2 Key Capabilities and Features
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center offers comprehensive system management for physical and virtual Oracle hardware and heterogeneous operating systems. This chapter describes the features and capabilities of the product and identifies the enhancements in the current release. For detailed information about the changes in each release, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center What's New In this Release? document.
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Oracle Virtualization - Improved
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Virtual Datacenter - Improved
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Oracle Engineered Systems - Improved
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Oracle Solaris 11 - Improved
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Oracle Linux 6 - Improved
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Storage Resources - Improved
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Network Resources - Improved
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Command-Line Interface - Improved
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Expanded System Support - New
2.1 Oracle Virtualization
Virtualization is a powerful method of maximizing the utilization of systems. You can virtualize operating systems or hardware platforms. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center enables you to discover, provision, update, monitor, and manage the virtual systems, as if they were physical assets.
2.1.1 Oracle Solaris Zones
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center manages virtual operating systems. Oracle Solaris Zones creates multiple identical virtualized operating system environments within a single instance of the Oracle Solaris operating system running in the global zone. You run applications in different zones, isolated from each other. The underlying operating system resources are managed and administered by the global zone.
Use deployment plans to create zones and manage the zones through their life cycle.
When multiple global zones are in a server pool, their zones have high availability. If one global zone fails, its non-global zones can be migrated to a different global zone in the same server pool because the server pool shares all the network and storage resources.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides improved utilization metrics.
You can change a zone at run time without having to restart the zone.
You can create Oracle Solaris 10 branded zones on an Oracle Solaris 11 kernel.
The network bandwidth is improved because multiple local virtual networks are now supported.
2.1.2 Oracle VM Server for SPARC and Oracle VM Server for x86
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center manages virtual hardware. Each virtual system can run a full instance of a unique operating system. You can run full instances of Oracle Solaris and Linux operating systems inside a single Oracle VM Server. You can use hardware virtualization in the following scenarios:
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Reduce the number of servers you support by hosting applications on the Oracle VM Server instead of on multiple servers.
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Use logical domains to host different operating system kernels in the same server.
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Maximize security by isolating operating system and hardware resources.
When you provision a server with the Oracle VM Server software, a control domain is established. The control domain manages its logical domains. Each logical domain has its own operating system, resources, and identity within a single system.
Use Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center to create and provision logical domains, including allocating the system's memory, CPU threads, and devices, and to monitor performance.
You can create Oracle VM servers for both the SPARC and x86 platforms. In addition to Oracle Solaris VM Server for SPARC software, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center works with Oracle VM Manager software to support Oracle Solaris VM Server for x86 software. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center can discover existing Oracle VM Manager instances. After discovery, you manage these virtual systems from either the Oracle VM Manager user interface or from the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center user interface.
2.1.3 Server Pools
A server pool maximizes capacity by balancing the load of several of virtualization hosts. You can relocate any virtualization host in the server pool from one physical system at capacity to another under-used physical system. You set policies to balance the load automatically, or choose to be notified of system load conditions and change the balance manually.
Virtualization technologies have common features. Instead of virtual pools for Oracle VM Server for SPARC, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center has server pools for each virtualization technology: Oracle VM Server for SPARC, Oracle VM Server for x86, and Oracle Solaris Zones. A server pool must contain only virtualization hosts of the same type, and they are managed in the same way.
Server pools of Oracle Solaris Zones, Oracle VM Server for SPARC, and Oracle VM Server for x86 have the ability to migrate and restart the guests of a failed virtualization host on other members of the same pool.
The display of an Oracle VM Server for x86 server pool includes the Oracle VM Manager master node.
2.2 Virtual Datacenter
Virtual data centers extend server pools to support isolated, secure, custom, and tuned environments for end-user accounts. Virtual datacenters are designed to drive policy-based use of resources.
From a virtual datacenter user account, you run applications that rely on the resources allocated to the virtual datacenter. You can perform operations within the virtual datacenter from the user interface or you can use the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center's IaaS web service provides an API and CLI for managing the physical or virtual resources in the virtual datacenter. You can use the IaaS web service to perform the following tasks:
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Create, update, and delete the templates for creating virtual servers.
