| It is always a given that when the user side of the story is simplified, the administrative side of story becomes much more complex. This is true of the computing grid as well. Therefore, being able to monitor and manage the grid becomes very important. Oracle Database 10g solves this problem via the provision of the Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control utility. Listed here are some of the challenges associated with managing a grid, and how Oracle Grid Control solves them: Managing a large number of components. In an enterprise grid, the number of components can be quite large, as implied in Figure 18.1. They include Oracle management-related components such as agents and repositories, application servers, databases, database groups, HTTP servers, hosts, LDAP servers, and so on, with each performing various functions. Oracle Database 10g Grid Control can define and manage them as groups, and can apply a defined set of policies against such groups. Groups can be database-specific, host-specific, application serverspecific, or heterogenous. You can then assign specific groups to specific administrators so that the administrative load is shared. Unified management interface. In an enterprise grid, the presence of many different components from different vendors creates a management nightmare, because various tools will have to be procured and installed with the administrators trained on all of them. In the case of Oracle Database 10g Grid Control, however, management is enabled via a Web browser, so administrators with the right permissions can manage them from anywhere within the organization as well from outside via the use of wireless-enabled personal digital assistants (PDAs). This offers a single, unified view of all the components, including servers, databases, application servers, and so on. Hence, the grid administrator does not have to use different tools for the many components. Centralized job control. Administrators have to run a variety of jobs in managing a grid. Scheduled backups, periodical data movement and data loads, and purge routines, not to mention monitoring these jobs, presents many challenges. Oracle Database 10g Grid Control automates many of these functions by providing graphical front-ends and integrated database features such as RMAN, Data Pump, Resource Manager, and transportable tablespaces. Using these, administrators can schedule, monitor, troubleshoot, and fix problems associated with multiple jobs in the enterprise Oracle grid without much effort. Patch management. Newly discovered security vulnerabilities, software failures and bugs, new features, and so on result in a constant stream of software updates and patches. Administrators find it extremely difficult to stay on top of these patches, let alone apply them to all the components. Oracle Database 10g Grid Control enables automated patch downloads and updates. In fact, it allows you to define policies about software levels and check for and warn about violations against these policies. Managing user security. One of the major headaches, especially in the current days of government-regulated compliance requirements, is enabling and maintaining adequate security for user accounts across the enterprise. Oracle Database 10g, along with Oracle intenet Directory (OiD) and Oracle Label Security, centralizes the management of user credentials and privileges in a secure directory. This avoids the need to create the same user in multiple databases across a grid. A directory-based user can authenticate and access all the databases that are within an enterprise domain based on the credentials and privileges specified in the directory. With Oracle Database 10g, grid users also have the ability to store an SSL certificate in a smart card for roaming access to the grid. Oracle Database 10g also comes with Oracle Certificate Authority, which simplifies the provisioning of certificates to grid users.
The specifics of how each of these activities is done is outside the scope of this book. This is detailed in two separate manuals, namely the Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Manager Concepts and Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Manager Advanced Configuration manuals.
|
