Oracle® Enterprise Manager

Functional Overview

Oracle Application Management Pack for Siebel (referred to as Siebel pack) is an integrated solution for managing Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications. It leverages the capabilities of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control in configuration management, application performance management, automation, and service level management to help you achieve the high level of performance and availability required of your Siebel CRM applications.

With the Siebel pack, you can:

• Manage multiple Siebel environments from single console.

• Monitor the health and capacity utilization of your Siebel server environment, the hosts for these servers, and the Server Components deployed within the Siebel Application Servers.

• Track configuration changes that you have made to Siebel Application Servers and Server Component parameters.

• Monitor actual end-user response time as well as response time from synthetic service test transactions.

• Diagnose performance and availability problems through performance analysis.

• Model, monitor, and report on the service level delivered by your Siebel CRM applications.

When combined with other Enterprise Manager packs and plug-ins for managing Oracle and non-Oracle database, middleware, network devices. and hosts, you can achieve complete end-to-end management of your entire Siebel environment.

Siebel-Specific Targets

The following are the Siebel targets added to Enterprise Manager in order to facilitate the management of Siebel CRM applications. These targets model the entities within a Siebel environment so that they can be managed within Enterprise Manager.

Most of these targets have a direct one-to-one mapping with their counterparts in Siebel. Some are created to facilitate specific management capabilities within Enterprise Manager.

Additional Sources of Information

Refer to the documentation listed in Table 2 for additional information about the Siebel pack. Because the pack leverages many of Enterprise Manager's underlying capabilities, the base documentation is applicable in many cases.

The documents listed in Table 2 can be accessed from the Enterprise Manager documentation library available at:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/oem.html

In addition to the documents listed in Table 2, Enterprise Manager provides comprehensive instructions for using the Siebel pack in the Enterprise Manager online help. To access the Enterprise Manager online help, log into Enterprise Manager, and click the Help button at the upper right-hand corner of the home page.

You may also get more information about the product on Oracle Technology Network (OTN) forums and tutorials area for Enterprise Manager. Information will be posted on OTN when available. A copy of the Enterprise Manager documentation set is also available on OTN as well. URL to the site is

http://www.oracle.com/technology

System Requirements

The Siebel pack is supported on the same platforms that support the Siebel software. Currently, the Siebel pack is supported with Siebel 7.7, Siebel 7.8, and all later versions. To learn about the Siebel system requirements, visit the System Requirements and Supported Platforms page (http://supportweb.siebel.com/support/private/content/SRSP/enu/SRSPindex.html)

The beacons for driving service test transactions against employee-facing (high interactivity) Siebel CRM applications must run on Microsoft Windows-based computers. These beacons rely on Microsoft Internet Explorer for driving transactions to Siebel.

Also, you must use Microsoft Internet Explorer to connect to Enterprise Manager when recording or updating a service test. This is a requirement whether the test is for customer-facing (high interactivity) or employee-facing (standard interactivity) Siebel applications.

Installing Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 3 or higher

Install Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 3 (10.2.0.3) or higher on at least one host in your network. Oracle recommends that you install the Grid Control components on their own host or hosts. For example, if the Siebel pack middle tier is installed on host1.us.oracle.com, then install and configure Grid Control on a different host, that is, Oracle Management Service and Oracle Management Repository on host2.us.oracle.com.

Install Oracle Management Agent 10g Release 3 (10.2.0.3) or higher on every host that includes the components you want to monitor in Grid Control.

Prerequisites for Installing a Siebel Enterprise in Enterprise Manager

Before you start monitoring Oracle Application Management Pack for Siebel in Enterprise Manger, you must perform the following tasks:

• Install the Enterprise Manager Grid Control.

  The information required to perform these steps is available in Enterprise Manager Grid Control Installation Guide available at:

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/oem.html

• Install an Agent on each of the hosts.

  Install an Agent in each of the hosts where the Siebel Gateway Server, Siebel Web Server, Siebel Application Server, Siebel Report Server, Siebel Chart Server, Siebel Search Server, and the Siebel Database run on. Also, you should install an Agent on each of the systems where you plan to deploy your Service Test Beacons, if these systems differ from the Siebel server hosts.

  The information required to perform these steps is available in Enterprise Manager Grid Control Installation Guide available at:

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/oem.html

  If you would like to monitor additional software, such as LDAP and e-mail servers that you use with Siebel, and you have the proper license for monitoring these targets, then install the Agent on these hosts as well.