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Create and manage virtual servers.
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Manage block storage in an elastic, on-demand way.
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Maintain virtual networks for security.
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Manage access to individual virtual servers using key pairs.
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Register server templates created in Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder.
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Provide high availability (HA) for vServers.
2.3 Oracle Engineered Systems
Oracle Engineered Systems are hardware and software integrated systems that are designed for a specific enterprise purpose. This reduces the cost and complexity of the IT infrastructures and increases the productivity and performance. Oracle Engineered Systems use a customized instance of Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center to do the following:
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Discover all components of the Engineered System and provides a view of the full rack. Unify the management of servers, storage, and network fabric.
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Simplify the management of the virtual infrastructure.
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Monitor and maintain all assets and their components throughout their life cycle: servers, switches, operating systems, ZFS storage arrays, and all firmware and software.
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Connect to My Oracle Support to handle Oracle Auto Service Requests (ASR) and incident resolution.
2.3.1 SPARC SuperCluster T4-4
SPARC SuperCluster is an Oracle Engineered System that integrates SPARC compute nodes, a ZFS storage appliance, InfiniBand switches, and the Exadata Storage Server into a multi-rack system. The SPARC SuperCluster architecture includes Oracle Solaris 11 or Oracle Solaris 10, Oracle Fusion software, and the Oracle Solaris Cluster software. The Oracle Engineered System is a complete stack of hardware and software, computing, storage, and network that are engineered to work together optimally to provide a database and also a private cloud.
In addition to the contributions that Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center makes to all Oracle Engineered Systems, the software provides the following features to this Engineered System:
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Displays a consolidated view, as a rack, of the components' firmware, placement, and faults.
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Provides performance analysis.
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Monitors InfiniBand switches.
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Monitors the Exadata Storage Server.
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Monitors the compute nodes.
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Manages Oracle Solaris Clusters.
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Manages hardware faults.
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Manages the virtualization technologies.
2.3.2 Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud
The Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Engineered System delivers a standalone Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center that is pre-installed on a factory-packaged Exalogic system. The embedded Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center is an integral part of Exalogic Control software and offers full set of Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center built-in functionality to provide Exalogic platform administration operations. It also provides features to view the Exalogic system as an appliance, monitor and manage the Exalogic hardware, and cover the replacement part of the fault management lifecycle.
In addition to the contributions that Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center makes to all Oracle Engineered Systems, the software provides the following features to this Engineered System:
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Displays a consolidated view, as a rack, of the components' firmware, placement, and faults.
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Integrates with Oracle VM Manager, Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder, and the Exalogic Exabus.
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Monitors InfiniBand switches.
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Provides a console to launch the user interfaces for the Sun ZFS Storage 7320 appliance and the InfiniBand switches.
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Provides access to the serial console for the service processors of compute nodes, switches, and storage.
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Provides the IaaS API and Cloud Management Console.
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Reports incidents for the Sun ZFS 7320 Storage appliance.
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Validates overlapping IP addresses on the public and private EoIB network and manages subnets by creating subnet and VLAN ID pairs and then enabling one EoIB subnet for each pairing.
2.4 Oracle Solaris 11
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center supports Oracle Solaris 11 Update 1 (11.1) throughout its life cycle: provisioning, updating, managing boot environments, monitoring, and gathering resource utilization data.
The Oracle Solaris 11 Image Packaging System (IPS) Repository is one of the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center's Software Libraries. You can perform basic management tasks on the IPS and use the data in the IPS for auto-install, provisioning, and update operations.
The following IPS operations are supported:
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Mirroring the repository on the Enterprise Controller and Proxy Controller
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Configuring the IPS software libraries
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Associating proxy IPS libraries to your managed Oracle Solaris 11 systems
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Viewing IPS software repository content
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Viewing additional IPS library types, which enables support for managing boot images and auto install scripts
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Updating IPS packages in the library
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Operating system compliance reporting
Information about both Oracle Solaris 11 and Oracle Solaris 10 boot environments are displayed and reported in a similar way:
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OS View is a table of all boot environments.
