Autonomous Health Framework FAQ
General
What is Oracle Autonomous Health Framework (AHF)?
Oracle Autonomous Health Framework (AHF) presents the next generation of tools as components, which work together autonomously, 24/7, to keep database systems healthy and functional while minimizing human reaction time. Utilizing machine learning technologies, Oracle AHF provides early warning or automatically solves operational runtime issues faced by Database and System administrators in the areas of availability and performance.
What are the benefits of using Oracle Autonomous Health Framework?
- Proactive problem identification: AHF identifies potential issues before they become critical, allowing for preventative measures.
- Improved performance: AHF helps maintain optimal database performance by identifying bottlenecks and recommending solutions.
- Reduced downtime: AHF proactively addresses issues to minimize database downtime.
- Simplified troubleshooting: AHF automates tasks and provide insights to simplify troubleshooting complex database issues.
Do I need a separate license for Oracle Autonomous Health Framework?
Oracle Autonomous Health Framework is a value add, available for no extra cost as part of existing Oracle product software support agreements.
Where can I download the latest Oracle Autonomous Health Framework version?
The latest version of Oracle AHF can be downloaded here.
Where can I find more information about Oracle Autonomous Health Framework?
Information on Oracle Autonomous Health Framework is available here.
What is Oracle Trace File Analyzer (TFA)?
Oracle Trace File Analyzer (TFA) is a component of Autonomous Health Framework that analyzes, trims, and collects diagnostics from your database system. These diagnostics contain information that can be helpful for troubleshooting issues and errors. The diagnostics captured can help you identify the root cause of problems and integrate with My Oracle Support tooling and services if you need further assistance.
What is Orachk and Exachk?
Orachk and Exachk are components of the Autonomous Health Framework that provide database health checks by comparing your configuration to best practices. Exachk is used on Oracle Exadata systems and Orachk on non-Exadata systems.
What is AHF Insights?
Insights is the user interface for viewing Oracle Autonomous Health Framework best practice results and diagnostics. It provides a bird's eye view of your entire system, allowing you to spot problems, drill into the root causes, and understand how to resolve them.
Is Oracle Autonomous Health Framework a Real Application Clusters–only feature?
No. Oracle Autonomous Health Framework does not require a Real Application Cluster. It’s useful for all Oracle Database systems.
Is Oracle Autonomous Health Framework a 23ai-only feature?
No. Oracle Autonomous Health Framework is useful for all supported versions of Oracle Database systems.
Availability and performance
What kind of availability issues can be resolved with Oracle Autonomous Health Framework?
Oracle AHF can resolve runtime issues that threaten the availability of the software stack, either through a software issue (DB, GI, OS) that causes the database or one of its instances to become unresponsive, or issues with the underlying hardware resources (CPU, Memory, Network, Storage) that cause a server to be evicted from the cluster and shut down all the database instances running there.
What kind of performance issues can be resolved with Oracle Autonomous Health Framework?
Oracle AHF can resolve the runtime issues that threaten the performance of a system as determined by the database client or application, either due to software issues (bugs, configuration, contention, etc.) or client issues (demand, query types, connection management, etc.).
How does Oracle Autonomous Health Framework resolve availability and performance issues?
Oracle AHF components work 24/7 in daemon mode to address availability and performance issues and ensure high availability for the database system. The components work together to provide a framework that continuously monitors the database system, maintains best practice configurations, and issues alerts about vulnerability to known concerns. The framework monitors database system performance autonomously and manages resources to maintain service level agreements. It also preserves resource availability in common cases of memory stress and of resources being blocked by hung sessions. AHF even uses machine learning to discover potential cluster and database problems, sending notifications with corrective actions to prevent the issues altogether. And finally, for the issues that are hard to detect and require Oracle Support, Oracle AHF speeds the issue diagnosis, triage, and resolution process.
How does Oracle Autonomous Health Framework resolve hangs?
