oracle (Oracle Database Monitoring) Release Notes
The Oracle Database Monitoring (oracle) probe allows you to monitor your Oracle databases to detect, diagnose, and resolve Oracle performance issues when they occur. This information is presented to a database administrator as reports, and as alarms when database performance crosses a specified threshold.
uimpga-ga
oracle_RN
The Oracle Database Monitoring (oracle) probe allows you to monitor your Oracle databases to detect, diagnose, and resolve Oracle performance issues when they occur. This information is presented to a database administrator as reports, and as alarms when database performance crosses a specified threshold.
You can set up multiple configurable monitoring profiles to extract vital information about your database servers at specified intervals. Database administrators can use this information to tune and optimize database performance, and do capacity planning.
The Oracle client or server is mandatory for oracle probe to work.
The probe monitors local and remote Oracle database instances, periodically scans through monitoring profiles, and applies checks to the instances. The probe successfully monitors:
- 32-bit Oracle client on a 32-bit OS
- 64-bit Oracle client on a 64-bit OS
The probe supports Real Application Cluster (RAC) only through Admin Console.
From version 4.8, the probe introduced multi-tenancy support, which allows you to monitor Oracle 12c container database (CDB) and pluggable database (PDB).
Contents
Revision History
This section describes the history of the revisions for the oracle probe.
Support case(s) may not be viewable to all customers.
Version | Description | State | Date |
5.45 | What's New:
Fixed Defects:
| GA | February 2020 |
5.41 | What's New:
Fixed Defects:
| GA | February 2019 |
5.30 | What's New:
| GA | June 2018 |
5.30 | What's New:
Fixed Defects: The settings updated in the checkpoints sections of Oracle did not reflect in the profile when configured from the Administration Console. Support case number: 650309 | GA | October 2017 |
5.20 | What's New:
Fixed Defects:
| GA | April 2017 |
5.10 | What's New:
| GA | October 2016 |
5.01 | Fixed Defects:
| GA | July 2016 |
5.00 | What's New:
Fixed Defects:
| GA | March 2016 |
4.91 | Fixed Defects:
| September 2015 | |
4.90 | What's New :
| June 2015 | |
4.81 | What's New :
| December 2014 | |
4.80 | What's New :
Fixed Defects :
| November 2014 | |
4.71 | Fixed a defect where the Oracle probe GUI flickered on clicking Profiles/Checkpoints in the Status tab. Salesforce case 00143137 | October 2014 | |
4.70 |
| September 2014 | |
4.61 | Fixed Defects:
| July 2014 | |
4.60 | New Feature:
Defects Fixed:
Note: RAC can be configured only through Admin Console GUI. | March 2014 | |
4.56 | New Feature:
Note: This feature is only applicable for Admin Console GUI. | March 2014 | |
4.55 | Fixed Defects:
| January 2014 | |
4.52 | Added Probe Defaults | February 2013 | |
4.51 |
| January 2013 | |
4.50 |
| June 2012 | |
4.43 |
| November 2011 | |
4.42 |
| August 2011 | |
4.41 |
| June 2011 | |
4.31 |
| September 2010 | |
4.20 |
| June 2010 | |
4.11 |
| March 2010 | |
4.10 |
| March 2010 | |
4.04 |
| January 2010 | |
4.03 |
| January 2010 | |
4.02 |
| December 2009 | |
3.91 |
| September 2008 | |
3.90 |
Note : Profiles with these checkpoints must be removed and recreated, because of new functionality. | July 2008 | |
3.75 | Hotfix for Checkpoint Invalid Objects Note : While the package contains Solaris binaries, Solaris is not a supported platform now. CA does not recommend installation of the probe on Solaris. | March 2008 | |
3.74 | Memory leak corrected. | February 2008 | |
3.73 | Added new NimBUS libraries. | January 2008 | |
3.71 | Removed support for Oracle 8.0.x. | December 2007 | |
3.70 |
| November 2007 | |
3.64 |
| November 2007 | |
3.62 |
| July 2007 | |
3.60 |
| June 2007 | |
3.53 | A clear is only issued if an alarm has been sent. | January 2007 | |
3.52 |
| December 2006 | |
3.50 |
| August 2006 | |
3.05 | "tablespace_free" calculation for multi-file tablespaces corrected. | July 2006 | |
3.04 |
| June 2006 | |
2.17 |
| March 2006 | |
2.16 |
| November 2005 | |
2.12 |
| March 2005 |
Probe Specific Hardware Requirements
The oracle probe must be installed on systems with the following minimum resources:
- Memory: 2-4 GB of RAM. Probe OOB configuration requires 256 MB of RAM.