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Compliance reports and comparisons include boot environments.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center synchronizes with a parent repository to maintain the Oracle Solaris 11 Software Update Library. If your site already has an Oracle Solaris 11 IPS repository for other purposes, you have the option using that repository as the Oracle Solaris 11 Software Update Library.
The Automated Installer for Oracle Solaris 11 is integrated with the provisioning deployment plans. This feature requires that both the Enterprise Controller and a Proxy Controller use Oracle Solaris 11 so that the Proxy Controller can retrieve the IPS image from the Enterprise Controller's IPS repository. This release also supports the enhanced Automated Installer in Oracle Solaris 11 Update 1 (11.1) that supports GRUB2 booting (GRUB2) and UEFI.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center also supports SPARC WAN boot. This method becomes the default action when it is applicable. This release provide options to save settings in the OS provisioning profile for WAN boot and for a reset of the Automated Installer.
2.5 Oracle Linux 6
The current release now supports Oracle Linux 6 operating system through version 6.3.
2.6 Storage Resources
As in the previous version, storage libraries support virtualization hosts. However, they are now organized into the following categories:
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Block storage libraries, which contain groups of Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) that you can associate with server pools or individual virtualization hosts (Oracle VM Server for SPARC, Oracle VM Server for x86, and global zones) to store their data.
For Oracle VM Server for x86 and Oracle VM Server for SPARC, you have the ability to add the same LUN to more than one guest to support cluster configurations.You can identify the LUN as sharable when you select it.
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File system storage libraries, which can be local or shared, store virtual images and data.
The previous version's libraries that were called Fibre Channel storage are now called Block Libraries. In addition to Fibre Channel LUNs, iSCSI LUNs are now supported.
2.6.1 Oracle VM Storage Connect
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center shares the capability of Oracle VM Manager to manage storage devices of various vendors so that all types of virtualization hosts have uniform support. Oracle VM Storage Connect is an application programming interface (API) that exposes the storage device's features and attributes to Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center. Storage vendors use the API to create plug-in software. An Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center storage administrator enables the plug-in software.
2.6.2 Dynamic Storage
A storage server supports a dynamic block storage library. Discovering an iSCSI SAN Storage Array, creates storage libraries. As Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center discoveres the storage array, it creates and manages additional LUNs when required. Volume groups and file systems are also supported.
2.7 Network Resources
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center manages Layer 2 and Layer 3 network fabrics. Through integration with Oracle network switches, the software controls both physical and logical fabrics used in data centers. New features include management of ports, private networks, and InfiniBand partitions and Ethernet VLANs.
All managed networks reside in a container called a network domain. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides one network domain called the Default Network Domain. All existing managed networks are in this network domain and any new networks you create are in this domain. However, for virtual datacenters, you create a new network domain and then you re-assign a managed network from the Default network domain to the new network domain.
In this release, for a logical domain that contains zones, you can use exclusive IP addresses for each zone and use multiple vNICs attached to the same network.
2.7.1 Network Protocols
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center supports both Ethernet and InfiniBand network protocols. Although the Ethernet interconnect is the established interconnect, InfiniBand maximizes the speed of transactions using the short, multiple connections found in clusters and data centers. For Linux operating system, Ethernet over InfiniBand (EoIB) and Internet Protocol over InfiniBand (IPoIB) is supported.
Some environments have a mix of IPv4 and IPv6. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center is “IPv6-aware.” If an asset has an IPv6 network interface, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center can read and display its information, but cannot provision an IPv6 network or use IPv6 networks to discover, monitor, or provision assets.
2.7.2 Bandwidth Management for Oracle Solaris 11
For Oracle Solaris 11, full link aggregation and IPMP groups are supported. Oracle Solaris 11 can manage the bandwidth of a data link, including physical links, virtual NICs, and link aggregations. For a zone, you can specify the amount of network bandwidth that the zone is allowed to consume.
2.7.3 Oracle Solaris Zones and Virtual NICs
Oracle Solaris Zones consolidate NIC ports into a virtual NIC. Instead of each virtual host having a dedicated physical NIC, the NIC can be shared by several zones, at the threshold that each one needs.