• Enable the Siebel Services tab under the Targets tab.

  To enable the Siebel Services tab:

  1. Click Preferences located at the top-right corner of the user interface.

     The Preferences page appears.

  2. Click the Target Subtabs link located on the left pane.

     The Target Subtabs page appears.

  3. Select Siebel Services from Available Target Subtabs and move it to the Selected Target Subtabs by clicking the Move arrow.

     Your selection is moved.

  4. Click Finish.

• Set the Preferred Credentials for all the hosts on which Oracle Enterprise Manager is installed.

  This can be done by going to the Preference link located on the top right corner of the page and selecting the Preferred Credentials link located on the left navigation pane.

• Enable Enterprise Manager agent to monitor Siebel target

  To monitor a Siebel Server via an Enterprise Manager agent, you must execute a configuration script on the agent machine.

  • For Windows machines, you must run the following command in the command line:

    <agent_dir>\bin\siebelClasspathFix.bat <agent_dir>

    (<agent_dir> should be replaced by the install location of the EM agent).

    Here is an example for an actual command:

    C:\OracleHomes\agent10g\bin\siebelClasspathFix.batC:\OracleHomes\agent10g

  • On Unix/Linux machines, the following command must be executed in the command line:

    <agent_dir>/bin/siebelClasspathFix.sh <agent_dir>

    (<agent_dir> should replaced by the install location of the EM agent).

    Here is an example for an actual command:

    /usr/local/OracleHomes/agent10g/bin/siebelClasspathFix.sh/usr/local/OracleHomes/agent10g

  Note:

  This command must be executed for all EM agents that areinvolved in monitoring Siebel server installations.

• Enable automation

  To create Enterprise manager beacons for Siebel High Interactivity applications, the Siebel components to be monitored have to be configured to provide Automation support.

  Section "Enabling Automation" describes how to enable automation support.

• Enable SARM

  Note:

  You can manually enable SARM by executing commands, but it is recommended that you enable SARM from the Diagnostic Configuration page via Oracle Enterprise Manager. See Prerequisites for Diagnostic Reports for details on enabling SARM using Enterprise Manager.

  To monitor user performance, you must manually enable Siebel Application Response Measurement (SARM). To enable SARM for specific components, access srvrmgr, and execute the following commands:

  change param SARMLevel=2 for comp [component_name]
  change param SARMBufferSize=5000000 for comp [component_name]
  change param SARMFileSize=15000000 for comp [component_name]
  change param SARMPeriod=3 for comp [component_name]
  

  Note:

  If you want to enable SARM for multiple components, then this sequence of commands has to be executed for each of the components.

• Configure your environment for Siebel deployments on Microsoft Windows.

  To enable the beacon to monitor High Interactivity (HI) applications:

  1. Start the Services control application and browse to the Enterprise Manager agent service. Typically, this agent is named Oracleagent10gagent.

  2. Double click the service entry.

  3. On the Log On tab, select the Allow service to interact with the desktop option.

  4. Click OK to save your changes.

  To allow Enterprise Manager to execute commands on the computers hosting the Siebel servers, configure the Enterprise Manager preferred credentials (see the following steps).

  Also, you must configure an operating system user account on Enterprise Manager. This user account will be used by Enterprise Manager to perform various tasks. For Enterprise Manager agents located on Windows-based computers, this user account needs one, special Windows permission that is not granted by default. To grant that permission:

  1. Navigate to Administrative Tools and start the Local Security Settings application.

  2. Navigate to User Rights Assignment located under Local Policies.

  3. Double-click the Log on as a batch job entry.

  4. Click the Add User or Group button. Enter the desired user name or a group containing that user.

  5. Click OK twice to save your changes.

• Enable timed statistics.

  If you wish to monitor a variety of available Siebel performance metrics through Enterprise Manger, then run the following srvrmgr command for each of those components:

  change param TimedStats=true for component [component_name]
  

• Manually access all applications before recording a new transaction.

  Before recording a new transaction you have to manually access all applications and manually satisfy all pop-up windows' requests. If you do not perform this task, the pop-up windows will interfere and interrupt your recording session. This step has to be done once. This has to be done on each machine where a beacon is going to be deployed and this is most applicable for HI apps.

  Additionally, while recording a new transaction, the URL has to include SWECmd=AutoOn. This setting allows Enterprise Manager to interact with the Siebel test automation framework.

