1 Overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c
About Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c
Oracle Enterprise Manager is Oracle's integrated enterprise information technology (IT) management product line, which provides the industry's only complete, integrated, and business-driven enterprise cloud management solution. Oracle Enterprise Manager creates business value for IT by leveraging the built-in management capabilities of the Oracle stack for traditional and cloud environments, enabling customers to achieve unprecedented efficiency gains while dramatically increasing service levels.
The key capabilities of Enterprise Manager include:
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A complete cloud lifecycle management solution enabling you to quickly set up, manage, and support enterprise clouds and traditional Oracle IT environments from applications to disk.
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Maximum return on IT management investment through the best solutions for intelligent management of the Oracle stack and engineered systems with real-time integration of Oracle's knowledge base with each customer environment.
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Best service levels for traditional and cloud applications through business-driven application management.
Figure 1-1 illustrates how Enterprise Manager Cloud Control offers a solution that enables you to monitor and manage the complete Oracle IT infrastructure from a single console.
Figure 1-1 Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Console
For more information, see Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.
Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Architecture
This section introduces you to the architecture of Enterprise Manager Cloud Control and describes the core components of the product. It includes the following sections:
Architecture of Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
Enterprise Manager Cloud Control includes the following components:
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Oracle Management Agent
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Oracle Management Service
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Oracle Management Repository
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Plug-ins
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Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Console
Figure 1-2 shows a sample Enterprise Manager Cloud Control configuration and illustrates how these core components fit into the architecture.
Figure 1-2 Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Architecture
Note:
In Figure 1-2, the load balancer and the multiple Oracle Management Service (OMS) instances are depicted only to indicate how a sample Enterprise Manager Cloud Control architecture would look in a large organization. They are not a prerequisite or a requirement for an Enterprise Manager system installation. If you do not have a load balancer, then the Management Agents communicate directly with the OMS instances.
About Oracle Management Agent
The Management Agent is an integral software component that enables you to convert an unmanaged host to a managed host in the Enterprise Manager system. The Management Agent works in conjunction with the plug-ins to monitor the targets running on that managed host.
With the first Oracle Management Service (OMS) you install, by default you receive a Management Agent called the Central Agent. The Central Agent is used for monitoring only the first OMS host, the first OMS, and the other targets running on the first OMS host. To monitor other hosts and the targets running on those hosts, you must install a separate Standalone Management Agent on each of those hosts.
About Oracle Management Service (OMS)
Oracle Management Service (OMS) is a Web-based application that orchestrates with the Management Agents and the plug-ins to discover targets, monitor and manage them, and store the collected information in a repository for future reference and analysis. The OMS also renders the user interface for Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.
The OMS is deployed to the middleware home, which is the parent directory that contains Oracle WebLogic Server, OMS, plug-ins, Java Development Kit (JDK), Oracle WT directory, Oracle Common, and other relevant configuration files and directories. While installing the OMS, the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Installation Wizard automatically installs Oracle WebLogic Server and JDK, and therefore, a WebLogic Server admin console is available by default.
About Oracle Management Repository
The Oracle Management Repository (Management Repository) is a storage location where all the information collected by the Management Agent gets stored. It consists of objects such as database jobs, packages, procedures, views, and tablespaces.
The OMS uploads the monitoring data it receives from the Management Agents to the Management Repository. The Management Repository then organizes the data so that it can be retrieved by the OMS and displayed in the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control console. Since data is stored in the Management Repository, it can be shared between any number of administrators accessing the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.
At the time of installation, the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Installation Wizard configures the Management Repository in your existing, certified database. The wizard, however, does not install a new database.
About Plug-ins
Plug-ins are pluggable entities that offer special management capabilities customized to suit specific target types. Unlike the earlier releases of Enterprise Manager, in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, the plug-ins work in conjunction with the OMS and the Management Agent to monitor every target in your environment. Therefore, they are deployed to the OMS as well as the Management Agent. In the earlier releases, plug-ins enabled you to monitor only third-party targets, but in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, plug-ins enable you to monitor all types of targets in your environment.
