Monitoring Oracle

Although Enterprise Manager Cloud Control needs a separate license to use it, it is probably one of the best utilities to monitor your estate. Strangely, at one point it needed an 11g Oracle database as a repository and was not compatible with 12c. You can use a 12c database now but not on Oracle Linux version 7.

https://oracle-base.com/articles/12c/cloud-control-12cr5-installation-on-oracle-linux-5-and-6

I use Oracle-Base as a chef would use a recipe book. Follow the instructions and hope you produce something tasty. So rather than put out the same recipe I will point you to the best cook books.

The great thing about Cloud Control is that you can put an agent on a server and monitor what is going on, RAC, Oracle Application Server Farms etc. It is not only Oracle you can monitor, Microsoft SQL Sever too, so a very useful application if you can have access. An alternative would be something like Quest Spotlight but I have only ever been on one site that had this running and that was a few years back so if someone has any recent experience with this please let me know.

https://www.quest.com/video/overview-of-rac-in-spotlight-on-oracle891910/

If you don't have Cloud Control or Spotlight there is still the 12c Database control aka EM Database Express but it is built inside the database server so limited functionality. SQL Developer has some tools for monitoring but most of the time you are back to manually checking the alert log and trace files for problems, running O/S tools like prstat, vmstat, top etc. 

Sys Admin guys can be useful for problems at the O/S level (especially for h/w issues - "dodgy" disks can be a pain) and speak to network teams (firewalls, routers, switches can be a pain). If you have the diagnostics pack run AWR reports when you are seeing issues (remember AWR reports are different for stand alone instances and for RAC).  Most DBAs have their own scripts and if you have been running a system for any length of time you get a "feeling" for what is going on. 

Oracle monitoring is not just a one approach fits all it you often need a holistic approach. I remember after moving a Sun Server the performance was terrible. The only difference was the network had changed so the network lads were getting the blame. After a week I spotted the memory was only half of what it should have been. After a power down and a re-seat of the memory the server was back to what it was. I have learnt that the "Occams Razor" quite often applies when it comes to Oracle.

Oracle 18c

Last month (Feb 2018) another version of Oracle to think about. Other than us DBAs, will anybody really care ? The version numbering has been fine for what seems forever. After the 'i's and the 'g's and the 'c's at least the numbers followed on. Now we have jumped from 12c to 18c - what happens to 13,14,15,16 & 17 ? I can only presume 18 as it is 2018 so why not call it that, because in a few years time it will seem very old. At least I know 18c is really 12.2.0.2 and they have not called it Oracle X or some other stupid marketing name. Maybe Oracle should be more imaginative and go down the car road (maybe it already has talking about "self-driving") - Oracle GTD or Oracle GTi perhaps ? Why I don't work in marketing. I suppose this means anybody using 12c will feel like a dinosaur when Oracle 19 and 20 turn up.

I have been reading about it and the 18c version seems like a cloud only database and will be completely autonomous (it will patch itself, fix issues "auto-magically" and autotune). So either way, if it is truly autonomous, there wouldn't be a need for any Oracle DBAs - hmmm. Mind you, Oracle have been pretty crafty as the database will only be autonomous if Oracle have it on their cloud. So if you are an Amazon shop well that is too bad. Sure it will all become clear by the summer.

https://diginomica.com/2018/01/29/reminder-oracle-18c-is-only-autonomous-if-oracle-runs-it-for-you/

It did get confusing talking about R12 (E-Biz) and 12c (the RDBMS) but jumping from 12 to 18 seems a bit strange. Maybe Oracle were worried about having an unlucky version 13 but surely professional staff can't be superstitious - can they ?

Windows tip.

Oracle runs on most Operating Systems, Linux, AIX, Red Hat, Solaris etc but not OS X for some reason, if anybody out there has managed to do so please let me know.

It also runs on Windows but if you mention running Oracle on Windows to a lot of DBAs they just give you a funny look. Well, if I am honest, I was like that too but in reality it is not too bad.

If you need to know the specification of Windows you can open up a command prompt and run systeminfo and then ipconfig /all to find out the network information. One thing I found out today I thought I would share. If you run msinfo not only does it give you all the information you need but if you look under File there is an option to either export all the info for the machine or just the bits you need. So the next time someone asks what the specification of your Windows box is, you can easily provide it. Who would have thought it, a Windows tip from me.






When running on an RDP if you need to change the password use - CTRL / ALT / End


If you use CTRL / ALT / Del you reset the local machine password.