Sunday, March 30, 2014

ggsci: error while loading shared libraries: libnnz11.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

I know what some of you might be thinking, is this an Elf Class from Word of Warcraft? Not quite. Coincidentally, when you google imagines for “elf world of warcraft”, you get mostly female ones :)

Over the last couple of weeks, I spent a few hours across several sessions explaining and demonstrating a GoldenGate installation and configuration. The team had provided me two Enterprise Linux servers (source and target) where the oracle database software was already installed as well as database instances running.

The environment configuration was:

Source Server: OEL 4.9 32bit

Source Database: Oracle 11.2.0.4 32bit

GoldenGate Binaries: 11.2.1.0.X 32bit

Target: OEL 6.5 64bit

Target Database: Oracle 11.2.0.4 64bit (I assumed)

GoldenGate Binaries: 11.2.1.0.X 64bit

The GoldenGate (11.2.1.0.X) installation on the source was successful, however, on the target side after I unzipped the GoldenGate binaries and executed ggsci I received the nasty error message below:

-bash-4.1$ ./ggsci
./ggsci: error while loading shared libraries: libnnz11.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

Interesting. I was used to received the “error while loading shared libraries” which means that 32bit library file location is not in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH. I was still unable to get GGSCI to work. After a lot of toiling around with .bash_profile settings and looking through various MOS notes, I decided to give it a rest until the next day.

Come the next day, it dawned on me that since I did not setup this target environment, is it possible that my assumption about the 64bit Oracle Database binaries was incorrect? The team I was mentoring had told me that this was a sandbox environment, so it was quite likely that someone installed 32bit Oracle Database binaries.

I checked the banner for the “bad” oracle home. 

-bash-4.1$ echo $ORACLE_HOME
/u01/11gr2/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1
-bash-4.1$ echo $ORACLE_SID
test1
-bash-4.1$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.4.0 Production on Wed Mar 26 20:30:10 2014

Copyright (c) 1982, 2013, Oracle.  All rights reserved.


Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.4.0 - Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

SQL> 

Maybe there was something wrong with the installation to begin with, so I Installed a new Oracle 11.2.0.4. Home and checked it’s banner:

-bash-4.1$ echo $ORACLE_HOME
/u01/11gr2/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_2
-bash-4.1$ echo $ORACLE_SID
target01
-bash-4.1$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.4.0 Production on Wed Mar 26 20:30:59 2014

Copyright (c) 1982, 2013, Oracle.  All rights reserved.


Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.4.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

SQL>  

It wasn’t too surprising that it was exactly the problem. To verify, I started ggsci from the new home and presto it worked!

The point here is, do not take anything for granted. If I had simply gone through my checklist to validate the environment(s), then I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort. And of course, the reason why there were no moss notes directly related to the error message is likely because the support engineers assume that you’ve read the documentation and validated the environment before hand.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

continue reading "ggsci: error while loading shared libraries: libnnz11.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32"

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Create a Standby Database using EM12c

I wanted to make this a quick post, because a friend was mentioning a slight problem during a manual set up of Data Guard. I told him you could do it through EM, and then recalled that I had documented it a while back. After the tube light finally went on in my head, it occurred to me that this would a good post.

When leveraging EM to set up, monitor, and manage (Active) Data Guard, Data Guard Broker is configured by default. A quote from Oracle Docs:

"Oracle Data Guard ensures high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise data. Data Guard provides a comprehensive set of services that create, maintain, manage, and monitor one or more standby databases to enable production Oracle databases to survive disasters and data corruptions. Data Guard maintains these standby databases as transactionally consistent copies of the primary database. If the primary database becomes unavailable because of a planned or an unplanned outage, Data Guard can switch any standby database to the production role, thus minimizing the downtime associated with the outage. Data Guard can be used with traditional backup, recovery, and cluster techniques, as well as the Flashback Database feature to provide a high level of data protection and data availability.”

Whether or not you chose to set up a different network/listener for the Data Guard traffic is entirely your choice (and a good one in my opinion). However, in this scenario, I simply used the default parameters to illustrate a point.

