Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2…

Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 was released a couple of days ago for all the major platforms. That in itself is not news any more, but the fact we are going to trial it at work as a replacement for our 11g Grid Control installation is.

It’s in my low priority task list, so I’m not sure I’ll get it all sorted before OOW12, but it is something to look forward too. I know it’s tragic, but I’m quite excited. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Sometimes Grid Control Drives Me Nuts…

I’m a big fan of Enterprise Manager Grid Control. The performance page and all the drill-downs from there are awesome. Having said that, there are loads of things where it is such a pain in the ass.

Some incidents spring to mind:

  • Someone asked me to check what sessions a particular user had against the database. I was already on GC, so I decided to use that. After a couple of clicks and pauses for the screen to load I turned and said, “Bugger this for a game of soldiers!”, opened SQL*Plus, ran my sessions script and it was done. GC is such a waste of time for some simple tasks like this. It’s far easier to do it using SQL*Plus or SQL Developer.
  • I was cloning a database and decided to do it with GC. The process was very long winded to fill in all the options I needed and at the end it failed with some crappy error message. I switched to the command line and it was done in no time. I would hazard a guess the whole manual operation took less time than typing in the required options into GC.
  • The job scheduler in GC is chronic! For some operations I have to switch from my Super Administrator account to the SYSMAN account or things just cave in. That happens with other areas of functionality too I guess.

I’m not discounting that someone with less command line experience may have a different take on things, but sometimes Grid Control drives me nuts!

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Database on Oracle Linux 6.1…

I mentioned the day before Open World I put a Virtual RAC on Oracle Linux 6.1 article live. Although the procedure was complete, some of the screen shots were from an old article as I didn’t have time to redo them before my flight. 🙂 I’ve just run through the procedure again and taken new screen shots. As a result, I’ve allowed the article to display on the front page of the website, which is why you will see it listed as a new article there.

This kinda rounds out the whole Oracle on 6.1 stuff as there has been a single instance installation guide out for ages and more recently the Cloud Control installation, which references it.

Remember, it’s still not certified yet, but it’s coming.

Cheers

Tim…

Update: It’s finally certified. See here.

Grid Control 11g Installation… Success…

Well a new day and a fresh pair of eyes and it all went well. I was out this afternoon so I started the final bit of the installation running and it had completed successfully when I got home. 🙂

I’m not totally sure what was causing the previous problems. I had been taking snapshots of my VM at regular intervals over the last couple of days and I guess something must have been dodgy because when I threw it all away and started again from scratch it worked fine. Here is the installation guide listing all the steps:

So does this success change my opinion of this release? Not at all. The installation is a mess and I think Oracle really do need to have a shrink-wrapped install, even if it is a 8G download. It would reduce the barrier to entry and I just think it feels a little poor that you have to manually install a bunch of patches before you can get the product working. Makes me wince a little.

Cheers

Tim…

Grid Control 11g Installation Failure…

I’ve spent the last couple of days failing to install OEM Grid Control 11g on OEL 5.5 x86-64 with a 11gR2 database for the repository. The installation process is horrid. You have to manually install and patch the database and middleware software before starting the GC installation. So you end up with a whopping 7.1G of software, not including patches and the OS.

The docs are not ideal. There is a lot of cross-referencing to bugs, patches and metalink notes, which means I’ve often had about 10 browser tabs open while performing the installation. I can only assume that somewhere in the mish-mash of the docs I’ve missed something out.

I feel really disappointed with the installation process for this release. In my opinion there should be a single installation that includes the middleware, database and all necessary patches. I like to think of GC as a shrink-wrapped product I can install separate to everything else and leave alone. Not any more…

I’m off to ODTUG this week, so I’m not sure I can be bothered to waste more time on this until I get back. Perhaps someone there will be able to explain to me what the hell is going on with it.

Cheers

Tim…