- CPU: 3 GHz dual-core processor, 32-bit or 64-bit.
Probe Specific Software Requirements
The oracle probe requires the following software environment:
- CA Unified Infrastructure Management 8.1 or later
- Robot 7.62 or later (recommended)
- Probe Provisioning Manager (PPM) probe version 2.39 or later (required for Admin Console)The ppm version 3.30 is required to enable the new fields of the oracle probe version 5.0.
- Java JRE 6 or later (required for Admin Console)
- (From version 5.10)The probe requires the following additional probes:
- ci_defn_pack 1.26 or later (required to view data on Unified Management Portal (UMP))
- wasp_language_pack 8.46 or later (required to view data on UMP)
- mps_language_pack 8.46 or later (required to view correct metric type on Admin Console)Restartservice_hostafter you deploy themps_language_pack.
- Windows: Oracle Client (Net Services) 11.x or 12.x
- Linux and Solaris: Oracle Client 11.x or 12.x
Oracle INSTANT CLIENT is not supported.
- Role-based login is also supported, for example, sys as sysdba
- From NMS 7.5, RAC is supported but can only be configured from Admin Console.
- Ensure that the Probe Provisioning Manager (ppm) 3.47 or later is available for AES encryption from the Administration Console.
Upgrade Considerations
Consider the following upgrade scenarios:
- When upgrading the probe to version 4.80 or later, the PDB_Count checkpoint is added as a template and is available in all the profiles. By default, the checkpoint is disabled. Enable the checkpoint to monitor the number of PDBs in a particular CDB. This checkpoint will work only for those profiles that are linked to a CDB connection. For other profiles, no result is displayed even if the checkpoint is enabled.
- When upgrading the probe, any deleted default configurations, thresholds, or QoS are added back in the probe.
(Version 5.30) Probe Specific Changes After Upgrade
The probe supports AES-128 bit encryption and decryption. To enable this feature in your Administration Console (AC), set the
NIM_PROBE_CRYPTO_MODE
environment variable to one of the following values in the probe:- TWOFISH(default)
- AES_128_COMPAT
- If you do not set any value of the environment variable, then the probe usesTWOFISHencryption and decryption, by default.
- Restart theNimsoft Robot Watcherservice after you set the environment variable.
- The probe fails to start if you provide incorrect values for the environment variable. CA does not recommend you to change this value after you set it once.
Oracle Supported Versions and Clients
The following matrix summarizes client and server combinations that are supported by the oracle probe.
Server Version | |||||
Client Version | 18.1.0 | 12.2.0 | 12.1.0 | 11.2.0 | 11.1.0 |
18.1.0 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
12.2.0 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
12.1.0 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
11.2.0 | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
11.1.0 | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Known Issues and Workarounds
The known issues of the probe are as follows:
- The probe does not support alarms forasm_disk_total_spaceandasm_disk_group_total_spacecheckpoints.
- For the resource_util checkpoint (with two default QoS), the probe creates aCustomnode on USM and displays one QoS data under it. The second QoS data displays underConnection Namenode.
