Provisioning Oracle Application Server using Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Release 2

Purpose

This OBE describes how to perform Oracle Application Server provisioning operations using Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 2. Using Grid Control, you can patch and clone Oracle Application Server software.

Time to Complete

Approximately 1 hour

Topics

This OBE covers the following topics:

	Overview
	Prerequisite
	Scenario
	Backing Up Oracle Application Server
	Patching Oracle Application Server
	Cloning an Oracle Application Server Oracle Home
	Summary
	Related information

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Overview

Administrators spend a significant amount of their time installing, configuring, and patching software. Grid Control automates these common operations through its provisioning capabilities which include Oracle Application Server cloning and patching. Using these capabilities, administrators can dramatically reduce the time and expense to deploy and patch systems.

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Prerequisite

Before performing the tasks mentioned in the OBE, you should have already discovered at least one Oracle Application Server instance by installing a Management Agent. You can also navigate to the Targets -> Application Servers subtab and select Oracle Application Server from the Add drop-down list and navigate through the wizard to add the instance.

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Scenario

Linda's manager informed her that Oracle just released an interim patch for an Oracle Application Server issue they were experiencing in their production environment. Linda needs to apply the patch to the middle tier in the stage environment. Of course, prior to patching, Linda follows her company's best practice of backing up the application server.

After patch application and verification in the stage environment, Linda then needs to provision the patched application server to the IT organization.

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Backing Up Oracle Application Server

It’s always good practice to perform a backup of software before it is to be patched. Enterprise Manager enables administrators to automate backup of the Oracle Application Server. When backups are performed, it is important to keep in mind the Oracle home you are backing up; the Oracle home will determine what is included as part of the backup:

If the Oracle home includes an Oracle Application Server middle-tier such as J2EE and Web Cache, or Portal and Wireless, then Grid Control backs up the configuration files of that instance in that home.
If the Oracle home you intend to back up includes Identity Management and Metadata Repository, then Grid Control backs up both the middle-tier as well as the database that hosts the Metadata Repository.
If the instance is part of an Oracle Application Server File-based Farm, and the file-based repository resides within the Oracle home you are backing up, Grid Control automatically backs up the file-based repository along with the middle tier instance.

Perform the following steps to backup the Oracle Application Server:

1.	Open the browser and enter the following URL: http://<management service hostname>.<domain>:<port>/em/ The default port value on a clean machine is 7777. However, if there are other instances running on the machine, then the port may be different. The login page will be displayed. Enter the User Name and Password, and then click the Login button.
2.	Click the Targets tab.
3.	Click the Application Servers subtab.
4.	Click any one of the listed Application Server instances.
5.	Click the Administration property page.
6.	Before you actually take a backup you have to first configure the Oracle Application Server instance for Backup and Recovery operations. Click the Configure Backup/Recovery Settings link under the Backup/Recovery section.
7.	Select the Override Preferred Credentials option button. Specify the credentials provided to you and click the Continue button.
8.	Specify the Log File Location as $ORACLE_HOME/logs and Configuration Files Backup Location as $ORACLE_HOME/config_file. Replace the $ORACLE_HOME with the absolute ORACLE_HOME path. Click the OK button.
9.	You have successfully configured backup and recovery settings. Click the Schedule Backup link under the Backup/Recovery section to perform a backup.
10.	Schedule a Full Online Backup and select the Override Preferred Credentials option button. Specify the credentials provided to you and click the Continue button.
11.	Schedule the backup operation for immediate execution and click the OK button.
12.	Monitor the progress of the backup job by clicking on the job name in the confirmation message.
13.	On the Jobs page click the job name to see the job status.
14.	From here you can now monitor the progress of the job execution.
15.	When the job status shows Succeeded your backup job is completed successfully. Click the Step:backupWithoutBlackout link to view the output log.
16.	You can use this page to view log information about steps that were executed to run a job. It shows the status, targets, start and end time, the elapsed time, and log information (output and error) for each step.

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Patching Oracle Application Server

Oracle provides patches to fix one or more bugs for a released Oracle product. It could be a patchset or an interim patch. A patchset is a collection of patches that are installed by Oracle Universal Installer. It updates the software and version numbers of the components that are patched. An interim patch is a bug fix or set of bug fixes made available to customers who for business reasons cannot wait until the next patchset or new product release to get a fix. An interim patch is available from Oracle MetaLink as an individual patch. The version number of the patched product is not updated when an interim patch is applied.