Figure 2-1 Before and After Consolidation of NIC Ports
Description of "Figure 2-1 Before and After Consolidation of NIC Ports"
2.8 Command-Line Interface
The Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Command-Line Interface (CLI) is an alternative to the standard user interface for Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center. The CLI can perform many, but not all, of the actions of the standard user interface.
To support deployment plans, two modes are added. The deploy mode specifies the contents of the plan. The deploy-setup mode identifies the plan and the plan's target. Other modes are enhanced. Another mode, credentials, is added to manage the credentials used in deployment plans.
2.9 Extensive Monitoring
The software monitors and manages multiple assets from a single console. Monitoring profiles and default policies are enabled as soon as assets are managed. You can track system-defined parameters for hardware power consumption, hardware status (temperature, fan speed, and voltage), and key statistics for operating systems such as utilization, load, CPU, and memory. An administrator can adjust the thresholds that trigger alerts for different severity levels (Critical, Warning, or Informational) based on organization's policies, or disable rules and alert conditions.
An operating system asset's performance and status are displayed in charts, reports, and utilization details. Data is available for up to 6 months to aid in trend analysis. You can display charts for a group of operating systems or an individual operating system. Utilization details include the top five consumers. You can see details, such as CPU and memory usage, for a specific process.
Monitoring improvements include:
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Improved error detection for server hardware
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Fault management analysis for hardware faults.
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Agentless monitoring for operating system assets
When you change a monitoring policy, the change is applied to all assets that are associated with that policy.
For operating systems, the Utilization tab is called OS Analytics and includes enhanced utilization monitoring for Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux operating systems and provides the data to analyze physical and virtual behavior of an operating system, to improve performance, to diagnose and correct incidents.The following data is collected:
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CPU Utilization
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Memory Utilization
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Network Utilization
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File System Utilization
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System Load
2.10 Asset Types
The management of assets is now broader and deeper. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center software reports BIOS configuration for x86 platforms, and firmware provisioning for racks, switches, power distribution units, and storage appliances. Oracle Solaris Zones and Oracle VM Server for SPARC that are created outside of the product software's management are now managed. In addition to the asset types of previous versions, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center manages the following physical and virtual assets. For more information, see Oracle Enterprise Ops Center Certified Systems Matrix Guide.
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SPARC T-4
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SPARC Enterprise M4000
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Oracle 10GigE and InfiniBand switches
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Cisco switch embedded in Engineered systems
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Exalogic Elastic Cloud X2-2 Hardware
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Sun Rack II
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Power Distribution Unit
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Switch ports
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Service processors
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Operating systems
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Virtual datacenter
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Oracle VM Server for x86
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Virtual network domain
2.11 Users and Roles
You can add more roles to the software. These roles give you fine control of the actions that you take and the assets that you view.
You can customize the user experience for each user and role. You can change the starting view after log in, the timeout interval, and refresh interval. An administrator can modify the available views or actions, based on roles.
2.12 Database Support
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center stores product data in an embedded or customer-managed Oracle Database Enterprise Edition database. You can set up a database specifically for the Enterprise Controller, or use an existing database that is accessible by the Enterprise Controller.
2.13 High Availability
Support for high availability using Oracle Clusterware. You can set up multiple Enterprise Controller nodes and fail over to prevent downtime.
2.14 Automatic Service Requests
you can configure Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center to generate automatic service requests for assets. When a hardware fault occurs with an asset, a service request is generated using the credentials and contact information you provided for the asset.
2.15 Asset Discovery and Management
Discovery of the servers, storage devices, operating systems, and virtual systems in data center uses one of several standard protocols, including SSH, IPMI, Telnet, and SNMP.
After assets are discovered, they are managed and are registered in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center's database. In some cases, Agent Controller software is installed so the asset can be provisioned, monitored, and its firmware and operating system can be updated.
Managed assets are displayed in a hierarchy in one pane of the user interface and are also added to one or more groups based on the asset type. Groups are administrative structures that organize assets so that you can locate an asset quickly and perform operations on all assets of the same type. An asset can belong to multiple groups.
