RE: Database management techniques and frameworks

I'm not assuming such a tool exists... It indeed does exist because the salesman who happened to be selling it said so and it must be true. ;-) A former boss saw it, got it (on eval) then tried to get me to use it. Lucky for me I was able to deflect such silliness until the boss was fired. I was also fortunate in that, while some of the Unix dweebs thought the tool was cool, they eventually tired of the scene and I was able to continue with my proven script/monitoring routines. As a happy Bambi below the heavens I did frolic. :-)

-----Original Message-----
Mladen Gogala
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 3:10 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Here, of course, you're assuming that such a magical GUI, sort of DBA in an
ancient oil lamp, tools exist. Well, they do not. Even if you have some useful
gooey tools, they do require extensive configuration and customization to become
useful and they do require extensive knowledge from the person doing configuration and customization. Other then that, I find it quite questionable how useful it is to fire your own customers and replace them with cheap Elbonian labor. Anyone who has called Oracle support recently knows exactly what I'm talking about. On 12/08/2003 04:44:31 PM, "Orr, Steve" wrote:
> No Bambi,
>
> No, no, no... This is not what damagement wants. They don't want you
> to develop your own tools and scripts so they are dependent on you.
> They want to spent lots of money on a GUI tool they can see and they
> want a sales drone to show them how easy it is and tell them that
> anybody can be a DBA if they just had this GUI tool. That way, if they

> don't like you they can get rid of you and just pluggin another warm
> body. Sort of like handing a hammer to an unskilled laborer and
> saying, "Here, you are now a master carpenter." By all means stop
> using that geek stuff like Perl. Stop being subversive to the system
> by developing your own stuff and use the GUI wizbang tool that
> damagement likes.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Bellow, Bambi
> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 1:35 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> Adam --
>
> I've done this more times than I can count. The answer is "it depends

> on your environment, your desired results, and, more often than not,
> your corporate structure". Here's some examples:
>
> 1) Monitoring script pages DBA group if X happens, Unix group if Y
> happens, Network group if Z happens. Simultaneously, XTerm windows
> are popped up in both Operations and HelpDesk with the name and pager
> number of the person paged (via uucp)
>
> 2) Monitoring script sends messages to centralized Error Management
> System. Error Management System handles it
>
> 3) Monitoring script finds problem and corrects problem. If problem
> continues, email is generated
>
> 4) Error Management System has external handles (not APIs) which can
> be used to call Monitoring Scripts, which need to be modified to
> ustilize System's internal structures (sometimes written in French --
> *that* was
> fun!)
>
> 5) Monitoring script simply sends emails
>
> 6) Monitoring script keeps track of the errors in log files which are

> compared to log files from X time ago and only the differences are
> reported
>
> 7) Monitoring script has redundancy built in such that the first X
> times a particular problem is encountered, the Monitoring System
> ignores it, then generates a page
>
> 8) Monitoring script has redundnacy built in such that after the
> first time the problem is encountered, a page is sent, and if there is

> still a problem 15 minutes later, someone else is paged and so on up
> the company ladder
>
> It goes on and on. This is largely what I've been doing for the past
> 8 years. Note that the words "Monitoring script" as used above is
> generally an inherently complicated conglomeration of several
> different scripts, generally with a governor and/or one or more
> driver(s), infrequently on different operating systems, sometimes in
> multiple languages and/or utilizing, or integrating with, or extending

> the capabilities of, one or more COTS products, which use different
> mechanisms to trigger and synchronize them. Generally, there is some
> kind of "IGNORE" functionality which allows for specified downtime for

> maintenance, or "ALTERNATE" functionality for unusual yet definable
> situations, and hierarchy of tests (if the database is down, that
> implies that a subsequent error that a user cannot connect to it has
> already been dealt with) and, occasionally has sniffers on other boxes

> to determine whether remote scripts need to be run either dependent
> upon remote conditions or independent of them. Sometimes, there is a
> process which kicks off other jobs and manages the security. I
> particularly enjoy those where there is fault tolerance built in such
> that if Monitoring script X on Machine Y craps out, Machine Z takes
> over and runs the scripts until Y is back, then copies the logs back,
> kicks off Y, make sure it runs ok, then shuts itself down. (note to
> the Oracle-L historians who might be curious, this change in my
> utilization is largely why my posts from 10 years ago were a lot more
> DBMS/internals heavy and my posts nowadays are more OS/script heavy.)
>
> Regardless, I hope this answers your question and shows some of the
> complexity of what you're asking for...
>
> Bambi.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 1:44 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> So your approach is to write a series of custom scripts, add them to
> (I
> assume) oracle's crontab for periodic execution. Do you have one
single
>
> machine (or pair of machines) that monitor remote databases? Or do
> you
> install these scripts on each database server? Do you leverage
> dbms_jobs?
> And relying on email seems kind of iffy -- what happens if you're not

> around to check your email? Page system? Escalation matrix in place?
>
> Not trying to ruffle any feathers here, and certainly, I appreciate
> the
> time requirements in fully answering a question as broad as the one I
> submitted, but I would like to probe further into various strategies.
> The
> whole "run scripts to check, install statspack, etc." approach seems
> both
> highly unscalable and leaves much to the whim of the individual DBA.
So
>
> what, you've installed statspack? Do you use it regularly? Is this a
> manual review, or is some system in place to monitor changes? How
easy
> is
> it to deploy this framework?
>
> (Does anyone here use Oracle's SNMP agents for monitoring? I've
> leveraged these -- along with a home-grown SNMP NMS (in Perl) -- to
> some degree at a
> multiple database site to good effect.)
>
> Are there any 'design patterns for databases' around? Should we come
> up
>
> with some?
>
> (I'll post my own notes on the topic of management in a future post --
> still compiling.)
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
> <ryan_oracle_at_cox.net>
> Sent by: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com
> 12/05/2003 11:09 AM
> Please respond to
> ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
>
>
> To
> Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> cc
>
> Subject
> Re: Database management techniques and frameworks
>
>
>
>
>
>
> We have about 20-25 instances here. Nearly all on SUN. I dont touch
> the
> ones on windows. I also have development responsibilities, so I dont
> have
> time for a checklist.
>
> you need to automate tasks. You cant spend your time reading the alert
> log. you should poll it and get an email when something pops up. Same
> with
> chained rows, tablespace sizes, etc... Write scripts for this and send

> your self emails.
>
> Have statspack snapshots run daily.
>
> >
> > From: AdamDonahue_at_maximus.com
> > Date: 2003/12/05 Fri PM 01:49:30 EST
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> > Subject: Database management techniques and frameworks
> >
> > Folks,
> >
> > I thought it'd be interesting to take a survey on what techniques
> > and frameworks DBA's on this list use to manage their Oracle
> > databases. I
>
> > imagine that some of us manage only a single database and instance,
> but
> in
> > those configurations where there are many instances, multiple
> > databases,
>
> > different platforms/versions, etc., what are some of the strategies
> > for
> > management in place? What daily tasks do you perform, and how do
you
> > organize them? How do you manage user requests (individually or as
> part
>
> > of a larger environment)? How do you handle jobs? Organization
> > techniques? Naming standards? User/application deployment
> > framework,
>
> > etc., etc.?
> >
> > (Obviously we could write a book about this -- there's an idea! --
> > but summaries and pointers would be interesting. Perhaps we can
> > come up
> with
> > a best practices document and associated framework for Oracle
> > database
> > management.)
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Adam
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > --
> > Author:
> > INET: AdamDonahue_at_maximus.com
> >
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> Author: <ryan_oracle_at_cox.net
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Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA

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  INET: mladen_at_wangtrading.com

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