EM12c: How to setup MWaaS? - Part II

Middleware as a Service Cloud Setup(http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_mw_setup.htm#CEGIIDAJ) requires following steps:

1. Role and Users creation
Following users are needed for MW cloud setup

	Role	Example username
1.	EM_CLOUD_ADMINISTRATOR	EM_CLOUD_ADMIN
2.	EM_SSA_ADMINISTRATOR	SSA_ADMIN
3.	SSA_DEV_ROLES	SSA_USER1

Note: SSA_DEV_ROLES is a custom role. Steps to create this role are given on this link.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_getstarted.htm#BEIFFHCF

2. Push agent on All Target Hosts
 All hosts that participate in cloud setup should be EM targets and EM agent should be pushed on these hosts. steps are given on link
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_paas_setup.htm#CHDGJDBH

3. Privilege Delegation Settings
Privilege delegation allows a logged-in user to perform an activity with the privileges of another user. Sudo and PowerBroker are privilege delegation tools that allow a logged-in user to be assigned these privileges. These privilege delegation settings will be used for all provisioning and patching activities on these hosts.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_getstarted.htm#CHDGJEEB

4. Software library configuration
The Software Library is a repository that stores software patches, virtual appliance images, reference gold images, application software and their associated directive scripts. Software library is needed for loading Out of Box WLS profiles. Steps to configure Software library are given on link
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_getstarted.htm#BEIFJBHB

5. Loading Out of Box Middleware Provisioning Profiles
Download OOB Middleware Profiles using Self Update as given on link
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_mw_setup.htm#CHDDHCAB
Note: These OOB profiles DO NOT contain any gold image. It just contains WLS domain definition, so user is expected to have MW home software only install as given in step 7.

6. Create PaaS Infrastructure Zone
Define a PaaS Infrastructure zone, include which hosts would be part of this zone and what users(roles) can access this zone.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_paas_setup.htm#CIHFFDIG

7. Create Middleware Home
OOB 10.3.6 WLS profiles require JRF enabled WLS 10.3.6 install. It can be a software only install done via

-WebCenter portal 11.1.1.6.0 (PS5) installer http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/webcenter/portal/downloads/index.html

 OR

-SOA 11.1.1.6.0 (PS5) installer

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/downloads/index.html

Note: Once a Middleware Home is created, it should be discovered and promoted to be visible under All Targets.

8. Configuring and Save the Deployment Procedure
Configure and save a Middleware Provisioning deployment procedure. This configured deployment procedure will be used by the EM_SSA_ADMINISTRATOR while creating a Middleware Service Template.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_mw_setup.htm#CEGFCBDE

9. Setting Up the MWaaS Self Service Portal
The EM_SSA_ADMINISTRATOR can configure and set up the middleware self service portal by creating middleware pools, quotas, request settings, and service templates.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_mw_portal.htm#CHDECCAI

10.Using the Middleware Cloud Self Service Portal

This Portal can be used to
•    Monitor resource allocation
•    Request and Provision Middleware Services
•    Monitor performance of provisioned middleware service
•    Control availability of provisioned WebLogic servers through simple STARTUP / SHUTDOWN push buttons
•    Scale Up / Scale down provisioned middleware instance
•    Deploy/Undeploy/Redeploy Java EE Applications
•    Create Data Sources
•    Monitor deployed J2EE Applications
•    Deletion of middleware service instances that will no longer be used 
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e28814/cloud_mw_using.htm

EM12c: How to fix BI Publisher 11.1.1.6.0 report error that shows invalid username/password error?

Issue: With EM12cR2, 11.1.1.6.0 BI Publisher is installed and integrated successfully. However, on accessing any report via BI Publisher as sysman user. It shows following error:

Parameter name: targettype weblogic.common.resourcepool.ResourceDeadException: 0: Could not connect to 'oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver'. The returned message is: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied It is likely that the login or password is not valid. It is also possible that something else is invalid in the configuration or that the database is not available.

Following error is seen in BIP managed server's log file(BIP.out):
2013-Jan-31 12:26:28EMReposAuthenticatorHelper: Following SQLException occurred.
SQLException code=28009 error msg: ORA-28009: connection as SYS should be as SYSDBA or SYSOPER

Problem verification:
When trying to connect EM repository as mgmt_view user via sqlplus. It works fine.

%$ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus mgmt_view/<passwd>@<emrep>
SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Fri Feb 1 10:06:48 2013
Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options
SQL> Disconnected from Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options


Apparently, at some point along with other EM repos users, mgmt_view user password got modified using sqlplus. Which is the not supported way of modifying mgmt_view user passwd.

Action:
On OMS machine, execute the following command:
% $ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl config oms -change_view_user_pwd -sysman_pwd <sysman_pwd> -user_pwd <user_pwd>
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2
Copyright (c) 1996, 2012 Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
Successfully changed password. You must restart the BI Publisher Enterprise Managed Server in order for BI Publisher to function correctly.


Restart the BIP server using weblogic console and restart oms using emctl commands:
% $ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl stop oms

% $ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl start oms

EM12c: Some interesting new features in Middleware Management with EM 12c R2(12.1.0.2) ?

With EM12c R2, FMW plugin version 12.1.0.3 has been released. With this release lot of new features have been introduced under Middleware Management and Application Performance Management areas. One can find complete list of features on MW mgmt and APM links.

