Foglight for Oracle. Managing Oracle Database Systems Getting Started Guide

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Foglight

™

for Oracle

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June 2014

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Introduction to this Guide

The Foglight for Oracle Getting Started Guide is a quick guide for the installation and use of Foglight for Oracle, from the planning stage up to the actual monitoring of database instances. This document details first the installation prerequisites, and then the actual installation and monitoring of database instances.

This guide is intended for Oracle database administrators.

About Quest Software, Inc.

Established in 1987, Quest Software (Nasdaq: QSFT) provides simple and innovative IT management solutions that enable more than 100,000 global customers to save time and money across physical and virtual environments. Quest products solve complex IT challenges ranging from database management, data protection, identity and access management, monitoring, user workspace management to Windows management. For more information, visit www.quest.com.

Contacting Quest Software

Refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.

Email [email protected]

Mail Quest Software, Inc.

World Headquarters 5 Polaris Way

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Introduction to this Guide

Contacting Quest Support

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Installing and Using Foglight for Oracle

Foglight for Oracle is Quest Software’s powerful diagnostic and problem resolution tool for Oracle databases. This Foglight cartridge delivers a global view that provides a visual health check of instances and clusters, and enables a drill-down style diagnostic workflow to investigate the performance of monitored Oracle instances, Real Application Clusters (RACs) and databases. This document is a quick guide for the installation and configuration of Foglight for Oracle, from the planning stage up to the actual monitoring of database instances.

Installation Prerequisites

Before starting the installation of Foglight for Oracle, ensure that the following conditions are met: • Using a supported system and platform.

Foglight for Oracle’s system requirements and supported platforms are identical to those of Foglight Management Server. For details, see Foglight System Requirements and Platform Support Guide.

• Using a Foglight license that allows cartridges to be installed.

Ensure that the pre-existing Foglight license that is being used allows cartridge installation. If a license that does not allow cartridge installation is used, the installation wizard cannot proceed beyond the Foglight Management Server License screen, which requires specifying the type of license to be installed.

As Foglight for Oracle runs on Foglight, Foglight must be installed prior to installing this cartridge.

• Preparing in advance an Oracle user to be used for monitoring the added instances. The details of this Oracle user are entered in the Connection Details dialog box when running the Oracle Monitoring wizard, and this user must be granted the privileges required for

monitoring the database. These privileges can be granted only by a user with a SYSDBA user role.

Note It is possible to monitor the selected instances by using a user with a SYSDBA user role, in which case the Grant Privileges phase is unnecessary.

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Chapter 1—Installing and Using Foglight for Oracle

This dialog box appears upon clicking the status Insufficient privileges, which appears in the Status column of instances that have insufficient database privileges for accessing Oracle data dictionary views, at the end of either of the following situations:

• When running the Oracle Monitoring Installer wizard—in the Configuration screen (for details, see “Configuring Oracle Monitoring using the Monitoring Wizard” in the Foglight for Oracle User Guide).

• When editing settings in the Databases Administration dashboard under the Oracle > Connection Details screen—for details, see the Foglight for Oracle User Guide.

To Grant the user the privileges required for monitoring the database: 1 Click the status Insufficient privileges.

The Grant Database Privileges dialog box opens.

Status row

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Managing Oracle Database Systems Getting Started Guide 7 Chapter 1—Installing and Using Foglight for Oracle

This dialog box allows specifying a SYSDBA user with sufficient privileges.

2 Enter a SYSDBA user and password.

3 Click Grant Privileges.

Note Alternatively, click Grant at the bottom of this dialog box to grant privileges manually via a script.

The privileges required for monitoring the database are as follows: • CREATE PROCEDURE

• CREATE SESSION • CREATE SYNONYM • CREATE TABLE • CREATE VIEW

• CREATE ANY DIRECTORY • DROP ANY DIRECTORY

• SELECT on V$ views required for monitoring • SELECT on GV$ views required for monitoring • SELECT on DBA views required for monitoring • SELECT on Oracle data dictionary tables

As the script grants access to X$ Oracle views required for monitoring, the following objects specified below are created.

• View to X$ view, named X_QUEST_<view name> • Synonym to the X_QUEST_<view name>

The following requirement is relevant only if you plan to install a new Foglight Management Server:

• Using an available external database.

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Installing Foglight for Oracle

Foglight for Oracle runs on the Foglight Management Server, which is its operation framework. Therefore, Foglight Management Server must be installed before installing the cartridge.

The installation of Foglight for Oracle can be carried out using either of the following scenarios: • Installing both Foglight for Oracle and Foglight Management Server. For details, see

“Installing Foglight for Oracle and Foglight Management Server Together” on page 8. • Installing Foglight for Oracle as a cartridge from within an existing Foglight Management

Server. For details, see “Installing Foglight for Oracle by Adding it to a Cartridge Inventory of an Existing Foglight Management Server” on page 8.

Installing Foglight for Oracle and Foglight Management Server Together

Starting from version 5.5.8, a single executable file allows installing Foglight Management Server together with Foglight for Oracle.

To run the combined installation file:

1 Copy the installation file appropriate to the operating system and the bit level (32-bit or 64-bit) to a temporary directory on the requested host.

Note The combined installation file is named using the following convention:

Foglight-<version_number>_install_<operating system>-<instruction set><bit level>Oracle<.exe/ .bin>

For example: install_windows-ia32_Oracle.exe or Foglight-5_5_8-install_solaris-sparc64_Oracle.bin

2 If planning to use an external database for the Foglight Management Server Installation, ensure that this database is running.

3 Follow the on-screen installation instructions

Installing Foglight for Oracle by Adding it to a Cartridge Inventory of an

Existing Foglight Management Server

To install Foglight for Oracle as a cartridge from within an existing Foglight Management Server: 1 Copy the cartridge’s car file (VersionNumber.car; for example,

DB_Oracle-5_6_7_3.car), which is included in the installation media, to your local computer. 2 Log in to the Foglight browser interface.

3 On the navigation panel, under Dashboards, click Administration > Cartridges >

Cartridge Inventory.

4 On the Cartridge Inventory dashboard, click Browse to find the car file on your local computer.

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Using Foglight for Oracle Within Foglight Management Server

After successful installation of Foglight for Oracle, when entering the Foglight Management Server, no instances are displayed.

The various Foglight for Oracle agents (DB_Oracle, DB_Oracle_RAC and DB_Oracle_Instance) are the basic elements of the Foglight for Oracle application. These components allow monitoring the database performance on each server where the application is installed.

To add database instances, when no instance is monitored: 1 On the navigation panel, under Homes, click Databases.

• If no instances are monitored, the Database view appears empty and you are prompted to click the button Monitor More Instances.

• If one or more instances are already monitored, the Databases view displays a list of the currently monitored instances.

Important If several database cartridges are installed, the Databases view displays all of the database types that can be monitored, even if no instance of a specific database type is currently monitored. In such a case, the instance count for this database type displays the number 0. If only one database cartridge is installed, the Databases view displays only this database type, without the All Databases tile.

2 Click Monitor More Instances at the upper left corner of the view.

Important If a user-defined database group is currently selected, the databases table's title displays the name of this group instead of All; however, all newly discovered or created databases are added to the general (All) group of databases. If only one database cartridge is installed, the Database Discovery wizard view appears immediately.

The screen that appears now allows selecting between the following options for adding more instances for monitoring:

• Add one — the quickest, most efficient way to have an Oracle instance or Real

Application Cluster (RAC) monitored, when such an instance or a RAC has been added, and its exact details are known.

• Discover one or more — suitable for medium and large environments with complex configurations and deployments, possibly requiring user-defined settings. For details. see “Discovering multiple databases using the Oracle monitoring wizard” on page 9.

Important Configuring the Foglight Performance Analysis connectivity is not carried out using the instance installation wizard. If one or more of the newly added instances has Foglight Performance Analysis installed and configured, the Foglight Performance Analysis connectivity can be configured only using the Databases Administration dashboard. For details, see “Configuring user-defined Performance Analysis connectivity details” on page 10.

Discovering multiple databases using the Oracle monitoring wizard

1 Select the option Discover one or more. 2 Click Oracle.

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4 Use the Select Host screen to determine whether to select the host recommended by the wizard (the host that contains the smallest number of monitored instances) or a different host.

5 Click Next.

6 Use the following screen to add instances by loading a TNS file that contains a list of instances.

a Select the check boxes beside the requested instances from the loaded list, and then click

Select.

b To set credentials for one or more of the instances that are now displayed on the table, select the requested instances and click Set credentials on the toolbar.

c Use the dialog box to fill in the following details: • Login credentials

• If the option to enable OS monitoring is selected, select the requested authentication type. • If the selected instances reside on a virtual machine, configure the connection details to

the vCenter server or the ESX server that hosts the virtual machine 7 Validate the connectivity of the requested instances.

Important If during the connectivity validation process several RACs with a single active node are detected, a dialog box appears, identify the RACs that are not RAC One Node, so that they will be correctly displayed in the table as RACs.

After the validation process completes, all instances that passed the validation process successfully are displayed, in the table with the status Validated.

Configuring user-defined Performance Analysis connectivity details

The Connection Details screen in the Databases Administration dashboard provides the following options for configuring the Foglight Performance Analysis (PA) connectivity for the selected agents:

• Detecting the Performance Analysis port—either by using the default port or by specifying one or more ports. When this option is selected, the Performance Analysis connectivity for the selected agents connectivity is configured to use the default credentials.

• Setting user-defined details for the Performance Analysis connectivity.

Important To maintain the connection to Performance Analysis (activate/deactivate/verify accounts and so on), use the Oracle > Performance Analysis screen. For more information, see “Configuring the Connection to Performance Analysis” in Foglight for Oracle User Guide.

To detect the Performance Analysis port:

1 In the navigation panel, under Homes, click Databases.

2 Select the row check boxes beside the agents for which you want to detect the PA port. 3 Click Agent settings and then click Administration.

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5 With the target agents selected, click Detect Performance Analysis.

6 In the Detect Performance Analysis dialog box, select whether to accept the default

Performance Analysis port (3566) or to replace it, by typing one or more ports separated by comma.

7 Click Detect.

Upon successful completion of the detection process, the Status row remains blank and a appears in the PA column. Agents that failed this process display the status Performance Analysis not detected.

To configure Performance Analysis manually:

1 In the navigation panel, under Homes, click Databases.

2 Select the row check boxes beside the agents for which you want to detect the PA port. 3 Click Agent settings and then click Administration.

4 In the Administration dashboard, click Oracle > Connection Details. 5 With the target agents selected, click Set credentials.

6 In the Edit Instance Credentials dialog box, click Edit Performance Analysis settings. 7 Select the check box Enable Performance Analysis.

8 Click Configure Performance Analysis.

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Layout of Foglight for Oracle Dashboard

The diagram below shows Foglight for Oracle dashboard navigation paths.