Oracle Enterprise Manager Concepts Guide
Release 2.2

Part Number A85250-01





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Oracle Management Packs and Integrated Applications





Oracle Diagnostics Pack



In order to use e-Business Management tools for Oracle Enterprise Manger Release 2.2, your system must have the capability to manage Apache and iAS web servers with basic events and limited monitoring and reporting functionality. 

The Oracle Diagnostics Pack contains the following applications:

Oracle Advanced Events

In addition to the basic UpDown event tests provided for all services administered in the Enterprise Manager Console, the Diagnostics Pack provides a library of advanced event tests to automatically detect excessive resource use, performance degradation, and other problem situations.


The Event Management System (EMS) within Oracle Enterprise Manager assists the DBA with automatic problem detection and correction. Using the EMS, the DBA can establish boundary thresholds for warnings and alerts conditions within the network environment for problem monitoring.

The Enterprise Manager base product comes with a set of event tests called Base Event Tests. These event tests consist of UpDown event tests that check whether a database, listener, or node is available. More comprehensive monitoring is available through Advanced Event Tests. These event tests are packaged with the Oracle Diagnostics Pack and are classified under the following categories:

Database Event Tests

The Oracle Advanced Event Tests for the database, listener, and node service types are grouped into the following categories:

Listener Event Test

This category of events monitors for catastrophic conditions on the system. Immediate action needs to be taken by the administrator.

Microsoft ® SQL Server Event Test


Node Event Tests

The node event tests include the following categories:

Web Server Event Tests

The Oracle e-Business Management Tools Advanced Event tests are provided for lights-out event monitoring and problem detection of the Web Server.

Oracle Performance Manager

Performance Manager displays performance data in real-time graphical views that can be automatically refreshed at user-defined intervals. Multiple charts and tables can be displayed simultaneously, affording you a multifaceted view of system performance. For example, an Oracle server administrator can monitor resources consumed by the database, the underlying operating system, and other processes running on the node. Some of the predefined overview charts are:

Users can further drill down on these charts to see greater detail, and in some cases, drill down to problematic sessions and terminate them. Many other subsystem specific charts are available, giving you a rich set of data to analyze your system from multiple viewpoints.

Oracle Capacity Planner




Oracle TopSessions

TopSessions is a tool for monitoring how connected sessions use database instance resources in real time. You can obtain an overview of session activity, by displaying the top "n" sessions sorted by a statistic of your choosing. For any given session, you can then drill down for more detail. You can further customize the information you display by specifying manual or automatic data refresh, the rate of automatic refresh, and the number of sessions to display.

In addition to these useful monitoring capabilities, TopSessions provides a methodology for identifying and correcting certain database performance problems.

For example, when sudden file I/O load is detected, you can first identify the sessions contributing most to the problem, and then isolate the executing SQL statements in user applications for those sessions. You can then analyze the SQL explain plans for those SQL statements to determine how best to resolve the problem.

Oracle Trace


The major components of Trace are the Trace Manager and Trace Data Viewer. Trace Manager is a graphical application used to create, schedule and administer Trace collections for products containing Trace API calls. Trace Manager automatically discovers Trace preconfigured products that are installed on all nodes that are known to the Oracle Management Server. By default Trace discovers any Oracle Server release 7.3.3 and higher.


e-Business Management Tools

The Oracle e-Business Management Tools (hereafter referred to as e-Business Tools) are a set of applications that enable centralized management of the complete e-Business infrastructure including the client, middle-tier Web servers, and database. The e-Business Tools provide seamless monitoring, reporting, and diagnostics of the e-Business middle-tier Web servers.

The following Web server platforms are supported in Enterprise Manager release 2.2:

Release 2.2 of the e-Business Tools focuses on operational management which includes the reporting on, and the monitoring of the Web servers. All the components are controlled from and fully integrated into the Enterprise Manager Console.

