My feedback after upgrading EM12c 12.1.0.3 to 12.1.0.5

Today I’ve upgraded EM12c for a customer from the second-last version (12.1.0.3) to the last one (12.1.0.5) and the EM Repository from 11.2.0.3 to 12.1.0.2.

The upgrade path was not very easy: EM 12.1.0.3 is not compatible with a repository 12.1.0.2 and EM 12.1.0.5 requires a mandatory patch for the repository if 11.2.0.3 (or an upgrade to 11.2.0.4).

So I’ve done:

  • upgrade of the repository from 11.2.0.3 (in Data Guard configuration) to 11.2.0.4
  • upgrade of the EM from 12.1.0.3 to 12.1.0.5
  • upgrade of the repository from 11.2.0.4 to 12.1.0.2 (in Data Guard configuration), from Solaris to Linux

 

In my case, I was particularly concerned about my customer’s EM topology:

  • two OMS in load balancing
  • console secured with a custom SSL certificate
  • a good amount of targets (more than 800 total targets, more than 500 targets with status)
  • a lot of jobs and custom reports
  • a big, shared central software library
  • many other small customizations: auth, groups, metrics, templates…

I will not bother with the actual execution steps, every installation may differ, I strongly recommend to read the upgrade documentation (I know, it’s HUGE 🙁 ).

Just to resume, the upgrade guide is here: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/upgrade.121/e22625/toc.htm

in my case I had to read carefully the chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and appendixes G and K.

By following every step carefully, I had no problems at all and at the end everything was working correctly: all the targets up, the load balancing working in SSL as expected, the jobs restarted and ran successfully…

It has been incredible to see how many operations the OUI has done without raising a single error!!

Ok, it’s not just a Click Next Next Next Next installation, there are a lot of steps to do manually before and afterwards, but still… very good impression.

It took a little more than one hour to upgrade the first OMS (this also upgrades the EM repository) and a little less than 20 minutes to upgrade the second one.

Let a couple of hours for checking everything before, staging the binaries, taking backups/snapshots, creating restore points… and one hours more for upgrading the central agents and cleansing the old installations.

About upgrading/moving the repository, check this good post by Maaz AnjumMIGRATE ENTERPRISE MANAGER 12.1.0.4.0 TO A PDB FROM A NON-CDB, even if you don’t plan to do it, it’s worth a read.

HTH

Ludo

Regular TNS-12508 critical alerts in EM12c

Yesterday I’ve come across a small request from a customer.
They were receiving REGULARLY critical alerts in EM12c from some listeners due to error TNS-12508.

The facts:

  • only 10g listeners were affected
  • every day, only one occurrence of the error and always at the same time on a named host
  • no apparent correlations between times on different hosts

I’ve analyzed the log to see the error.

 

Notice that after the error there are two requests: show log_directory and show trc_directory.
So I’ve supposed that it’s an additional request failing on 10g listeners but not on 11g listeners.
The “help” command of 10g and 11g releases shows that the two releases have some different commands. One of them is “show oracle_home” that has been introduced in 11g.

  • First I’ve searched for scheduled scripts (the customer literally have a huge library of scripts run against the databases to automate maintenance tasks)
  • Then I’ve asked to the team that manages an automatic discovery tool that feeds the CMDB
  • Finally, I’ve come across this note on Metalink that explain the error:

Repetitive TNS-12508 Errors logged for a listener target after upgrade to 12.1.0.3 DB plugin or higher (Doc ID 1596633.1)

I’ve applied the change to the metrics in EM12c to ignore the error for 10g listeners.

Ludovico

Oracle Database 12c: Enterprise Manager Database Express

Oracle Database 12c says goodbye to a tool being around after the 10gR1: the Database Console.

OC4J for the 10g and weblogic for the 11g, both have had a non-negligible overhead on the systems, especially with many configured instances.

In many cases I’ve decided to switch to Grid/Cloud Control for the main reason to avoid too many db consoles, in other cases I’ve just disabled at all web management.

The new 12c brings a new tool called Database Express (indeed, very similar to its predecessors).


Where’s my emca/emctl?

The DB Express runs entirely with pl/sql code within the XDB schema. It’s XDB that leverages its features to enable a web-based console, and it’s embedded by default in the database.

To enable it, it’s necessary to check that the parameter dispatchers is enabled for XDB:

and then set an https port unique on the server:

If you’ve already done it but you don’t remember the port number you can get it with this query:

You can now access the web interface by using the address:

 

db_express_home

db_express

Lower footprint, less features

From one side DB Express is thin (but not always fast on my laptop…), from the other it has clearly fewer features comparing to the DB Console.

It’s not clear to me if Oracle wants to make it more powerful in future releases or if it’s a move to force everybody to use something else (SQLDeveloper or EM12c Cloud Control). However the DBA management plugin of the current release of SQL Developer is fully compatible with the 12c, including the ability to manage pluggable databases:sqldev_pluggable_db

So is the EM 12c Cloud Control, so you have plenty of choice to manage your 12c databases from graphical interfaces.

Stay tuned!

Ludovico