1. Navigate to the particular database’s home page.

NewImage

NewImage

2.On the database home page, click on “Avaliability”->”Add Standby Database”.

NewImage

3. On the next screen, click the first radio button and “Continue”. We will create a new “Physical Standby” database.

I will explore this section further after Data Guard is setup.

NewImage

4. We can leverage the Duplicate from Active Database feature in 11g, therefore, leave default values and click “Continue”.

NewImage

5. Either create a new credential set or use an existing one.

NewImage

6. Next, we select which host the standby instance will be created on.

NewImage

7. At this point, we can chose the relevant file locations. You have the option to change them compared to the primary database if needed.

NewImage

8. Time to give the new guy a name. You could optionally decide to monitor it as well (a good idea in my opinion). Should you also want to use a different connect net services identifier other than what EM uses, now is a good time to do that. 

NewImage

9. Finally, review your settings and click “Finish”.

NewImage

10. As with most “tasks” in EM, a job is submitted which can be reviewed.

NewImage

10.1 Job details.

NewImage

One complete, the new standby database is configured and ready! In addition to EM, you can also verify the status via Data Guard Brokers interface. By the way, the output below is from a different system.

[oracle@server01 ~]$ dgmgrl /
DGMGRL for Linux: Version 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production

Copyright (c) 2000, 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Welcome to DGMGRL, type "help" for information.
Connected.
DGMGRL> show configuration

Configuration - prim_db.global.name

  Protection Mode: MaxPerformance
  Databases:
    prim_db   - Primary database
    stand_db - Physical standby database

Fast-Start Failover: DISABLED

Configuration Status:
SUCCESS

DGMGRL>

The funny thing about Data Guard, at least from my experience, is that there’s no two same configurations. For some reason or the other, usually related to network configuration, or one-off requirements which cause the difference. If you follow the steps above, then at the very least you will have a standardized way to deploy standby databases.

Hope this helps!

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

continue reading "Create a Standby Database using EM12c"

Monday, March 17, 2014

#em12c Metrics - Part 1: An Introduction

From the middle of 2013, I’d been busy in preparation for one of my presentations for IOUG’s Collaborate 14 Conference in Las Vegas. It is on Capacity Planning Enterprise Manager 12c’s Metrics (available on slideshare), one which I had the honor of presenting earlier at a Georgia Oracle User Group meeting in Atlanta, GA this past week. Metrics in any version of Enterprise Manager are collected (via the Enterprise Manager agents) and stored in its repository database, to be used for rendering historical viewing, but only at each targets respective home page. With EM12c, the list of monitored targets has grown to a staggering amount, especially with the advent of Extensibility Exchange and Metric Extensions (previously known as User Defined Metrics).

From Oracle Databases, multiple Unix Platforms, various types of Middleware products, Oracle VM, The Oracle Cloud, Engineered Systems such as Exadata, Exalogic, and the Big Data Appliance, and many other targets, this tool sure does cover a wide spectrum with an even wider range of metrics (or insights) into each managed target. In addition, using Plug-ins developed either by Oracle or by third party vendors, external hardware/software monitoring is also possible on technology such as VMware, NetApp, Cisco, Brocade, HP Storage, EMC Storage, F5 Load Balancers, and like wise many others. All of this monitored data is indeed stored somewhere, and as I have mentioned earlier, it is simply kept in the Enterprise Managers repository.

Starting with this post, I’d like to begin a series that discusses the various parts and pieces associated with Metrics in Enterprise Manager 12c.

I have already established that data is collected from managed/monitored targets, but have yet to explain the delicate intricacies of that collection. By default, once a target is discovered and promoted in EM12c, the collection of certain metrics that are enabled on a collection schedule. Both of which depend on the target type. As an example, lets take a look at an “Oracle Database”. Each time one is added to the EM inventory, we automatically assume that information regarding its configuration, status, etc will be displayed. That is precisely the kind of “default collection of metrics on a schedule” that I mentioned earlier.

