Exploring Your Database with Enterprise Manager Database Control

This tutorial describes how you can use the Enterprise Manager Database Control with its seven main pages to proactively and reactively monitor and manage your database environment. In addition, this tutorial describes how you can find a starting point for various database administration tasks, view your host configuration, tablespace contents, historical performance data, alert log errors, and the workflow to apply patches.

Approximately 30 minutes

Topics

This tutorial covers the following topics:

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Overview

What Is Enterprise Manager Database Control?

Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) Database Control is a Web-based tool that is automatically installed when you install Oracle Database. EM Database Control provides an easy-to-use interface for managing and monitoring your database. This tool was first introduced with Oracle Database 10g. The latest version of the tool, part of Oracle Database 11g, includes many key enhancements and new features.

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Before you perform this tutorial, you should:

1.

Install Oracle Database 11g

2.

Ensure that the latest SVG plug-in is installed. This is required for the proper display of links and icons on the performance pages.

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Using the Database Home Page

The Database Home page enables you to start and stop the database, and to view its current state by displaying a series of metrics. This page displays information grouped in the following categories:

Six tabbed pages (Performance, Availability, Server, Schema, Data Movement, Software and Support) provide additional access to database information, as well as the links at the bottom of each page, in the Related Links region.

To review the Database Home Page, perform the following steps:

1.

Open your browser and enter the following URL (replace <hostname> with your own host name or IP address):

https://<hostname>:1158/em

Note: EM Database Control is configured out-of-the-box to run more securely, using SSL.

Enter sys as User Name, oracle as Password, SYSDBA in the Connect As field, and click Login.

 

2.

The Database Home page provides the overall picture of your database health and activities.

In the top left corner is the name of the database you are connected to. The tabs below provide easy access to information in different categories, directly linking to details and tasks on various database administration tasks such as performance monitoring and tuning, ensuring database availability, configuring the database, and so on.

 

3.

On the top right corner of the page, you see the links to the Setup, Preferences, Help, and Logout pages.

  • By using Setup, you can manage administrators, notification methods, configuration of patch management, and so on.
  • The Preference link provides access to managing information, preferred credentials, notification schedules, and so on.
  • The Help link provides context-sensitive help from Oracle Enterprise Manager Online Help.
  • The Logout link immediately disconnects you from Enterprise Manager.

Click Setup to view your Enterprise Manager configuration.

 

4.

The Enterprise Manager Setup page provides access to Enterprise Manager configuration and health status information. Click the Database tab to return to the home page.

 

5.

This View Data drop-down list selection enables you to change your data to be manually refreshed or automatically refreshed.

 

6.

Scroll though the Database home page and examine the various categories. The General section provides information about the status of your database instance (Up or Down), its name, version and links to the Host homepage and the Listener home page.

Click the Host link.

 

7.

Five tabbed pages: Home, Performance, Administration (applicable for hosts running Red Hat Linux and SUSE Linux Operating systems), Targets and Configuration, organize the host related information for you. Review all information that interests you.

Click the Configuration tab.

 

8.

The Host Configuration page displays information grouped as: Hardware, Operating System, Oracle Software, and OS-Registered Software. When you finished reviewing the information, click on the Database tab in the top right corner, to return to the Database Home page.

 

9.

The Host CPU section on the Database home page provides the overall CPU utilization by the database on the host machine. The Load and Paging fields values are derived from the Host Performance page.

Active Sessions shows the average number of sessions working (using CPU) or actively waiting during the refresh interval, rounded down to the whole integer. This number is generally less than the total number of sessions connected, as the session idle time is natural and almost always present.

If you set up a baseline and track a set of SQL statements, then the SQL Response Time is displayed. (The lower the current response, the more efficiently the SQL statements are executing.)

 

10.

The Diagnostic Summary category displays information about policy violations, the latest Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM) finding, the number of ADDM findings, and policy violations. ADDM is a built-in performance expert that runs every 30 minutes by default. ADDM provides database wide performance diagnostics. It not only provides "root-cause analysis", but also provides recommendations to help resolve performance problems.

Click the Alert Log link.

 

11.

Your display of the Alert Log Errors will be different, depending on recent system activities. In this example, there have been no reported ORA errors.

Review the information that interests you, then click the Database tab to return to the Database home page.

 

12.

The Space Summary section helps to identify storage-related issues and provide recommendations for improved performance. It highlights whether there are any tablespaces that have run out of space, or have fragmentation issues.

The Database Size value is derived from the total size of the tablespaces.

The dump area stores dump files created by background and user processes, as well as core dump files. Dump Area Used (%) is an alert threshold that you can edit.

 

13.

The High Availability section provides information about your database's ability to recover from instance and media failure. It shows when the last database backup was taken and whether Flashback Logging is enabled. Click on the number of seconds related to Instance Recovery Time.

 

14.