- (Applicable from version 5.01)Create aset_resource_util_qoskey withyesvalue in the Raw Configure interface >setupsection. When you enable this key, the probe displays both the default QoS data underConnection Namenode. If you do not define this key, or set it asno, the probe displays the checkpoint data under two separate nodes.Setting theset_resource_util_qoskey asyeschanges the metric ID of the QoS and the USM view for the metric in the existing profiles. CA recommends you to clear the database before you enable the key.
- A memory leak is observed when the probe connects to the Oracle 12c client or the server. This is a known issue with the Oracle 12 databases.
- The probe may not connect to the database after you install or upgrade the Oracle client. Restart the probe after installing the client for a successful connection.
- The oracle probe must not be configured on both the Infrastructure Manager (IM) GUI and Admin Console (AC) GUI.
- The probe configuration for both the IM GUI and AC GUI is separate. For example, any profile that is created in the IM GUI is neither available on the AC GUI nor can be migrated. It must be created again.
- While upgrading the oracle probe from version 4.56 and earlier to version 4.60 or later, ensure that the PPM, service_host, and MPSE are restarted for the RAC functionality to become usable.
- The users cannot create custom alarm messages. Hence, they need to select an existing alarm message.
- In Oracle RAC, from Oracle 11.1 and above, the termglobal cacheis replaced bygcin all checkpoints. Therefore, if any custom query in Oracle 11g or 12c includes the termglobal cache, then no value is returned. The RAC functionality is supported and configured through Admin Console GUI only.
- On Windows 64-bit platform, the probe cannot be installed into the default directory - "Program Files (x86)". A bug in Oracle Client is causing connection errors, if the application home directory name includes special characters, like "(" (Oracle Bug 3807408).
- Error ORA-12705 together with log entry "OCIEnvCreate failed with rc = -1" can happen, if environmental variable NLS_LANG is set. Solution is to set this variable to empty space in the controller environment.
- On 64-bit Linux, user may get a warning message of insufficient access rights when connection test is performed, even if all the required access rights are provided. The connection can still be used to schedule the profile. Ensure all the required access rights are provided to the user.
- In custom checkpoints, if query tries to fetch data from a table with more than 32 columns, probe will limit the number of columns to 32.
- If a custom QoS is added to an existing monitoring profile, the Unified Management Portal (UMP) creates a separate node, Custom, in the Metric section. It does not display the user-defined description and unit.
- If a custom checkpoint is added to an existing monitoring profile, the UMP creates a separate node, Dynamic, in the Metric section. It does not display the user-defined description and unit.
The Admin Console GUI of the probe has the following additional limitations:
- The probe does not support alarms forasm_disk_total_spaceandasm_disk_group_total_spacecheckpoints. A user can add thresholds for these checkpoints, however they are not saved.
- The probe does not support renaming connections and profiles.
- On version 4.90 of the probe, custom QoS in a checkpoint do not generate alarms if the default QoS of the checkpoint is deleted. This is applicable for AIX 6 and AIX 7 platforms.
- While upgrading the oracle probe from version 4.56 and earlier to version 4.60 or later, ensure that the PPM, service_host, and MPSE are restarted for the RAC functionality to become usable.
- The users cannot create custom alarm messages. Hence, they need to select an existing alarm message.
- The oracle probe must not be configured on both the IM GUI and AC GUI.
- The probe configuration for both the IM GUI and AC GUI is separate. For example, any profile that is created in the IM GUI is not available on the AC GUI and must be recreated.
- Dynamic Population of Message Textfield with the correspondingMessagefield selected in the drop-down list at runtime is a limitation of the PPM. On creating a checkpoint with a new threshold, first select message and save it. After the reload operation, the message text field gets updated with the corresponding message text.
- If you see PPM-023 error andUnable to Retrieve Configurationissues, clickRetryor reopen the AC GUI.
- In Oracle RAC, from Oracle 11.1 onwards, the termglobal cacheis replaced bygcin all checkpoints. Therefore, if any custom query in Oracle 11g or 12c includes the termglobal cache, then no value is returned.