Plug-ins have independent release cycles, so every time you have a new version of an Oracle product released, you will have a new version of the plug-in released to support monitoring of that new product version in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control. An independent release cycle simplifies things because you no longer have to wait to upgrade your Enterprise Manager system to support a new product version; instead you can upgrade your plug-ins to monitor the new product version.
Table 1-1 lists the default plug-ins that are installed with a new Enterprise Manager system. In addition to these plug-ins, you can optionally install other plug-ins available in the software kit (DVD, downloaded software bundle, and so on). The installer offers a screen where you can select the optional plug-ins and install them.
Table 1-1 Default Plug-ins Installed with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
| Name | Description |
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Oracle Database |
Enables you to discover, monitor, and manage Oracle Database and related targets such as Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC), Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM), and so on. |
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Oracle Fusion Middleware |
Enables you to discover, monitor, and manage Oracle Fusion Middleware products such as Oracle WebLogic Domain, Oracle WebLogic AdminServer, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Web Tier, and so on. |
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Oracle Exadata |
Enables you to discover, monitor, and manage Oracle Exadata targets. |
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Oracle Cloud Framework |
Enables you to access basic features that are common across cloud services such as Middleware as a Service (MWaaS), Database as a Service (DBaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Testing as a Service (TaaS). |
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Oracle System Infrastructure |
Enables you to discover, monitor, and manage Oracle hardware systems and Super Cluster engineered systems, including server hardware, chassis, racks, power distribution unit, network equipment, operating systems, virtualization software, and clustering software. |
About Oracle JVMD Engine
Java Virtual Machine Diagnostics (JVMD) Engine enables you to diagnose performance problems in Java applications in the production environment. By eliminating the need to reproduce problems, it reduces the time required to resolve these problems, thus improving application availability and performance.
Starting with Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c , as part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Plug-in deployment, one JVMD Engine is installed and configured by default on the OMS. For every additional OMS you deploy, you receive one JVMD Engine by default with that OMS.
While JVMD Engine is installed by default on the OMS host, you will still need JVMD Agents to be manually deployed on the targeted JVMs.
About Oracle BI Publisher
Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher is Oracle's primary reporting tool for authoring, managing, and delivering all your highly formatted documents. Oracle BI Publisher makes your data stand out with pixel-perfect reports and dashboards, offers a variety of report and dashboard layouts, and enables you to create all types of highly formatted documents.
Starting with Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c, Oracle BI Publisher is installed and configured by default on the OMS. For every additional OMS you deploy, you receive one Oracle BI Publisher by default with that OMS.
About Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Console
The Enterprise Manager Cloud Control console is the user interface you see after you install Enterprise Manager Cloud Control. See Figure 1-1. With the help of the console, you can monitor and administer your entire computing environment from one location on the network. All the systems and services including enterprise application systems, databases, hosts, middleware application servers, listeners, and so on, are easily managed from one central location.
About EMCTL
EMCTL is a command-line tool that enables you to execute certain tasks on the OMS and Management Agents. You can use it for tasks such as starting or stopping OMS instances, setting properties on OMS instances, or getting a list of targets being monitored by a specific Management Agent. EMCTL commands are executed on a specific OMS or Management Agent.
About EM CLI
The Enterprise Manager Command Line Interface (EM CLI) is a command-line tool that is accessible through classic programming language constructs, enabling tasks to be created and run either from the command-line or programatically. EM CLI enables you to access Enterprise Manager Cloud Control functionality from text-based consoles (shells and command-line windows) for a variety of operating systems.
Enterprise Manager Management Focus Areas
This section provides brief descriptions of the following management focus areas:
Framework and Infrastructure
Oracle Enterprise Manager is a critical tool for data center management. It has a framework that is secure, scalable, and highly available. With a next-generation user interface, it provides a rich, intuitive console that can be customized to suit different roles. Oracle Enterprise Manager framework also has advanced capabilities such as self-update where key components such as target plug-ins, compliance policies, and deployment procedures can be updated automatically as newer versions become available.