Monitoring Features of the Web Servers

The monitoring features of the Web servers include:

Reporting of Web Server Activity

The Apache Server Access Log Traffic report provides an overview of the daily, weekly, and monthly statistics of activity on the Web server. Data for this report is extracted from the Apache server log files and is viewed in HTML format.


The Log Analysis Report job task analyzes the access log file for the Web server target and generates a report. The output is an HTML file that contains various statistics.

The Apache Server Access Log Traffic report is divided into the following sub-reports:

Charts and Chart Groups

This section describes the Web Server charts and chart groups available in Oracle Performance Manager. Some of these charts provide the ability to perform administrative tasks, for example, server utilization.

The Web Server charts are divided into classes. The classes are:

Oracle Tuning Pack




Oracle Expert

An essential follow-through to performance monitoring is database tuning. Database tuning ensures that you are getting maximum database performance and maximum use of the system resources supporting your database.

However, because the nature of database tuning is complex, time-consuming, and requires specialized skills and adherence to a structured methodology, database tuning is often dealt with only when unpredictable problems arise instead of on a consistent basis.

Oracle Tuning Pack meets the need of consistent database tuning by providing an automated performance tuning application, Oracle Expert. Oracle Expert can be used on a periodic, proactive basis to discover Oracle tuning opportunities and to create scripts to correct any problems that have been identified.

Oracle Expert provides flexible and focused tuning in three categories:

After collecting tuning data, Oracle Expert stores the data and any other information supplied by the user into the Oracle Expert repository for analysis by the rules inference engine. The patented object-oriented rules inference engine is designed to perform complex database tuning analysis and contains hundreds of rules for tuning an Oracle database. Oracle Expert then evaluates this data, looking for tuning opportunities and produces a set of recommendations for tuning improvements listed in the order of performance gain impact.

If the user accepts Oracle Expert's tuning recommendation, a script is generated to implement the recommendation. Many of the scripts can be implemented immediately or customized by the user. A detailed report of the collected data and the analysis process can also be created on request by the user.

Oracle Expert can also share tuning data with Oracle SQL Analyze, which is another tool in the Oracle Tuning Pack (discussed below). This shared data is stored in Oracle Tuning Pack's SQL History, which stores all data gathered by Oracle Expert and Oracle SQL Analyze. By sharing tuning data, Oracle Expert and Oracle SQL Analyze do not need to gather system data that has already been gathered and stored in SQL History.

Oracle Index Tuning Wizard

Missing or inappropriate indexes can often cause serious performance problems for an application. To quickly identify and correct index problems, the Oracle Tuning Pack includes a wizard to guide you step-by-step through the process of tuning indexes. The wizard uses the analyzing capabilities and intelligence built into the Oracle Tuning Pack to both recommend optimal indexing strategies and to implement the tuning recommendations.

Oracle SQL Analyze

Inefficient SQL statements can cause database performance problems in even the best-tuned databases. To complement the database tuning features of Oracle Expert, the Oracle Tuning pack provides Oracle SQL Analyze, an application for analyzing and tuning individual SQL statements.

Oracle SQL Analyze provides a workbench for identifying and tuning problematic SQL statements which are causing the greatest impact on database performance. SQL Analyze identifies the SQL statements executing on the database and evaluates the statements based on user-selected criteria, such as resource usage and I/O's per statement. Once a problem SQL statement is identified, it can be dragged and dropped from the database library cache to the SQL Analyze tuning window for evaluation and tuning.

Under one of two optimizer modes-- cost-based or rule-based--Oracle SQL Analyze examines the SQL statement to determine what the optimal execution path for the statement would be. For statements retrieving data from multiple tables, the optimizer figures out the optimal table join methods, join orders, and access paths based on such factors as available indexes, the order of tables and columns in the statement, and statistics on the cardinality of objects referenced in the statement.

When using the cost-based optimizer to control the execution plan, the user can use SQL "hints". The use of SQL hints can be valuable for specific queries where the developer is aware of details that may not be available to the optimizer.