• Access HI applications from the beacon's computer.

  HI applications have to be accessed once from the beacon computer before discovering the Siebel HI Applications in Enterprise Manager.

Enabling Automation

This topic describes how to enable options for Siebel versions 7.7, 7.8, and 8.0. It contains the following topics:

• Enabling Automation for Siebel versions 7.7 and 7.8

• Enabling Automation for Siebel version 8.0

Enabling Automation for Siebel versions 7.7 and 7.8

In Siebel versions 7.7 and 7.8, you may enable Automation by using the server-side configuration files.

To enable Automation, access a configuration file (for example, uagent.cfg for Callcenter), search for the EnableAutomation variable and change its value to TRUE.

If the variable definition does not exist, locate the [SWE] section in the configuration file and add the following line:

EnableAutomation = TRUE

Save the changed configuration file and restart your server.

Enabling Automation for Siebel version 8.0

To enable Automation support in Siebel 8.0, execute the following srvrmgr command for all High Interactivity components that you plan to monitor through Enterprise Manager beacons:

change parameter EnableAutomation=True for server server_name comp comp_name

After applying the command for all desired components, restart the Siebel server.

Prerequisites for Upgrading Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 3 (10.2.0.3) to Release 4 (10.2.0.4) or Release 5 (10.2.0.5)

If you already have Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 3 (10.2.0.3) and want to upgrade it to Release 4 (10.2.0.4) or Release 5 (10.2.0.5), then before upgrading it, apply the one-off patches mentioned in this section.

• If Siebel targets are being monitored in Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 3 (10.2.0.3), then delete those Siebel targets from Grid Control, apply the following one-off patches, then discover the Siebel targets in Grid Control, and then upgrade Grid Control to Release 4 (10.2.0.4) or Release 5 (10.2.0.5).

  • One-off patch 9453217 on the OMS

  • One-off patches 9375245 and 9497046 on the Management Agent

• If Siebel targets are not being monitored in Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 3 (10.2.0.3), then apply the following one-off patches, then discover the Siebel targets in Grid Control, and then upgrade Grid Control to Release 4 (10.2.0.4) or Release 5 (10.2.0.5).

  • One-off patch# 9453217 on the OMS

  • One-off patches 9375245 and 9497046 on the Management Agent

Adding a Siebel Enterprise

Siebel Enterprise enables administrators to logically organize distributed targets for efficient and effective management and monitoring.

To create a Siebel Enterprise, perform the following steps:

1. From the Enterprise Manager Console, click the Targets tab.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

3. Click the Add Enterprise button.

   The Create Enterprise page appears.

4. Define the values for all the parameters and click OK.

   Note:

   You need not specify the Siebel Enterprise name if there is only a single enterprise maintained in the specified Siebel Gateway server

   The progress page notifies you when the Siebel enterprise and its associated targets are created.

Updating the Siebel Enterprise Topology

After you add or remove Siebel servers or server components from your Siebel enterprise, you must resynchronize the topology maintained by the Gateway with the topology maintained by the Enterprise Manager.

Perform the following steps to synchronize both topologies:

1. From the Enterprise Manager Console, click the Targets tab.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

3. In the Enterprise View, click the Siebel enterprise that you want to synchronize.

   The enterprise home page appears.

4. In the right-bottom corner of the page, click Update Now. This functionality rediscovers your Enterprise Manager system topology and generates a comprehensive report.

5. Review the report and if you agree with the changes that will be performed to your Enterprise Manager topology, click OK.

Adding Non-Siebel Targets to an Existing Siebel Enterprise Target

To add Siebel targets to a Siebel enterprise target, you use the Update Now functionality available at the Siebel enterprise home page.

To add a non-Siebel target to a Siebel enterprise target:

1. Go to the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) site (http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/oem/index.html)

   Download the appropriate third party plug-in, and create the respective target in Enterprise Manager.

2. From the Enterprise Manager Console, click the Targets tab.

3. Click the Siebel tab.

4. Select Enterprise View from the View list and click the Configure button.

   A table appears displaying the existing Enterprise View components.

5. Click Add and select the target you created in Step 1.

   The non-Siebel target that you just added is now a part of your Siebel enterprise.

Defining Manually Added Non-Siebel Targets as Critical Targets for a Service

If, after manually adding non-Siebel targets to an enterprise, you want to make those targets available to the Root Cause Analysis functionality available in Enterprise Manager, you have to tag those targets as Key Components.

