monitor Databases using EM
September 2012