Learn About Optimizing Your Database Resources in the Cloud

Before You Begin

Before you begin, ensure that you're familiar with and have completed the following tasks:

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Provision an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy with a connected and configured instance.
Oracle Database Cloud Service: Enable the service and deploy at least one database.
Oracle Management Cloud - Enterprise Edition: Install and configure Oracle Management Cloud - Enterprise Edition on a local host in your on-premises environment. The Enterprise Edition includes Oracle IT Analytics and Database Resource Analytics.

Learn about related solutions:

Architecture

This architecture shows Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle Database Cloud Service, and Oracle Management Cloud. Use this architecture for an overview of how you can set up Oracle Management Cloud to monitor your databases.

When you have bare metal and virtual machine databases running in Oracle Database Cloud Service, you can deploy an agent on the host where the database resides (where the database is running) and use the Oracle Management Cloud console to get real-time database performance information and trend analysis.

The console provides a single user interface for all managed entities. Oracle IT Analytics is a feature of Oracle Management Cloud that provides insight into performance, availability, and capacity of applications and infrastructure. As part of Oracle IT Analytics, Database Resource Analytics enables you to view and analyze trends in the utilization of your database CPU, memory, I/O, and storage resources. You can also analyze, compare, and contrast resource usage across databases. As an IT administrator or a capacity planner, you can use Database Resource Analytics to understand how critical resources are used and plan for capacity to ensure that your enterprise databases have sufficient resources to meet future business needs.

The following architecture diagram illustrates how Oracle Management Cloud Agents in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure send database metrics through a gateway and virtual network to Oracle Management Cloud. End users log into the console to access the database performance metrics and graphs in Database Resource Analytics.

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About Managing Database Performance

Diagnosing a slow performing database can be time consuming. Once identified, you need to determine the cause of the slow down, if it's unusual or a trend, and what you can do to improve the performance.

The challenge is determining the optimal utilization values for your organization. CPU, disk, and network I/O performance suffer under large loads. It's tempting to be efficient and operate at 100% utilization, but you need to leave some headroom for spikes in utilization.

The most effective way to tune is to have an established performance baseline that you can use for comparison if a performance issue arises. Most database administrators (DBAs) know their system well and can easily identify peak usage periods. It's important to identify these peak periods at the site and install a monitoring tool that gathers performance data for those high-load times. Optimally, data gathering should be configured from when the application is in its initial trial phase during the QA cycle or when the system is first put into production.

Use Database Resource Analytics to analyze your utilization and plan resource usage by viewing trends of past usage, forecasting future growth, identifying top consumers, and locating databases with high growth rates in following areas:

CPU
Storage
Memory
I/O

Extrapolation and prediction algorithms provide optimization and capacity planning solutions.

About Databases in Oracle Database Cloud Service

Use Oracle Database Cloud Service to build, scale, and secure databases in the cloud. When building or managing databases, it's important to know the differences in how virtual machine and bare metal databases use resources.

The following database system options are available in Oracle Database Cloud Service:

Virtual Machine DB system: A 1-node or 2-node virtual machine DB system with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure block storage.

When you launch a virtual machine DB system, you define the shape, total storage size, and select the Oracle Database Edition that applies to the database on that DB system. The shape defines the number of CPU cores and the memory size.

A virtual machine database system can have only a single database home, which in turn can have only a single database.
Bare Metal database system: A single bare metal server running Oracle Linux, with locally attached NVMe storage.

When you launch a bare metal database system, you define the shape and select a single Oracle Database Edition that applies to all the databases on that database system.

A bare metal database system can have multiple database homes, which can be different versions. Each database home can have only one database.

When you launch a database system, you assign a shape to allocate resources to the database system. For example, a 1-node bare metal database system can have up to 52 CPU cores, 768 GB memory, and eight 6.4 TB locally attached NVMe drives (51.2 TB total) to the database system. The shape you choose for a bare metal database system determines the number of CPU cores, the memory, and the total raw storage for the system. The options that you select for mirroring (normal or high redundancy) and the amount of space you allocate for data files will affect the amount of usable storage on the system.

The table compares the storage, storage scaling, CPU scaling, Real Application Cluster (RAC), and Data Guard availability for the virtual machine and bare metal database options in Oracle Database Cloud Service.

Feature	Oracle Database Cloud Service Virtual Machine	Oracle Database Cloud Service Bare Metal
Storage	Block Storage Total storage includes available storage plus recovery logs.	Local NVMe disks
Scalable Storage	Yes	No
Scalable CPU	No	Yes
Multiple Homes and Databases	No, single home and database	Yes, one edition with different versions
Real Application Clusters (RAC)	Available (2-node) Storage capacity is shared between the nodes.	Not Available
Data Guard	Not Available	Available

About Monitoring Database Resources

Monitor, analyze, and compare your database CPU, memory, and storage usage across your databases.

Oracle Management Cloud is a suite of integrated monitoring, management and analytics solutions delivered as a service on Oracle Cloud. The services are designed to help you to monitor, detect, triage and proactively resolve issues in your environment. Data is automatically analyzed using machine learning and is correlated across Oracle Management Cloud services.

To be effective, you need actionable data about the performance of your databases to determine if the issue is with your database or application. Database Resource Analytics provides data and trend analysis for your database resources. Use the analytics data and charts to understand how critical resources are used and to determine if you have sufficient resources to meet your needs, now and in the future. Find systemic issues, analyze resource usage across application tiers, and forecast future demand for IT services based on historical performance trends.

About Required Services and Roles

This solution requires the following products, services, and roles:

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Oracle Database Cloud Service
Oracle Management Cloud - Enterprise Edition

These are the roles needed for each service.

Service Name: Role	Required to...
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Service administrator role	Manage a specific Oracle Cloud service instance
Oracle Database Cloud Service: DBaaS Database Administrator	Create and delete database deployments Scale, patch, and back up or restore database deployments Monitor and manage service usage in Oracle Cloud
Oracle Management Cloud - Enterprise Edition: `OMCEXTERNAL_ENTITLEMENT_ADMINISTRATOR`	Create Oracle Management Cloud instances Assign Oracle Management Cloud instance roles to other users
Oracle Management Cloud instance role privilege: `OMC <instance name> Administrator`	Add and enable Oracle Database entities for Oracle Management Cloud monitoring and Oracle IT Analytics Set up monitoring and analysis Manage Cloud Agents Configure alert rules Delete entities Disable notifications on alerts (during maintenance periods) View and monitor infrastructure status and performance Receive alert notifications and view alerts Create and administer new log sources Create and administer new log parsers
Oracle Management Cloud instance role privilege: `OMC <instance name> User`	View and monitor infrastructure status and performance Receive alert notifications and view alerts Select targets, groups, or systems to explore Search and analyze logs Save and share log searches Build custom dashboards

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