The SQL statement's execution path is displayed through an explain plan which provides a list of the operations involved in the statement's execution. After generating one or more explain plans for a SQL statement, you can use SQL Analyze to examine the plan, the order of operations, and relevant statistics for objects used in the plan.

Because explain plans can be confusing to interpret, (the hierarchical order of operations listed in the explain plan is not the order of execution) SQL Analyze makes the execution order clear by providing a graphical step-by-step explanation of the statement's operations which the user can walk through. With this step-by-step explanation, the user can see how the statement will execute and what step each operation is performing.

After the explain plan is reviewed and interpreted, the next step is testing the performance of the statement under various optimizer modes. SQL Analyze allows you to easily execute the statement one or more times to measure performance, such as the elapsed time that it takes to perform the query, the CPU time, and the number of logical and physical reads. SQL Analyze also takes advantage of the new query progress monitoring capability of Oracle8i, allowing you to track the progress of a SQL statement executed from SQL Analyze.

All SQL metrics can be displayed for comparison by highlighting the desired SQL object in the navigator. When you select a SQL object, a table of performance metrics for each comparison is displayed for each optimizer. SQL Analyze also provides "split view" screen options which allow side-by-side comparison of two different SQL statements, or two different optimizer modes for the same statement. Comparing explain plans and performance statistics throughout the tuning cycle allows the user to quickly gauge the relative performance of several different approaches for obtaining the same result set.

Oracle Tablespace Map





Reorg Wizard


The Reorg Wizard gives you three reorganization options:







Oracle Change Management Pack









Change Manager


The following functionality can be accessed from Change Manager:

Create Baseline

Create Baseline is a wizard that guides you through the process of capturing the definitions of a database (or subset of a database) in the form of a baseline for other Change Management Pack applications to use. The captured definitions can also be stored in a SQL DDL statement for creating definitions in a new database or as input to CASE tools that accept SQL DDL input.

For example, Create Baseline could capture a baseline of the current state of object, schema, or database definitions, then use Compare Database Objects later to compare the baseline to the same object, schema, or database definition.

Compare Database Objects

Compare Database Objects is a wizard that guides you through the steps of selecting two sets of object definitions and comparing them. The object definitions can be from current databases or from a baseline created earlier with Create Baseline. The comparisons can be saved and also written to a report.

You can also use Compare Database Objects's Synchronization Wizard to modify one set of definitions to match the other set of definitions (with the exception of baselines, which are read-only).

For example, Compare Database Objects's Synchronization Wizard could be used to synchronize the current schema or database with a previously captured baseline of the schema or database. The resulting effect would be that any changes made to the schema or database since the baseline was captured are rolled back.

DB Quick Change

DB Quick Change guides you through the process of making one or more changes (a "quick change") to a single definition of a database object. Multiple changes can be executed as a unit.

DB Alter

DB Alter guides you through the process of making changes to one or more object definitions in one or more databases. Multiple changes in a database are executed as a unit.

DB Propagate

DB Propagate guides you through the steps of selecting one or more object definitions from a database, then reproducing those definitions in a destination schema within the source database, or in one or more destination databases.

DB Propagate simplifies such tasks as:

Find Database Objects

Find Database Objects is a search capability for specifying or locating objects based on characteristics of their names. For example, if you know that all your test tables contain the string "TEST", and you need to know how many test tables you have, you can search for all tables or objects with names containing that string. Find Database Objects can be used on its own as a search facility, or with other applications in the pack. For example, Find Database Objects can be used when using Create Baseline for specifying that your baseline contain all objects with names containing the string "TEST".

Plan Manager

Plan Manager lets you view, edit, and execute plans that you have created in Oracle Change Management Pack.

By using Oracle Change Management Pack to manage change, administrators can respond quickly to new requirements, eliminate errors or loss of data when making changes, minimize downtime, and maximize productivity.

