Oracle Instances
- The operator must have the List devices role to view this page. See Roles.
- You cannot create an Oracle instance manually.
Inventory from stand-by instances
MOUNTED
but not in READ
mode). A common
case of this is the standby database instance in an Active Data Guard configuration.
(This functionality is available only from version 12.4 of the tracker, shipped with
IT Asset Management 2017 R3.) Notice that there are natural limitations in
the inventory that can be collected in this mode. For instance, on a standby
database instance:- No Oracle users can be collected
- Some Oracle options are not visible
- It is not possible to tell whether the Advanced Compression option is in use.
READ ONLY
or READ WRITE
modes (but
not in MOUNTED
mode).Missing instances
As noted above, one case where Oracle instances are hidden from this listing is when the Status of the inventory device is set to Ignored.
- The database instance is running on a UNIX-based machine
- It was started using a path that contained a symbolic link
- Inventory collection is planned using a locally-installed FlexNet inventory
component (the tracker, or ndtrack), which may have
been delivered:
- As part of the installed full FlexNet Inventory Agent
- Through deployment of the lightweight FlexNet Inventory Scanner (which on UNIX-like platforms is the ndtrack.sh script)
- Through operation of Zero-footprint inventory collection, whereby an inventory beacon has temporarily installed the tracker on the target Oracle Database server.
- You can ensure that the Oracle home specified in the /etc/oratab file represents the ORACLE_HOME path used to start the database instance
- The account running the database instance (say
OSUser4Oracle) may set an environment variable within
its login profile specifying the
ORACLE_HOME
path (including the symbolic link) which was used to start the database instance. To test this setting, the following command should display the correctORACLE_HOME
path:su -OSUser4Oracle -c "echo \$ORACLE_HOME"
Tip: If this environment variable is set for any account on the database server, it is applied to all database instances started by the same account on this server. Any mismatch between the (non-empty) environment variable, and the actual path used to start any of these database instances, prevents the collection of database inventory from the mismatched instance by the locally-installed inventory component (ndtrack). Conversely, you can prevent the environment variable option being used for all accounts on the target Oracle server by setting theUserDefinedOracleHome
preference (details of this preference are included in Gathering FlexNet Inventory.
Available actions
- Search for an inventory device with Oracle Database installation: use the search field (top right above the listing) to enter part of either a server name or a database instance name, and hit Enter/Return (or click the magnifying glass to the left of the search field). If the text you entered is matched in either field, the record(s) of server and instance are listed. For more information about using lists, filters, and other UI options, see the topics under Using Lists in IT Asset Management.
- View or change the properties of an inventory device: Ctrl-click the Oracle server name. See Inventory Device Properties.
- View or change the properties of an Oracle instance: either Ctrl-click the name in the Instance column, or select the row and click Open. See Oracle Instance Properties.
- Download a GLAS archive to complete for Oracle, provided that you have adequate permission. Scroll down in this topic for details.
- Create a management view: The Save view as feature of IT Asset Management enables you to create customized management views of a page by saving the applied user interface settings. For more information, see Creating Saved Views.
Available properties
The following properties (listed alphabetically) are available for display (remember to check the column chooser).
Property | Description |
---|---|
Audit evidence |
Indicates whether or not the GLAS audit evidence data has
been collected for each Oracle database instance.
Tip: The name of the Oracle instance is amongst
the data collected as part of inventory. Therefore, when
the Audit evidence value for a
row is No, the correct name
of the database instance is not yet available, and the
Instance value displayed is
the Oracle Database (including version and edition) or
Oracle option found in discovery or perhaps from Oracle
Enterprise Manager (through the OEM adapter). This value is automatically updated when the full
inventory evidence becomes available.
Note: For Oracle Autonomous Databases, Audit evidence is not gathered and
remains empty.
|
Device role |
The role assigned to the inventory device, such as Development, Test, and Production. Device roles (where permitted by the product use rights on a license) can exempt devices from consuming entitlements on a license to which they are (and remain) attached. For example, some license agreements may grant an exemption for devices used exclusively for testing. For more details, see Allocations and Exemptions. This may be helpful, for example, for filtering out database instances on 'cold' backup devices, or test systems. |
Hosted in |
Shows whether the Oracle Database is on-premises (the default,
meaning the device is within your enterprise), or in a cloud operated by a
particular service provider. Values may include:
|
Instance |
The name of the Oracle database instance, which may take one of the
following forms:
Tip: If an instance name ends with
~CDB_ROOT, this means the instance is a container database
that can include additional pluggable databases (supported from Oracle 12c). Each of the
included pluggable databases is displayed in this format, in the
Instance
column:
(that is, the instance
name and pluggable database name are separated by a tilde character). The pluggable
databases in a related set are all prefixed with the same instance name, and of course are
all hosted on the same Oracle server. |
Last inventory date |
The most recent date when detailed inventory was collected
for each Oracle instance (blank when Audit
evidence is
No).