You see the mean time to recover. This is the estimated recovery time for o perform Instance Recovery on restart after a Shutdown Abort or an Instance failure. Click the Database Instance locator link.

 

15.

Because Instance Recovery Time is a Availability task, you are automatically taken to the Availability tab. Click the Home tab.

 

16.

Other key regions of the Home page include:

The Alerts section shows all open alerts for the database.

The Related Alerts section shows alerts for related targets.

Policy Violations include any current and distinct rules that have been violated.

The Security section displays the information of the last security evaluation and any patch recommendations.

The Job Activity section provides the statistics of any job activity in the system for the last seven days.

 

17.

The Related Links section provides direct links to different management areas of your database.

 

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Using the Database Performance Page

The Performance page enables you quickly identify potential and actual problems, and to analyze their cause. The following charts are available:

Each of the charts and the Additional Monitoring Links at the bottom of the page provide links to access more detailed information. (All of your charts will look different than the ones displayed here, depending on your system activity.)

Perform the following steps:

1.

Click the Performance tab.

 

2.

The Performance page appears. On Windows the Hosts chart displays CPU Utilization (on some operating systems, it displays load average).

Select Historical from the View Data drop-down list.

 

3.

Notice the Historical Interval Selection appears which allows you to slide focus to a different day and time.

Move the slider to a different day and time, and note how the chart below changes.

Then click the CPU Utilization link.

 

4.

The Host Performance page appears with charts indicating CPU Utilization, Memory Utilization and Disk I/O Utilization. Also the top 10 most consumptive processes are displayed.

Click your web browser's Back button to return to the Database Performance page.

 

5.

The Average Active Sessions chart on the Performance page displays the load on the instance. The "wait classes" on the right of the graph show how much of the database is waiting for a resource, such as CPU or disk I/O. Click on one of the icons below the chart.

The Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM) page appears. Review what interests you, and click your web browser's Back button to return to the Database Performance page.

 

6.

The Instance Disk I/O chart on the Performance page displays the rate at which the database instance issues read/write requests. Physical reads and writes correspond to the data block reads and writes in the database. An increase in other reads and other writes indicates a backup, archiving, or file transfer activity that is occurring in the database. Click the I/O link and then scroll down the Performance page.

 

7.

The Instance Throughput charts show any contention that appears in the Sessions chart.

 

8.

The Additional Monitoring Links provide direct links to additional performance information.

 

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Using the Database Availability Page

The Availability page enables you to manage different aspects of Oracle backup and recovery. You can perform tasks, such as managing backup settings, scheduling backups, perform recovery, and using the Oracle Secure Backup feature. This page displays information grouped in the following categories under the Backup/Recovery heading:

Perform the following steps:

1.

Click the Availability tab.

 

2.

The Availability page appears. The Oracle Enterprise Manager physical backup and recovery features are built on the Recovery Manager (RMAN) command-line client.

Select Backup Settings under the Setup region of the window.

 

3.

On the Backup Settings page, there are three separate tabs: Device, Backup Set, and Polity. The settings on the Device subpage affect how RMAN writes backups to disk and to tape.

From this page, you can set parameters for both disk-based backups and tape-based backups. Review the information that interests you, then click the Back button on your browser to return to the Availability home page.

 

4.

Database Control enables you to perform RMAN backups and schedule backup jobs required by your backup strategy.

To perform a whole database backup when the database is open click Schedule Backup.

 

5.

The Schedule Backup page appears. From this page, you can invoke one of the backup strategies: Oracle-Suggested or Customized.

To evaluate the differences of these backups, view the Backup Strategies located on the right of the window:

Review the information that interests you, then click the Back button on your browser to return to the Availability home page.

 

6.

Click Oracle Secure Backup Device and Media link.

 

7.

From this window, you can specify the Oracle Secure Backup server's settings.

Click the Back button on your browser to return to the Availability home page.

 

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Using the Server Page

The Server page enables you to access database objects. You can administer these objects and initiate database operations, such as creating tablespaces, defining roles and limiting resource usage. The database objects are organized in groups and subgroups. The groups on this page include:

Perform the following steps:

1.

Click the Server tab.

 

2.

The Server page appears. It provides links which enable you to perform various DBA tasks. The following are examples of some server tasks:

  • To manage the storage and size of the database, use links in the Storage section.
  • To configure database parameters, use links in the Database Configuration section.
  • To schedule and monitor jobs, use links in the Oracle Scheduler section.
  • To manage snapshots in the Automatic Workload Repository (AWR), that are used for performance tuning, use links in the Statistics Management section.
  • To configure resources such as CPU and undo space allocated among user sessions, use links in the Resource Manager section.
  • To enable or disable row-level policy rules, or to protect sensitive data in database columns, use links in the Security section.
  • To use the query optimizer to choose the best execution plan for each SQL statement, use links in the Query Optimizer section.
  • To manage users, notification schedules and blackouts, use links in the Enterprise Manager Administration section.