Oracle Enterprise Manager framework is enterprise-ready and is designed to manage and monitor critical business operations to ensure smooth running of enterprise data centers.
Enterprise Monitoring
World class enterprise monitoring is about monitoring the status of your infrastructure and applications, notifying the appropriate IT staff when incidents occur, and reporting on status, history, and trends to interested parties throughout IT and the business. Oracle Enterprise Manager provides rich monitoring features as a foundation for monitoring all components of your IT infrastructure (Oracle and non-Oracle) as well as the applications and services that are running on them. These features enable IT to proactively monitor and resolve issues by business priority, implement operational best practices for monitoring, and provide consistent, high quality service in support of business goals.
Application Management
Oracle provides advanced, out-of-the-box application management solutions for Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, and Fusion Applications. They provide end-to-end, integrated application monitoring and management capabilities, resulting in improved availability, predictability, and reliability. Oracle Enterprise Manager's management capabilities include user experience management, performance management, change and configuration management, patching, provisioning, testing, integrated diagnostics, and automatic tuning.
Enterprise Manager also offers advanced management capabilities for managing custom applications, integrations, and extensions. Capabilities such as JVM Diagnostics (JVMD) and others are also available.
Database Management
Oracle revolutionized the field of enterprise database management systems with the release of Oracle Database 10g by introducing the industry's first self-management capabilities built right into the database kernel. Today, after several releases and continuous improvement of this intelligent management infrastructure, Oracle Database provides the most extensive self-management capabilities in the industry, ranging from zero-overhead instrumentation to integrated self-healing and business-driven management. Oracle's Database management capabilities make the lives of DBA's easier by providing a full-lifecycle solution encompassing the following:
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Change and Configuration Management
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Patching and Upgrades
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Provisioning
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Testing
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Masking and Subsetting
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Performance Management
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Automatic Tuning
In addition, Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control includes the following database management capabilities:
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Provides problem detection and guided resolution work flows
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Enables you to perform day to day tasks from Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
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Enables you to run repetitive jobs from Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
Middleware Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c provides a comprehensive management solution for Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and non-Oracle middleware technologies. Oracle's offering encompasses out-of-the-box availability and performance monitoring, robust diagnostics, administration, and lifecycle management that includes configuration and compliance management as well as provisioning and patching across middleware software such as:
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WebLogic Server
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SOA Suite
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Coherence
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Identity Management
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WebCenter
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Web Tier
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Business Intelligence
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Exalogic Elastic Cloud
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Oracle GlassFish
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Non-Oracle Middleware (for example, JBoss Application Server and IBM WebSphere Application Server)
Hardware and Virtualization Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager provides an integrated and cost-effective solution for complete physical and virtual server lifecycle management. By delivering comprehensive provisioning, patching, monitoring, administration, and configuration management capabilities through a web-based user interface, Enterprise Manager significantly reduces the complexity and cost associated with managing Oracle VM, Linux, UNIX, and Windows operating system environments. In addition, enterprises using Oracle Sun hardware can obtain deep insight into their server, storage, and network infrastructure layers and manage thousands of systems in a scalable manner. Oracle Enterprise Manager helps customers to accelerate the adoption of virtualization and cloud computing to optimize IT resources, improve hardware utilization, streamline IT processes, and reduce costs. Oracle Enterprise Manager is integrated with OVM 3.0 and higher and Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder.
Heterogeneous (Non-Oracle) Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager, besides being the best suite of management products for Oracle technologies, also provides a comprehensive solution for the management of heterogeneous data centers (including Microsoft SQL Server and JBoss Application Server) through its rich collection of extensions known as plug-ins and connectors. The Self Update mechanism in Enterprise Manager 13c enables customers to download /import and deploy extensions built by Oracle, Oracle's numerous partners, and customers themselves. These extensions are built upon the same management framework that is used for Oracle products, and therefore provides the same level of stability and richness as the Oracle products.
