Using Tivoli Extended Oracle Agent in Windows for Beginners

Installation/Configuration Guide, Best Practices and Troubleshooting

1. 
   Installation
   
   1. 
      Planning
      

Windows Basic Info	Check the Windows Model/Processor/Installed memory and System type from “Computer -> properties”.
OS User Authority	The logon user for the agent installation and configuration should be the administrator or a new OS user which had been added in the group of “Administrators”.
Local Monitoring or Remote Monitoring	http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v24r1/topic/com.ibm.itcama.doc_7.1/oracleextended/fac_config_agentspecific_installconfigconsiderations.html
Disk Space	250 MB for the monitoring agent product files if no other agents are installed. 10 MB if other agents such as the OS Agent are already installed.
Memory	256 MB virtual memory per agent instance 32 MB additional for each database connection
Supported Windows Level	Windows 2003 Windows 2008

2. 
   Prepare Agent Image Files
   

Windows	Image Folder to be used
Window 32-bit x86	WINDOWS
Window 64-bit x86_64	WINDOWS
Windows 64-bit Itanium	WIA64

3. 
   Installation Installshield wizard key steps
   

Usually we suggest installing 64-bit agent as most Oracle database is 64-bit on 64-bit Windows now. You should install 32-bit agent instead only if your Windows system for Agent is 32-bit.

32-bit Tivoli Oracle Agent: Monitoring Agent for Oracle Database Extended
64-bit Tivoli Oracle Agent: Monitoring Agent for Oracle Database Extended(x86-64 only)

2. 
   Configuration
   
   1. 
      Configuring the agent through the Manage Tivoli Monitoring Services tool on Windows systems: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v24r1/topic/com.ibm.itcama.doc_7.1/oracleextended/fac_config_agentspecific_local_tms_win.html
      

• 
  you should launch the Manage Tivoli Monitoring Services as “Run as administrator” like below:
  

• 
  You should not use special characters as part of agent instance name or database connection name like *, $, +. Only letters, Arabic numerals, the underline character, and the minus character can be used.
  
• 
  You can select using existing Oracle Home or download to use Oracle Instant Client. If you select using Oracle Home, then the bit of Oracle database in the Oracle Home should be consistent with Agent’s bit number. In another word, 32-bit Agent should be configured with 32-bit Oracle Home, 64-bit agent should be configured with 64-bit Oracle Home.
  
• 
  At least one database connection needs to be configured for agent to monitor.
  

2. 
   Change configuration from configure file manually.
   

.

The full environment variable list can be found from link:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v24r1/topic/com.ibm.itcama.doc_7.1/oracleextended/fac_config_agentspecific_setenvars.html
For example:

3. 
   Best Practices
   
   1. 
      Using Oracle Instant Client library
      

Agent	Instant client download link
32-bit agent in x86	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/winsoft-085727.html
64-bit agent in x86_64	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/winx64soft-089540.html
64-bit agent in 64-bit Itanium	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/winia64soft-087401.html

• 
  If the agent is 32bit which is installed in the directory like C:\IBM\ITM\TMAITM6\KRZAGENT.exe, then you should download 32bit Oracle Instant Client for Windows: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/winsoft-085727.html
  
• 
  If the agent is 64bit which is installed in the directory like C:\IBM\ITM\TMAITM6_X64\KRZAGENT.exe, than you should download 64bit Oracle Instant Client for Windows:
  

2. 
   Number of agent instances and database connections on one system. We suggest configuring no more than 5 database connections in one Agent instance.
   

The best practice involves considering the number of agent instances and database connections on one system. 10 agent instances times 5 database connections (monitoring 50 databases on one system) is optimal. The performance of the agent depends on system performance, network performance, and most importantly the number of data requests, including situation and historical data collection. With fewer data requests for one database, more databases can be monitored on one system. As a best practice, first configure 10 agent instances times 5 database connections, and observe performance, such as the length of the response time for the data request. If the performance is acceptable, you can consider monitoring more databases on the system; if not acceptable, set up another system with the Oracle Database Extended agent installed.

3. 
   Using “Test Connection” to verify the database connectivity.
   

4. 
   Troubleshooting
   
   1. 
      Old Oracle Alerts are resent, see technote URL: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21502530
      

KRZ_LOG_NOREPEAT = TRUE

2. 
   There are many agent events like "ORA-1006 Too many request". It looks there are timeout conditions when the agent attempts connection to the DB, extend the timeout value from the default value (60 seconds) to a greater one as per following parameter: CDP_COLLECTION_TIMEOUT=180 in the KRZENV_ configuration file.
   

3. 
   CTIRA_HOSTNAME cannot take effective for Oracle Agent in Windows.
   

Append below agent’s affinity into the TEPS’s variable KFW_TOPOLOGY_CLUSTER_LIST, separated by blank space. KFW_TOPOLOGY_CLUSTER_LIST= %IBM.OracleAgents

This variable is added to the \cnps\kfwenv file (Windows) or to /config/cq.ini (Linux/UNIX).

Reference the link: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21326517

4. 
   Other troubleshooting guidelines:
   

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v24r1/topic/com.ibm.itcama.doc_7.1/oracleextended/fac_troubleshoot_basics.html