Re: AWR Viewer

There seems to be a LOT of confusion in this thread about AWR, Grid Control, and Licensing.

First off, let's start with the reference material. There are two documents that are of prime relevance here -- The "Oracle License and Services Agreement" (OLSA) and the Oracle 10g / 11g "Licensing Manual".

The former is the standard "shrink-wrap" license agreement that most small to medium Oracle sites have to comply with. (Although *some* do have the juice to negotiate their own ammendments; most very large sites have very different licenses, it seems.) The latter is part of the Standard Oracle 10g / 11g documentation set.

Sadly, you will find little about Grid Control or AWR in the OLSA. There is (or was) a section there -- if you look hard enough -- that mentions that Grid Control (10g, anyway) includes an embedded license for a single-purpose Enterprise Edition database (9iR1 EE database software is bundled with the 10g Grid Control distribution; did you ever wonder why it was so large?). This allows customers to use Grid Control in 10g database environments that are licensed exclusively for Standard Edition.

Now, AWR is included with 10g database -- all 10g databases including Standard Edition.

A very careful review of the 10g Licensing Manual, however, states quite clearly that you cannot *use* AWR or ADDM, nor even look at or query the underlying data, without first acquiring licenses for the extra-cost OEM "Performance Pack" and/or "Diagnostics Pack". Interestingly, although AWR is built in to Oracle Standard Edition, there is no way to use it -- nor to inspect the data that it gathers -- within the terms of the standard license agreements; the OEM "packs" cannot be licensed for Standard Edition databases.

The Original Poster in this thread seems to have been asking (I paraphrase) "Is there a less expensive way to use or view AWR data than licensing Grid Control?"

The answer to this question is simple: No.

Any product or tool that allows you to query or view AWR or ADDM data *first * requires that you obtain licenses of the OEM "Performance" and "Diagnostics" packs. Therefore, *any* solution that allows you to use AWR will necessarily cost *at least as much* as OEM.

I hope this helps.

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 8:46 PM, Job Miller <jobmiller_at_yahoo.com> wrote:

> have you ever clicked the "(+)" sign at the bottom of home page in grid
> control?
>
> It turns on link annotation, that shows you exactly what each link *may*
> require in terms of packs to use. I say may because it shows many different
> packs for each link usually, because depending on the tab/link, there may be
> more than one pack that provides that functionality for that target.
>
> If you disable the packs in the setup, those links that require licensing
> go away. As someone mentioned earlier, disable DIAG/TUNING and the
> Performance Tab goes away.
>
> You can click on the link annotation, and it will launch built in help that
> explains that "DC" means "Database Configuration", and it describes in a
> paragraph for each pack what functionality that pack provides.
>
> For example, if you see a metric for a host that is a hyperlink, that
> hyperlink is only enabled because you licensed one of the following things
> (DD, AD, SM...) Database Diagnostics (if it is a DB Server), AS Diagnostics
> (if it is an App Server), or System Monitoring for Hosts (if it is just a
> host you are monitoring).
>
> Any of those packs on that target will enable the historical collection of
> a particular metric related to that host. Without that pack, you will just
> have the current metric.
>
> Grid control is still very useful without packs for centralized db admin
> via a "GUI". It prevents the need for 30 different standalone java
> containers on a single server because you have 30 databases running on it
> all with DB Console turned on..
> Lots of folks are still holding on to the 9i thick java client for
> centralized admin because they can't/won't/don't want to install GC
> somewhere.
>
> Job
>
>
>
>
>
> --- On *Fri, 10/3/08, Jackie Brock <J.Brock_at_cablelabs.com>* wrote:
>
> From: Jackie Brock <J.Brock_at_cablelabs.com>
> Subject: RE: AWR Viewer
> To: Brandon.Allen_at_OneNeck.com, "Matthew Zito" <mzito_at_gridapp.com>,
> oracle-l_at_freelists.org
> Date: Friday, October 3, 2008, 2:01 PM
>
>
> Oracle really does need to provide a licensing FAQ and tutorial...
> perhaps even a training course! It's amazing how hard it is to get
> specific information about what's covered and what's not.
>
> I think the difficulty here may lie with the fact that yes, you can
> install and run grid control without the diagnostics packs (et al), but
> you can't do much with it. I believe that there is something in the
> install documentation for OEM that discusses whether grid control is
> included or not - my recollection is that grid control is included with
> the database, but not useful without the packs.
>
> -Jackie
>
> Jackie D. Brock
> Database Specialist - Systems Evaluation
> CableLabs(r)
> 858 Coal Creek Circle
> Louisville, CO 80027
> Email: j.brock_at_cablelabs.com
> 303-661-3347
> --http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>

-- 
Cheers,
-- Mark Brinsmead
  Senior DBA,
  The Pythian Group
  http://www.pythian.com/blogs

--
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