Oracle® Mission Critical Support Platform Frequently Asked Questions

Release 2.3

E23199-01

Oracle® Mission Critical Support Platform

Frequently Asked Questions

Release 2.3

E23199-01

May 2011

General

- What is Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform?

- Is Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform only available for certain devices, applications or operating systems?

- Which languages does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform support?

- What ongoing platform maintenance is required?

- What is the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway?

- What is the monitoring solution?

- What is a user account?

- Will I have access to the reports I require, at the time I want them?

- Highest availability of the Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is critical to my company. How does Oracle ensure that?

- Adoption of Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform would mean a long-term investment for my company. I can't afford to switch Operations platforms frequently. How can I be sure Oracle will not stop providing this service short/mid term?

- One size doesn't fit all. My company is unique. Can I customize Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform to my specific needs?

- All my staff do not speak English. Will local languages be provided?

Installation

- We have a conflict with port 162. Can we change the port that the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway uses to listen for traps from 162 to another port?

Troubleshooting

- What is the difference between contacts and users?

Inventory and Discovery

- How can managed systems be grouped?

- What OS parameters can be monitored?

- What hardware parameters can be monitored?

- What are alerts and events?

- What are notifications?

- Where is the event stored on the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway?

Security

- How can Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform ensure I keep control over my data?

- How can delivery partners be included into the Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform delivery infrastructure while data security and privacy are ensured?

- How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform work with my legacy platform?

- How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform keep events separate from other customers?

- How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform manage customer device passwords?

- How does the security between Oracle Mission Critical Support Portal and the Client Web Browser work?

- How is the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway secured?

- How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform manage a customer's geographically distributed infrastructure environment?

- My company's security policy does not allow a vendor-managed firewall in their premises. Can Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform establish site-to-site VPN with their VPN concentrator?

- My company's security policy prohibits SSH tunneling but their policy permits the use of IPSEC VPNs. Can Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform connect via IPSEC VPN?

- My company has some sites with dial-on demand connectivity only. How do you manage servers at those locations?

- What is the Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform access method to my company's infrastructure?

- What is the physical security of the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway?

Answers

What is Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is a fully integrated Mission Critical Support framework, including tools, processes and technology, which is hosted by Oracle. Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform delivers the capabilities to enable remote management services on a customer's environment. Those services can be applied to a wide range of servers, applications, and so on, at multiple locations and are particularly effective in managing the Exadata database system. Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform includes Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) server and Exadata extension.

Is Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform only available for certain devices, applications or operating systems?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform supports a wide variety of devices, applications and operating systems. It is platform agnostic. Oracle service delivery engineers work with customers to develop methods to send information, or Oracle can create the necessary methods to connect to a technology if required.

Which languages does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform support?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is designed to enable end-to-end localization by supporting multibyte characters, which means service delivery engineers can set up local language support of help desk, portal or training material. Oracle provides training material, process descriptions, and help functions in English only.

What ongoing platform maintenance is required?

None. Oracle takes care of the platform maintenance and ensures its availability and performance.

Note:

You are responsible for ensuring that your Web browser meets minimum requirements. For browser requirements, see the Oracle Mission Critical Support User's Guide.

What is the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway?

The monitoring solution used by Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is not a hardware device although it is most commonly deployed on Oracle supplied hardware. It is proprietary software designed to enable the secure management and monitoring of networks, devices, operating systems, and applications. The Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway supports any agent or telemetry source. For advanced integration, a remote API is available. The Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway uses decentralized rule logic. This allows for unlimited event customization for each site and supports advanced filtering and correlation.

What is the monitoring solution?

The Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform monitoring solution is comprised of monitoring agents and an Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway. The monitoring agents (primarily SysEDGE and SunMC adaptors) are placed on the customer's devices. They collect and pass critical information to the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway, which is most often located on the customer's site. The Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway also has the capability to probe customer configuration items directly. For advanced integration, a remote API is available. (This allows for unlimited event customization for each site and supports advanced filtering and correlation.)

The Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway collects key customer data (as determined during implementation), uses decentralized rule logic, and securely transports it to the Control Center, where it is evaluated against known and predicted thresholds. If these alerts are validated for action, then an Incident ticket is created and service delivery personnel take responsibility for managing and resolving the issue.

What is a user account?

Customer user accounts have access to customer-specific data only. User accounts are assigned roles. Roles contain permissions that determine what can be viewed and managed within Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform. Roles are designed to support functional responsibilities. For example, the Change Manager role includes the permissions necessary to oversee and manage Change Management policy.

Will I have access to the reports I require, at the time I want them?

Yes. All reports are customizable and available through Oracle Mission Critical Support Portal 24x7.

Highest availability of the Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is critical to my company. How does Oracle ensure that?

The platform is hosted and maintained by expert staff using ITIL processes against strong service level agreements (SLAs) and monitored 24x7 by our managed operations data center.

Adoption of Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform would mean a long-term investment for my company. I can't afford to switch Operations platforms frequently. How can I be sure Oracle will not stop providing this service short/mid term?

Oracle is taking on a long-term commitment with this service. Our commitment to the Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform includes the complete migration of our legacy Managed Operations customers.

One size doesn't fit all. My company is unique. Can I customize Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform to my specific needs?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is totally customizable. The monitoring solution allows interfaces with almost any platform or technology. Reports can be customized to specific needs. The platform is designed to enable end-to-end localization.

All my staff do not speak English. Will local languages be provided?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is designed to enable end-to-end localization by supporting multibyte characters. Services are available in several of the major world languages but Oracle provides training material, process descriptions, help functions, and so on in English only.

We have a conflict with port 162. Can we change the port that the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway uses to listen for traps from 162 to another port?

Yes, we can configure the agent to use another port. To change the agent configuration, contact Oracle Sales Support or your Customer Service Manager.

What is the difference between contacts and users?

Contacts are receive-only entities and can be used when the intent is to notify only. User accounts are necessary for active participation in Oracle Mission Critical Support Portal.

How can managed systems be grouped?

Systems can be grouped in a variety of ways using the features of the Configuration Management System (CMS). Smart groups can contain other groups, and as such can be used for large-scale organization. Static groups are created to contain a set of CIs intended to be viewed or acted upon as a single entity. For instance, creating a group containing all Solaris OSs would enable you to update them all at once.

What OS parameters can be monitored?

Connectivity, file systems, CPU usage, and memory usage are all monitored. You can use Probes to set thresholds for actively monitored criteria and receive notifications if they are exceeded.

What hardware parameters can be monitored?

CPU temperature, Ambient temperature, Fan speed in revolutions per minute, Voltages, LEDs, Hard disks and memory are all monitored. Oracle can set up probes that include thresholds requested by customers to meet their individual requirements.

What are alerts and events?

Alerts (sometimes referred to as events) are automatically-generated messages that are sent for events that were implemented as part of the standard Oracle installation or that were mutually agreed upon between the customer and Oracle to support specific customer conditions. For example, if CPU usage for a system jumps to 99%, and the monitoring threshold is 90%, then an alert will be sent.

What are notifications?

Incident notifications are sent to registered contacts or users by e-mail or pager when an event has been validated and an Incident Ticket is created.

Where is the event stored on the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway?

All events get forwarded to Oracle in real time. Events are queued into the local database to provide reliability in the event of connectivity issues with Oracle's backend systems. The events are deleted from the local queue once they are delivered to Oracle.

How can Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform ensure I keep control over my data?

Data security and privacy is our key concern, and we built it into the design of Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform. We've been able to address the most important customer concerns by implementing a distributed architecture. Software components enabling access to customer passwords (Password Vault) and devices (JumpGate) are fully segregated and controlled by the service delivery teams. Oracle has no access to customer passwords.

All inbound connections are managed and controlled through JumpGate software. Monitoring data, which is transferred to the Oracle central location for system management and reporting, only includes metadata (system performance and metrics), and does not contain any customer business data. This data is accessible to the authorized service delivery engineer only. Role-based authorization is provided at a user level, which ensures strictly segregated data views as per user permissions.

