The database cloning process can be often time consuming, resource intensive and expensive especially for large multi-terabyte databases. This can lead to miss project deadlines or to cause that storage costs grow out of control.
Enterprise Manager 13c Snap Clone instant database cloning allows administrators to create fully functional copies of databases using the capabilities of the underlying storage layer. Snap Clone is also capable to use Data Masking Definitions in order to securely manage test data.
Below video is a demonstration on how to setup Snap Clone with the ZFS storage appliance in order to clone either single instance or pluggable databases (PDBs).
For additional information about Snap Clone capabilities click below.
Last month we held 2 workshops where we went through some capabilities of Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c that help with performance diagnostics, tuning and validation for the Oracle Database.
If you were not able to attend and you want to learn about these capabilities, I recommend you take a look at the recording using the link below.
With Oracle Database 19c being the long term release, makes sense to start planning the upgrade of the DBs running on previous releases. Even better, what about converting Non-CDB databases into PDBs at the same time?
Using Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) 13c, we can kill two birds with one stone. That is upgrade our DBs to 19c and migrate them into a PDB at the same time.
How this works? First of all, this functionality is part of the Database Lifecycle Management Pack. You can find the documentation for this feature along with all the pre-reqs below:
In this environment I have a single instance database “orders”. As you can see on the screenshot below, is currently running version 18.10.
Orders DB Running 18.10 And Db19c Running 19.3 Version
Let’s now navigate to Enterprise -> Provisioning and Patching -> Database Provisioning
Database Provisioning Menu
Locate the Provision Pluggable Databases link under Related Links section
Provision Pluggable Databases Link
This will open the Provision Pluggable Database dashboard.
Provision Pluggable Databases Dashboard
Select the Container Database which is out target. Click on Migrate Existing Databases and then click the Launch button.
Select the desired migration method. You can choose between Data Pump Full Transportable Export and Import or Plug as a PDB. There are cons and pros on each method. Review the documentation previously shared so you can choose the best option for your migration.
For the purpose of this example we are going to choose Data Pump Full Transportable Export and Import.
Available Migration Methods
Now add the source DBs to be migrated.
Add DBs To Be MigratedSelect The Orders DB
Add or select the required Named Credentials and provide the path for the Export Directory.
Source Information
Provide the required Destination Information and click Next.
Destination Information
EM will execute compatibility and validation checks. If there are no errors click Close to proceed.
Validation Completed Successfully
Type a name for the EM job and select the desired schedule for it to run.
Schedule Information
Review all the information provided and click Submit.
Review Window
Wait for the Confirmation pop-up window and click View Job.
Confirmation Window
Monitor the progress of the deployment procedure until it completes.
Migration Deployment Procedure
Confirm that the db19c container DB now has the ORDERS PDB.
Orders PDB – db19c CDB
Click on the ORDERS PDB and verify the version information.
ORDERS PDB Dashboard
We now have migrated our orders DB into the db19c container running 19.3 version.
I also recommend to take a look at MOS Doc ID 2694986.1 before attempting the migration.
Hope this helps to ease the migration process for your DBs.
Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.5 (EM) was just recently announced. The installation files along with the documentation are now available in the Oracle portal. The upgrade process is very similar to the one followed for 13.4.
You can find the process I followed to upgrade EM to 13.4 here:
The same way as EM 13.4, this is an out of place upgrade. What is the significance of this? Well, you have to install a new Middleware home. Then the wizard will take care of all the required steps to upgrade EM using this new home.
My current environment details:
Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.4 RU 9 (Single OMS)
Oracle Database 19c RU 9 (OMR)
Oracle Linux 7 64-bit
Take a look at the
Oracle EM documentation and make sure you comply with all the pre-requisites before attempting the upgrade.
It is recommended that you apply the latest RU to the Oracle Database hosting the Oracle Management Repository (OMR). Review and make sure you meet all the pre-requisites detailed in the upgrade guide.
Download the Oracle EM 13.5 software and stage it on your OMS server.
Select an installation type. In this case will be an End-to-End upgrade. As you can see, the installer has been enhanced compared with the previous release.
