1 Understanding Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications

This chapter provides an overview of Oracle Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications.

Software Versions Covered in This Guide

The functionality described in this guide applies to Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications version 12.1.0.4 and version 13.1.1.1. Both releases include the same features, but 12.1.0.4 is compatible with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and 13.1.1.1 is compatible with Enterprise Manager 13c.

Overview of Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications is a plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control that provides management capabilities for supported Oracle Communications applications.

System administrators use Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control to provision, configure, patch, and monitor Oracle Communications applications and solutions, allowing the deployment and maintenance of Oracle Communications applications from a centralized, Web-based console, simplifying implementations.

Figure 1-1 shows an Enterprise Manager Cloud Control home page with information from Oracle Communications operation support system (OSS) applications. This example presents a single view of information from Oracle Communications Order and Service Management (OSM), Oracle Communications Unified Inventory Management (UIM), and Oracle Communications ASAP. The home page includes application status and availability, alerts, and metrics such as hardware resource usage and order throughput.

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications also provides individual home pages for supported applications and application components.

Figure 1-1 Home Page Showing Multiple Applications in a Suite

The graphic is described in the preceding text.

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications displays managed Oracle Communications targets allowing you to view application, component, and host status. For example, view the topology of Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) components such as the Connection Manager (CM) and Data Managers (DMs), as shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 BRM Topology

Description of ''Figure 1-2 BRM Topology''

The configuration topology provides a visual representation of managed target relationships. Clicking on an element in the topology provides additional details in the Properties panel. Hovering over an element in the topology provides additional details as shown in Figure 1-3.

Figure 1-3 Communications Suite Topology with Detail Pop-Up

Description of ''Figure 1-3 Communications Suite Topology with Detail Pop-Up''

You can configure parameters for Oracle Communications applications from a single location and deploy the settings to multiple targets. Figure 1-4 shows an example of BRM parameter configuration.

Figure 1-4 Configuring BRM Parameters

Description of ''Figure 1-4 Configuring BRM Parameters''

Key Features

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications provides features that let you install, configure, and monitor Oracle Communications applications and infrastructure components from a centralized location.

Application installation (called provisioning) includes:
- Installing BRM in multischema environments with up to 9 schemas
- Installing applications individually or as members of suites and solutions
- Upgrading and patching BRM and rolling back applied patches
- Upgrading BRM Pricing Design Center (PDC)
Application monitoring includes:
- Monitoring applications installed using Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications
- Monitoring existing Oracle Communications applications installed independently of Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications
- Monitoring groups of applications from a single landing page
- Monitoring applications grouped by lifecycle status, such as development, testing, and production systems
- Monitoring infrastructure components such as Oracle databases, Oracle WebLogic Server application servers, and Oracle Application Integration Architecture (Oracle AIA)
- Viewing graphical representations of system topology for Oracle Communications applications
- Monitoring in-depth order throughput and lifecycle metrics for OSM systems, servers, order types, and cartridges
- Monitoring and comparing the compliance of OSM, UIM, and Oracle AIA installations with Oracle's recommended settings
- Extending ready-to-use monitoring metrics by using metric extensions and monitoring templates
- Sending notifications through multiple channels when configurable operating thresholds are reached by using metric-specific alerts and incident management for overall trends
- Viewing log files
- Recovering from faults
- Identifying data inconsistency between applications integrated by Oracle AIA
Application configuration includes:
- Editing configuration properties for business support systems (BSS) applications
- Comparing configurations of multiple applications, historical configurations for a single application, and overall system configuration by using configuration templates and drift management
- Enforcing configuration policies across multiple installations of BRM, ensuring consistent versioning and configuration

Supported Applications, Suites, and Solutions

This section lists the applications, suites, and solutions for which Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications provides management capabilities.

Supported Applications

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications provides management capabilities for Oracle Communications applications in the following packs:

BRM Application Management Pack, which licenses management for the following applications:
- BRM
- BRM Elastic Charging Engine (ECE)
- BRM Pipeline Configuration Center (PCC)
- Oracle Communications Network Charging and Control (NCC)
- Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller
- Oracle Communications Pricing Design Center (PDC)
- Oracle AIA Oracle Communications Order to Cash Integration Pack for BRM
OSM Application Management Pack, which licenses management for the following applications:
- OSM
- Oracle AIA Oracle Communications Order to Cash Integration Pack for OSM
- Oracle AIA Oracle Communications Order to Cash Integration Pack for Oracle Configure, Price, and Quote (Oracle CPQ) Cloud
- Oracle AIA Oracle Communications Order to Cash Integration Pack for Siebel customer relationship management (Siebel CRM)
Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications, which licenses management for the following applications:
- ASAP
- UIM

Supported Suites

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications lets you install and configure applications together in the following suite topologies:

Oracle Communications Order to Cash: Includes ASAP, BRM, OSM, PCC, PDC, and UIM
Oracle Communications OSS Fulfillment: Includes ASAP, OSM, and UIM

High-availability installation of these suites is also supported.