Oracle adheres to standard security practice and conducts regular audits to ensure that there is no unauthorized access to data. Also, Oracle promotes engineer security awareness through regular training.

How can delivery partners be included into the Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform delivery infrastructure while data security and privacy are ensured?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform provides virtual data segregation through the use of a robust security model. This allows us to engage partner resources by providing them a limited view of the customer environment as needed. Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform also uses the Common Web Platform (CWP), Oracle's established centralized authentication model for single sign-on. Using CWP, Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform can quickly leverage resources anywhere within Oracle.

How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform work with my legacy platform?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is platform agnostic. Any platform can be monitored and managed, because the monitoring solution allows integration into customer's legacy systems.

How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform keep events separate from other customers?

Each Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway has a unique ID. A customer is associated to one or more Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateways. An Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway can only be associated to one customer. The outbound data from the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway to Oracle are tagged with the unique Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway application ID (UUID). All customers' data are identified by this unique ID, directly from the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway to Oracle's back-end systems. Furthermore, customer inventory data is tagged with a unique inventory id and this information is pushed to the local Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway to ensure that the events are properly associated to the right customer (virtual data segregation).

How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform manage customer device passwords?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform stores customer passwords in a secure database where engineers access them as needed. This secure database is accessible from Oracle's internal network only via a three-factor authentication. Each and every activity account vault access is captured and audited routinely.

How does the security between Oracle Mission Critical Support Portal and the Client Web Browser work?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Portal uses standard security protocol based on SSL to ensure customer privacy. The site uses the Verisign certificate which is widely trusted by most browsers.

How is the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway secured?

The Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway uses iptables firewall to protect itself. It allows only the desired traffic and blocks the rest. Ports are only opened upon careful security evaluation and monitoring requirements. Oracle builds the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway from base images. These images have their Operating Systems (OS) hardened, all unnecessary software uninstalled, and then the engineer runs a scan to ensure that there is no vulnerability.

Additionally, access to the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway is strictly controlled. You must connect through JumpGate, which is controlled by key fob and restricted to engineers who are assigned to the customer account.

How does Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform manage a customer's geographically distributed infrastructure environment?

Oracle recommends placing the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway at a hub site to manage all your systems efficiently. Depending on the number of managed nodes and network reliability, you can deploy multiple Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway closer to the nodes. Oracle engineers can review your network connectivity requirements and suggest connectivity options for the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway.

My company's security policy does not allow a vendor-managed firewall in their premises. Can Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform establish site-to-site VPN with their VPN concentrator?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform can establish site-to-site VPN to customers in the following conditions.

1. Customer NATs their address space to public address before IPSEC policy is applied.

2. Customer understands and agrees to potential latency in troubleshooting process if both ends of tunnel are not owned by Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform.

3. Customer agrees to make changes on their side in a timely manner. Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform would not be responsible for any monitoring blackout caused by VPN failure.

My company's security policy prohibits SSH tunneling but their policy permits the use of IPSEC VPNs. Can Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform connect via IPSEC VPN?

Yes. Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform offers connectivity via IPSEC VPN as long as customer NATs their address space to publicly routable addresses as part of their encryption domain.

My company has some sites with dial-on demand connectivity only. How do you manage servers at those locations?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform is not supported by dial-up. Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform expects to reach all managed systems from the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway by the Internet or dedicated circuit.

What is the Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform access method to my company's infrastructure?

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform uses two factor authentication to access all infrastructure devices: password and security tokens

What is the physical security of the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway?

Typically the Oracle Mission Critical Support Gateway is located at customer data center with customer managed systems. It would be as secure as the customer systems.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible to all users, including users that are disabled. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

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Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

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Access to Oracle Support

Oracle customers have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/support/contact.html or visit http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/support.html if you are hearing impaired.

Oracle Mission Critical Support Platform FAQ, Release 2.3

E23199-01

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