3 Use Maintenance Windows

A maintenance window is a period of time designated to perform regular maintenance activities on monitored entities. You can perform the tasks related to a maintenance window in the Administration console in Oracle Management Cloud.

A maintenance window can be scheduled to run immediately or in the future, and to run indefinitely or stop after a specific duration. It can be created on an as-needed basis, or scheduled to run at regular intervals. Notifications, such as emails and webhooks, are suppressed during the maintenance window. However, Oracle Management Cloud continues to monitor entities and display entity status, while indicating that the entity is currently under maintenance. Also, events are generated during the maintenance window, but event notifications are suppressed.

The availability percentage of an entity changes based on the maintenance window created for the entity. When creating a maintenance window, you can determine whether the maintenance window duration should be included in the availability calculation of entities.

Create a Maintenance Window

1. Select Administration in the Management Cloud navigation menu.

2. Select Maintenance Windows in the Administration navigation menu.

3. On the Maintenance Windows page, click Create.

4. On the Create Maintenance Window page:

   1. Enter a name for the maintenance window.

      Note that the Type field on the Create Maintenance Window page cannot be edited. Only notifications can be suppressed in the maintenance window, and the Notification Suppression option is selected by default in the Type field.

      Optionally, you could select Include in Availability Calculation to include the maintenance window duration in the availability calculation of the entity.

      Note:

      If the maintenance window duration is included in the availability calculation, then the availability percentage will be affected based on the availability status of the entity in this duration. That is to say, if the entity is DOWN or has an ERROR status during the maintenance window, then the availability percentage decreases, and if the entity is UP, then the availability percentage increases. If the maintenance window duration is excluded from availability calculation, then the maintenance window duration itself is omitted from the availability percentage calculation.

   2. In the Scope section, click Add Entities and select the entities that you want to add to the maintenance window, and click Select.

   3. In the Schedule section, select the relevant options to determine the schedule of the maintenance window.

5. Click Create.

A maintenance window is created for the selected entities.

Note that alerts are generated and displayed in the user interface during the maintenance window, however, alert notifications are not sent.

Other Maintenance Window Tasks

This section lists the other tasks you can perform on the Maintenance Windows page. Depending on the completion status of the maintenance windows, they are categorized under the following tabs:

• In Progress

• Planned

• Completed

Click a maintenance window tab, for example, Planned, and select a maintenance window. The options given under the tab are enabled.

• Click the Stop () icon to stop a maintenance window that is in progress or is planned.

  Note that this option is not available for maintenance windows that are completed.

• Click the Delete () icon to delete a completed maintenance window.

  Note that this option is not available for maintenance windows that are in progress or planned.

• Click the View () icon to view a maintenance window. The following information is displayed on the View <name> Maintenance Window page:

  • Maintenance window type

  • Whether entity downtime is included in availability calculations or not

  • Maintenance window status

  • When the maintenance window was created and by whom

  • When the maintenance window was last updated and by whom

  • Information about the entities in the maintenance window

  • Maintenance window schedule

• Click the Edit () icon to update the following details for a maintenance window that is in progress or is planned.

  • Scope of the maintenance window. You can add entities or remove previously added entities.

  • Schedule of the maintenance window. You can change the start and end date and time, and the duration of the maintenance window.

  Note that this option is disabled for maintenance windows that are completed.

• Click the Create Like () icon to duplicate a maintenance window.

Perform a Search Operation

You can search for a maintenance window or an entity for which a maintenance window has been created. A drop-down list and a Search field are displayed on each of the tabs on the Maintenance Windows page.

Description of the illustration maintenance-windows-search.png

1. Depending on whether you're searching for a maintenance window or an entity for which a maintenance window has been created, select Maintenance Window or Entity in the drop-down list.

2. If you’ve selected Maintenance Window in the previous step, then enter the name of the maintenance window in the Search field and click Search (). If you’ve selected Entity in the previous step, then select the entity in the Select Entities dialog box and click Select.

The relevant results are displayed.