Perform the following steps to make your non-Siebel target a critical target for any Siebel application service:

1. Click the Targets tab on the Enterprise Manager Console.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

3. Select Service View from the View drop-down list.

4. Select the Siebel application service and click the Configure button.

5. Click System Configuration.

   The System Configuration page appears.

6. Mark the newly added target as Key Component and click the OK button.

Removing Servers or Components from an Existing Enterprise

After creating a Siebel Enterprise target, you may manually remove individual servers or components from that enterprise. However, this will delete the respective target information from the Enterprise Manager repository.

After that entry is deleted, Enterprise Manager does not monitor that target anymore. If you perform a manual resynchronization for that enterprise, then Enterprise Manager will include that component in the new system topology.

The two possible paths for manually removing components from an existing enterprise are:

• Go to the All Targets tab, search for the server or component you want to delete, select the radio button next to the server or component name, and click the Remove button.

• Go to the Siebel Applications tab, select Siebel Enterprise View, navigate to the enterprise that you want to remove, select the radio button next to the enterprise name, and click the Remove button.

  This option removes the Siebel server, targets, and all the enterprise components.

Creating Siebel Application Services

To create a Siebel application services, perform the following steps:

1. From the Enterprise Manager Console, click the Targets tab.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

3. Click the Create Application Services button.

   The Create Application Services page appears.

4. Define all the service related parameters.

5. Use the beacons portion of the page to view the existing beacons.

   You may define the beacons that will monitor this service hierarchy by clicking the check boxes located in the Key Beacons column. Additionally, you may create, add, or delete beacons by using the Add, Create, and Delete buttons. If your Siebel deployment includes High Interactivity applications, such as Call Center, then add only the Windows beacons.

6. Click the OK button.

   The progress page notifies you when the Siebel application services are created.

Adding a Siebel Service for a Siebel Application

To add a Siebel service for a Siebel application, perform the following steps:

1. From the Enterprise Manager Console, click the Targets tab.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

3. From the View drop-down list, select Application Services.

4. From the Add Service For drop-down list, select the type of application and click OK.

The Configuration Wizard appears and leads you through the configuration steps.

To make the newly added service visible at the Siebel tab:

1. Click the Targets tab from the Enterprise Manager Console.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

3. Select Application Services from the View drop-down list.

4. Select the appropriate aggregate service and click Configure.

5. Navigate to the Subservices section of the page, click Add, and select the newly added service.

   The newly added service is visible at the Siebel tab.

Removing a Siebel Service from a Siebel Hierarchy

To remove a Siebel service from an existing Siebel hierarchy:

1. From the Enterprise Manager Console, click the Targets tab.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

3. Select Application Services from the View drop-down list.

4. Select the Siebel service you want to remove and click Remove.

   The Siebel service is now removed.

Recording Transactions and Testing Availability and Performance

You can record the steps of a particular transaction and store them in the repository. You may then run them to test the availability and performance of your Siebel application.

For example, you may create a transaction using the preceding steps and call it Typical Login. You can then program the appropriate components to run the transaction automatically. The Beacon, a component of the agent, acts as a client robot and is used to run your recorded transactions at predefined time intervals from strategic locations across your wide area network (WAN).

Beacons are not installed automatically on the Oracle Agents; they have to be created. For monitoring Siebel High Interactive Applications, the administrator has to create a beacon on an Oracle Windows Agent.

The availability and performance data that beacons collect during service tests include whether a test is successful and the application is available, and the response time of application screens during a given service test.

Recording Transactions with Groups

Besides recording the steps of a transaction, you can also group them to create a separate, logical entity. If you do not group the steps, Enterprise Manager groups them automatically under the "Generic" categery.

To record transactions with groups, follow these steps:

1. In Enterprise Manager Grid Control, click Targets, and then click Siebel.

2. On the Siebel page, from the View list, select Application Service. Enterprise Manager lists all the Siebel services being monitored.

3. Click the name of a Siebel Call Center Service, Siebel Sales Service, or a Siebel Marketing Service. Enterprise Manager displays the Home page of the selected service.

4. Click the Monitoring Configuration tab.

5. On the Monitoring Configuration page, click Service Tests and Beacons.

6. On the Service Tests and Beacons page, in the Service Tests section, from the Test Type list, select Siebel Transaction and click Go.

