3
Job and Event Systems

The Oracle Enterprise Manager provides a Job Scheduling system and an Event Management system.

The Job Scheduling system provides stored and forwarding capability which enables the automation of standard and repetitive tasks. With the Job Scheduling system, you can create and manage jobs, schedule execution of jobs, and view information about the jobs. Jobs can be scheduled on a single node or multiple nodes in the network, and can be executed immediately or scheduled in advance. If a site or its agent is down, the job request is queued, and once the site can be contacted, the queued job is submitted to the agent.

The Event Management system allows you to monitor the network environment for specific events or conditions, such as loss of service or lack of storage. In the Event Management window, you choose pre-defined events or create custom events which the Intelligent Agents then detect on specified sites in the network, if and when such events occur.

When an event is detected, the agent sends an alert to the Console. You can also define the parameters for which you want to be notified, including having specific system administrators notified when an event occurs. Additionally, when registering an event set, you can create a fixit job which would automatically correct the problem.

Topic	See Page
Job Scheduling System	3-2
Event Management System	3-6

  This chapter contains the following topics: 

Job Scheduling System

The Job Scheduling system allows you to execute, schedule, and manage tasks on remote sites. With the Job Scheduling system, you can perform asynchronous tasks on multiple sites without having to maintain connections to all those sites. In addition, jobs can run simultaneously on different nodes in the system.

The Job Scheduling system, communication daemon, and Intelligent Agents work in unison to schedule and execute jobs.

The following steps describe the process for scheduling and executing a job:

1. From the Console Job window or menu bar, you set up and submit a job.
2. The Console's communication daemon sends the job information to the appropriate Intelligent Agent(s) residing on the targeted site(s) in the network.
3. If a site or its agent is down, the communication daemon queues the job. Once the site can be contacted, the daemon submits the queued job to the agent.
4. The agent executes the job on schedule.
5. The agent returns any related job messages back to the daemon for display in the Console.

This section discusses the following benefits of the Job Scheduling system.

Topic	See Page
Pre-defined Job Tasks	3-3
Stored and Forwarding Job Scheduling	3-3
Lights-Out Management	3-3
Cross-Platform Job Scripts	3-4
Communication with the Intelligent Agent	3-4
Composite Jobs	3-4
Scalability	3-5
Security and Jobs	3-5

 

Pre-defined Job Tasks

In addition to creating your own custom jobs in the Job Scheduling system, you can choose from a variety of pre-defined jobs which are installed on Oracle Enterprise Manager. Such jobs include starting up or shutting down databases or listeners and running SQL scripts or operating system programs.

Stored and Forwarding Job Scheduling

The Job Scheduling system is simple to use because the task of scheduling and managing jobs is centralized in the Console. You only need to submit a job once, regardless of the number of destinations on which the job will run or the number of times it will run.

When you submit a job, the Console's communication daemon sends the information about the job to the appropriate Intelligent Agents on the destinations you selected. The agents are responsible for executing the job on schedule and returning job status messages back to the daemon.

When a job is submitted to one or more destinations, it is possible that any one of those sites may be down. If a site or its agent is down, the communication daemon queues the job request that could not be delivered to the site. Once the site can be contacted, the daemon submits the queued job to the agent.

To schedule a job, you do not have to connect to the node on which the job will be run. You only need to submit the job to the Console and specify the destinations on which it should run. The destinations can include nodes, databases, listeners, names servers, and user-defined groups that have been created with the Map system.

Lights-Out Management

The Job Scheduling system allows you to automate repetitive and periodic tasks and the correction of problems. If a job has to be executed repetitively or periodically, the agent(s) execute(s) the job automatically without the need for DBA intervention. Messages about a job's status are reported back to the Console.

For automating the correction of problems, the Job Scheduling system works with the Event Management system. When you register an event to be monitored by Oracle Enterprise Manager, you have the option of specifying a fixit job, which will be executed to correct the problem if the event occurs.

Cross-Platform Job Scripts

Jobs are implemented as Tool Command Language (Tcl) scripts. Tcl is a scripting language that is used to write both job and event scripts. Oracle has also extended Tcl (OraTcl) to include database-specific commands.

With OraTcl, you can do the following tasks:

• Invoke operating system facilities such as programs or shell scripts
• Execute SQL and PL/SQL scripts
• Start up and shut down Oracle databases

Communication with the Intelligent Agent

Although you submit jobs from the Console, the job scripts themselves reside on the Intelligent Agents. Because the manner in which a job is implemented may depend on the platform, each agent keeps its own set of job scripts.

Composite Jobs

Some DBA jobs involve more than one task. For example, before making schema changes to a database, you may want to back up the database. To accommodate these types of jobs, the Job Scheduling system allows you to combine two or more jobs into one composite job. Each of the jobs contained in the composite job is called a task.

Composite jobs can contain test conditions based on the success of a task. For example, if a composite job consists of two tasks, starting up a database and then running a SQL script, you can specify that the script be run only if the database was successfully started.

Scalability

The Job Scheduling system allows you to run jobs efficiently on multiple remote nodes. When a job reaches a remote node, all the information needed to run the job is transferred to the Intelligent Agent servicing the node. When the job is executed, it is run by the agent on that node, minimizing network traffic between the remote node and the Console and daemon. The only communication between the agents and the Console and daemon are the initial transmission of job information and any subsequent messages about job status.

