Re: Grid Control - opinions please

Jared,

I did a prototype install last summer (Release 1 on HP-UX). We primarily wanted to check out the monitoring capabilities, since we had already determined that the performance packs were out of our price range. (8 CPU's * 12,000 = 96,000 for the ERP database. Multiply by 2 to add the data warehouse. Then add all the little servers and the servers at remote sites. Ouch!!)

I added the Grid Control agent to our key tests servers; HP and NT, about 5 servers, maybe 12 active databases. Created accounts to allow the Operations team to look, but no touch. Created accounts for the DBA's and started sending out email alerts for critical problems.

In general, no one got real excited with the out of the box functionality. The really interesting stuff required the packs. We're still like to give Operations a visual indicator of which systems are up and which are not, as we'd like to stop the 3:00 am calls that go like this:

  "Job xyz failed with an Oracle error."
  "Is the scheduled maintenance complete yet?"
  "Oh.  Nevermind."

It would be a lot of work to get the alerts configured to something meaningful for our systems, and we already have email alerts that are adequate for most issues. I also saw false positives and false negatives reported in Release 1. One concern was that, sooner or later, someone might turn on something that requires a pack and we would owe lots of bucks.

We plan to retry the prototype exercise with Release 2, but it's not available for HP-UX and I don't have a Linux box with anything close to the required memory available. It's just not a priority right now ...

Robyn

On 4/5/06, Jared Still <jkstill_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmm...
>
> Two hours and no responses.
>
> GC does not appear to be in wide use.
>
>
> On 4/5/06, Jared Still <jkstill_at_gmail.com > wrote:
> >
> >
> > Well, is that subject a loaded question, or what?
> >
> > Background: I have never used OEM.
> >
> > Well, I have actually, but only long enough to try it and discard it
> > because I didn't like it too much.
> >
> > I've been told that GC is completely re-written and a much
> > better product than OEM. What I want to find out is if there
> > is some community concensus to back up that claims.
> >
> > Let's assume none of the add-on packs ($$$$) will be used,
> > and RAC is not involved.
> >
> > What does GC bring to the table that is worthwhile in your opinion?
> >
> > I was also told that GC could be used to (easily?) download and
> > apply Critical Patch Updates. Maybe not quite automated, but
> > simplified at least. Has anyone experienced that?
> >
> > It was also stated that this beast would require 8Gig of RAM,
> > which seems rather excessive.
> >
> > TIA,
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jared Still
> > Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jared Still
> Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist
>

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