 

3.

To view database storage structure, go to the Storage section of the Server property page. This section provides background information about the various database storage structures.

 

4.

For example, you can use Database Control to view location and status information about the control files. Click Control Files.

 

5.

From this window, you can view all of the control files that are marked valid, their file name and their location. Review the information that interests you, then click the Back button on your browser to return to the Server home page.

 

6.

As an example, of a DBA monitoring task, view the smallest segments of the EXAMPLE tablespace. Click the Tablespaces link.

 

7.

On the Tablespaces page, select the EXAMPLE tablespace, then select Show Tablespace Contents from the Actions drop-down list, and click Go.

 

8.

The segments of this tablespace are displayed in descending sort order. Change the order to ascending, by clicking the sort order icon (the triangle behind "Size (KB)" ).

 

9.

Now the smallest segments are displayed first. Click the Database Instance locator link to return to the Server page.

 

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Using the Schema Page

The Schema page displays a list database objects. Schema objects are logical structures created by users. Some objects, such as tables or indexes, hold data. Other objects, such as views or synonyms, consist of a definition only. You can create and manipulate schema objects with Database Control. Key regions of this window include:

To view these database objects, perform the following steps:

1.

Click the Schema tab.

 

2.

The Schema page appears. The following are examples of some of tasks involving Schema objects:

  • To create a database link, (that is, to designate a connection between two physical database servers allowing a client to access them as one logical database), use the Database Objects section.
  • To search for invalid packages, use the Programs section.
  • To allow access to a database user, use the Users & Privileges section.
  • To view the definitions of a database captured at a specific time, use the Change Management section.
  • To add a materialized view to a data warehouse, use the Materialized Views section.
  • To create a variable array or nested table (that maps to an array in Java), use the User Defined Types section.
  • To configure an Oracle XML DB protocol server, use the XML Database section.
  • To provide an infrastructure that lets applications conveniently create workspaces, use links in the Workspace Manager section.
  • To enable you to build text query applications and document classification applications, use links in the Text Manager section.

 

3.

To view a list of all the tables in a specific schema and their definitions, click Tables.

 

4.

Change the schema name to HR and click Go.

 

5.

A list of tables belonging to the HR schema appears. To view the definition of a table, click EMPLOYEES.

 

6.

A list of columns that comprises the EMPLOYEES table appears. Review the information that interests you, then click the Database instance to return to the Schema home page.

 

7.

For a list of users in the database, click Users.

 

8.

A list of all of the users in the database appears. Other attributes including the account status, expiration date, default tablespace and profile are listed.

Click the Database instance to return to the Schema home page.

 

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Using the Data Movement Page

The Data Movement page provides links for tasks related to moving data between Oracle databases, as well as in and out of them. For example, the export and import links allow you to use Enterprise Manager's graphical interface for the data pump tools. "Load Data from User Files" connects you to SQL*Loader (a tool used to load data from flat files into an Oracle database). Key regions of this window include:

Perform the following steps:

1.

Click the Data Movement tab.

 

2.

The Data Movement page appears. The following are examples of some of tasks involving data movement:

  • To load data into or out of a database table, use the Move Row Data section.
  • To clone a database or transport tablespaces, use the Move Database Files section.
  • To setup streams, use the Streams section.
  • To copy and maintain database objects in multiple database that make up a distributed database system, use the Advanced Replication section.

 

3.

To setup the streams feature, begin by clicking on Setup.

 

4.

From this window, you can use any of the wizards to setup and configure the streams feature including messaging.

Click the Database instance to return to the Data Movement home page.

 

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Using the Software and Support Page

The Software and Support page allows you to simplify your support and patch maintenance. For example, you can utilize the database software patching option to apply a patch specific to your product release. Key regions of this window include:

Perform the following steps:

1.

Click the Software and Support tab.

 

2.

The Software and Support page appears. The following are examples of some of tasks involving data movement:

  • To collect configuration information, use the Configuration section.
  • To apply a patch, use the Database Software Patching section.
  • To setup a database replay or utilize the SQL Performance Analyzer, use the Software Assurance section.
  • To view, edit, run, and monitor deployment procedures (best practices provided by Oracle for various provisioning tasks), use the Deploymnet Procedure Manager section.

 

3.

For example, to apply a patch, click the Apply Patch link.

 

4.

Click Add.

 

5.

From the Search and Select Software Updates window, you can choose the appropriate product family, product and release that you want to query for available patches. Click Cancel to exit the window.

Click the Database tab to return to the Database home page.

 

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In this tutorial, you learned how to:

bullet Use the database home page
bullet Use the database performance page
bullet Use the availability page
bullet Use the server page
bullet Use the schema page
bullet Use the data movement page
bullet Use the software and support page

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