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Oracle® Enterprise Manager Concepts 10g Release 5 (10.2.0.5) Part Number B31949-10 |
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# Glossary

adaptive alert thresholds

Computed statistical alert thresholds using either static (user-defined) or dynamic (self-adjusting) baselines.

See also metric baselines.

ADDM

See Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM).

administrator account

Enterprise Manager administrator account that provides permission to perform daily administration work and access administrative information.

agent

See Oracle Management Agent.

alert

Indicator signifying a particular metric condition has been encountered. An alert is triggered when one of the following conditions is true:

- A metric threshold is reached.

- The availability of a monitored service changes. For example, the availability of the host changes from up to down.

- A metric-specific condition occurs. For example, an alert is triggered whenever an error message is written to a database alert log file.

Application Server Control

Web-based management features designed to monitor and administer application server instances, farms, and clusters.

attestation

Process of having users or system managers confirm people's access rights on a periodic basis.

Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM)

Application that automatically takes regularly scheduled snapshots of the database activity. ADDM identifies the most resource-intensive components or operations and provides advice, which may recommend running an advisor or making configuration changes to your database.

Automatic Storage Management (ASM)

Application that automates and simplifies the layout of data files, control files, and log files. Database files are automatically distributed across all available disks, and database storage is rebalanced whenever the storage configuration changes.

Automatic target discovery

Process by which targets are located and added to Enterprise Manager. Automatic discovery begins when the Oracle Management Agent starts up after installation. Targets located on the Agent are discovered and added to Enterprise Manager to be monitored and administered. How the targets are installed determines which targets are automatically added.

Automatic Workload Repository (AWR)

Automatic capture of statistics data for real-time and historical performance analysis. AWR includes snapshot data, active session history data, and workload reports.

availability

The percentage or amount of scheduled time that a computing system provides application service.

AWR

See Automatic Workload Repository (AWR).

Beacon

Application to monitor transactions from different user communities or geographical regions. You can enable the Beacon software to monitor the availability and performance of network components (a host computer or an IP traffic controller) from more than one location, or Web pages and Web applications from multiple network locations.

blackout

Maintenance tool for suspending any data collection activity on one or more monitored targets. This allows you to perform scheduled maintenance on targets while excluding these special-case situations from the data analysis to obtain a more accurate, long-term picture of a target's performance.

cluster cache coherency

For Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) environments, helps you identify processing trends and optimize performance. The Cluster Cache Coherency page enables you to view the global cache block access latency, global cache block transfer rate, and global cache block transfers and physical reads.

control

See Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control for Collaboration Suite.

dashboard

Tool for proactively monitoring status and alerts as they occur by viewing the health of managed targets in real time. The dashboard presents information using intuitive icons and graphics that let you spot recent changes and quickly identify and respond to problems.

database configuration

The configuration information Enterprise Manager collects for an Oracle database, which includes:

- General database and instance information, such as the database name, instance name, and whether or not the database is running in restricted mode or archive log mode

- Initialization parameter values

- System Global Area values

- Tablespaces and their parameters

- Datafiles and their parameters

- Control files and their attributes

- Redo logs and their attributes

- Rollback segments and their parameters

- High availability information

- License information

- Database options information

database instance

Running Oracle Database consisting of memory structures (SGA) and background processes. An instance only exists while it is up and running. Essentially, a database resides on disk, while an instance resides in memory.

A database is normally managed by only one instance. However, when using Oracle Real Application Clusters, multiple instances can be started for a single database (on different hosts of a cluster).

See also Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC).

enterprise configuration

Configuration information stored in the Management Repository for the set of hosts and targets that comprise your enterprise.

fast-start failover

Ability of Data Guard to rapidly and automatically fail over to a standby database without requiring manual intervention. This improves the degree of availability as well as the disaster resilience for the system infrastructure.

fetchlet

Parameterized data access mechanism that takes arguments for input and returns formatted data.

Grid Control console

See Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control console.

group

Single logical unit that can include targets of the same type (for example, all your production databases) or include targets of different types (for example, all targets comprising your business's application). Groups enable you to enable you to collectively monitor and administer many targets.

home page

See target home page.

host configuration

Configuration information that Enterprise Manager collects for a host that is a managed target, including:

- Hardware for the host (including memory, CPU, I/O device, and network interface information)

- Operating system for the host (including information such as operating system properties, packages, and installed patches)

- Installed Oracle software, including (but not limited to) installed products and their components, patch sets, and interim patches on the host. Enterprise Manager uses the Oracle Universal Installer inventory or inventories on a host to obtain information about the Oracle products installed on the host.

instance

See database instance.

J2EE

Abbreviation for Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition. J2EE is an environment for developing and deploying enterprise applications.

