Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c Update 1 - Additional Information and Best Practices
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c Update 1 was released
earlier this month. Eran Steiner , Technical
Architect, Oracle Enterprise Manager, adds some additional information
and best practices about upgrading to Ops Center 12c Update 1 in this
blog.
Eran hosted a call to provide an overview of Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c Update 1 and answer
any questions.The recording of this call is available here and the presentation can be downloaded here.
Update
1 highlights
- Upgrade, Update and Install - Update 1 is
a multipurpose bundle: it allows you to update your 12c GA version to Update 1,
upgrade your 11g U3 environment to 12c, and it also allows you to do a fresh
install straight into Update 1. - Oracle VM SPARC Server Pool HA - with
Update 1, if you configured a server pool to support it, Ops Center can
automatically recover LDOM guests (also known as OVM for SPARC) to a surviving
Control Domains in case of a failure. In other words, if the machine hosting
the guests has a failure, Ops Center will automatically recover the LDOMs to a
working machine. In addition, a new option was added to determine how to treat
the failed Control domain OS:
In most cases, you will want to enable
this to avoid a scenario called "split brain" - where you have the
same guest running on two different servers.
- Oracle VM SPARC IaaS (Virtual Datacenters/clouds)
- previously you could create Virtual Datacenters using Zones and Oracle VM
(OVM) guests. With Update 1 you can now create Virtual Datacenters (clouds)
also using LDOMs. Here is a screenshot where the 3 types coexist under one
Enterprise Controller. Of course, you can assign different users to each of these
clouds:
- WANBoot Improvements with OBP Handling
Enhancements - Update 1 fixes a number of issues around WANBoot and now
allows you to also use WANBoot when provisioning LDOM guests
- SPARC SuperCluster Support - a few enhancements
to SPARC SuperCluster features
- Stability fixes - many bug fixes and
small enhancements across the board
Planning
the upgrade
Before
starting the upgrade, make sure to review the Upgrade documentation:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E27363_01/doc.121/e25143/upgrading.htm
As well as
the release notes:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E27363_01/doc.121/e25144/toc.htm
Where
to download Update 1
You can
download the Update either in the User interface or, if you want to perform a
manual installation/upgrade, through eDelivery.
In the
User Interface, go to Administration -> Ops Center Downloads ->
Choose the 2076 bundle, that's Update 1.
After the
download is complete, you can find the bundles here:
Enterprise
Controller upgrade – /var/opt/sun/xvm/images/productUpdate
Proxy
Controller upgrades – /var/opt/sun/xvm/images/productUpdate
Agent
Controller upgrades – /var/opt/sun/xvm/images/agent
Note:
if you choose to upgrade through the user interface, you do not need to access
these folders. These are only helpful if you are planning on performing a
manual upgrade and need to access the upgrade ZIP files.
To
download through eDelivery, go to https://edelivery.oracle.com/
, login and then under "Select a Product Pack" choose "Oracle
Enterprise Manager" and the relevant platform and click "Go".
From the
result list, find "Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c Release 1
Media Pack", or Release "12.1.1.0.0" and click it. You will see
the bundles next.
