As more and more customers virtualize their Oracle databases it becomes more important to give greater insight to their Oracle DBA’s to ensure Database service levels can be met and that DBA’s can understand how the infrastructure is supporting their databases. One of the fears DBA’s have when virtualizing Oracle databases is that they’ll lose control and visibility of the infrastructure. But this doesn’t need to be the case and smart organizations are putting the power back into the hands of the DBA’s. You can have your IT as a Service Infrastructure for Databases and still give Oracle DBA’s the visibility they need, using tools they are already familiar with.

One approach to solving the problem of visibility into the Oracle databases and infrastructure is to incorporate the Oracle Enterprise Manger plug-in for VMware vCenter Operations Manager and to build custom dashboards for the Admin’s and DBA’s to use to monitor the relevant database performance metrics. This is my recommended approach for providing Oracle Database visibility to the VI Admins and Architects, but it doesn’t really provide the Oracle DBA’s with the visibility they need in an interface they already understand. This is where Blue Medora and their VMware Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c comes in.

Traditionally providing visibility to applications teams and DBA’s via vCenter Operations has required complex permission setup to reduce the scope of visibility to what is needed. This isn’t so much of a problem if you have a dedicated cluster for all of your Oracle databases (my recommendation) as you can limit visibility in vCenter Operations to just that cluster. However if you’re providing the information from vCenter Server to Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c via the Blue Medora plug-in getting the right visibility is much easier. The scope of visibility is easily restricted to just the database VM’s and the relevant infrastructure they live on. The best thing about the Blue Medora plug-in is that the integration to Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c is completely seamless and provides the familiar interface to the DBA’s that they are used to. DBA’s don’t have to learn a new interface and can maintain the necessary visibility of their databases to ensure their service levels to the applications teams are met.

The Blue Medora plug-in isn’t limited to just monitoring however, it completely automates the discovery of the databases, allows management control by the DBA’s including virtual machine operations such as power on, power off, and suspend, in addition to reporting, all without needing additional consoles. Where the power really shows through is when you are managing a mixed environment with both physical and virtual database servers. Why use multiple tools for this mixed environment when you can just use the tools your DBA’s are already using? While you’re in the process of migrating all of your databases to VMware you can keep a single management tool and get all the metrics you need regardless of where the database resides.

You can review the Blue Medora Product Datasheet, and Product Overview Presentation and register for the Product Whitepaper. The Blue Medora plug-in is supported with VMware vSphere 4.1 – 5.1 and Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. You want to virtualize your databases to gain all the benefits and cost savings of virtualizing but you don’t want to have to compromise on SLA’s or productivity by your DBA’s. The use of vCenter Operations with the Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in for Virtualization Admins and Architects provides the virtualization team an understanding of the Oracle environment while the Blue Medora plug-in provides visibility into the infrastructure for use by the DBA’s in the interface they’re already use to. This will allow you to virtualize without compromise and provide the necessary teams with all the information they need to do their jobs efficiently.

I would encourage you to visit the Blue Medora site to find out further information. I would recommend you consider this if you are planning to virtualize your Oracle Databases. Having your DBA’s on board will make the process a lot easier and this is one way to ensure that your DBA’s get the visibility they need to do their jobs. Here are some screenshots from the plug-in.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Target Dashboard:

Oracle Enterprise Manager Incident Manger with VMware Metrics:

VMware Target UI:

Final Word

This article is not sponsored by Blue Medora and I received no consideration or payment for writing it. One of the biggest challenges I see with customers when they want to virtualize their databases is resistance from the DBA’s. Anything that the VMware Partner Ecosystem can offer to try and smooth the road is very valuable. By having complete integration between vCenter and Oracle Enterprise Manager using the Blue Medora Plug-in just makes getting the DBA’s on side that much easier. This integration combined with a methodical process, testing and proof, all involving the DBA’s, is a great combination that will increase the chances of your Oracle Database virtualization projects success. Of course you still have to get the architecture correct from a licensing point of view, but my other articles on my Oracle Page can help with that.

—

This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com, by Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2013 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.