Management Agent

See Oracle Management Agent.

Management Plug-in

See Oracle Management Plug-in.

Management Repository

See Oracle Management Repository.

Management Services

See Oracle Management Service.

metric

Unit of measurement used to report the health of the system.

metric baselines

Named period of time associated with a target and used as a reference for evaluating target performance. Statistics are computed over the baseline period for specific target metrics. You can use these statistics to automatically set metric thresholds for alerting, as well as to normalize graphical displays of system performance.

See also adaptive alert thresholds.

metric snapshot

Named collection of a target's performance metrics that have been collected at a specific point in time. A metric snapshot can be used as an aid in calculating metric threshold values based on the target's past performance.

Notification Methods

Mechanism for defining different mechanisms for sending notifications. These include e-mail, SNMP traps, or running custom scripts—or all three. Once defined, these methods can then be used with Notification Rules for sending notifications to administrators as a result of alert occurrences.

Oracle ecosystem

Organization of software, hardware, and their environment so that they function as a unit. Typically, this consists of an Oracle platform and all third-party software, including storage systems, hosts, routers, and so on. The Grid Control Home page provides a unified view of your ecosystem.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g

Oracle Enterprise Manager is the Oracle integrated management solution for managing your computing environment.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control

Application Server Control relies on various underlying technologies to discover, monitor, and administer the Oracle Application Server environment. Application Server Control consists of the Application Server Control console and its underlying technologies:

- Oracle Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS)

- Oracle Process Management Notification (OPMN)

- Distributed Configuration Management (DCM)

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

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 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 for Collaboration Suite

Application Server Control for Collaboration Suite consists of a Web-based user interface and a set of underlying technologies. Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control for Collaboration Suite is installed and available with every Collaboration Suite installation.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console for Collaboration Suite

The Enterprise Manager Web-based user interface for managing Oracle Collaboration Suite. The Application Server Control for Collaboration Suite console is installed and available with every Oracle Collaboration Suite installation. From this console, you can monitor and administer a single Oracle Collaboration Suite instance.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control

Database Control relies on various underlying technologies to discover, monitor, and administer the Oracle Database environment.

Database Control consists of the Database Control console and its underlying technologies:

- A local version of the Oracle Management Service designed to work with the local database or clustered database

- A local Oracle Management Repository installed in the local database and designed to store management data for the Database Control console

- A local version of the Oracle Management Agent designed to provide monitoring data to the local Management Service

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control console

The Enterprise Manager Web-based user interface for managing Oracle Database 10g. The Database Control console is installed and available with every Oracle Database 10g installation.

From the Database Control console, you can monitor and administer a single Oracle Database instance or a clustered database.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control

Grid Control relies on various underlying technologies to discover, monitor, and administer your computing environment. Grid Control consists of the Grid Control console and these underlying technologies:

- One or more Oracle Management Services

- The Oracle Management Repository

- The central Management Agent

- Remote Oracle Management Agents, installed on each monitored host

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control console

Enterprise Manager Web-based user interface for centrally managing your entire computing environment.

From the Grid Control console, you can monitor and administer your entire computing environment from one location on the network. All the services within your enterprise, including hosts, databases, listeners, application servers, HTTP Servers, and Web applications, are easily managed as one cohesive unit.

Oracle Management Agent

A process deployed on each monitored host. The Oracle Management Agent is responsible for monitoring all targets on the host, for communicating that information to the middle-tier Management Service, and for managing and maintaining the host and its targets.

Oracle Management Plug-in

Target type provided by the user or a third party to extend Enterprise Manager's set of predefined target types.

Oracle Management Repository

Two tablespaces in an Oracle Database that contain information about administrators, targets, and applications that are managed within Enterprise Manager.

The Management Service uploads to the Management Repository the monitoring data it receives from the Management Agent. The Management Repository then organizes the data so it can be retrieved by the Management Service and displayed on Grid Control.

Oracle Management Service

A J2EE Web application that renders the user interface for the Grid Control console, works with all Management Agents in processing monitoring and job information, and uses the Management Repository as its data store.

My Oracle Support

Oracle Support Services site where customers can get information about released patches and outstanding bugs. You can use Enterprise Manager to download patches from My Oracle Support.