So, how does the data get to the repository? One way to look at it, and some of depictions are straight out of my presentation, is that data from targets is collected by the EM Agents, and pulled into the Management Repository. This is a big shift from the previous releases of Enterprise Manager because they employed the push method (from agents) as opposed to a pull method from the Management Server.

NewImage

The data lands in the em_metric_value table which contains the “raw” data. A quick look at this table’s structure and data reveals the rawness of the information that is collected. 

desc em_metric_values
Name            Null     Type                    
--------------- -------- ----------------------- 
METRIC_ITEM_ID  NOT NULL NUMBER(38)              
COLLECTION_TIME NOT NULL DATE                    
MET_VALUES      NOT NULL EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY() 

 

col metric_item_id format 9999999 heading "Metric Item ID"
col collection_time format a25 heading "Collection Time"
col met_values format a100 heading "Metric Values"

select metric_item_id
      ,collection_time
      ,met_values
  from em_metric_values
 where rownum < 11; -- Only used to restrict the data returned.

 Metric Item ID Collection Time           Metric Values                                                                                      
-------------- ------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       1561578 13-FEB-14 12.13.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.209,null,0,72.899,null,null,16,0,null,0.018)              
       1561578 13-FEB-14 12.28.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.191,null,0,68.343,null,null,15,0,null,0.017)              
       1561578 13-FEB-14 12.43.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,3.604,null,0,651623.938,null,null,2310,0,null,2.57)         
       1561578 13-FEB-14 12.58.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.187,null,0,68.343,null,null,15,0,null,0.017)              
       1561578 13-FEB-14 01.13.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.206,null,0,68.343,null,null,15,0,null,0.017)              
       1561578 13-FEB-14 01.28.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.184,null,0,68.343,null,null,15,0,null,0.017)              
       1561578 13-FEB-14 01.43.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,4.53,null,0,958473.112,null,null,3347,0,null,3.723)         
       1561578 13-FEB-14 01.58.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.195,null,0,68.343,null,null,15,0,null,0.017)              
       1561578 13-FEB-14 02.13.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.191,null,0,72.899,null,null,16,0,null,0.018)              
       1561578 13-FEB-14 02.28.46 AM     SYSMAN.EM_METRIC_VALUE_ARRAY(null,null,0,0.19,null,0,63.786,null,null,14,0,null,0.016)               

 10 rows selected 

At regular intervals, this table’s data is aggregated into hourly and daily metric values. The corresponding tables are em_metric_values_hourly and em_metric_values_daily.

To ensure adequate performance, all three tables are partitioned as per the chart below. More information regarding the partitioning strategy can be found in “12c Cloud Control Repository: How to Modify the Default Retention and Purging Policies for Metric Data? (Doc ID 1405036.1)”.

NewImage 

Now, I probably know what you are thinking. If I query the raw data, then what good is it to me in the above format. To understand and view the data coherently, the mgmt$metric_values, mgmt$metric_values_hourtly, mgmt$metric_values_daily OR gc$metric_values, gc$metric_values_hourly, gc$metric_values_daily views which are compliments of the tables mentioned earlier.

You might have seen various queries that use the mgmt$ tables, but from what I seen the gc$ tables are newer versions with slightly different metric column names and labels.

Let’s take a quick look at the gc$metric_values and its contents. 