7. On the Create Service Test page, do the following: specify a name for the service test and provide the cre define a service test to monitor the availability of the service. Based on the test type you select, a set of relevant metrics are collected.

   1. Specify a name for the transaction you are about to record.

   2. In the Test Parameters section, specify the operating system user name and password of the beacon host, and click Go.

8. On the following page, click Start to start recording the transaction. Enterprise Manager displays two windows, one for accessing the Siebel application where actions can be performed, and another for creating groups.

9. In the main, larger window, access the Siebel application where you want to record your actions.

10. Log in to the Siebel application using your credentials.

11. After logging in, in the smaller window, specify a name for group and click Create. The login actions you performed will be recorded under the group name you specify here.

12. Similarly, in the larger window, perform other actions in the Siebel application, and for those actions, in the smaller window, create a group.

13. Log out from the larger window.

14. After you are done with the recording, return to the Siebel Transaction page and click Stop to stop the recording of this transaction. Then click Continue. Enterprise Manager closes the two windows that were opened for recording the transaction.

15. The following page shows the recorded transaction with the grouping of actions that were performed in the Siebel application. Click Continue.

16. On the Create Service Test page, in the Test Parameters section, from the Collection Granularity list, select the granularity you want to use. Then click OK.

Discovering and Monitoring Siebel Worflow Targets in Grid Control

Siebel Workflow target gets automatically discovered when Siebel Enterprise is discovered and added to Grid Control for monitoring. Siebel Workflow is shown as a link in the General section of the Siebel Enterprise Home page in Grid Control. You can click the link to monitor the health of the Siebel Workflow target and also view details about its processes and component groups.

Once the Siebel Workflow target is discovered, you can monitor its availability status, view the processing rate of workflow process and policy instances, view alerts generated, monitor its processes and components groups. You can also access the All Metrics page of this target to view a list of metrics collected for it.

Features of Siebel Diagnostics

Siebel Performance Diagnostics provide you the following features:

• Server Performance Analysis - allows you to diagnose and identify Siebel Server performance issues, one server at a time, by providing access to response time, CPU usage, and memory data for selected server components. You can create and generate reports for analysis.

• User Performance Analysis - Allows you to diagnose and identify user session performance issues for requests initiated by a specific user.

You can create and generate reports for server and user performance for analysis.

Diagnostic Reports

You can create Server Performance report or User Performance report to analyze the performance of the server and components, and of individual users.

A Server Performance report allows you to analyze the performance of one or all Siebel components of a server and provides information of requests in terms of response time, CPU time, and memory consumption for each request. A User Performance report allows you to analyze the performance for sessions of a specific user, provides details on the response time, and allows drill-down into individual user requests.

Prerequisites for Diagnostic Reports

This topic describes the prerequisites that have to be met to create performance diagnostic reports.

To monitor Siebel performance, you have to manually enable Siebel Application Response Measurement (SARM). Refer to Enable SARM for details on enabling SARM manually.

Then, you have to configure the SARM logging parameters and enabled SARM for individual Siebel components from the Diagnostic Configuration page in Enterprise Manager. Refer to the table below for descriptions of the parameters for SARM configuration and diagnostic report generation:

• Note:

  The configuration of your SARM parameters depends on the diagnostic requirements. The more disk space made available for SARM logging (determined by File Max Count and File Size), the further back in time you can generate data for your reports.

After setting the SARM parameters, you can enable the diagnostic configuration for Siebel components by selecting the Enable SARM option in the Enable/Disable section of the Diagnostic Configuration page.

Creating Diagnostic Reports

This topic provides the procedure to create Siebel diagnostics reports using Enterprise Manager.

Diagnostic reports help you to analyze how user requests have been processed and also to analyze how servers have performed requests. You can create Server Performance and User Performance reports.A Server Performance report allows you to analyze the performance of a server and provides information of requests in terms of response time and CPU usage time for each request. While creating such a report, you can select the Siebel Server for which you want the performance report.A User Performance report allows you to analyze the performance of a user and provides details on the response time for various requests by the user.To create a User Performance report or Server Performance Report:

1. In Grid Control, click the Targets tab.

2. Click the Siebel tab.

   Enterprise Manager displays the Siebel Enterprise page.

3. From the Siebel Enterprise page, click the Diagnostics tab.

   Enterprise Manager displays the Diagnostics Reports page that displays existing performance reports.