Supported Solutions

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications helps monitor Oracle Communications Rapid Offer Design and Order Delivery (RODOD) solutions.

RODOD is a TM Forum certified solution that lets you design and provide offers rapidly and manage orders throughout their lifecycle. RODOD solutions include many of the applications that you can monitor and manage using Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications.

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications supports RODOD solutions by enabling the following:

Installing, monitoring, and configuring OSM and BRM
Monitoring and configuring Oracle AIA
Monitoring status and errors for Oracle Communications applications and supporting infrastructure components from a single landing page
Resolving Oracle AIA errors
Identifying inconsistency in data shared across integrated applications

Application Management Process Flow

Implementing and using Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications involves the following tasks:

Install Enterprise Manager Cloud Control and the Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications plug-in. See "Installing Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications".
Add the hosts on which your applications are deployed as managed targets in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, deploy the Management Agent to the hosts, and set up preferred credentials for the hosts. See "Adding Host Targets Manually and Installing the Management Agent" and "About Host Preferred Credentials".
Deploy Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications to the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Management Server and the Management Agent on each host. See "Deploying the Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications Plug-In".
Set up the users and roles required to restrict access to your environment. See the discussion of access control points in Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications Security Guide.
Discover your existing applications using guided or automatic discovery, organizing them into functional groups during discovery. Discovered applications are called targets. See "Adding Oracle Communications Targets".
Extend the ready-to-use monitoring capabilities by using metric extensions and monitoring templates. See "Extending Monitoring Metrics".
Set up compliance management to monitor how well your targets comply with Oracle's recommendations. See "Managing Compliance".
For RODOD solutions, set up data discrepancy reports to help keep the data shared by RODOD applications consistent. See "Identifying Discrepancies in Shared Data".
Configure alerts and notifications for targets. See "Configuring Alerts".
Create dynamic groups to group targets. See "About Dynamic Groups".
Monitor targets by using the Oracle Communications Applications landing page, dynamic group home pages, target home pages, the compliance dashboard, and data discrepancy reports. See "Monitoring Oracle Communications Application Targets".

For example, for RODOD targets, you can monitor:
- System performance and availability
- System topology
- Log files
- Configuration compliance reports and comparisons
- Incidents and violations
- Order and task throughput
- Consistency of shared data

Assumptions and Limitations

This section discusses product assumptions and limitations.

Assumptions

This guide assumes the following:

Familiarity with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control functionality.
Proper installation and configuration of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control including the Oracle Enterprise Database.
Supported operating systems on the target hosts where Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications installs and monitors Oracle Communications applications.
Supported versions of Oracle Communications applications are used.
Network connectivity between the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control host and the Oracle Communications applications targets.
Availability and licensing of supported Oracle Communications application installers, patches, and updates.
An understanding of the installation and configuration parameters of supported Oracle Communications applications.

Solution Limitations

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications has the following limitations:

Oracle RAC Database Limitations

Provisioning of Oracle Communications applications other than BRM and OSM using Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) database is not supported. However, you can use the plug-in to discover and monitor existing application instances using Oracle RAC databases. Only versions of applications with official support for Oracle RAC database are discoverable.

BRM Patch Recommendations Limitations

Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications does not support the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control patch recommendation feature. You will not see any recommended Oracle Communications applications patches. You can manually search for and apply Billing and Revenue Management patches using the administration console.

Enterprise Manager Cloud Control still displays host and security related patch recommendations for targets.

BRM Multischema Limitations

Multischema database configuration is not supported when using multiple database users (multiuser) configuration. You cannot use different database users for multiple instances of the BRM schema on the same host.

Multischema provisioning only supports BRM instances on the same host.

PCC Limitations

Provisioning PCC with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is not supported.

OSM Deployment Limitations

Although it is possible to deploy OSM to the administration server in a WebLogic Server domain that includes only an administration server, Oracle does not recommend using Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications to monitor instances of OSM deployed in this configuration. This configuration is intended for development and test environments only and Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications is intended to monitor production environments where OSM is deployed to a managed server in a cluster.

To use Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications to monitor an instance of OSM deployed to the administration server, you must configure a listen address for the administration server. If you do not configure a listen address, Enterprise Manager Cloud Control displays the OSM target's status as down, regardless of the target's actual status.

For information about configuring a server's listen address, see the WebLogic Server Help.

Directory Placeholders Used in This Guide

Table 1-1 describes the directory placeholders used in this guide.

Table 1-1 Directory Placeholders Used in This Guide

Placeholder	Directory Description
EM_home	The directory where Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is installed.
AMP_home	The directory where the Application Management Pack for Oracle Communications plug-in is installed. This is specific to your version of the plug-in. For example, for 12c: EM_home/plugins/oracle.cgbu.ocom.oms.plugin_12.1.0.4.0
BRM_home	The directory where BRM is installed.
Oracle_home	The directory where Oracle products are installed.
Database_home	The directory where an application's database is installed.