10 System Management

10.1 Introduction to System Management

Oracle Application Server provides a set of industry standards-based management facilities to simplify all aspects of Web site administration. It does so by leveraging a single security and directory framework for all applications, and by providing administrators with a management tool to manage, monitor, tune, and troubleshoot across Oracle Application Server instances.

In the context of Oracle Application Server 10g, Oracle Enterprise Manager has two main components: the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control framework and the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control framework.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Framework

The Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control framework provides a unified view of your entire Oracle environment, including Oracle databases, Oracle Application Server, and Oracle Collaboration Suite. You can use Grid Control to monitor and manage your applications, hosts, and grids.

By deploying the Grid Control framework, you gain additional management capabilities such as the following:

• Automatic monitoring for all targets on the host system, with defaults set out-of-the-box to Oracle recommended settings

• Historical data collection for trend analysis

• Application Service Level Management for monitoring business transactions and understanding your Web application's end-user experience

• Configuration management for tracking hardware and software configurations and implementing changes throughout the enterprise

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Framework

The Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control framework provides you with the management tools you need to monitor and administer Oracle Application Server instances. Application Server Control is installed with every instance of Oracle Application Server.

Oracle Application Server uses Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control to enable Web site administrators to configure and administer Oracle Application Server instances, to monitor and optimize them for performance and scalability, and to help diagnose problems occurring with the application server.

The remaining sections in this chapter provide an overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control and describe its architecture and features.

10.2 Introduction to Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control provides Web-based management tools designed specifically for Oracle Application Server. Using Application Server Control, you can monitor and configure components of your application server. You can deploy applications, manage security, and create and manage Oracle Application Server clusters.

Figure 10-1 shows an example of the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console.

Application Server Control consists of the following:

• Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console: The Enterprise Manager Web-based user interface for managing Oracle Application Server 10g. The Application Server Control Console is installed and available with every Oracle Application Server 10g installation.

  From the Application Server Control Console, you can monitor and administer a single Oracle Application Server instance, a farm of Oracle Application Server instances, or Oracle Application Server Clusters.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control underlying technologies: Application Server Control relies on various underlying technologies to discover, monitor, and administer the Oracle Application Server environment. These technologies include:

  • Oracle Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS)

  • Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN)

  • Distributed Configuration Management (DCM)

  • A local version of the Oracle Management Agent specifically designed to gather monitoring data for the Application Server Control Console.

10.3 Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Architecture

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control provides immediate, out-of-the-box management value with each Oracle Application Server instance you install. Each Oracle Application Server installation includes an Application Server Control for managing that installation. Application Server Control is based on several underlying pieces that comprise the application server management stack, including Distributed Configuration Management (DCM), Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN), and Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS).

Application Server Control relies on various technologies to discover, monitor, and administer the Oracle Application Server environment. These technologies include:

• Distributed Configuration Management (DCM): DCM manages configurations among application server instances that are associated with a common Metadata Repository. It enables Oracle Application Server cluster-wide deployment so you can deploy an application to one instance and have it automatically propagated to the entire cluster. You can also make a single host or instance configuration change to one instance and have it propagated across all instances in the cluster. Application Server Control uses DCM to make configuration changes and to propagate configuration changes and deployed applications across the cluster.

• Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN): OPMN provides process control and monitoring for application server instances and their components. It gathers component status information, and distributes the status information to components that are interested in it. Application Server Control uses OPMN for such tasks as starting and stopping the components of your application server instance.

• Oracle Management Agent: The Oracle Management Agent is a component of Oracle Enterprise Manager that gathers monitoring data for Application Server Control.

• Oracle Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS): The Management Agent leverages another underlying service, the Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS), to collect performance data. Oracle Application Server components are instrumented with DMS to provide a comprehensive set of built-in performance metrics to automatically measure runtime performance statistics. As a result, Application Server Control uses this data to monitor the duration of important phases of request processing, as well as status information, such as the number of requests being handled at any given time.

10.4 Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Features

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g includes the following features that enable you to manage your Oracle Application Server framework:

• Complete Oracle Application Server Administration

• Monitoring Oracle Application Server