Oracle Streams

Propagation and management of data, transactions, and events in a data stream either within a database, or from one database to another. Controls what information is put into a stream, how the stream flows from database to database, what happens to messages in the stream, and how the stream terminates.

policy

Defines the desired behavior of systems and is associated with one or more targets or groups. Policies include different categories of policy rules, such as configuration, security, and storage rules. Enterprise Manager compares the targets for which policy rules exist with the policy rules for that target type, and identifies the policy violations for the target.

policy association

Relationship of a policy rule and its settings to a target or monitoring template.

policy compliance score

Number denoting the conformance of a target to a set of requirements (policy rules.) The score, ranging from 0% to 100%, is much like a test score. A score of 100% means that the target was fully compliant with the goals of the policy. The policy compliance score facilitates your assessment of the relative levels of attention needed for various targets given the violations on those targets.

policy evaluation

Process of testing a policy's condition and recording any violations in the repository.

policy groups

Standards that report deviations and enable closed loop remediation by optionally taking action to bring systems back into compliance.

policy rule

A conditional expression that tests values from a target against a condition; for example, verifying that database profile limits are set as expected.

policy rule library

Collection of policy rules.

policy settings

Conditions related to a policy. The policy settings include, but are not limited to, parameter values and excluded objects.

policy trend

The policy compliance trend of a policy in the domain of a particular target.

policy violation

Infringement of a policy rule. For example, one of the host security policy rules checks for open ports. The recommendation is that the insecure ports not be opened. Therefore, the violation is that there are open ports.

privileges

A right to perform management actions within Enterprise Manager, such as view any target and add any target in the enterprise, or a right to perform operations on a target such as maintaining and cloning the target. Types of privileges are defined by Oracle.

Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)

Option that allows multiple concurrent instances to share a single physical database. It provides a high-availability database environment spanning multiple hosts. Each cluster can be comprised of multiple cluster databases, each of which consists of multiple cluster database instances.

redundancy group

Group that contains members of the same type that function collectively as a unit.

repository

See Oracle Management Repository.

roles

Collection of predefined Enterprise Manager target or system privileges created by super administrators to facilitate granting multiple privileges or roles to users. Roles limit target access and access to specific management features.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

Software to secure the communications between the Management Service and the Management Agent. Encrypted communications between the Management Agent and Management Service over HTTPS ensures the privacy of data sent from one computer to another.

service

Entity that provides a useful function to its users, such as CRM applications, online banking, and email services. Some simpler forms of services are business functions that are supported by protocols such as DNS, LDAP, POP, or SMTP.

standby database

Read-only database on the standby node. The standby database, also referred to as the replicated database, is physically identical to the master database. In the event of catastrophic failures, data modification activities “fail over” to the standby database so that it becomes the new master database.

Super Administrator

Enterprise Manager administrator that can create, modify, and delete any Enterprise Manager administrator, create any role in the system, perform any action on any target in the system, and see all areas of the management system.

SYSMAN

By default during the installation of Oracle Enterprise Manager, one Super Administrator account is created with the user name of SYSMAN. The SYSMAN account should be used to perform infrequent system-wide, global configuration tasks such as setting up the environment. Other administrator accounts can be created for daily administration work. The SYSMAN account is:

- Owner of the Management Repository schema

- Default Enterprise Manager Super Administrator

- User name used to log in to Enterprise Manager the first time

system

Logical grouping of targets that collectively hosts one or more services. It is a set of infrastructure targets (hosts, databases, application servers, and so on) that function together to host one or more applications or services.

system privilege

Allows a user to perform system-wide operations. For example, the VIEW ANY TARGET system privilege allows the administrator to view any target on the system, including Oracle Management Agents and Oracle Management Services.

target

A single component that you can monitor or configure with Enterprise Manager. Examples of a target include:

- Single Oracle 10g database

- Group of databases that provide your worldwide customers with product information

- Oracle Application Server or an instance of Oracle HTTP Server

- Web application that your customers visit to investigate or buy your products

- Linux host computer, including its memory, disks, and CPU

- Server load balancer switch that controls the Internet traffic for a set of Web servers

Enterprise Manager can manage all these targets. A complete list of the target types you can manage is included in Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control Installation and Basic Configuration.

target compliance score

Average of the individual policy compliance scores for policies that have been associated with a target. Also, a target's security compliance score is the average of the compliance scores for security policies associated with that target.You can use a compliance score to assess a target's overall compliance, and a group can use a score to determine the most troubled targets with respect to policy violations.

target home page

Page that contains general information about the selected target. From a target home page, you can drill down for more detailed performance information.

target privilege

Privilege that allows an administrator to perform operations on a target. For example, the View Target privilege allows an administrator to view properties, inventory, and monitor information about a target.

threshold

Boundary values against which monitored metric values are compared. The comparison determines whether an alert should be generated.

topology

Graphically shows the relationships between components, nodes, or objects within different Oracle applications.

wait classes

Grouping of wait events. Whenever an Oracle process waits for something, it records the wait using one of a set of predefined wait events. These wait events are grouped in wait classes, which show how much of the database is waiting for CPU time. The wait classes appear in the Database Performance page.