Because jobs are run independently by agents, you can submit any number of jobs on multiple nodes without affecting the Console. For example, you can submit several jobs and then immediately start another task without waiting for the agents to schedule the jobs.

Because there is an agent residing on each managed node, jobs can be run on multiple nodes simultaneously. For example, you can submit a job to run a report on multiple databases worldwide. The job is scheduled and run independently by each agent servicing each site. Therefore, the jobs can be executed by their respective agents at the same time.

Security and Jobs

Jobs are normally run with your preferred credentials. Therefore, you are only able to run jobs to perform functions that you can perform logged into the machine directly.

Because jobs are categorized by service types, such as databases or nodes, the Job Scheduling system knows which credentials to pass to the agent. For instance, if the job runs on a node, the Job Scheduling system passes either your preferred credentials for the node, or if none are specified, the username and password you used when you logged into the Console.

You can also choose to have a job run with the agent's credentials. This flexibility allows a site to easily incorporate the Job Scheduling system's authentication methods with existing security policies.

Event Management System

The Event Management system automates problem detection and correction by having Intelligent Agents monitor for specified events throughout the network and execute fixit jobs to correct the problems.

The following tasks can be done with the Event Management system:

• Creating and registering event sets
• Interpreting and correcting event occurrences
• Setting up administrators, e-mail and paging services, and the system modem

The following steps describe the process of registering an event set:

1. From the Console, you register a pre-defined event set or a set that you created.
2. The communication daemon sends the event information to the appropriate Intelligent Agent(s).
3. The agent does the monitoring and alerts you if the event occurs.
4. Optionally, you can specify a fixit job to be executed if the event occurs.
5. The event is logged in the repository and its status can be viewed in the Console.

When an event occurs, you can be notified in various ways, such as electronic mail or paging. The Oracle Enterprise Manager Console provides support for paging and e-mail when a pre-registered event is encountered. The Console supports alphanumeric paging systems that use the TAP (Telocator Alphanumeric Paging) protocol for automatic paging and both SMTP and MAPI for email notification.

This section discusses the following features of the Event Management system:

Topic	See Page
Proactive Events Management	3-7
Unsolicited Error Detection	3-7
Scalability	3-7
Pre-defined Event Sets	3-8
Event Scripts	3-8
Optimized Intelligent Agents	3-8

 

Proactive Events Management

When an event set is registered, you have the option to specify a fixit job, which is a job run by the agent if it detects the event. Events and fixit jobs used together automate problem detection and correction. This proactive management of an event ensures that a problem is corrected before it noticeably impact end-users.

Unsolicited Error Detection

The Event Management system does not require that the Intelligent Agents be the only mechanisms for error detection. Other tools and applications can be integrated with the Event Management system and can detect events independently of the Intelligent Agents. These tools and applications can communicate directly with the Intelligent Agents.

For example, a third-party application can detect an event on a node and report that event to the node's agent, which then sends the message back to the Console as usual.

Scalability

The Event Management system allows one person to monitor a large system. If you are responsible for 100 databases, you cannot connect to each database every day to check on its performance. However, the Event Management system can effectively have the agents monitor all the databases 24 hours a day and can alert you if a problem is detected.

Monitoring a large number of sites with the Event Management system puts minimal performance impact on the Console. Because the Intelligent Agents perform the monitoring independent of the Console, many sites can be monitored at once without slowing down other tasks.

In the Event Management system, event settings are stored based on the administrator registering the event. Therefore, if you are an administrator of a large system, you can customize your event systems to your preferences and tasks, so that you receive only those messages related to the events that you have submitted.

The Event Management system also allows you to focus on select systems and events. Focus control is vital in a large system. If you do not wish to monitor all sites or a large number of sites, you can pinpoint only the sites you wish to monitor.

Pre-defined Event Sets

Oracle Enterprise Manager provides a variety of standard, pre-defined event sets. Additional pre-defined events can be obtained with the optional Oracle Diagnostics Pack which includes an application called Oracle Advanced Events.

The standard, pre-defined event sets included with Oracle Enterprise Manager are fault management events:

• Database up/down
• Listener up/down
• Node up/down

Pre-defined Advanced Events that are included with the Oracle Diagnostics Pack include the following:

• Space and resource management events, such as a disk becoming too full or a tablespace running out of extents
• Performance management events, such as a CPU that is loading abnormally or a database system statistic that is too high

For more information on events, refer to the chapter on Events Management in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide, or refer to the Oracle Enterprise Manager Console's online help for events.

Event Scripts

As with jobs, events are OraTcl scripts that are stored on the agent. Event scripts can save state information between executions of an event script. This allows the agent to remember if it has detected a certain event already and eliminates redundant event messages to the Console. Saving state information also allows event scripts to maintain a history of a database and adjust to behavior that is typical.

Note: Unlike job scripts, event scripts are run with the permission of the agents.

Optimized Intelligent Agents

The Intelligent Agent has been optimized to efficiently monitor large numbers of systems in a node. Event tests are generally executed by the agent process directly and can be run quickly.

---