I’m going to un-select the security updates box and click Next.
The wizard will run through a couple of checks and provide recommendations.
Review the output of each check and perform any required fix.
Type the location for the new Middleware home.
Enter the Database connection details for the OMR.
Fix the required Database checks.
You can click the Auto Fix button. Auto Fix won’t fix things you have to manually setup. In my case I had to execute the following:
Copy the emkey to repos
$ ./emctl config emkey -copy_to_repos
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 4
Copyright (c) 1996, 2020 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Enter Enterprise Manager Root (SYSMAN) Password :
The EMKey has been copied to the Management Repository. This operation will cause the EMKey to become unsecure.
After the required operation has been completed, secure the EMKey by running "emctl config emkey -remove_from_repos".
Shutdown the EM agent
$ cd $AGENT_HOME/bin
$ ./emctl stop agent
Shutdown OMS
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
$ ./emctl stop oms -all
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 4
Copyright (c) 1996, 2020 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Stopping Oracle Management Server...
WebTier Successfully Stopped
Oracle Management Server Successfully Stopped
Oracle Management Server is Down
JVMD Engine is Down
Stopping BI Publisher Server...
BI Publisher Server Successfully Stopped
AdminServer Successfully Stopped
BI Publisher Server is Down
I ignored the MD5 check.
As previously stated. You have to verify that the DB hosting the OMR has all the required patched already applied.
Verify the plug-ins that are going to be upgraded to 13.5
Select additional plug-ins you want to install as part of this upgrade to 13.5
Type the WebLogic password and the location of the WebLogic base instance
Review all the upgrade inputs and click the Upgrade button
The upgrade wizard will perform all the required steps
Execute root scripts
$ sudo /u01/app/em135/middleware/allroot.sh
Starting to execute allroot.sh .........
Starting to execute /u01/app/em135/middleware/root.sh ......
Check /u01/app/em135/middleware/install/root_emcc.marketplace.com_2021-05-10_23-16-24.log for the output of root script
Finished execution of /u01/app/em135/middleware/root.sh ......
Oracle EM has been upgraded to 13.5
Now you should start you EM agent and start upgrading all of them.
Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) Release Update (RU) 8 for 13.4 version was released at the end of last month. Follow the link below to find out what’s included in this RU.
In this post, I want to show you how to apply this RU to your Oracle Enterprise Manager environment.
Let me start by describing the environment that I’m using for this. Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.4 can be deployed both on-premises or in the Oracle Cloud (OCI). Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.4 is available in the OCI’s Marketplace. You have the ability to choose from both single-instance and multi-node EM deployment. This makes the process really straightforward and you can have an environment up and running with couple of clicks.
For this example I’m going to be using the on-premises option. This means that Oracle EM 13.4 is also available for download as a VirtualBox image. This image comes as a single-instance EM deployment. Is worth to mention that this image is not recommended for anything but for testing.
I assigned 16 Gb of RAM and 2 virtual CPUs to this VirtualBox VM. Follow the instructions in the README file and start your environment. I also downloaded patch 32071974 from MOS Doc ID 2647078.1
For this RU, there are specific instructions about OPatch and OMSPatcher that we need to take attention to. The first one is that we need to upgrade OPatch and immediately after that apply the RU. If you are not planning to apply RU8 right away the advice is not to upgrade OPatch as the MOS note mentions that it may disrupt the environment.
Go ahead and download patch 28186730. Unzip the patch file into an staging area and execute the OPatch upgrade tool. Be sure that you have a valid backup of both, the Oracle Home and the EM configuration (export config).
$ $ORACLE_HOME/oracle_common/jdk/bin/java -jar /home/oracle/patches/6880880/opatch_generic.jar -silent oracle_home=$ORACLE_HOME
Launcher log file is /tmp/OraInstall2020-12-07_04-35-38PM/launcher2020-12-07_04-35-38PM.log.