desc gc$metric_values
Name                      Null     Type          
------------------------- -------- ------------- 
ENTITY_TYPE               NOT NULL VARCHAR2(64)  
ENTITY_NAME               NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
TYPE_META_VER             NOT NULL VARCHAR2(8)   
METRIC_GROUP_NAME         NOT NULL VARCHAR2(64)  
METRIC_COLUMN_NAME        NOT NULL VARCHAR2(64)  
COLUMN_TYPE               NOT NULL NUMBER(1)     
COLUMN_INDEX              NOT NULL NUMBER(3)     
DATA_COLUMN_TYPE          NOT NULL NUMBER(2)     
METRIC_GROUP_ID           NOT NULL NUMBER(38)    
METRIC_GROUP_LABEL                 VARCHAR2(64)  
METRIC_GROUP_LABEL_NLSID           VARCHAR2(64)  
METRIC_COLUMN_ID          NOT NULL NUMBER(38)    
METRIC_COLUMN_LABEL                VARCHAR2(64)  
METRIC_COLUMN_LABEL_NLSID          VARCHAR2(64)  
DESCRIPTION                        VARCHAR2(128) 
SHORT_NAME                         VARCHAR2(40)  
UNIT                               VARCHAR2(32)  
IS_FOR_SUMMARY                     NUMBER        
IS_STATEFUL                        NUMBER        
NON_THRESHOLDED_ALERTS             NUMBER        
METRIC_KEY_ID             NOT NULL NUMBER(38)    
KEY_PART_1                NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
KEY_PART_2                NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
KEY_PART_3                NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
KEY_PART_4                NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
KEY_PART_5                NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
KEY_PART_6                NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
KEY_PART_7                NOT NULL VARCHAR2(256) 
COLLECTION_TIME           NOT NULL DATE          
COLLECTION_TIME_UTC                DATE          
VALUE                              NUMBER        

 

col entity_type format a10 heading "Entity|Type"
col entity_name format a25 heading "Entity|Name"
col metric_group_label format a7 heading "Metric|Group|Label"
col metric_group_name format a14 heading "Metric|Group|Name"
col metric_column_label format a50 heading "Metric|Column|Label"
col metric_column_name format a14 heading "Metric|Column|Name"
col short_name format a15 heading "Short|Name"
col value format 99.99 heading "Value"

select entity_type
      ,entity_name
      ,metric_group_name
      ,metric_column_name
      ,metric_group_label
      ,metric_column_label
      ,short_name
      ,collection_time
      ,value
  from gc$metric_values
 where rownum < 11; -- Only used to restrict rows returned.  

                                     Metric         Metric         Metric  Metric                                                                                             
Entity     Entity                    Group          Column         Group   Column                                             Short                                          
 Type       Name                     Name           Name           Label   Label                                               Name            Collection Time            Value
---------- ------------------------- -------------- -------------- ------- -------------------------------------------------- --------------- ------------------------- ------
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.01.56 AM       4.08 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.06.56 AM       4.11 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.11.56 AM       4.03 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.16.56 AM       4.03 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.21.56 AM       4.01 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.26.56 AM       4.00 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.31.56 AM       4.01 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.36.56 AM       4.11 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.41.56 AM       4.01 
host       server01.planet.net       Load           cpuLoad_1min   Load    Run Queue Length (1 minute average,per core)       CPU Load (1min) 13-FEB-14 12.46.56 AM       4.00 

 10 rows selected 

I know this blog posts probably lends itself to more questions. What data, other than the one showed above, do we actually have access to in Enterprise Manager? How can we obtain the information and then create reports on resource utilization for trend analysis, and capacity planning? How does Enterprise Manager allow data visualization? Which tools could I use for custom reports? Enterprise Manager does indeed monitor, keep track of, and enables the user to gather a myriad of information from each target.

The data is there.

Stay tuned for future posts which will cover the topics I have touched on in the sections above. If you are headed to Collaborate this year, and are interested in hearing further in-person, my Session # is 102 Capacity Planning: How to Leverage OEM12c for Engineered Systems.

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

continue reading "#em12c Metrics - Part 1: An Introduction"

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

opatch apply online on 11.2.0.4

The credit for the patch apply in the post goes to a new friend that wishes to remain anonymous, except that her initials start with KA, and who happens to work at a company in Memphis, TN. Coincidentally, that is where I had been liv. During a recent EM12c project at her company, we were going through the steps to create a 2-node RAC environment. After registering it with Enterprise Manager, and adding the relevant targets (Oracle Homes, Databases, Listeners etc) we tested the connectivity (specifically checking the tablespace usage) to one of the databases and receive an “ORA-01000 maximum open cursors” message.