Groups enable you to quickly locate and view assets of a specific type. You can act on groups, such as running compliance checks on all assets in the group, changing monitoring thresholds and updating discovery credentials. The Services group and subgroups contain all assets organized by the actions for which they can be targets. For example, the OS Update group contains all operating systems that can be updated.
Each discovery method gives the option of managing the discovered assets.
You can discover assets by using specific criteria, by searching for service tags, or by specifying server information.
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Add Assets Using Discovery Profiles - This option uses a discovery profile, which specifies the type of asset and the host names or IP addresses to target.
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Find Assets - This option lets you perform a Service Tag discovery, then provide credentials for the discovered assets.
Operating systems can now be managed with or without an Agent Controller. When you manage an operating system, you choose whether it is managed with or without an Agent Controller.
The set of deployment plans is increased to include profiles and plans for Sun ZFS Storage Appliances, Alternate Boot Environments, BIOS Configuration, Oracle VM Server for x86 virtual machines, Oracle Solaris Zones, and Discovery profiles.
2.16 Automated Provisioning
Provisioning a complex data center is a daunting task that can be repetitious, inconsistent, and error-prone. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center facilitates firmware and operating system provisioning using a combination of image libraries, profiles, and deployment plans. You can maintain a library of golden images on the Enterprise Controller and use the profiles and plans to control how, when, and where the images are applied. A user with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center administrator privileges can manage a library of firmware and operating system images and use profiles to establish controls for how and when the images are applied.
A profile is a template or script that defines deployment and configuration requirements. Use profiles to enforce consistency in tasks, such as configuring hardware assets, deploying firmware, provisioning operating systems, and updating Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux operating systems. With profiles, you can consistently define what is enabled, and not enables, to be installed on a system and enable images to be applied consistently across one or more data centers.
To provide greater automation, you can use deployment plans to define the sequence of operations or steps that must be performed to deploy an asset, the profiles to be used, and the target systems or hosts. When you use profiles as a step in a deployment plan with multiple targets, you can configure many assets simultaneously.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides a comprehensive set of templates for all assets, including the virtualization platforms and logical domains. Deployment templates contain the basic building blocks that you can use to create your customized plans.
2.16.1 Firmware Provisioning
You can use firmware provisioning to add or update firmware on servers or chassis. You can create and maintain the library of firmware images in the Enterprise Controller Software Library.
A firmware image is a copy of a particular system firmware with associated metadata. The firmware metadata helps determine compatibility between a firmware image and a target system. The required metadata includes the firmware type, what system or systems the firmware is for, the version of the firmware, and any dependent firmware (other firmware on which the firmware depends).
To control how the provisioning job is performed, the administrator creates customized firmware profiles. A firmware profile is a collection of one or more firmware images and policies that defines how to update one or more firmware images on a system. You also use a firmware profile to generate compliance reports for a set of servers.
After the images and profiles are established, you can schedule firmware update and provisioning jobs to run immediately, or on a specific date and time.
2.16.2 Operating System Provisioning
Operating system provisioning enables you to install supported operating systems onto systems that are attached to your network. You can provision, or install, operating systems from the product's user interface instead of from each individual system.
As in firmware provisioning, administrators maintain a library of operating system images in the Software Library or other repository. To control how the provisioning job is performed, the administrator creates provisioning profiles. After the images and profiles are established, you schedule provisioning jobs to run immediately, or on a specific date and time. You can choose to provision a single system or a group of systems.
An operating system profile specifies how to configure an operating system as it installs onto a set of target systems. The profile specifies options, including what operating system to install, what software groups to install, and what disk partitions and network settings to use. Each profile is associated with a specific operating system image. Each profile describes how to install and configure one operating system image, or the FLAR associated with one operating system image.