4. Click Create.

   Enterprise Manager displays the Create Report page that allows you to create a Server Performance or User Performance report.

5. Select the report type, Server Performance Report or User Performance Report, specify values, for the fields and click OK.

   A confirmation message is displayed on the Confirmation page. Click Yes to create the specified report.

Using Server Performance Reports

Server Performance reports allow you to perform analysis for different servers and server components, one server at a time. This topic describes how to use Server Performance reports to monitor, analyze, and diagnose server and server component data. The following sections describe the pages that help you analyze server diagnostics.

Using User Performance Reports

User Performance reports allow you to analyze the performance for sessions of a specific user, provides details on the response time, and allows drill-down into individual user requests. This topic describes how to use the User Performance reports to monitor, analyze, and diagnose user data. The following sections describe the pages that help you analyze user diagnostics.

Siebel Metrics

Siebel metrics consist of the following categories:

• Siebel Component

• Siebel Component Group Target

• Siebel Gateway Target

• Siebel Server Target

• Siebel Workflow Target

Failure to Discover a Siebel Enterprise

Problem

The Siebel enterprise discovery fails and, consequently, Enterprise Manager does not create the corresponding Siebel enterprise targets.

Possible Cause

The Siebel enterprise name that you provide does not match the actual enterprise that you want to discover.

Solution

Provide the correct enterprise name.

Possible Cause

The specified port number is incorrect (Unix only).

Solution

Make sure that the specified port number in the discovery pages matches the port number configured for your gateway server.

Certain Metrics Are Not Collected

Problem

Although the Siebel enterprise discovery worked as expected, some metrics are collected, but other metrics are not.

Possible Cause

The user name and password credentials provided for that Siebel enterprise user are incorrect. Because these credentials are required to retrieve many of the Siebel performance metrics, the wrong credentials prevent the system from collecting those metrics.

Solution

Go to the Siebel tab, remove the enterprise, and repeat the discovery process.

Possible Cause

The agent uses credentials that do not grant access to the Siebel installation directory or to run the Siebel utilities.

Solution

Make sure that the Enterprise Manager agent uses credentials that allow access to the Siebel installation directory and have sufficient privileges to run Siebel utilities, such as srvrmgr and query.

Possible Cause

The SiebelClasspathFix.bat or siebelClasspathFix.sh file is not executed (Prerequisite).

Solution

These files must be executed so that jmxri.jar and empaAgent.jar entries will be added to $AGENT_HOME/sysman/config/classpath.lst file. After executing the respective script, the agent has to be restarted.

This is applicable only for 10gR3.

Business Metrics Are Not Collected

Problem

Business metrics are not collected.

Possible Cause

The database password is not defined.

Solution

Go to the Siebel Database Repository target home page of the corresponding Siebel enterprise target and click Monitoring Configuration in the Related Links section of the page. Enter the appropriate values in the Siebel Database User Name and Password fields.

Possible Cause

(Unix Only) Oracle environment variables were not added to the siebenv.sh file of the Siebel server that is used to execute the SQL statements that retrieve business metrics from the Siebel database.

Solution

Add the appropriate Oracle environment variables to the siebenv.sh file.

All SarmQuery Metrics are '0'

Problem

All SarmQuery Metrics are '0'.

Possible Cause

You are using a Siebel version older than Siebel 8.0 and sarmquery was not copied to the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory of each of the agents running on the Siebel server host.

Solution

Download sarmquery from MetaLink and copy the related files to the bin directory of the Enterprise manager agent.

Possible Cause

SARM has to be enabled by using srvrmgr to allow SARM performance metrics to be collected. If SARM parameters are not configured for your Siebel components, no SARM data is generated.

Solution

Follow the steps in Enable SARM.

Siebel File System Metrics Are Not Collected

Problem

Siebel file system metrics are not collected.

Possible Cause

If the Siebel file system is defined to be accessible exclusively by a group of operating system users, and the agent does not belong this group of users, then the agent is not able to retrieve information about that file system.

Solution

Make sure that the Enterprise Manager agent can access all Siebel file systems (log directory, installation directory, and Siebel file system directory) and has at least read access to the Siebel file system.

The Status of Certain Components in Enterprise Manager Differs from the Status of the Same Components in Server Manager

Problem

The status of components shown in Enterprise Manager differs from the status or performance numbers available through srvrmgr.