Extracting the installer . . . . Done
Checking if CPU speed is above 300 MHz. Actual 2245.782 MHz Passed
Checking swap space: must be greater than 512 MB. Actual 17151 MB Passed
Checking if this platform requires a 64-bit JVM. Actual 64 Passed (64-bit not required)
Checking temp space: must be greater than 300 MB. Actual 25737 MB Passed
Preparing to launch the Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2020-12-07_04-35-38PM
Installation Summary
Disk Space : Required 34 MB, Available 37,853 MB
Feature Sets to Install:
Next Generation Install Core 13.9.4.0.1
OPatch 13.9.4.2.5
OPatch Auto OPlan 13.9.4.2.5
Session log file is /tmp/OraInstall2020-12-07_04-35-38PM/install2020-12-07_04-35-38PM.log
Loading products list. Please wait.
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Updating Libraries
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Install pending
...
Saving the inventory oracle.glcm.opatch.common.api.classpath
The install operation completed successfully.
Logs successfully copied to /u01/app/oraInventory/logs.
Now is time to upgrade OMSPatcher to the latest version. Follow the instructions from MOS Doc ID 2646080.1.
$ omspatcher version
OMSPatcher Version: 13.9.4.4.0
OPlan Version: 12.2.0.1.16
OsysModel build: Tue Nov 03 18:16:07 PST 2020
OMSPatcher succeeded.
After that, you will be ready to start patching.
Let’s now go to the directory where we are staging our patch and execute the OMSPatcher analyze command. For this RU, I downloaded patch 32071974 and extracted into a staging directory in the server.
$ omspatcher apply -analyze
OMSPatcher Automation Tool
Copyright (c) 2017, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
OMSPatcher version : 13.9.4.4.0
OUI version : 13.9.4.0.0
Running from : /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware
Log file location : /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware/cfgtoollogs/omspatcher/opatch2020-12-07_16-49-21PM_1.log
OMSPatcher log file: /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware/cfgtoollogs/omspatcher/32071974/omspatcher_2020-12-07_16-49-26PM_analyze.log
...
OMSPatcher Session completed with warnings.
Log file location: /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware/cfgtoollogs/omspatcher/32071974/omspatcher_2020-12-07_16-49-26PM_analyze.log
OMSPatcher completed with warnings.
Those warnings are expected as I don’t have some of those plug-ins deployed in this environment.
After you validate that there are no conflicts. Proceed to shutdown the Oracle Management Service (OMS).
$ emctl stop oms
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 4
Copyright (c) 1996, 2020 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Stopping Oracle Management Server...
Oracle Management Server Successfully Stopped
Oracle Management Server is Down
JVMD Engine is Down
And now let’s execute the OMSPatcher command to apply the RU patch.
$ omspatcher apply
OMSPatcher Automation Tool
Copyright (c) 2017, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
OMSPatcher version : 13.9.4.4.0
OUI version : 13.9.4.0.0
Running from : /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware
Log file location : /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware/cfgtoollogs/omspatcher/opatch2020-12-07_16-52-59PM_1.log
OMSPatcher log file: /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware/cfgtoollogs/omspatcher/32071974/omspatcher_2020-12-07_16-53-05PM_deploy.log
...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following warnings have occurred during OPatch execution:
1) Sub-patch "31812958" skipped as it is already been applied to the OMS system.
2) Could not apply the patch "31802583" because the "oracle.sysman.vt.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
3) Could not apply the patch "31894733" because the "oracle.sysman.am.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
4) Could not apply the patch "30851102" because the "oracle.sysman.vi.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
5) Could not apply the patch "31894749" because the "oracle.sysman.bda.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
6) Could not apply the patch "31894832" because the "oracle.sysman.ssa.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
7) Could not apply the patch "31894720" because the "oracle.sysman.emfa.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
8) Could not apply the patch "31889317" because the "oracle.sysman.csm.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
9) Could not apply the patch "31802539" because the "oracle.sysman.smf.oms.plugin with version 13.4.1.0.0" core component of the OMS or the plug-in for which the patch is intended is either not deployed or deployed with another version in your Enterprise Manager system.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OMSPatcher Session completed with warnings.
Log file location: /u01/app/oracle/product/em134/middleware/cfgtoollogs/omspatcher/32071974/omspatcher_2020-12-07_16-53-05PM_deploy.log
OMSPatcher completed with warnings.
Verify the output of OMSPatcher. Let’s start the OMS.
$ emctl start oms
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 4
Copyright (c) 1996, 2020 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Starting Oracle Management Server...
WebTier Successfully Started
Oracle Management Server Successfully Started
Oracle Management Server is Up
JVMD Engine is Up
Starting BI Publisher Server ...
BI Publisher Server Already Started
BI Publisher Server is Up
Login now to the OEM console and verify that EM is showing the latest RU.
Adobe announced the End-Of-Life (EOL) for the Flash technology and this is happening December 31, 2020. As a result, most of the popular Web browsers also announced that Flash will be blocked the same day.
I’ve been blogging about this for more than a year now, explaining how this impacts Oracle Enterprise Manager’s (EM) database performance pages.
If you are running EM on versions 13.3.1.0 and below you should upgrade now before browsers can’t display the database performance graphs.
After you upgrade to 13.3.2.0 (13.3 PG) or higher (13.4 is the recommended version), you have to get familiar with the fact that the Top Activity page has been deprecated. I also blogged about this last year.
If you are considering upgrading to Oracle EM 13.4, also consider applying the latest Release Update (RU), at the time of this blog RU8 is the latest one. Take a look at MOS Doc ID 2647078.1.
I recommend you take a look at the November Advisor Webcast for Oracle Enterprise Manager. Kurt from the Product Manager team did a great job explaining this change.
Advisor Webcast Recording: Enterprise Manager (EM) – New OEM JET Pages and Flash End Of Life held on November 19, 2020 (Doc ID 2729947.1)
During database migrations, Oracle Database Administrators (DBA) face a series of challenges that could make the migration success unpredictable. Oracle Real Application Testing pack combined with Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c offers a tool that simplifies and predicts the database migration and consolidation process.
Oracle Database Consolidation Workbench enables DBA’s to create consolidation projects and scenarios where they can input different variables and run different analysis before even attempting the migration. This helps predicts the migration and consolidation process, but it doesn’t end there. Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c also implements the migration and validates the migration using SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA).
Below is a 10 minute overview video of the Oracle Database Consolidation Workbench.
Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) 13c has the ability to connect to My Oracle Support (MOS) in order to download patch recommendations, information about new plugins and versions. This is pretty useful in terms of keeping your EM up to date.
There was an issue early this year that prevented the connection from EM to the MOS portal. This has been addressed and a patch is needed in your EM in order to restore this functionality.
Take a look at patch 31233849 and MOS note 2697356.1. This patch is already included on the EM 13c R6 update. My recommendation is to apply the latest RU to your EM 13.4 installation.
This year we started a series of deep dive Webcasts related to Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c including all the monitoring, tuning and manageability tools that the Database Management Packs offer.
I want to condense a list of resources for you so you can take advantage of these Webcasts either live or watching the recorded session.
Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c provides out-of-box dashboard functionality, so you can see the status of all your targets on a single screen. You also have information about target’s fatal, critical, warning and escalated incidents along with detailed information about them.
But what about additional data that EM is already collecting? What if you create Metric Extensions and you want to display them in the dashboard?
Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana was just released last month. This Grafana plug-in allows you directly connect from Grafana to Oracle Enterprise Manager and make use of the already collected data in order to create custom dashboards.
In this post I want to guide you through the process of installing a test Grafana server and connect that to Oracle Enterprise Manager.
First things first, you need to make sure you install Grafana 6.6.2 or higher and you have Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.4 RU 3 or higher. Let’s now jump into the installation process.
I have a small VM running OL7. I assinged 2 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM. The next step is to install Grafana in the VM.