2.17 Managing the Update Process
Updating operating systems can be a complex, time-consuming, and unpredictable process. You can encounter a seemingly never-ending list of dependencies which you must review for warnings, conflicts, and conditions.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center is designed to reduce the complexity of updating numtiple operating systems, standardize the patch installation process, minimize downtime, track changes, and automate patching without user interaction. You control the update process, the level of automation, the scheduling, and the number of concurrent updates. You can apply customized controls for one system or a group of systems and schedule the updates to deploy during periods of low usage.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center supports update management for Oracle Solaris, Linux, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. For enterprise-level users, using Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center to update your operating systems offers several key advantages:
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Role-based update permissions: Restrict update capabilities to designated users.
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Custom update policies and profiles: Define which patches to install, patch dependencies, and the level of user interaction. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides predefined update profiles apart from which you can create your own customized profiles and policies.
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Update simulations: Identify the required updates and choose whether to download updates in preparation for the actual deployment.
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Job scheduling: Schedule when to run an update simulation or update job. You can run it immediately, define a start day and time, or create a recurring schedule.
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Compliance and update reports: Generate a variety of compliance and other update reports to know the state of your operating system patch levels. You can use the report output to run a new operating system update job.
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Version control and rollback: A snapshot, known as a system catalog, is automatically taken and saved before an operating system update is performed. You can use the system catalog to revert back to a previous version.
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Variety of methods to detect and deploy updates: The Enterprise Controller obtains information about latest updates from the Knowledge Base and operating system vendor sites. You can deploy updates through the update profiles and policies, reports, and system catalogs.
The simulation feature enables you to test update dependencies by simulating an update job before you perform an actual update. You can manage different patching conditions that exist for installing a patch and keep track of the patching conditions. You can run an update simulation on Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris hosts to identify the updates that apply and download updates in preparation for the actual deployment. By running a simulation, you can determine the outcome of the update job and adjust the update policies and procedures for the update before scheduling an operating system update job. You can deploy the update to individual systems or a group of systems simultaneously. This approach adds predictability and consistency in the status of your operating systems.
2.17.1 System Catalogs
To maintain version control, a system catalog is created when the operating system asset is managed and after any action is performed on the operating system. A system catalog is a snapshot of the operating system that contains a list of operating system software components that are installed on the system and a date and time stamp. You can create a system catalog at any time.
For added safety, you can create a system catalog for a system before the update is deployed. If needed after an update, you can quickly and easily roll back to a saved system state.
The system catalogs provide the capability to manipulate the installed software components on a single operating system or a group of operating systems and provide rollback capability. You can save a catalog as a profile, and then use the profile to run an operating system update job. You can compare the catalogs between operating systems and create profiles from the saved catalogs which can be later used for creating systems. You can also make the target system the same as the source system. Modifying a catalog is an alternate option for running an operating system update job to install, uninstall, or upgrade a component. Modifying a catalog does not require an operating system update profile to run the update job. It is a quick way of changing the component configuration in a system.
2.17.2 Methods to Detect and Deploy Updates
The tools and reports vary, depending on the operating system. The procedures for installing updates on Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux operating systems are very similar. The procedures for updating Windows uses the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to implement the software updates.
Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris operating system update functionality enables you to perform updates from the following methods:
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Creating and running an update job for one or more systems
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Updating from an operating system profile
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Modifying a system catalog
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Using Oracle Solaris Live Upgrade to create, update, and deploy an alternate boot environment
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Creating one of several update reports to check for recommended updates, and then deploying the updates
Oracle Solaris Live Upgrade enables you to quickly create an alternate boot environment for your Oracle Solaris operating system, update the boot environment, and deploy the host to production quickly. You can synchronize boot environments and roll back to previous version, if needed.
2.18 Dynamic Incident Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center uses a help desk approach to managing incidents. When an incident is detected, it appears as a Critical, Warning or Informational alert in the Unassigned Incident queue in the Message Center. You can configure the software to send you notification of an incident to your e-mail address or pager. You can receive notification of all incidents, or filter to receive e-mail or pager notification based on the incident severity.
Use the Message Center to view unassigned incidents, incidents assigned to you, and incidents assigned to others. From this page, an administrator can assign the incident to an authorized user and then monitor the status and resolution. Figure 2-2 shows the Unassigned Incidents display in the Message Center, including the composition of the severity levels, a table of incidents, by category and severity, and a detail section.