Oracle Autonomous Health Framework autonomously detects and resolves hangs. A hang occurs when a chain of one or more sessions is blocked by another session and is not able to make any progress. Usually, these chains of sessions have a root or a final blocker session, called the victim session, that blocks all the other sessions in the chain. Once a victim session is selected, AHF applies hang resolution heuristics on the session. If the chain of sessions progresses or the hang resolves itself automatically, then AHF doesn’t take any action. However, if the hang doesn’t resolve itself, then the framework may resolve it by terminating the victim session or, if that’s unsuccessful, terminating the process.
Since Oracle Autonomous Health Framework resolves hangs autonomously, how do I know if a session is being terminated in the process?
While Oracle AHF detects and resolves hangs autonomously, it continuously logs all detections and resolutions in DB Alert Logs. So, if a session is terminated, it will be noted in these alert logs. The details of complete hang resolution are also available in dump trace files.
Installation
How do I install Oracle Autonomous Health Framework, Orachk, Exachk, and TFA?
Oracle AHF, containing Orachk, Exachk, and TFA—is probably already installed on your system, as it’s included with Oracle Database and Grid Infrastructure installations and Release Updates.
Separate installation instructions can be found in the user guide under Installing, Upgrading, Patching, and Uninstalling Oracle Autonomous Health Framework.
Where are Oracle Autonomous Health Framework, TFA, Orachk, and Exachk installed?
When installed with Oracle Database or Grid Infrastructure, Oracle AHF will be located within the respective product’s installation directory. When installed separately, the default installation directory on Linux is /opt/oracle.ahf, but you can also customize the installation location.
Usage
How do I run Oracle Autonomous Health Framework?
Once installed, Oracle AHF will automatically and proactively run weekly best practice health checks, collect diagnostics, and provide notifications when problems are detected. For more information, see the Oracle Autonomous Health Framework user guide.
How do I check the Oracle Autonomous Health Framework status?
The command ahfctl statusahf can be used to check the status of Oracle AHF. More information can be found in the ahfctl statusahf section of the user guide.
How do I start Orachk or Exachk?
Orachk or Exachk can be run either automatically or on demand with the orachk or exachk command. More information can be found in the user guide under Compliance Checking with Oracle Orachk and Oracle Exachk.
How do I execute TFA?
TFA collects diagnostics and sends notifications automatically. It can also be run on demand via thetfactl command. More information can be found in the user guide under Collect Diagnostic Data.
How do I stop TFA?
The TFA daemon can be stopped by running tfactl stop. More information can be found in the user guide under Managing and Configuring Oracle Trace File Analyzer.
How do I remove Oracle Autonomous Health Framework?
Oracle AHF can be uninstalled by runningahfctl uninstall. More information can be found in the user guide under ahfctl uninstall.
How do I know if TFA is running?
By default, the TFA daemon will run automatically, monitoring your database for problems on an ongoing basis. If it detects any issues, it will collect relevant diagnostics and send notifications.
You can check the status of Trace File Analyzer by running the ahfctl statusahf command.
How do I upload TFA collections?
Oracle AHF can be used to upload TFA diagnostic collections to My Oracle Support to attach to your Service Request.
To upload a TFA collection, run the command ahfctl upload -name mos -id <sr number> -file <file>. More information can be found in the user guide under Running AHFCTL Upload Commands to Upload Diagnostics.
How do I find the TFA version?
The TFA version can be found by running the command tfactl version.
Update
How do I update Oracle Autonomous Health Framework, including Orachk, Exachk, and TFA?
The easiest way to maintain AHF is to use AutoUpgrade.
- Configure AHF AutoUpgrade:
ahfctl setupgrade -swstage /scratch/ahf_stage -autoupg rade on -frequency 7 - When a new version of AHF is available, simply download and stage in the swstage directory
- Based on the checking frequency you’ve specified, AHF will detect the new version and automatically upgrade
More information can be found in the user guide under ahfctl upgrade commands.