Most of the information presented in Enterprise Manager concerns one or more of the targets managed or monitored by Cloud Control. When a problem is encountered in any managed entity, you must navigate to multiple screens to gather information to triage the problem. The Problem Analysis functionality allows you to see all the related information in one place. You can choose a problematic spike in a metric chart and do root cause analysis based on system knowledge enabling you to narrow the scope of the problem quickly.
You can use the Problem Analysis and Analyze Log pages in Cloud Control to help you inspect metrics, related metrics, target status information, incidents, and logs during troubleshooting.
Accessing Problem Analysis and Logs
There are several navigation methods to access Problem Analysis and log pages:
Middleware access method
From the targets menu of the Cloud Control console, select Middleware.
Select and click on an Oracle HTTP Server or Oracle WebLogic Server from the Details Table.
In the Home page that appears, click on a metric legend that appears below the Response and Load chart.
In the pop-up that appears, click on Problem Analysis or Log Messages.
Incident manager access method
From the targets menu of the Cloud Control console, select Hosts.
Click a numbered link in the Incidents column of the summary table.
In the Incident Manager page that appears, select an incident in the table, then click on the Problem Analysis link located in the Diagnostics section in the lower right portion of the page.
Correlation charts method
Correlation charts are the pages in which the charts are shown as a stack of charts.
From any correlation chart, click on the chart legend.
In the pop-up that appears, click on Problem Analysis or Log Messages.
Chart regions method
Chart regions are charts displayed on the home page, or a single chart shown on some pages.
Click on the chart legend or chart line.
In the pop-up that appears, click on Problem Analysis or Log Messages.
Using the Tabs on the Problem Analysis Page
You can use the five tabs on the Problem Analysis page to perform the following tasks or view the following data:
Related Metrics
Displays the related metrics which are affected or could affect the source metric. Optionally, you can choose to customize the affected metric.
You can choose Export Chart Set from the Chart Sets drop-down to create a Problem Analysis xml metadata file for the particular source metric, including default and custom related metrics defined for the chosen chart set. Similarly, exported chart set data can be imported to a custom chart set using the Import Chart Set from the Chart Sets drop-down.
Related Targets
Displays the related targets to the target instance of the source metric. Related Targets information provides key information such as Status, Status change time, Incidents, Configuration changes, Important Key metrics and Patches applied at one place rather than your viewing this information in different locations within the Enterprise Manager console.
Related Config
Displays the related configuration metrics which are affected or could affect the source metric.
Related Logs
Displays charts for each target and depicts the number of messages for each severity level. Data is collected for the related targets irrespective of the search filter criteria. The page includes one graph for each target with different columns for each severity. Data is gathered based on the time range and other values defined in the filter.
Topology
Provides the topology view of any related targets.
Viewing and Analyzing Problems
You can inspect metrics, status information, and logs using Cloud Control by following these steps:
Specify the time period for which you want the charts to display data. Near the top of the default Related Metrics tab, adjust the left and right slider to specify the time period, or click and drag within a metric chart to indicate the time period you want to inspect.
Inspect the charts for unusual increases in recorded metrics.
Out of the box, Enterprise Manager provides two charts: Source Metric and Enterprise Manager Identified Related Metrics. You can add more chart displays to suit your needs by using the Metric Palette. See "Customizing the Display" below for more information.
Increased request processing time due to a high number of requests per minute may indicate a need to increase the capacity of your system.
If the metric charts do not indicate the cause of the problem, select the Related Targets tab and inspect the table for information about target health (status) and recent configuration changes.
If you want to see a reminder of the topology of the components for which data is being displayed, click the Topology tab.
If the table does not indicate the cause of the problem, return to the Related Metrics tab and click the View Related Log Messages link near the top of the tab. This action displays log messages for the selected target and its members during the selected time period.
Inspect any log messages that are displayed for possible causes of problems.
Using Log Analysis
You can use Log Analysis in one of two ways:
Target Log Analysis -- Click the Log Analysis link on the chart pop-up to view the log for the target on which the metric chart is displayed. The log viewer is launched with the start time and end time as the same time duration of the chart with filters applied.
Related Logs -- Click Related Logs on the Problem Analysis page to view all the related log messages for all the related targets during the viewed metric chart duration with all the filters applied.
Customizing the Display
You can create your own metric charts and then recall them at a later time when needed.
From the Metric Palette on the Related Metrics tab, select a target from the Targets pane, then select the desired metrics associated with the target from the Metrics pane.
A region named User Identified Related Metrics appears in the lower portion of the page and displays a chart for each metric you have selected in the Metric Palette.
Optional: Save any modifications to the current chart by clicking Save.
You can also save your modified chart to Enterprise manager and have it appear as a choice in the Charts Sets menu for recall at a later time. To do so, select Save Charts As... from the Chart Sets menu, then name the chart and click OK. To set the saved chart set as the default chart set, select the saved chart set listed on the Chart Set menu and then click Set as Default Chart Set from the Chart Set menu.
You can also set this chart as the default chart that appears when you access this page by selecting Set as Default Chart Set from the Chart Sets menu.
Tip:
If you prefer seeing the chart data in a tabular format, you can click the Table View link below the last chart.