Possible Cause

Enterprise Manager collects Siebel metrics only at certain intervals (regular metrics every 15 minutes, availability information every 5 minutes). Therefore, information visible in the Enterprise Manager user interface may be out of sync with srvmgr for up to 15 minutes.

Workaround

If you are interested in monitoring a certain metric in real-time mode for a certain period of time, go to the All Metrics page for a given Siebel target, navigate to the desired metric, and change it to Realtime mode.

In this mode, collection occurs more frequently and you can follow statistics more closely.

Solution

You can change the collection frequency for individual metrics. If you want the availability metrics to be collected more often, you may change the collection frequency for your key Siebel components.

The Beacon Does Not Report Correctly the Status of HI Applications

Problem

The beacon does not report correctly the status of HI Applications.

Troubleshooting Tip

To better troubleshoot this error, view the error entries in the log error file. If your environment is not configured to generate an error file, you may do so by defining the following variables:

HISIEBEL_DEBUG_LOG-the log file name including the full path
HISIEBEL_LOG_LEVEL-set the log level to DEBUG or ERROR

It is recommended to have at least one beacon machine for each Siebel version.

Possible Cause

When a single beacon accesses two or more different Siebel environments, the recording or playback of a transaction can only be accomplished for the last Siebel environment that was accessed.

For example, if a given beacon accesses a Siebel 7.0 environment and later tries to access a Siebel 7.7 environment, then that beacon will not be able to go back to a Siebel 7.0 environment to playback or record a new transaction. This happens because each Siebel version registers a different CAB (Siebel) file in the client host and only the last registered file is active.

Solution

On the Internet Explorer browser, delete the CAB files of the environment you do not want to use. To delete CAB files on Internet Explorer:

1. Open Internet Explorer, navigate to the Tools menu, and select Internet Options.

   The Internet Options window appears.

2. Navigate to the Temporary Internet Files section of the window, and click Settings.

   The Settings window appears.

3. Click View Objects.

   The Downloaded Program Files window appears.

4. Delete the unnecessary CAB files.

Possible Cause

When consecutive record or playback sessions are in progress, the "Session already in progress" page appears and the recording session is terminated. This error is caused by a limitation in the Siebel CAS layer.

Solution

Use the timeout parameter to limit the amount of time a given service test can run and allow a long length of time between tests so the processes do not interfere with each other.

For example, you may want to set up a test to run every 13 minutes for 1 minute, and another test to run every 17 minutes for 1 minute.

Possible Cause

The agent-side components for HI Applications have not been installed properly.

Solution

Verify the proper installation of these components by doing the following:

1. Check that the emIEClient.exe and emIElib.dll files are present in the agent bin directory.

2. Type regedit to open the registry and search for emIElib.dll; it should point to the location under the agent bin directory. This indicates that the dll has been properly registered as part of the installation.

Internet Explorer Crashes When Trying to Perform Multiple Recording Transactions for the Same Application

Problem

Internet Explorer crashes when trying to perform multiple recording transactions for the same application.

Possible Cause

A limitation in the CAS layer.

Solution

Close and start a new Internet Explorer browser window.

Siebel Enterprise Discovery Does Not Yield Results

Problem

Siebel Enterprise Discovery does not yield any Result

Possible Cause

The discovery process depends on the vpd.properties files (Windows: C:\WINDOWS\vpd.properties, Unix: \var\adm\siebel\vpd.properties). Discovery will not work if the file does not exist or is corrupted.

Solution

Check why vpd.properties does not exist. Attempt to use backup copy of vpd.properties file should be located in the same directory. Alternatively, create a dummy version of the file.

Possible Cause

The vpd.properties file is written by multiple installers. If there is an installer problem, the information required to locate the Siebel Gateway server installation may not be in the file any longer, causing the discovery process to fail.

Solution

Manually create an entry that will allow the discovery process to find the Siebel Gateway server installation.

Possible Cause

If the enterprise name specified on the Add Siebel Enterprise page does not match the names of Siebel enterprises maintained via the specified Siebel Gateway server, discovery will not yield any results.

Solution

Check the enterprise name again.

Possible Cause

On Unix systems, changing the port number of the Siebel Gateway service is a supported configuration option. If an incorrect port number is specified on the discovery screen, the gateway server installation will not be recognized during the discovery process.

Solution

Check the gateway port number again.

Possible Cause

If Siebel server names contain hyphens, these Siebel servers will not be recognized during the discovery process, as server names with hyphens are not supported in the Siebel product. See documentation on naming conventions on Siebel Support Web.