Figure 2-2 Unassigned Incidents in the Message Center
Description of "Figure 2-2 Unassigned Incidents in the Message Center"
You can highlight an incident in the detail section to view the incident, any associated annotations, comments, or suggested actions. A variety of annotation options enable you to provide status updates, notes, or a suggested action. You can add, edit, or remove annotations for an incident instance, depending on your permission level.
More sophisticated annotation options enable authorized users to add annotations to an Incidents Knowledge Base for a specific incident and asset type and associate annotations with an operational plan. This functionality enables you to provide a resolution or an automated response when an incident of this type occurs on an asset.
If an incident on a supported system requires Oracle support, you can file a service request from this page. In addition, you can view the status of service requests submitted through this UI.
2.19 Comprehensive Reports
Reports provide you with insight into all phases of the asset life cycle. You can gather more detailed information about job history, firmware, operating system updates, and then export that information to CSV or PDF output. Incident reports export to HTML.
You can create the following reports in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center:
2.19.1 Incident Reports
Incident reports summarize details for a specific managed asset or detailed information about specific incidents.
The Summary Reports provide you with an historical account of the detected incidents. You can create a report for a specific time period, for a specific severity level, status, or type of incident, or for the asset groups affected by the incident. These reports are invaluable in trend analysis and identifying patterns that you can then take steps to mitigate.
The Detail Reports contains detailed information about one or more selected incidents and provides you with an audit trail of the incidents.
2.19.2 Firmware Compliance Report
Firmware Compliance Reports enable you to maintain consistent firmware versions across your data center. You can associate one of your firmware profiles with the report, then run the Firmware Compliance Report to determine if the firmware on the asset complies with your firmware profile's specifications. If assets do not contain the firmware version identified in the profile, you can update the firmware from the report.
2.19.3 Update Reports
As with firmware compliance reports, update reports give insight into the compliance state of the operating system and recommends patches and packages. Generate a report to view the state of your patch levels, and then use the report output to update specific operating systems.
Update reports enable you to check for new patches and security advisories. You can get a general report, or test a system or installed package for available fixes. For auditing purposes, you can create a job history report. Several reports are available for Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris and Windows operating systems.
The following compliance reports are available for all three types of operating systems: Host Compliance - Provides information on whether your system is compliant with security and bug fixes incidents. Incidence Compliance - Provides information about the number of systems to which the selected operating system updates apply.
In addition to the reports listed above, the following reports are available for Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris operating systems:
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Job History: Provides a history of operating system update install and uninstall jobs completed by Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center on managed systems.
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CVE Compliance: Provides information on incidents that are related to specific Common Vulnerability and Exposure Identifiers (CVE IDs) and the systems that should have these incidents installed. CVE IDs are unique, common identifiers for publicly known security vulnerabilities.
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Distribution Update: Provides basic information of all known distribution and local incidents.
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Package Compliance: Provides the details of the selected packages on your managed system that are compliant or not compliant with the latest recommended version available.
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Recommended Software Configuration (RSC): Provides information about the system compliance for installing a specific application. For example, you can check an Oracle Solaris operating system for patch requirements before installing Oracle 11g Database.
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Service Pack Compliance (Linux): Provides information on incidents created by the publication and release of a service pack by a vendor. This helps to determine whether your system has the latest service packs released by the vendor.
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Oracle Solaris Update Compliance (Oracle Solaris): Provides information on whether an Oracle Solaris system is compliant with a specific update.
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Baseline Analysis (Oracle Solaris): Helps to check the compliance of systems against newly released Oracle Solaris baselines.
2.19.4 Server Provisioning Reports
You can use this report to obtain a history of server provisioning actions. Run this report to obtain details about the Deployment Plan provisioning activities that occurred over a specified time period. Get specific information about the activity, including who ran the provisioning job, which profiles were selected, and the final outcome.
2.19.5 Hardware Configuration Reports
Use the Hardware Configuration Reports to obtain hardware change history and inventory. Inventory reports enable you to filter by hardware assets and or components. You select the asset and component properties for the report output content and its sorting.