For more information, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c Extensibility Exchange page:
http://www.oracle.com/goto/emextensibilityCloud Management
Enterprise cloud presents new management challenges. With a move to virtualization, a top benefit expected from private cloud adoption is cost savings through standardization for operational efficiency. However, without proper management capabilities, expected economic benefits of cloud computing will not be realized.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is Oracle's complete cloud lifecycle management solution. It is the industry's first complete solution including self-service provisioning balanced against centralized, policy-based resource management, integrated chargeback, and capacity planning, and complete visibility of the physical and virtual environment from applications to disk.
Hybrid Cloud Management
With Hybrid Cloud Management, Enterprise Manager Cloud Control provides you with a "single pane of glass" for monitoring and managing on-premise as well as Oracle Cloud deployments, all from the same management console. By deploying Hybrid Cloud Agents onto the Oracle Cloud virtual hosts serving your Oracle Cloud services, you are able to manage Oracle Cloud targets just as you would any other. The communication between Management Agents and your on-premise Oracle Management Service instances is secure from external interference. In addition to a hardened architecture of its own, Enterprise Manager supports the use of additional external HTTP proxies that support tunneling, which can be configured to connect to the Oracle Cloud.
Lifecycle Management
Lifecycle Management is a comprehensive solution that helps database, system, and application administrators automate the processes required to manage the lifecycle of Oracle technology. It eliminates manual and time-consuming tasks related to discovery, initial provisioning, patching, configuration management, and ongoing change management. In addition, the solution provides compliance frameworks for reporting and managing industry and regulatory compliance standards. Finally, all of the on-premise instrumentation can be connected in real-time to My Oracle Support for complete communication between Oracle and customers.
Application Performance Management
Enterprise Manager 13c provides a complete Application Performance Management (APM) solution for custom applications and Oracle applications (including E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Fusion Applications). The APM solution is designed for both cloud and enterprise data center deployments and is supported on Oracle and non-Oracle platforms.
Oracle APM delivers Business Driven Application Management with end-to-end monitoring that includes:
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User Experience Management: Real user monitoring and synthetic transaction monitoring with Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) and Service Level Management (SLM) beacons, respectively.
There are two ways to monitor Web site user experience: using real traffic from real customers or using synthetic traffic (traffic artificially created by software to mimic the load that the Web site would be expected to receive). RUEI supports monitor of both of these ways. SLM beacons are components within the monitored environment that send out synthetic traffic. Typically, they test the performance and availability of business-critical services in the infrastructure as part of SLM.
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Java monitoring and diagnostics: Zero-overhead, production Java diagnostics for Oracle and non-Oracle platforms. Trace transactions from Java to Oracle Database and back.
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Discovery and topology: Multi-layer discovery of infrastructure and application topology.
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Application Performance Analytics: Rich reporting and analytic capabilities on real user activities and transaction monitoring data.
Application Quality Management
Oracle's Application Quality Management products provide a complete testing solution for Oracle Database, Oracle Packaged Applications, and custom Web applications.
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Application Testing: Application Testing Suite's Test Management, Functional Testing, and Load Testing capabilities ensure the quality of web-based applications including Oracle e-Business Suite, Fusion, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Hyperion, and J.D. Edwards.
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Infrastructure Testing: Application Replay and Real Application Testing enable realistic, production-scale testing of the application and database infrastructure. They use real, production workloads to generate load against applications or databases under test and do not require any script development or maintenance. With Application Replay or Real Application Testing you can reduce your testing time by more than 80%. They provide the most efficient, optimized and highest quality testing for validating application and database infrastructure changes.
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Test Data Management: Oracle Test Data Management and Data Masking provide efficient, automated, and secure test system creation capabilities for Oracle and non-Oracle databases, with out-of-the-box templates for Oracle packaged applications.