Solution

Reinstall Siebel servers.

Siebel Enterprise Discovery Fails With Internal Error

Problem

Siebel Enterprise Discovery fails with internal error.

Possible Cause

For the Siebel Enterprise discovery to work, agents have to be installed on all of the Siebel servers belonging to the specified Siebel enterprise (the idea is that all parts of the Siebel enterprise should be monitored, which is possible only with an agent on each of the Siebel server machines).

Solution

Ensure that you install an agent on each of the Siebel server machines - agents should be associated with the OMS from which the discovery is initiated.

Siebel Application Discovery Does Not Yield Results

Problem

Siebel Enterprise Web service discovery does not yield any results or fails due to error.

Possible Cause

The discovery process depends on the vpd.properties files (Windows: C:\WINDOWS\vpd.properties, Unix: \var\adm\siebel\vpd.properties). Discovery will not work if the file does not exist or is corrupted.

Solution

Check why the vpd.properties does not exist. Attempt to use backup copy of vpd.properties file - should be located in the same directory. Alternatively, create a dummy version of the file.

Possible Cause

The vpd.properties file is written by multiple installers - if there is an installer problem, the information required to locate the Siebel Web server extension installation may not be in the file any longer. This causes the discovery process to fail.

Solution

Manually create an entry that will allow the discovery process to find the Siebel Gateway server installation.

Metrics Collection: Siebel Server and Components Shown as Unavailable After Discovery

Problem

Siebel server and components shown as unavailable after discovery.

Possible Cause

For Enterprise Manager 10.2.0.3, there is a manual step that has to be executed, before the agent can be used to monitor any Siebel related components.

Solution

Navigate to <agentdir>/bin and execute the script siebelClasspathFix.bat (Windows) and/or siebelClasspathFix.sh (Linux, Unix), specifying the installation directory of the agent as a parameter, as shown below:

C:\>F:F:\>cd F:\OracleHomes4\agent10g\BINF:\OracleHomes4\agent10g\BIN>siebelClasspathFix.bat F:\OracleHomes4\agent10g

Possible Cause

If an incorrect Siebel user/password combination was specified on the Add Enterprise page, discovery will work as expected, but collection of metrics via srvrmgr will not be possible.

Solution

Check the specified user/password combination again.

Possible Cause

On Windows systems, the port number of the gateway service may be changed (though this is not officially supported). Discovery will work with any port number provided, but metrics can be collected only with a correctly specified port number.

Solution

Check gateway port number again.

Siebel Service Status Issues

Problem

Status of Siebel HI services/applications (for example, callcenter) shown as down.

Possible Cause

The service tests for Siebel High Interactivity applications (for example, callcenter or sales) use Siebel test automation functionality to allow simulation of certain keyboard and mouse events. To enable test automation, the parameter TestAutomation has to be enabled for the respective components.

Solution

To allow monitoring of the CallCenter application (example), the srvrmgr command shown below has to be executed and component or Siebel server have to be restarted after to activate the parameter change. See Enabling Automation for details.

Possible Cause

If an incorrect Siebel user/password combination was specified on the Add Enterprise page, discovery will work as expected, but collection of metrics via srvrmgr will not be possible.

Solution

1. Start the Services control application and browse to the Enterprise Manager agent service. Typically, this agent is named Oracleagent10gagent.

2. Double click the service entry.

3. On the Log On tab, select the Allow service to interact with the desktop option.

4. Click OK to save your changes.

Possible Cause

The beacon has to be deployed to a Windows host, where Internet Explorer is available and has been successfully used to connect to a Siebel HI application. If Internet Explorer cannot be located, then the service will be shown as unavailable.

Solution

Deploy the beacon to a Windows machine with an existing and working Internet Explorer installation.

Sarm Metrics and Performance Diagnostics Issues

Problem

SARM metrics not available for components or Diagnostic reports show 'No Data'.

Possible Cause

For Siebel 7.8, the sarmquery utility is not packaged as part of the Siebel product. To gather SARM metrics, the SARM utility has to be copied to the agent install directory, specifically into the 'bin' sub-directory. If the sarmquery utility is not available, or sufficient access rights are not granted, sarm metrics cannot be gathered.

Solution

Copy sarmquery utility and related dlls to <agent dir>/agent10g/bin directory and/or check access rights for the utility and the dlls.