The Hardware Configuration reports enable you to view the following types of information:
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Hardware configuration changes on a server or across a group of servers
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Hardware inventory of various components as reported by the hardware view across all or selected assets
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Hardware inventory based on specified hardware component attributes such as model or part number
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Hardware inventory based on asset type model
2.19.6 Virtualization Analytics
The Virtualization Analytics view displays resource usage of the physical server for each running operating system instance, showing the physical resources consumed by the control domain or global zone, and each non-global zone or guest. Metrics for Oracle VM Server for x86 are available through the Oracle VM Manager.
2.20 IPMP Group Editor Shows User Friendly Names
In the Create IPMP Group wizard, IPMP (IP network multipathing) Group Editor now chooses to display the user friendly names instead of Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR).
The user friendly name is a user defined name. The user may prefer identifying a network using the user defined name "management network 1". The use of user friendly names reduces the usability issue for the customers having multiple range of networks.
2.21 Logical Domains Deployments Prompts for CPU
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center enables the deployment plans of Logical Domains to always promt for CPU/Mem/Crypto settings. This avoids in pre-creating a huge number of profiles that specify various Oracle VM Server for SPARC sizes like 16x16, 32x16, 32x32, 32x64, and so on. You must tweak the CPU/Mem/Crypto settings each time you run a deployment plan.
During Create Logical Domain or Configure and Install Logical Domains plan execution, the Oracle VM Server for SPARC "storage and network" profiles comes with the Oracle VM Server for SPARC "size" profiles to form the intended aggregate profile.
During deployment, the Oracle VM Server for SPARC "size" profile appears as a menu that shows all the available sizes.
In the allow me to override everything mode, after choosing the Oracle VM Server for SPARC "size" profile, you are allowed to individually tweak the CPU/Mem/Crypto settings.
2.22 Attach Network Multiple Times Using the Same vswitch
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provisions to attach a network multiple times to an Oracle VM Server for SPARC guest using the same vswitch.
2.23 Solaris Releases MSR Initialization and Import
MSR is the Oracle Solaris 11 repository located on the Enterprise Controller. The MSR contains the Oracle Solaris 11 packages used to support agent management, including provisioning and updating your Oracle Solaris 11 operating system.
MSR initialization and import from ISOs are released by Solaris. There are ISOs for the whole release and incremental ISOs for each SRU. The UI understands these and supports simple import without any manual mounting and pkgrepo manipulation. This speeds up MSR initialization and enhances the user experience.
2.24 Expanded Display of Incidents
The Dashboard tab of the selected asset now displays the status of the open incidents in the center pane.
You can also view the current status of incidents when you drill down the Incidents tab of the selected asset in the center pane and then the Alerts tab.
2.25 Support for SPARC T5 Servers
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center supports the Oracle SPARC T5-1B, Oracle SPARC T5-2, Oracle SPARC T5-4, and Oracle SPARC T5-8 servers.
SPARC T5 server is the next generation of T4 SPARC volume servers from Oracle. T5 servers are based on Sun4V (SPARC T5) chip architecture supporting Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.0 advanced features. T5 runs on new SDM (Simplified Data Model) enabled ILOM 3.2.
SPARC T5 server is available in four models:
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T5-1B: one 16-core 128-thread SPARC T5 processor
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T5-2: 2 processors installed on the motherboard assembly
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T5-4: 2x or 4x SPARC T5, 16-core chip multiprocessor (CMP) with 8 threads per core
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T5-8: up to 8x SPARC T5, 16-core chip multiprocessor (CMP) with 8 threads per core
For more information on SPARC T5 Server, see the How to Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Discovering and Managing an Oracle SPARC T5 Server.
2.26 Support for Indirect CSIs
You can now use indirect customer service identifiers (CSIs) to create service requests including auto service requests. The indirect CSI must be associated with a valid set of My Oracle Support (MOS) credentials listed in authentications. For more information on creating service requests, see the Auto Service Requests chapter of the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Administration Guide.