Tips for
11g installations
There are a couple
of key differences between the 11g and 12c products that you should be aware of
prior to upgrading:
- New requirements: make sure you verify the new
requirements by running the "OCDoctor --troubleshoot" - not only
will it alert you about existing issues with your installation, it will
also tell you if anything is missing for the upgrade. More on the Doctor
below. - Additional information about requirements can be found
here:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E27363_01/doc.121/e25147/toc.htm
- New database: 12c is using Oracle DB which is different
than the PostgreSQL used in 11g. You can have the Oracle DB installed on
the same server as the Enterprise controller (called "local"
database) or you can use a remote Oracle database. You can choose which
way to go based on your needs. If you upgrade through the HTML user
interface, you only have the option to use a local database. If you
upgrade manually through the shell, you can either upgrade to a local
database or a remote database. There is a method that allows you to move
from a local database to a remote database, if you choose to do so later
on. - Before the upgrade, make sure you download the required
Oracle DB installation files. Download instructions are provided in the Upgrade
documentation link above. - Before you start, we strongly recommend you perform a
backup. Not only you will have a copy of your environment saved, it also
restarts the services in the process and will have the EC services fresh
and ready to go. 11g Backup documentation is here:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18440_01/doc.111/e18414/backup_and_recovery.htm
Step
by step highlights
Here are
some tips before you start:
- We strongly recommend you perform a backup. The
Upgrade process is designed to perform a backup as well, but it never hurts to
have one outside the upgrade process and to make sure it works well. 12c Backup
documentation is here:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E27363_01/doc.121/e25143/backup_and_recovery.htm
- OCDoctor - The OCDoctor utility is updated very
often with all the known issues we hear from support and folks like you. It can
point out potential issues, possible workarounds or even automatic fixes. We
cannot stress enough how important it is to run the OCDoctor before and after
the upgrade. It can really make your life a lot easier.
- Before the upgrade, run the following on your
Enterprise Controller.
#
/var/opt/sun/xvm/OCDoctor/OCDoctor.sh --update
This will get the latest version.
#
/var/opt/sun/xvm/OCDoctor/OCDoctor.sh --troubleshoot
The above will check for current
issues and recommendations. If you are on 11g, it will also check for the
requirements of the 12c.
- After the upgrade, run the following again:
#
/var/opt/sun/xvm/OCDoctor/OCDoctor.sh --troubleshoot
The above will check for any known
post-upgrade issues.
- If this is a new install, you can get the latest
Doctor here:
https://updates.oracle.com/OCDoctor/OCDoctor-latest.zip
Then run the following on the
designated machine to check for the prerequisites:
# unzip OCDoctor-latest.zip
# cd OCDoctor
# ./OCDoctor.sh --ec-prereq
- Upgrade the Enterprise Controller first. This
will also upgrade the collocated proxy and agent, if you have them installed on
the same machine as the Enterprise Controller. - Next, proceed and upgrade the remote proxies. If
you have proxies on different architecture than the Enterprise Controller, you
may have to download the Proxy upgrade bundle for that architecture as well
(either through the UI or get it from eDelivery). - Finally, it is strongly recommended that you
upgrade all the agents as soon as possible. - Important: In 12c, the upgrade agents
screen has moved! It is no longer under the Administration tab. Instead, under "Assets", change
"All Assets" to "Operating Systems", choose the right OS
group (for example, Solaris), click the
"Summary Tab" and then "Agent Controllers"
Some additional
tips
- If you are upgrading from the User interface, once you
start the upgrade you will only see an Upgrade splash screen with no
status updates. Since the upgrade can easily take 30-60 minutes, you can
view the progress of the upgrade through the following log:
# tail -f
/var/opt/sun/xvm/update-saved-state/updatelog_stdout.txt
After the upgrade is done, the install log can be found here:
/var/opt/sun/xvm/update-saved-state/update_satellite_bundle_12.1.1.2076/updatelog.txt
- If Update 1 does not show up in the HTML user interface,
try restarting the following services:
On Linux:
# /etc/init.d/uce_scheduler
stop
# /etc/init.d/uce_server
stop
# /etc/init.d/uce_server
start
# /etc/init.d/uce_scheduler
start
On Solaris:
# svcadm disable
uce-scheduler
# svcadm disable uce-server
- wait a few seconds to allow services
to shut down -
# svcadm enable uce-server
# svcadm enable uce-scheduler
Then wait for a few minutes for the Knowledgebase
to refresh and try again.
- Disconnected customers (offline customers) can download
the bundles from eDelivery and upgrade manually - follow the same steps
for command line upgrade.
Good luck
with the upgrade and with new installations!
Contributed by Eran Steiner , Technical
Architect, Oracle Enterprise Manager
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