3
Groups

The Group system lets you organize the objects you manage into logical categories for more efficient management and administration. You can organize groups based on any criteria you determine, such as function, department, geographical location, or number of administrators. You can then place the groups on a map or graphical view of the network making it easy to locate, diagnose, and act on encountered conditions. The system also lets you assign jobs to groups and monitor their status. The Groups system is especially useful for managing environments with many databases and services.

The topics discussed in this chapter include:

• Group Pane

• Group Menu

• Managing Groups

Group Pane

The Group pane provides an area for constructing a graphical custom view of the network environment. When all four panes are displayed, the Groups pane is located in the upper right corner of the console. See Figure 3-1, "Navigator and Group Panes" for an illustration of a Group pane.

The Group pane can be hidden or shown by selecting Show/Hide Group pane in the Console View menu. You can also hide or show the pane by clicking on the Show/Hide Group Display button above the Console toolbar.

Note that groups are also displayed in the Navigator pane. To display the members of a group in this pane, expand the group by clicking the "+" symbol next to the group name.

Figure 3-1 Navigator and Group Panes

Text description of the illustration group2.gif

Group Menu

The Group menu options allow you to perform such actions as create, modify, and remove groups.

Create Group

Adds a new group to the selected group. See "Adding Objects to a Group" on page 3-9 for more information.

Create Group Like

Copies an existing group.

Edit Group

Modifies an existing group. See "Modifying a Group" on page 3-10 for more information.

Remove Group

Removes an existing group from the current group, or deletes the group from the entire system. See "Removing Groups" on page 3-10 for more information.

Remove Item From Group

Deletes the selected item from the group pane. You can also delete an object from the group by selecting the object and pressing the Delete key. See "Removing Groups" on page 3-10 for more information.

Managing Groups

A group is a collection of objects, such as databases, listeners, or nodes, that share a common location or function. You can create, modify, and remove groups to further organize your network view. Different types of objects, like databases and listeners, can be grouped together.

Groups appear in two places: the Navigator and the Group pane.

A group is represented on the Navigator by an icon and a name. You can double-click on the group's icon to expand the group, and view and update the group's members and sub-groups.

The Group pane gives you a more graphical view of the objects in the group and their individual status. You can also add background maps to the Group pane to better visualize locations of particular objects.

Grouping nodes or services can simplify tasks that are applied to all members of the group. For example, in order to execute a SQL script on all the databases in the CHI_MAIL group, you can use the Job Scheduling services to schedule a job on the group. The job that executes the SQL script is scheduled on all the databases in the group. The job will not be applied to any other objects in the group.

Creating a Group

To create a group, select the Create Group menu item to display the Create a Group property sheet. The property sheet contains the General and Permissions pages (see Figure 3-2 and Figure 3-3). After you have completed the property sheet pages, click the OK button to save the group. The new group appears under Groups in the Navigator. The Group pane will remain empty.

The new group is empty until you add objects to it. Dragging an object from the Navigator menu copies and pastes it into a group. Note that this action does not remove the object from the Navigator. In fact, you can add an object to any number of groups, and still be able to manipulate it individually, as well.

To add an object to a group, select it and drag it over to the Group pane, or drag it over to a group folder in the Navigator pane. To add an existing group to the new group, or to another existing group, drag and drop the group from the Navigator into the group folder or the Group pane. An icon representing the object or group appears in the Navigator and in the Group pane.

Figure 3-2 Create Group General Page

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Group General Page

Group Name

Enter a unique name for the new group in the Group Name field of the dialog box.

Use a background image when viewing this group

Check this option if you want to display an image in the background of the group pane. Sample files are provided in the oracle_home\classes\oracle\sysman\resources\images directory on the machine where the Management Server is located. If you want to use your own images, Oracle recommends that you add them to this directory.

The sample images included are:

• asia.gif

• europe.gif

• japan.gif

• usa.gif

• world.gif

Do not specify a directory for graphics located in this directory. Specify only the file name, such as usa.gif. You can use .GIF or .JPG graphic files. If you check the box, enter the file name of the image in the Bitmap Relative URL field. When an image is added to a group, the file name is stored in the repository.

Icons

Determine whether you want to display large or small icons in the group.

Group Permissions Page

Determine the permissions that you want to assign to the group with the Permissions Page. This allows other users to view or modify the group. Any permissions assigned on this page over-write any user default permissions. See "Permissions" on page 1-23 for an explanation of the permissions that can be assigned.

Figure 3-3 Group Permissions Page

Text description of the illustration grouper.gif

Manipulating Group Views

Groups are populated by dragging and dropping databases, groups, nodes, listeners or any other discovered services from the Navigator into the Group pane. You can create, update, and save any number of groups. In addition, you can add a graphic as a background to the group for visual identification or to graphically show the location of nodes. For example, you can use a group drawing of a city or state for the background of your group.

Double-clicking on a group in the Navigator pane opens the hierarchical list of its members. You can display groups in the Group pane by selecting the group name from the pull-down list in the Console toolbar.