Out of all features, I find following features somewhat more interesting:
1.    Business Application - A new target has been added called as Business Application target. This target combines capabilities of RUEI+BTM+JVM+ADP. The BA is associated with a system target, RUEI applications and Business Transactions.
The BA target enables a user to see and understands the health of the business application. The target represents a holistic view of the monitored application. It has its own dashboard.
Business Application has
•    Business Application Target
•    Business Application Dashboard
•    Business Applications List Page
•    Drill-down from Request Instance Diagnostics to RUEI Session Diagnostics
•    BTM Transaction to EMCC Target Association
•    Business Application Creation Wizard
•    Experience Monitoring in the Business Application Dashboard

For more details on Business Applications, click here.
Click here for demo.

2.    MWaaS (MiddleWare as a Service) – EM12cR2 cloud management has been enhanced for providing MiddleWare services along with IaaS and DBaaS. It allows administrators to create, monitor and manage a private or public MWaaS environment. MWaaS has a complete runtime env. comprised of all services necessary to deploy and run an enterprise-class java-j2ee application, including services such as application hosting, persistence store, application integration and APIs that enable programmatic access to additional computing services that might be required by an application.

MiddleWare as a Service has
•    Resource Pool
•    MWaaS Quotas
•    MWaaS Request Settings
•    Service Templates
•    Provision and De-provision Service Instance
•    Manage Application Lifecycle
•    Service Instance Scaling
•    Manage Data Sources

For more details on MWaaS, click here.

3.    Exalogic management enhancements – With EM12cR2 and Ops center, now one can see Exalogic Schematic views and manage Exalogic boxes well. These enhancements are:
•    Integrated hardware and software schematics
•    Hardware-software topology views
•    Hardware targets monitoring (Compute, ZFA appliance, Infiniband Fabric, ILOM)
•    OTD monitoring
•    Support for virtual and non-virtual configurations
•    Monitoring of Exalogic vServer guest VMs
•    Health checks
•    Trusted partition/vCPU licensing report
Click here for demo.

4.    Service Target Dashboard - With this new feature, administrators can quickly create "out of box" overviews of the health of related services. They can create templates that contain a group of services selected from the defined services in Enterprise Manager. Any Enterprise Manager user can use these defined dashboards to quickly correlate the health of services, the status of key metrics, incidents and related status of the service level agreements tied to the service.
For more details, see this demo .

EM12c: Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 (12.1.0.2) Now Available!

Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 (12.1.0.2) is now available on OTN on ALL platforms. Highlight of this release is simultaneous release of EM12c R2 on all platforms. This is primarily a stability release which incorporates many of issues and feedback reported by early adopters. In addition, this release contains many new features and enhancements in areas across the board.
New Capabilities and Features

• Enhanced management capabilities for enterprise private clouds:
  • Introduces new capabilities to allow customers to build and manage a Java Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud based on Oracle Weblogic Server. The new capabilities include guided set up of PaaS Cloud, self-service provisioning, automatic scale out and metering and chargeback.
  • Enhanced lifecycle management capabilities for Oracle WebLogic Server environments: Combining in-context multiple domain, patching and configuration file synchronizations.
  • Integrated Hardware-Software management for Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud through features such as rack schematics visualization and integrated monitoring of all hardware and software components.
• The latest management capabilities for business-critical applications include:
  • Business Application Management: A new Business Application (BA) target type and dashboard with flexible definitions provides a logical view of an application’s business transactions, end-user experiences and the cloud infrastructure the monitored application is running on.
  • Enhanced User Experience Reporting: Oracle Real User Experience Insight has been enhanced to provide reporting capabilities on client-side issues for applications running in the cloud and has been more tightly coupled with Oracle Business Transaction Management to help ensure that real-time user experience and transaction tracing data is provided to users in context.
• Several key improvements address ease of administration, reporting and extensibility for massively scalable cloud environments including dynamic groups, self-updateable monitoring templates, bulk operations against many events, etc.

New and Revised Plug-Ins:
Several plug-Ins have been updated as a part of this release resulting in either new versions or revisions. Revised plug-ins contain only bug-fixes and while new plug-ins incorporate both bug fixes as well as new functionality.

Plug-In Name	Version
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Database	12.1.0.2 (revision)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Fusion Middleware	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Chargeback and Capacity Planning	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Fusion Applications	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Virtualization	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Exadata	12.1.0.3 (new)
Enterprise Manager for Oracle Cloud	12.1.0.4 (new)

Installation and Upgrade:

• All major platforms have been released simultaneously (Linux 32 / 64 bit, Solaris (SPARC), Solaris x86-64, IBM AIX 64-bit, and Windows x86-64 (64-bit) )
• Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.2 is a complete release that includes both the EM OMS and Agent versions of 12.1.0.2.
• Installation options available with EM 12.1.0.2: User can do fresh Install or an upgrade from versions EM 10.2.0.5, 11.1, or 12.1.0.2 ( Bundle Patch 1 not mandatory).
• Upgrading to EM 12.1.0.2 from EM 12.1.0.1 is not a patch application (similar to Bundle Patch 1) but is achieved through a 1-system upgrade.

Documentation:

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Introduction Document provides a broad overview of capabilities and highlights"What's New" in EM 12.1.0.2.
• All updated Oracle Enterprise Manager documentation can be found on OTN

Customer Webcast - EM 12c Installation and Upgrade: This webcast is for customers who are interested in learning how to successfully deploy or upgrade to EM 12.1.0.2.

• Customer Webcast - Installation and Upgrade - September 21
  (registration and info on OTN starting September 12)

Enterprise Manager 12c R2 Resources:

• OTN Download Page
• Upgrade Guide