- To discover RAC-specific nodes, the ppm probe should be deployed on the same subnet as the oracle probe.
- On Windows 64-bit platform, the probe cannot be installed into the default directory - "Program Files (x86)". A bug in Oracle Client is causing connection errors, if the application home directory name includes special characters, like "(" (Oracle Bug 3807408).
- Error ORA-12705 together with log entry "OCIEnvCreate failed with rc = -1" can happen, if environmental variable NLS_LANG is set. Solution is to set this variable to empty space in the controller environment.
- On 64-bit Linux, user may get a warning message of insufficient access rights when connection test is performed, even if all the required access rights are provided. The connection can still be used to schedule the profile. Ensure all the required access rights are provided to the user.
- If the oracle probe is deployed on a non-Windows OS, the UMP displays the metrics and alarms on the robot and not on the Oracle server.
- In custom checkpoints, if your query tries to fetch data from a table with more than 32 columns, the probe limits the number of columns to 32.
- If a custom QoS is added to an existing monitoring profile, the UMP creates a separate node, Custom, in the Metric section. It does not display the user-defined description and unit.
- If a custom checkpoint is added to an existing monitoring profile, the UMP creates a separate node, Dynamic, in the Metric section. It does not display the user-defined description and unit.
- If a checkpoint has multiple QoS and you activate or deactivate one QoS, the other QoS of the checkpoint are also activated or deactivated.
- If a checkpoint has multiple alarms and you activate or deactivate one alarm, the other alarms of the checkpoint are also activated or deactivated.
- If you enable a checkpoint in theCheckpointsnode, the checkpoint is enabled for all the monitoring profiles and all alarms are generated.
- In custom checkpoints, if you edit a message variable, it adds a new message variable in the Message Variable table. To edit a message variable in custom checkpoint, delete and create a new message variable.
- The probe generates alarms for a threshold of an active checkpoint even if you clear thePublish Alarmsfield of the checkpoint.
- If you change any default checkpoint in the Template, the changes are available in the new profiles only. Existing profiles are not impacted with these changes.
(From Version 5.20) Map Alarms to Database Instance Name
You can configure the probe to change the Configuration Item (CI) name to map individual alerts of the profile checkpoints to come under one Database Instance Name.
On a test environment:
Before you change the probe configuration on your production environment, CA recommends that you perform these steps on a test environment. Run the following query on your database:
delete from s_qos_data where probe = 'oracle' and robot = '<robotname>'
Repeat the query for all robots, if the oracle probe is deployed on multiple robots.
On a production environment:
Follow these steps to map alarms to database instance name:
- Deactivate the oracle probe.
- Delete the alarms.cfg file located in theCA UIM Installation Directory> probes > Database > oracle folder.
- Upgrade the probe to version 5.20 or later.
- Navigate to your robot and open the probe Raw Configure interface.Do not activate your probe now.
- Navigate to thesetupsection, and set theusm_display_db_levelkey to 1. When you enable this key, the CI name is appended with “##<Database Instance Name>.” If there is no database name mentioned in the CI for a profile checkpoint, the probe adds the master database name in the defined format.Default: 0
- Clear theniscachefolder of all the robots in your environment that have the oracle probe. The folder is located in theCA UIM Installation Directory.
- Acknowledge all alarms from the probe.
- Run the following queries on your UIM database to delete the QoS data from the probe:delete from s_qos_data where probe = 'oracle'delete from s_qos_definition where qos_group = 'QOS_ORACLE'delete from nas_alarms where prid = 'oracle'delete from cm_configuration_item_metric where ci_metric_type like '4.1%'delete from cm_configuration_item where ci_type like '4.1%'
- Restart thedata_engine,nas,nis_server,discovery_server, anddiscovery_agentprobes.
- Activate the oracle probe.