$ wget https://dl.grafana.com/oss/release/grafana-7.0.5-1.x86 _64.rpm
--2020-06-30 19:36:01-- https://dl.grafana.com/oss/release/grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_ 64.rpm
Resolving dl.grafana.com (dl.grafana.com)... 151.101.138.217, 2a04:4e42:46::729
Connecting to dl.grafana.com (dl.grafana.com)|151.101.138.217|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 49118311 (47M) [application/x-redhat-package-manager]
Saving to: ‘grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64.rpm’
100%[======================================>] 49,118,311 232MB/s in 0.2s
2020-06-30 19:36:02 (232 MB/s) - ‘grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64.rpm’ saved [49118311/49 118311]
$ sudo yum install grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64.rpm
Loaded plugins: langpacks, ulninfo
Examining grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64.rpm: grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64
Marking grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64.rpm to be installed
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package grafana.x86_64 0:7.0.5-1 will be installed
--> Processing Dependency: fontconfig for package: grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: urw-fonts for package: grafana-7.0.5-1.x86_64
...
--> Running transaction check
---> Package libXau.x86_64 0:1.0.8-2.1.el7 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Installing:
grafana x86_64 7.0.5-1 /grafana-7.0.5-1.x8 6_64
143 M
Installing for dependencies:
...
Installed:
grafana.x86_64 0:7.0.5-1
Complete!
Now is time to start Grafana server in the VM.
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl start grafana-server
$ sudo systemctl status grafana-server
● grafana-server.service - Grafana instance
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/grafana-server.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2020-06-30 19:40:40 GMT; 1s ago
...
lvl=info msg="External plugins directory created" logger=plugins directory=/var/lib/grafana/plugins
Jun 30 19:40:40 grafana-s02 systemd[1]: Started Grafana instance.
Jun 30 19:40:40 grafana-s02 grafana-server[11614]: t=2020-06-30T19:40:40+0000 lvl=info msg="HTTP Server Listen" logger=http.server address=[::]:3000 protocol=http subUrl= socket=
Let’s now login to our Grafana server installation. By default the port assigned is 3000, so the URL will be similar to http://<grafana_server>:3000
Grafana Welcome Page
The default credentials are admin/admin. Grafana will ask you to change the admin password right after the first login.
The next step is to download and install the Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana. You can find the download link and documentation below.
The EM App for Grafana has been installed, now we need to enable it and start using it. Before we do that we need to also enable it in our EM installation first. There 3 emctl command that we need to execute:
$ emctl set property -name oracle.sysman.db.restfulapi.grafana.enable -value true -sysman_pwd ********
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 4
Copyright (c) 1996, 2020 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Property oracle.sysman.db.restfulapi.grafana.enable has been set to value true for all Management Servers
OMS restart is not required to reflect the new property value
$ emctl set property -name oracle.sysman.db.restfulapi.grafana.executesql.repository.query.enable -value true -sysman_pwd ********
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 4
Copyright (c) 1996, 2020 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Property oracle.sysman.db.restfulapi.grafana.executesql.repository.query.enable has been set to value true for all Management Servers
OMS restart is not required to reflect the new property value
$ emctl set property -name oracle.sysman.db.restfulapi.grafana.executesql.target.query.enable -value true -sysman_pwd ********
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 4
Copyright (c) 1996, 2020 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Property oracle.sysman.db.restfulapi.grafana.executesql.target.query.enable has been set to value true for all Management Servers
OMS restart is not required to reflect the new property value
Login back to the Grafana server and navigate to Configuration -> Plugins. Scroll down and look for Oracle Enterprise Manager App and click on the Plugin. You will see a button to “Enable” the plugin.
Enable Oracle Enterprise Manager App Plugin
Now is time to configure our Grafana datasource to connect to our Oracle Enterprise Manager installation. Navigate to Configuration -> Data Sources. Click on “Add data source” button. Scroll down and look for Oracle Enterprise Manager. Click on that and fill the required parameters:
Name
URL
User (do not use SYSMAN)
Password
Now click on “Save & Test” and look for a confirmation.
In order to verify that our Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana is working properly we can open one of the sample dashboards. Let’s navigate to Dashboards -> Manage and click on the “Sample – Database Performance Report” dashboard. You should see something similar as below.
Sample Grafana – EM Dashboard
You can copy these sample dashboards and adjust them for your needs. You may also develop your own dashboards by querying all the Repository Views that EM exposes as part of the extensibility framework.
Hope this provides some guidance on how to deploy the Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana.
