Connecting Oracle Management Cloud with Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c

Let’s clear about this: Oracle Management Cloud (OMC) is NOT a replacement of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control (OEM CC) or even an equivalant. Rumours are that this will  be Oracle’s policy in a far away future, but in the meantime we focus on what they do best. OEM CC is a product for a complete management solution for your Oracle environment, OMC for monitoring and, most of all,  analyse the monitored data in your Oracle environment.

Oracle made it possible to connect these worlds by using the data of the repository of OEM CC in OMC. And that’s what this post is about.

In a previous blog about monitoring Infrastructure with OMC I installed an OMC-cloud agent on a server with OEM CC with the repository database on it.

Through this OMC-cloud agent it’s possible to monitor the assets – in a nice gui – but what I’d really like to do is use the data in the OEM CC – repository for the analytical power of Oracle Management Cloud.

My infrastructure monitoring is working since this blog by installing an OMC-cloud agent. The question is however, do I have to install an OMC-cloud agent on every node, and connect every node  to the OMC?  A part of that is true. A cloud agent is necessary on every node, but they all can be directed to 1 node where a central gateway has been installed for connection to OMC. But of course you also can install a data collector for information from the Oracle Enterprise Manager Repository.

In the documentation of IT-analytics there’s a picture with quite a nice overview:

Another, maybe more explanatory image:

 

 

For now I’m interested in the data collector. This data collector collects different types of data from the Oracle Management Repository, including targets, target properties, metrics, performance metrics, and events.

According to the doc I need to install the gateway ánd the datacollector. In the former post I already downloaded the master-installer for Infrastructure monitoring, and this is the same as for the gateway and data collector.

The gateway

For the gateway I chose to use port 1840

Performing the installation in two steps: downloading first, and then install from staged directory.

./AgentInstall.sh AGENT_TYPE=gateway AGENT_REGISTRATION_KEY=’RMxMm7chywi-J-VZ7_UfxY5XUU’  STAGE_LOCATION=/gwayagent -download_only  —-> this may take a few minutes, results in a gateway.zip of approx 290 MB.

./AgentInstall.sh AGENT_TYPE=gateway AGENT_REGISTRATION_KEY=’RMxMm7chywi-J-VZ7_UfxY5XUU’ AGENT_BASE_DIR=/omc_gway AGENT_PORT=1840 -staged

Generating emaas.properties …
Extracting Agent Software …
Installing the Agent …
Registering the Agent …
Downloading Certificates …
Configuring the Agent …
Cleanup temporary files …
The following configuration scripts need to be executed as the root user
#!/bin/sh
#Root script to run
/omc_gway/core/1.12.0/root.sh

That was quite easy.

The data collector.

Same recipe, first download, then the install.

./AgentInstall.sh AGENT_TYPE=data_collector AGENT_REGISTRATION_KEY=’RMxMm7chywi-J-VZ7_UfxY5XUU'  STAGE_LOCATION=/gwayagent -download_only  ---> this results in a lama.zip, the same as the cloud_agent,so in fact no need to download again!

 

./AgentInstall.sh AGENT_TYPE=data_collector AGENT_REGISTRATION_KEY=’RMxMm7chywi-J-VZ7_UfxY5XUU’ AGENT_BASE_DIR=/omc_dc GATEWAY_HOST=ovamisux159.amis.local GATEWAY_PORT=1840 EM_AGENT_NAME=ovamisux159.amis.local:1830 HARVESTER_USERNAME=SYSMAN_EMAAS_3 OMR_USERNAME=sys OMR_HOSTNAME=ovamisux159.amis.local OMR_HOST_USER_PASSWORD=welcome1 OMR_PORT=1521 OMR_SERVICE_NAME=cloudcontrol OMR_HOST_USERNAME=oracle OMR_STAGE_DIR=/gwayagent -staged

Enter HARVESTER_USER_PASSWORD:
Enter OMR_USER_PASSWORD:

Generating emaas.properties …
Extracting Agent Software …
Installing the Agent …
Registering the Agent …
Downloading Certificates …
Configuring the Agent …
Cleanup temporary files …
The following configuration scripts need to be executed as the root user
#!/bin/sh
#Root script to run
/omc_dc/core/1.12.0/root.sh

Here I was a bit confused by the use of OMR_USERNAME. The documentation  of the agent_install script states that this is “The Oracle Management Repository user name “.  But this user should be a user with SYSDBA to install the Harvester schema – in this case SYSMAN_EMAAS_3.

O.k. done.

A recap: what is running on my server at this moment:

OEM CC – the Oracle Enterprise Manager – Management Server

OEM CC – the Oracle Enterprise Manager repository database 12.1

OEM CC – the Oracle Enterprise Manager agent

OMC – cloud agent

OMC – gateway (agent)

OMC – data collector (agent)

And the data collector is showing him/herself in the Oracle Management Cloud:

 

Then it’s time to add entities to the IT analytics-datawarehouse according to the doc. This time no need for OMCLI-commands, now’s it’s time to return to the GUI of the OMC.

Here it’s called ‘Enabling Services’ on Entities.

 

Be aware: only the items which were added through the infrastructure monitoring (through OMCLI) can be enabled as a service!

A small documentation bug: I seem to miss a functionality: the IT Analytics Administration link.

According to the documentation:

As an IT Analytics administrator, you can add database targets to the IT Analytics warehouse for AWR collection.
To add targets, do the following:
From the Oracle Management Cloud home page, click the Application Navigator icon in the upper-right corner of the page.
From the Administration group, click the IT Analytics Administration link

Found out this link is no longer called “IT Analytics Administration”, it is just “Administration”.
From there, the link “Enable/Disable Services” is used to add entities/targets to the ITA Warehouse.