Tip: When the
inventory source is the locally-installed FlexNet Inventory Agent, this normally
matches the last inventory date for the host server (inventory device record).
If this date is older, it may indicate recent problems in gathering inventory
from this database instance, or perhaps the database instance no longer exists.
(For automatic clean-up of stale inventory, go to the Inventory tab on the page.)
Note: For Oracle Autonomous Databases, the field is always empty because no Audit evidence is
gathered.
|
Managing OEM |
This column remains blank when the relevant database instance is
not reported as centrally managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM). On the other
hand, if any installation of OEM within your enterprise reports that it manages a database
instance, this column shows the server where that copy of OEM has its own storage (the
"OEM repository").
Tip: Typically this server hosts both the OEM
console and its management repository. If you have configured your OEM so that it has its
management repository on a remote database server and the OEM console on a separate
server, be aware that this is the name of the server hosting the management repository
(the database instance from which IT Asset Management collects inventory information
about the instances that OEM is managing).
This column allows you to identify which
installations of OEM are reporting on which database instances and their related Oracle
options (for example, try filtering on the OEM server name in this column to display all the
database instances known to that installation of OEM). You may also click (or Ctrl-click) on
the OEM server name to examine its properties.Tip: This column displays the
installation of OEM most recently reporting management of the database instance.
This means that, if you have multiple installations of OEM, and management of a database
instance moves from one OEM to another, the next inventory import and license compliance
calculation automatically updates this column to the current value(s). The record of
Oracle options applicable to the database instance is also updated to remove options
reported only by the first OEM and add those reported only by the second OEM.
|
Oracle server |
The name of the device on which Oracle Database has been installed. When
the Oracle Database is running in Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), this takes the
form
where
Endpoint identifies the connection endpoint
(effectively, the cloud device) running the Oracle Database. For an Oracle Autonomous
Database, it takes a combination of the prefix "Autonomous_" followed by the display name of
the Oracle Autonomous Database instance. You can click the device name to view its
properties. For more details on inventory device properties, see Inventory Device Properties. |
Downloading Oracle GLAS audit evidence
- In a role that limits your access to enterprise data (for example, to a specific business unit), and (because scoping between roles works as a logical-OR)
- Not in any other role(s) that allow(s) unrestricted data access
RevisionNumber
attribute.
This revision number is updated for each change in the Oracle GLAS scripts, but
also for any changes in other (non-Oracle) specialized queries delivered through
InventorySettings.xml; and therefore the file version
is updated more often than the Oracle GLAS queries are updated. Because the
Oracle queries are encrypted within InventorySettings.xml,
there is no way to tell from this file which version of the Oracle GLAS queries
is embedded. As well, since your enterprise may combine manual and automatic
updates to InventorySettings.xml, and it is possible for
these to get out of sync, it may happen that inventories uploaded from different
Oracle inventory devices include GLAS data collected by different versions of
the GLAS scripts. For this reason, you can check the Oracle GLAS script versions
only by inspecting the properties of each Oracle database instance (go to , open the properties of your chosen instance, and in the
Attributes tab, scroll down to the
LMS_DETAIL_RL_SCRIPT_VERSION
attribute). Also notice
that:- The scripts are kept backward compatible, such that earlier versions of the inventory component(s) are able to run later versions of the scripts in InventorySettings.xml without danger.
- Where a change in script functionality requires an updated version of FlexNet Inventory Agent (or the core inventory tracker component), legacy versions simply ignore the new and (for them) unrecognized functionality. This is rare, compared with the frequency of script updates in general. One example of this is the collection of inventory from standby Oracle database instances, which (as described above) requires version 12.4 of the tracker (shipped with IT Asset Management 2017 R3) or later. Versions of the tracker prior to that can run later GLAS scripts, but cannot collect inventory from standby database instances.
- The scripts provided automatically are for audit of your database licensing, and do not include other products like Oracle EBS or middleware. Currently Oracle requires that you manually complete an EBS Questionnaire tab on an Oracle Server Worksheet (obtained separately — this tab is not included in the Oracle GLAS export from IT Asset Management). The tab includes details of your Oracle EBS implementation, whether you have created custom features, and the like. You may use the inventory information gathered by IT Asset Management as source material in completing the EBS Questionnaire.
To download GLAS data, if authorized: