Enterprise Manager 13.3 - After Upgrade to DB Plugin 13.3.2: Missing 'Top Activities' Page and Empty Graphs when using 'Performance Hub'

oops - long title ... sorry for that

Starting with DB Plugin 13.3.2.0, oracle has kicked out the flash plugin and replaced that with JET (JavaScript Extension Toolkit). As a consequence, 'Top Activity' page is not available anymore and is replaced by 'Performance Hub' respectively 'Ash Analytics' and 'SQL Monitoring'. 

That's the good news ... the not that good news is: Both pages will show empty graphs in case the monitored database is of version 12.2 (it works correctly with 18c and 19c)

Solution for that can be found in MOS Note "Usage Of ASH Analytics In EM 13.3 PG Release (Doc ID 2580773.1)". Bad news two (,too ;-)): You have to execute the necessary steps in EVERY pluggable database.

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Solution: SQL Developer does not show its Startscreen after starting successfully

Problem: 

After starting SQL Developer 18.4 on a Windows 10, the SQL Developer tile is shown in the taskbar, but the Startscreen is not shown on the desktop.

"Quick and Dirty" Solution

• Stop SQL Developer. 
• Open Windows Explorer and type "%APPDATA%\SQL Developer" in the Directory/URL bar. You'll see a directory named according the SQL Developer release (for example, something like "system18.4.0.376.1900"). 
• Rename this directory.
• Start SQL Developer - the directory is re-created, everything should work fine again. If SQL Developer comes up correctly, delete the renamed directory from "%APPDATA%\SQL Developer"
• get back to work ... ;-)

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Enterprise Manager - Advanced Backup Strategies

Oracle's recommendation for an Enterprise Manager backup can be found in "Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Advanced Installation and Configuration Guide", chapter "Backing Up and Recovering Enterprise Manager".

Basically, the recommendation consists of (only) three steps:

·      Software Library Backup

·      Management Repository Backup

·      Oracle Management Service Backup

·      Exportconfig

·      Software Homes

But we have a lot more important stuff within Enterprise Manager which is worth to be backed up, haven't we? Monitoring Templates for example, Metric Extensions or properties which were changed (either possibly or probably), … But, where to get this information from and how to extract it from Enterprise Manager's guts? Repository, emctl and emcli are the keywords – here's how to …:

Software Library Backup

… of course worth a frequent backup. IMHO the best way to get the latest information about the current path is to query the repository database:

select
  base_path
from EM_SWLIB_OMS_LOCATIONS_E
where name ='default_loc';

Put the result in a variable and issue something like this:

tar cvfz software_library.tar $<variableName>/*

Management Repository Backup

… as a DBA You know how to backup an oracle database. I'm sure …

Oracle Management Service Backup

… as oracle's manual states, use

emctl exportconfig oms

And the additional stuff, I was talking about?

OMS Properties

Backup the OMS properties – even if You've never changed them – by issuing an 

emctl list properties

Redirect the result to a file having a timestamp or a sequential number in its filename and You're save.

Monitoring Templates

To backup Monitoring Templates use this SQL, spool the output to a file and execute the file:

select
'emcli export_template -name='''||template_name||''' -target_type='||target_type||' -output_file=$BACKUP_DIR/MT_'||template_name||'.xml'
from sysman.mgmt_templates
where is_public = 0
order by template_name ;

Metric Extensions

Developing Metric Extensions is a time consuming task – so backup the MEs frequently. It is that easy (spool and execute the spool file):

select
'emcli export_metric_extension -file_name=''$BACKUP_DIR/'||name||'_V'||version||'.xml'' -target_type='||target_type||' -name='''||name||''' -version='||version
from SYSMAN.EM_MEXT_VERSIONS_E
order by name, version;

Incident Rulesets

Your Incident Rulesets are candidate to be backed up, too (spool and execute):

select
'emcli export_incident_rule_set -rule_set_name='||ruleset_name||' -rule_set_owner='||owner||' -export_file="$BACKUP_DIR"'
from EM_RULE_SETS
where owner not in ('SYSMAN', '<SYSTEM>')
order by owner, ruleset_name;

Information Publisher Reports

Did You write Information Publisher Reports? Backup them (redirect to a file and execute)!:

emcli get_reports | sed "s/, / /g" | awk 'BEGIN{ FS=","}{x=$1; gsub(/ |-|=|:|\/|\(|\)/, "",x); print "emcli export_report -title="$1" -owner="$2" -output_file=${BACKUP_DIR}/REP_"x".xml" }'

Interested in more possibilities?

emcli offers some more export commands – "emcli help | grep -I export" extracts them from emcli's help text. Perhaps You'll find the one You're searching for.

Questions?

Get in contact ...

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Follow up: Upgrading Enterprise Manager 13.2 to 13.3 - missing 'Update' Option in GUI

First of all, thanks a lot to Martin Decker for his comment and the description how he could solve that problem. Tried that, but unfortunately, these changes alone did not help. I opened a SR and got a recommendation how to solve the problem, exactly designed for my environment. Beside the tasks Martin described, I had to edit some libraries in the directory tree <OMS_HOME>/inventory/featuresets/. 

I asked Oracle Support if I'm allowed to publish the solution, but they said:

"We are still waiting for bug fix for a permanent solution and the workaround may or may not suitable for all situations where upgrade option not available. There are chances like inventory details missing also can cause the similar issue hence its better to log a new request if there are any concerns to verify the install logs/screens and provide solution/workaround"

So, in case You face the 'missing update option, too, please log a Service Request using the keywords "Bug 28350114 : EM 13.3 Upgrade, Installation Types Screen Is Not Showing the Upgrade Option" and supply the install logs.

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Upgrading Enterprise Manager 13.2 to 13.3 - missing 'Update' Option in GUI

Tried to upgrade an Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13.2 to the next level of happiness - 13.3 - like I did that for several installations. Unfortunately, the 'Upgrading an existing Enterprise Manager System' option in the 'Installation Types' section of the installation GUI is not available. Usually, this behaviour points to an unavailable or corrupt Oracle Inventory. As additional possibility, it could be a bug as well:
Check MOS Note "EM 13c: Checklist for Upgrading Enterprise Manager Cloud Control from Version 12.1.0.5/13.1/13.2 to 13.3 (Doc ID 2418352.1)", the 'Known Issues' section: "Bug 28350114 : EM 13.3 Upgrade, Installation Types Screen Is Not Showing the Upgrade Option"

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Copy MOS-Note URL's

Perhaps You've had that problem, too ... Something has changed with My Oracle Support URLs. Simply copying the url of an already opened MOS document and sending it to a collegue or pasting it into a doc will not give the expected result, i.e., forwarding to the expected document. But how to get the URL? Can be simply as that: Right click on the document's link, 'Copy link address' and You're done ... *wacko*

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Enterprise Manager 13c - 'Tablespace Space Used %' metric sends false alarms

Situation is ...

Metric 'Tablespace Space Used %' is used to monitor the free space of the tablespaces. Sometimes You'll get an alarm that the Tablespace has reached it's critical value. But, the tablespace's data files are auto extensible and far away from the max size and the files are located on an ACFS which knows also auto-extensibility - or better said - an auto-resize feature. There is also plenty of space left on the underlying ASM. Nevertheless, FS free space is currently near to 100% and the current free space in the tablespace is lower than the critical value. Obviously a false alarm, isn't it?

Cause ...

for that behaviour is, that Oracle has changed the method to calculate a tablespace's free space for metric 'Tablespace Space Used %' with release 13c. New is that the metric takes the available disk space into account for its calculations. And this is correct , because no more space left on the disk means finally that a tablespace cannot auto-extend anymore. But with ACFS and the auto resize functionality, this shouldn't be a problem at all - ACFS will auto resize the FS if necessary.

Unfortunately, Oracle Support has no fix for this false alarm at this very moment. MOS says that view DBA_TABLESPACE_USAGE_METRICS has a problem to calculate the metric's base information correctly. Well, that might be a possible reason, but IMHO, the values of my particular database / tablespaces / datafiles are fine.

Solution / Workaround

Simply set the value of the auto resize parameter for the ACFS filesystem in question to an appropriate value other than the default of 20G, to avoid the false alarm problem (until the ASM runs full and ACFS cannot auto resize):
"acfsutil size -a <Size>G <FSName>"

Example:

acfsutil size -a 100G /u02/oradata/TESTDB

acfsutil size: ACFS-03642: successfully updated auto-resize settings

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