The open_cursors parameter in the respective database was set to 5000, and there were hardly any connections on it at the time which could explain it. We attempted a local login (from the respective host) as well as a listener based login, both of which were successful. After a quick search on MOS, it turns out there’s a bug which causes queries from Enterprise Manager on 11.2.0.4 Databases: “EM 12c: Querying a List of tablespaces for an 11.2 Oracle Database Results in ORA-1000 Error in Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.3 Cloud Control (Doc ID 1618684.1)”. The solution, according to the MOS note, was to apply Patch 17897511 on the RDBMS home where the 11.2.0.4 instance resides.

Since I’d never tested the online patching process, it seemed like a good time to try it out. I’d recommend reading Jason Arniel’s post here on the subtle “ism’s” of online patching - I found it to be quite useful.

Let’s begin.

d-oratest11-db01.planets.com:/u01/oracle/software/patch/17897511:oratst111> /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/OPatch/opatch apply online -connectString oratst111:sys:password:d-oratest11-db01,oratst112:sys:password:d-oratest11-db02
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.2.0.3.4
Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.


Oracle Home       : /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1
Central Inventory : /u01/oracle/oraInventory
   from           : /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/oraInst.loc
OPatch version    : 11.2.0.3.4
OUI version       : 11.2.0.4.0
Log file location : /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/cfgtoollogs/opatch/17897511_Feb_14_2014_12_28_57/apply2014-02-14_12-28-56PM_1.log


The patch should be applied/rolled back in '-all_nodes' mode only.
Converting the RAC mode to '-all_nodes' mode.
Applying interim patch '17897511' to OH '/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1'
Verifying environment and performing prerequisite checks...
All checks passed.
Backing up files...

Patching component oracle.rdbms, 11.2.0.4.0...
Installing and enabling the online patch 'bug17897511.pch', on database 'oratst111'.


Verifying the update...

Patching in all-node mode.

Updating nodes 'd-oratest11-db02'
   Apply-related files are:
     FP = "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/copy_files.txt"
     DP = "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/copy_dirs.txt"
     MP = "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/make_cmds.txt"
     RC = "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/remote_cmds.txt"

Instantiating the file "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/copy_files.txt.instantiated" by replacing $ORACLE_HOME in "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/copy_files.txt" with actual path.
Propagating files to remote nodes...
Instantiating the file "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/copy_dirs.txt.instantiated" by replacing $ORACLE_HOME in "/u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/.patch_storage/17897511_Jan_28_2014_07_45_26/rac/copy_dirs.txt" with actual path.
Propagating directories to remote nodes...
Installing and enabling the online patch 'bug17897511.pch', on database 'oratst112' on node 'd-oratest11-db02'.

Patch 17897511 successfully applied
Log file location: /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/cfgtoollogs/opatch/17897511_Feb_14_2014_12_28_57/apply2014-02-14_12-28-56PM_1.log

OPatch succeeded.

 Great! Let’s just make sure that it worked. 

d-oratest11-db01.planets.com:/u01/oracle/software/patch/17897511:oratst111> /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/OPatch/opatch lsinventory
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.2.0.3.4
Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.


Oracle Home       : /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1
Central Inventory : /u01/oracle/oraInventory
   from           : /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/oraInst.loc
OPatch version    : 11.2.0.3.4
OUI version       : 11.2.0.4.0
Log file location : /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2014-02-14_12-29-37PM_1.log

Lsinventory Output file location : /u01/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/cfgtoollogs/opatch/lsinv/lsinventory2014-02-14_12-29-37PM.txt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installed Top-level Products (1):

Oracle Database 11g                                                  11.2.0.4.0
There are 1 products installed in this Oracle Home.


Interim patches (1) :

Patch (online) 17897511: applied on Fri Feb 14 12:29:01 CST 2014
Unique Patch ID:  17213015
   Created on 28 Jan 2014, 07:45:26 hrs PST8PDT
   Bugs fixed:
     17897511


Rac system comprising of multiple nodes
  Local node = d-oratest11-db01
  Remote node = d-oratest11-db02

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OPatch succeeded.

And, thats it. After the patch application, we were able to query the tablespace information for all databases running from this home successfully via Enterprise Manager.

Cheers!

 

continue reading "opatch apply online on 11.2.0.4"