Oracle Standard Management Pack



Oracle Management Pack for Oracle Applications




Oracle Management Pack for SAP R/3


The Management Pack for SAP R/3 builds on the Oracle Enterprise Manager host and database management framework, and manages the SAP R/3 system as one of its managed services. The pack displays R/3 application servers in the navigator and map views. Jobs and events, including Management Pack for SAP R/3 Advanced Events, are similarly integrated.




Oracle Advanced Events: This extension to the Oracle Enterprise Manager event management system allows lights-out event monitoring and problem detection of the entire R/3 applications system.

Integrated Applications


Oracle Applications Manager

Oracle Applications Manager is a tool that provides administrative and diagnostic capabilities for concurrent processing in Oracle Applications. The Oracle Applications Manager Console provides a single point of administration for concurrent managers and requests on multiple Oracle Applications instances.

Using the Console, you can monitor the status of all concurrent managers in an Oracle Applications instance, as well as details for all processes and requests. You can start and stop managers, cancel or put holds on requests that have not yet run, and define new managers.

Oracle Enterprise Security Manager

Oracle Enterprise Security Manager is a component of the Oracle Advanced Security Option and manages Oracle8i Enterprise User Security. The application allows administrators to manage enterprise-level role authorization among multiple databases simultaneously.

Enterprise Users are created and centrally managed in an LDAP Directory Server. They use digital certificates and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to achieve Single Sign-On to multiple Oracle8i Database Servers. Upon authenticating an Enterprise User, Oracle8i will search for its role authorizations in the Directory. Such role authorizations are known as, "Enterprise Roles".


Oracle8i interMedia Text

The Oracle8i interMedia Text application (the text-management component of the Oracle interMedia product) is a text-search system for managing and searching for text in the Oracle database. This application helps you manage and search for text in the database as quickly and easily as any other type of data. Oracle interMedia Text's search techniques make text a standard datatype in the Oracle server which you can create, modify, and delete. Additionally, with Oracle8i interMedia text, new text-based developments or extensions to existing applications are easy and cost-effective to build with standard SQL tools.

With Oracle8i interMedia Text, you can search for data in any Oracle database application that uses text from search-enabling a comments field in an existing application to implementing large-scale document management systems dealing with multiple document formats and complex search criteria. Oracle8i interMedia Text also supports basic full-text searches in most languages supported by the Oracle database.

Oracle8i interMedia Text allows the database administrator to create and manage interMedia Text indexes used for text querying. Text servers, which poll for new documents not yet indexed can also be started when connecting to a database through the Oracle Management Server.

Oracle Parallel Server Manager

Oracle Parallel Server Manager enables the administration of databases that use the Oracle Parallel Server option. Once discovered, Parallel Server Databases appear in the Databases folder of the Console's navigator panel alongside single-instance databases.

Parallel Servers behave similarly to single-instance databases, allowing the full power of the Schema, Security and Storage applications to be applied to parallel server databases. The database administrator can start up, shut down, or check the status of parallel server databases, as well as see the status of parallel servers and the progress of parallel server operations by node and service.

Parallel server startup and shutdown job tasks allow parallel servers to be started and stopped as part of scheduled jobs. Database job tasks, such as Run DBA Script, can be executed on parallel server instances. All database event tests can be registered on parallel server instances.

Oracle Spatial Index Advisor



Oracle Directory Manager


Oracle Distributed Access Manager

Oracle Distributed Access Manager is a tool for monitoring and administering Oracle's heterogeneous distributed environments. Non-Oracle systems, such as Sybase, Informix, DB2, and SQL Server are transparently integrated into an Oracle distributed environment using Oracle's transparent gateway technology (i.e., Heterogeneous Services).

Distributed Access Manager monitors gateways configured for non-Oracle systems. It displays all the gateway instances that have been registered with the database to which the tool is connected. For active gateway instances the user can browse the details of each gateway session.

For each active gateway session, Distributed Access Manager provides the name of the Oracle client session that created the gateway connection, the name and location of the gateway process, and the list of gateway initialization parameters used to modify the gateway behavior.

Oracle Developer Server Forms Manager


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