Chapter 3. Systems Management

Many Oracle Application Server users aren't aware of all the management activities that go on around them. But comprehensive and effective systems management is vital to providing a reliable, available, and secure environment. Without this management, even the most highly functional environment may not be optimally implemented or used. In Oracle Application Server, the focus of systems management is Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g .

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g is the latest version of Oracle Enterprise Manager, a management tool framework with a graphical user interface that can manage a variety of Oracle products, including Oracle Database, Collaboration Suite, E-Business Suite, and, of course, Oracle Application Server. Oracle distributed the first version of Oracle Enterprise Manager with Oracle7 and added a browser-based Oracle Enterprise Manager console (built with Java) with Oracle8 i and an HTML console with Oracle9 iAS .

Every time a new Oracle product or product version is introduced, the new features and capabilities also introduce new management challenges. In the past, keeping up with this ever-increasing list of features required a fairly steep learning curve for novices. Recently, however, Oracle has simplified management by providing self-managing and self-tuning features in its products and by implementing more automated management facilities in Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g .

Our focus in this chapter is the use of Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g in managing Oracle Application Server. For more general information about Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g , consult the Oracle documentation. See the Appendix for specific references for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g and other products described in this chapter.

Two basic tools are available through Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g that allow you to manage Oracle Application Server: Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g Application Server Control, which comes as part of Oracle Application Server 10 g , and Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g Grid Control, Oracle's management solution for your entire Oracle environment, including Oracle Application Server. (Throughout this book we refer to these tools simply as Application Server Control and Grid Control.)

Application Server Control

This GUI tool is the standard administrative console for Oracle Application Server. When you install Oracle Application Server, an Application Server Control instance is installed for each individual application server you manage. You can use the console to provide a variety of administrative tasks on that server. For example, you can start and stop an application server, enable and disable Oracle Application Server components , modify server configurations, create Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE, deploy and monitor J2EE applications, manage ports and clusters, and examine logs.

Grid Control

This GUI console provides additional management capabilities not available in Application Server Control. Grid Control is typically installed on a single location to provide a central console that allows you to monitor and access all the application servers in your environment. In addition to managing multiple application servers, Grid Control also allows you to manage databases, applications, and hosts . Using Grid Control you can link to and launch each Application Server Control. You can also perform historical monitoring, alerting, management of jobs and policies, Application Service Level Management (ASLM) and monitoring, and configuration management.

Both Oracle Application Server 10 g and Oracle Database 10 g are designed to be deployable on computer grids in which many servers are used and need to be managed. Grid Control allows you to perform a variety of grid management tasks such as resource pooling, provisioning of computer resources, dynamic workload management, and dynamic control of changing grid components. While Grid Control is designed particularly to simplify grid management, it also greatly simplifies the management of more traditional Oracle multitier implementations .

This chapter briefly describes the use of Application Server Control and Grid Control. It also discusses other management functions ”backup, recovery, and security ”that are the responsibility of the Oracle Application Server administrator. It concludes with a discussion of working with Oracle Support to resolve system management problems that may arise. You will need to understand each area if you are going to design and implement effective management strategies for your own Oracle Application Server environment.