Enterprise Manager provides you with many features to simplify the process of patching Oracle software. Some of them are listed below:

Critical Patch Advisories lists all the critical advisories with their corresponding impact areas, a brief description of each advisory, the number of affected hosts, and Oracle homes for each advisory.
Online Patching enables you to connect to Oracle MetaLink via Enterprise Manager, perform a search and download the required patches or patchsets, and apply.
Offline Patching enables you to perform all the patching activities from the patch cache-that is, even when Oracle Management Service (OMS) is not connected to Oracle MetaLink via the Internet, you can perform a search and apply a patch or patchset from this patch cache. The Enterprise Manager patch cache stores the Oracle patches and patchsets that Enterprise Manager can stage, or stage and apply.

Before performing the following tasks, download the patch 5179517 from MetaLink and upload it to the patch cache. You will be applying this interim patch to the Oracle Application Server instance directly from the Patch Cache. Perform the following steps to patch the Oracle Application Server:

1.	Click the Deployments tab to access the Patch Cache.
2.	Click the View Patch Cache link under the Patching section.
3.	Select the patch number 5179517 from the list and click the Patch button.
4.	Select the instance assigned to you from the Available Targets table and click the Move button to move it to the Selected Targets table.
5.	Click the Next button.
6.	Specify the credentials provided to you and click the Next button.
7.	Select the Apply option button. Before you apply the patch, you must first stop the Oracle HTTP Server, and then after patch application you can start the component backup up. Enterprise Manager allows you to add such pre/post scripts to the patch wizard to automate the entire process. Select the Custom Pre-Command/Script checkbox and enter the command as %oraclehome%/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopproc ias-component=HTTP_Server. Select the Custom Post-Command/Script checkbox and enter the command as %oraclehome%/opmn/bin/opmnctl startproc ias-component=HTTP_Server. Then, click the Next button.
8.	Schedule the patch job for immediate execution. Click the Next button.
9.	Review your options and click the Finish button.
10.	Click the View Job button to monitor the progress of the patch job.
11.	From here you can now monitor the progress of the job execution.
12.	When the job status shows Succeeded your patch job is completed successfully.

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Cloning an Oracle Application Server Oracle Home

Oracle home is the system context in which Oracle products run. The context consists of the directory location where the products are installed, the corresponding system path setup, and, where applicable, the program groups associated with the products installed in that home, and the services running from that home.

Cloning an Oracle home involves creating a copy of the Oracle home and then configuring it for a new environment. If you are performing multiple Oracle Application Server installations, then you may want to use this method to create each Oracle home because copying files from an existing Oracle Application Server installation takes less time than creating a new version of them. This method is also useful if the Oracle home that you are cloning has had patches applied to it. When you clone this Oracle home, the new Oracle home will have the patch updates as well.

Enterprise Manager recognizes most Oracle products as "out-of-box clonable." This means that the installed Oracle homes of most Oracle products can be cloned as is, and do not require any additional support files to perform the cloning operation. You can use the Clone Oracle Home application to clone an Oracle home on a source host to the same or different destination hosts.

The benefits of cloning an Oracle home include the following:

When cloning using the Enterprise Manager Clone Oracle Home tool, all source home patches and settings are seamlessly cloned to the new home. This cloning operation is generally faster and more error free than manually creating a new home, and applying all source home patches and settings in the new home.
Cloning uses the Enterprise Manager job system, which allows you to clone a source to multiple hosts and homes in a single cloning job. This is faster than connecting to each host, and then running Oracle Universal Installer to install the homes.
Cloning allows you to easily extend a cluster to, for example, accommodate additional load during peak business times.

Perform the following steps to clone an Oracle Application Server Oracle Home:

1.	Click the Targets tab.
2.	Click the Application Servers subtab.
3.	Click any one of the listed Application Server instances.
4.	Click the Administration property page.
5.	Click the Clone Oracle Home link under the Deployments section.
6.	Select Installed Oracle Home from View Source Type drop-down list. Select your Oracle Home and click the Next button.
7.	Specify the host credentials and click the Next button.
8.	Specify the name as Cloned_AS_nnn where nnn is the 3-digit number of your workstation. Specify the existing ias_admin password for the source instance to be cloned and the new ias_admin password for the destination instance. Click the Next button.
9.	Accept the default name for the host. Specify the Oracle Home location and the Oracle Home name. Specify the username, password and the working directory. Click the Next button.
10.	Check the Execute checkbox for running the root.sh script and click the Next button.
11.	Schedule the clone job for immediate execution. Click the Next button.
12.	Review your options and click the Finish button.
13.	Click the View Job button to monitor the progress of clone job.
14.	From here you can now monitor the progress of the job execution.
15.	When the job status shows Succeeded your clone job is completed successfully.

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Summary

In this lesson, you learned how to:

	Backup Oracle Application Server
	Patch Oracle Application Server
	Clone Oracle Application Server

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Related Information

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