So… this one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there it is:

 

 

But, no data is yet to be seen. Is the data collector healthy and well-configured?

[oracle@ovamisux159 bin]$ ./omcli status agent
Oracle Management Cloud Data Collector
Copyright (c) 1996, 2016 Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
—————————————————————
Version                : 1.12.0
State Home             : /omc_dc/agent_inst
Log Directory          : /omc_dc/agent_inst/sysman/log
Binaries Location      : /omc_dc/core/1.12.0
Process ID             : 27293
Parent Process ID      : 27235
URL                    : https://ovamisux159.amis.local:1830/emd/main/
Started at             : 2016-12-30 12:26:01
Started by user        : oracle
Operating System       : Linux version 3.8.13-55.1.6.el7uek.x86_64 (amd64)
Data Collector enabled : true
Sender Status          : FUNCTIONAL
Gateway Upload Status  : FUNCTIONAL
Last successful upload : 2017-01-22 17:03:01
Last attempted upload  : 2017-01-22 17:03:01
Pending Files (MB)     : 0.01
Pending Files          : 16
Backoff Expiration     : (none)

—————————————————————
Agent is Running and Ready

Are  there any connectivity issues?

[oracle@ovamisux159 bin]$ ./omcli status agent connectivity -verbose
Oracle Management Cloud Data Collector
Copyright (c) 1996, 2016 Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
—————————————————————
Data Collector is Running

No significant connectivity issues found between Data Collector and Gateway.
Check the connectivity status of the Gateway: ovamisux159.amis.local

Ahh.. forgot one thing:

Following the note “Enabling Host Monitoring for the Infrastructure Monitoring Cloud Service (Doc ID 2195074.1)” changed the file /omc_dc/plugins/oracle.em.sgfm.zip/1.12.0/configs/discovery.properties. Deleted the # sign at the line with ‘omc_host_linux’. :

navigate to directory:

cd /u01/app/oracle/omc_dc/plugins/oracle.em.sgfm.zip/1.12.0/configs

open a file for editing in vi

vi discovery.properties

comment out the parameter: disable_monitoring_for_entitytype=omc_host_linux

save the modified file.

Activate the changes by stopping and starting the agent:

./omcli stop agent

./omcli start agent

 

Checking the log file /omc_dc/agent_inst/sysman/log/gcagent.log : no errors.

 

Are there any items that are added to OMC? When navigating to e.g. Enterprise Health –> Entities, I can see entities which I haven’t added manually to EMC, and which are obviously added by the OMC – data explorer.

You may ask why the status is unknown? That’s because of the OEM CC agent which died at my server while having some other problems.

 

 

Nice to know: how does this data collector collects his data of the repository? This is recorded in the log-file of the OMC-data collector log, hereby an example.

SELECT a.target_guid, a.snapshot_guid, a.snapshot_type, a.target_type, a.start_timestamp, c.timezone_region, b.ecm_snapshot_id, b.FILE_SYSTEM “_E_FILE_SYSTEM_”

FROM mgmt_ecm_gen_snapshot a

INNER JOIN mgmt_targets c ON (a.target_guid = c.target_guid)

INNER JOIN emaas_whitelist_entities w

ON (w.harvester_name = ? AND c.target_guid = w.member_entity_guid)

INNER JOIN em_ecm_all_config_snapshots e

ON (a.snapshot_guid = e.ecm_snapshot_id AND a.start_timestamp = e.collection_timestamp   AND (  (w.is_new = 0 AND e.saved_timestamp >= ? AND e.saved_timestamp < ?)OR   (w.is_new = 1 AND e.saved_timestamp < ?)     )      )

INNER JOIN em_ecm_all_config_metrics d

ON (d.ecm_snapshot_id = a.snapshot_guid AND d.table_name = ? AND d.collection_timestamp = e.collection_timestamp)

LEFT OUTER JOIN EM_ESM_FILESYS b ON (a.snapshot_guid = b.ecm_snapshot_id)

WHERE a.target_type = ?

AND a.snapshot_type = ?

AND a.is_current = ?

AND a.target_guid IS NOT NULL

ORDER BY a.target_guid

 

O.k. I clearly reached my goal. OMC is connected with OEM CC. And that’s where it stops at the moment for this blogpost.

But now what? I would have love to show some more, but time is limited (and the trial period) . Clicking around in OMC is not very intuitive and you clearly need some time to figure out how to use this and discover the added value. You also need time to figure out what all the agents on your system are doing, except consuming resources.

A recap: the concept of OMC is still very promising, however the GUI and the technical implementation needs improvement. But hey, the developers of OMC has just begun, compared with the maturity of OEM CC 13c.

My major concern at the moment is the policy of Oracle. Their cloud-eagerness could led to a decision to replace OEM CC for OMC, while these products could be complementary to eachother, even reinforcing.

Regardz.

 

Resources:

– Deploying Oracle Management Cloud for Infrastructure Monitoring: https://technology.amis.nl/2016/12/18/deploying-oracle-management-cloud-for-infrastructure-monitoring/

– Documentation IT Analytics: http://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/management-cloud/emcad/setting-it-analytics.html

– Oracle Management Cloud Master Note: (Doc ID 2092091.1)

– IT Analytics Cloud Service Master Note (Doc ID 2107732.1)

-Configuration cloud agent for log analytics on jcs instance : https://technology.amis.nl/2017/01/20/configuring-cloud-agent-for-log-analytics-on-jcs-instance-to-collect-weblogic-log-files/

– Agent_install script: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/management-cloud/emcad/running-agentinstall-script.html