Monitoring Status

The Group system provides an efficient way to monitor the alerts reported by the event system. If the object or group has events registered against it, a flag showing the state of the event condition is displayed. If an object in a group has more than one event registered against it, the flag will represent the most severe alert condition.

• If the flag is green, there are no problems on the monitored objects.

• If the flag is yellow, there is a condition detected that should be checked.

• If the flag is red, there is a severe problem detected by an event and the object requires immediate attention.

• If the flag is gray, the status of the object is unknown. For example, the UpDown event is registered to a database but the node is unavailable. The gray flag will only display if an up/down test is explicitly registered for the object.

• If there is no flag, then the object is not being monitored. Note that groups within groups do not show a status monitor when the event is clear (green).

• If there is a yellow hexagon, there is an error state (yellow hexagon). An error state indicates there is a problem with the evaluation of the event condition, as opposed to a threshold being met. Examples of error states are: registering an Archive Full event against a database in non-archivelog mode, registering an event that monitors segments but specifying a filter that excludes all available segments.

Groups inherit the worst state of any of the members. If one service in a group is down, the group displays a grey flag.

See Chapter 5, "Events" for more information on events.

Expanding Objects

Some group objects, such as database objects and defined group objects, can be expanded in the Group pane by double-clicking on the object's icon. You can double-click on some objects to open property sheets. The property sheets allow you to both view and alter the properties of the objects. You can double-click on databases to display property sheets.

See Figure 3-1, "Navigator and Group Panes" for an illustration of an expanded node in the Group pane.

Groups

When you double-click on a group icon, the group expands to display the objects in the group. You can drag and drop objects from the Group, the Navigator, and other groups to add them to the group. You can delete objects from the group by selecting them and pressing the Delete key, or clicking the right mouse button and selecting Remove.

Databases and Other Discovered Services

When you double-click on a database or other discovered service, you connect to that service. The instance property sheet displays if that service is a database. If the connection to the database fails for any reason, the Login Information dialog box displays. See "Preferred Credentials" on page 1-25 for information on preferred credentials.

Launching Tools from a Group

You can launch a database tool using an object in the group. Select a database icon in the Group pane, then select a DBA tool from the Tools menu or launch palette. You are connected to the database according to the user credentials that have been set up for the system. See "Preferred Credentials" on page 1-25 for more information on user credentials.

Adding Objects to a Group

To add objects to a group, drag and drop the object from its location on the Navigator to the group--either the group folder on the Navigator or the group shown in the Group pane.

When you add objects in a group, the updates are reflected in every occurrence of the group. Any updates to a group are automatically saved as the updates are made.

Deleting Objects from the Group Pane

To delete objects in a group pane:

1. Double-click on a group icon in a group to expand the group.

2. Select an object in the group and press the Delete key to delete an object from a group.

To delete objects from a group in the Navigator:

1. Expand the group in the tree.

2. Select an object in the group and press the Delete key to delete an object from a group.

Modifying a Group

You can modify the properties of a group.

1. Select a group in the Navigator.

2. Select the Edit Group menu item to display the Edit Group dialog box. The name of the group is automatically entered in the name field. The name cannot be modified.

3. Modify the properties for the group.

4. Click the OK button when you have finished.

Removing Groups

There are two ways to remove a group:

• Remove the group from within another group. This does not affect the existence of the group in the system or in any other groups.

• Remove the group completely (delete). This removes the group from every group where it has been copied.

After you select a group, there are four ways to remove it:

• Delete the group completely by selecting Remove Group from the Group menu.

• Delete the group completely by choosing a group (that is not inside another group) and selecting the Remove menu item from the group's context menu.

• Delete the group completely by choosing a group (that is not inside another group) and selecting the <DELETE> key.

• Remove a sub-group from within another group by selecting Remove Item from the Group menu. This will remove the sub-group from the selected group, but will not affect the sub-group's existence in other groups.

• Remove a sub-group from within another group by selecting the Remove menu item from the group's context menu. This will remove the sub-group from the selected group, but will not affect the sub-group's existence in other groups.

• Remove a sub-group from within another group by selecting the <DELETE> key. This will remove the sub-group from the selected group, but will not affect the sub-group's existence in other groups.

Example: Creating a Group

The following example illustrates how to create a new database group.

1. Select Create Group from the Group menu to display the Create a Group dialog.

2. Enter a name for the new group in the Group Name field.

3. Check the Use Background Image box to add a graphic to the background. Enter a graphic name, or select one of the supplied images from the drop-down list.

4. Choose small icons for the group.

5. Set the permissions so all Enterprise Manager administrators can view but not modify the group.

6. Click on the Create button to create the new group. A folder for the new group appears in the Navigator.

7. Select the new group from the pull-down group list over the Group pane to display the group.

8. Expand the Databases branch of the Navigator.

9. Drag a database into the Group pane.

10. Drag and drop a listener into the new group folder in the Navigator.

The new group can be added to other groups by dragging and dropping the group from the Navigator.