Top Down Performance
Management with OEM
Grid Control
Or how I learned to stop worrying
and love OEM Grid Control
10/1/2010
Presentation Date
John Darrah
The DBA Challenge
• Manage complex environments
– N-Tier environments with several entry points to the
database or databases
• Manage many database environments
– Fewer DBAs to manage more environments
• Need to respond to performance problems
– DBAs must be able to track down root cause across
several environments
– DBAs must be able to demonstrate the problem is not
database related
© DBAK 2010
The Past
WMS
© DBAK 2010
ERP
Custom App
The Present
Internet Trading Partners
External Web Service
Web Server Farm 2
External DMZ
Web Server Farm 1
Web Service 1 Web Service 2
Web Service 3
Internal DMZ
ERP1
ERP2
ERP3
ERP4
WMS
ESB
Enterprise Data Warehouse
Custom App
ERP
© DBAK 2010
CRM
How do you monitor environments?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
SQL Trace
SQL*Plus Scripts
StatsPack / AWR
Third Party Monitoring Applications
Users
Prayer
OEM (dbconsole)
OEM Grid Control
© DBAK 2010
Which Monitoring tools are best?
• All of them have their place
– All of the above methods have advantages and
disadvantages
– Use the right tool for the right situation
– Don’t become entirely dependent on GUIs
• Take a Top-Down Approach
– OEM is an ideal solution for a top down tuning
approach
– Most of the other approaches are more suited for
detailed analysis of individual problems
© DBAK 2010
The need for a Top Down approach
• In complex environments it is difficult to find the
problem much less address it
• <sarcasm>
Database is always the performance bottleneck
</sarcasm>
• The good old days of client server apps (i.e easy to
trace) are long gone.
© DBAK 2010
“The WMS database is down!”
Web Service 1
© DBAK 2010
WMS
ESB
Custom App
CRM
Top Down Approach
• Use Groups and dashboards to quickly identify problems in
the areas you care about
– Group dashboards give a high level view of targets
© DBAK 2010
Top Down Approach cont.
• Start at a high level and drill down
– Quickly identify problems and drill into root cause
© DBAK 2010
“The ERP database is down!”
ERP1
ERP2
ERP3
ERP
© DBAK 2010
ERP4
Drilling into RAC environments
© DBAK 2010
Performance Tab Summary
• OEM’s performance Page provides
– High Level performance Metrics on database
performance
– A graphical representation of AWR data (10/11g)
– Top Activity analysis and Drilldown
– SQL Tuning Advisor (10/11g)
© DBAK 2010
OEM Performance Tab (10g)
© DBAK 2010
Top Activity
• Shows a 1-hour timeline of the top activity running
on the database
• Displayed in 5-minute intervals
• Timeline graph gives the ability to look at past
statements
• ASH and SQL Tuning available from this page
© DBAK 2010
Top Activity
© DBAK 2010
Top Consumers
© DBAK 2010
SQL Tuning Advisor
• Runs a series of what-if scenarios and data analysis
to better determine plan efficiency
• Provides a list of suggestions weighted by %
improvement
• Only available with 10g or 11g + Diagnostics and
Tuning option
© DBAK 2010
SQL Tuning Advisor
© DBAK 2010
“Our ETL ran long, what happened?”
Enterprise Data Warehouse
© DBAK 2010
Grid Control can show historical as well as real
time data
© DBAK 2010
ASH Reporting
• Shows Active Session History
– V$ACTIVE_SESSION_HISTORY
– DBA_HIST_ACTIVE_SESS_HIST
• The Same report can be run from SQL*Plus
– OEM Takes care of formatting and parameters
© DBAK 2010
ASH Reporting
© DBAK 2010
A Note about 8i and 9i Databases
• Requires additional setup
– See section 10.3 of advanced configuration guide
• Lacks ADDM, AWR, ASH
• Still provides valuable information to a DBA
© DBAK 2010
8i and 9i Cont
• Snapshots of a SQL statement
© DBAK 2010
“The web servers are crashing!
What’s wrong with the database?!”
Web Server Farm 1
ERP1
ERP2
ERP3
ERP
© DBAK 2010
ERP4
Interdependent Targets are grouped into
Systems
• Different targets that fulfill a business need
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–
–
–
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Host
Database
Listener
Web servers
Load Balancer
• All of the targets must be available to service the
system
© DBAK 2010
Services can monitor Systems in OEM
• Create Tests that run synthetic transactions
• Determine the availability of a service
– Critical system component availability
– Service availability
• Beacons can test service availability and
performance from many locations
– Internal
– External
• Beacons give visibility to end user experience
© DBAK 2010
Service Test Example
© DBAK 2010
AD4J expands Grid Control’s abilities
• AD4J stands for advanced Diagnostics for Java
• Provides the ability to inspect JVM heaps
– Memory Leak detection
• Provides the ability to profile individual threads
• Provides the ability to tie a thread to a database
session
• Fully integrated into Grid Control as of OEM 11
• Service Tests and Beacons provide the what, AD4J
provides the why
© DBAK 2010
AD4J Dashboard
© DBAK 2010
AD4J Active Thread Trace
© DBAK 2010
Beyond Performance Monitoring
• Performance monitoring it crucial but does not
provide a complete solution
– Look at present and past activities, not a look ahead
– It is reactive
– Tactical
• The complete IT shop needs to look forward as well
– Capacity planning
– Operational budgeting
© DBAK 2010
Beyond Performance Monitoring (cont)
• OEM Grid Control repository is essentially an ODS
– Performance Metrics gathered from all targets
– Configuration information about targets
– Utilization regarding Targets
• Data from the OEM repository can be mined
– What is the average utilization of the EBS servers?
• How is that utilization trending?
– What is my breakout of different models of servers?
• Sun Op Center takes this concept further
© DBAK 2010
The Future
• OEM Grid Control will continue to evolve
– Many recent Acquisitions will be woven into the OEM
brand / framework
• Sun Op Center
• Oracle will continue to improve on the end to end
top down vision monitoring solution
– RUEI
– Op Center
© DBAK 2010
Questions
• John Darrah
• jdarrah@dbaknow.com
• www.dbaknow.com
© DBAK 2010