DBA/Unix tools now available

From: Petter Henrik Hansen <petter_at_fdmetd.UUCP>
Date: 26 Jul 94 12:14:09 GMT
Message-ID: <4387_at_fdmetd.UUCP>

I have seen that there are a lot of people asking for information about the different DBA tools available. But what about the unix environment? Oracle is not the ONLY thing to consider when administrating the database. What about diskspace, backup to tape/disc, automatic jobs (cron) and automatic monitoring and alarms among other thing? The ideal thing must be to incorporate Unix into the Oracle administration. (An example is the automatick check of free disk space before trying to add a database file)

If you have any comments/questions I'd be happy to email you.

The rest contains a short (345 lines) description of the system.

I feel that this product will add a lot of tricks to the bag of the Oracle (and/or Unix) administrator.

U n i M a s t e r

Systems management for the unix environment

UniMaster represents an integrated networked approach to Systems Management for the Unix environment. The modular structure makes is easy to adopt UniMaster to the level of functionality needed to support an efficient operations environment for your company. Today UniMaster is used by companies having one single system, and companies running networks with several hundreds systems from several vendors.

UniMaster is a family of co-operative products built on a common Framework. The Framework provides the System Management Applications (SMA) with common services, ensuring the integration between the different SMA's and hiding the complexities of multi-platform operations.

UniMaster makes it easy to keep up with changing needs and gives the best return on your investments.

System Management Areas

System Administration - In the day-to-day operation of Unix systems you have to perform a lot of different administrative tasks, like User administration and Storage management. Also, when problems are detected someone will have to correct them. It is in these moments that the efficiency of the system management product is vital. UniMaster does not only provide you with the tools necessary to discover problems, but also give you the possibility to investigate and provide some kind of corrective action.

Database Administration - Databases very often contains your most valuable data. Database systems are also very complex products and need special care and skills. UniMaster integrates the operation of databases with the rest of the system, and frees your database administrators to other productive work.

Automated Operations - When operations occur, UniMaster can schedule actions automatically. A job scheduler is also provided to automate your batch jobs and other routines.

Performance and Capacity management - Pinpoint bottlenecks and review historical data on capacity.

Security management - Detect security breaches and possible viruses.

Application management - To provide for the management of your own application, UniMaster gives you very powerful functions and tools ike a shell script administrator, DBADM administration, logging facilities and a comprehensive menu functionality. See also the description of Systems integration below. We consider this are to be one of the most important in systems management.

Openness and standards

UniMaster is built on standard interfaces and an open architecture. The Framework is designed to take advantage of new standards like OSF's DCE as they emerge. The Event Notification Services can deliver all messages and alarms in SNMP format to other Network Management Systems. For companies using Hewlett Packard's HP OpenView platform, a special integration module is available. There will also be special integration modules for IBM's Netview/6000 and other leading Network Management products in the near future.

Systems Integration

To manage a network of Unix systems with mission critical applications in an efficient way, the operations department needs a systems management platform as the base for integrating applications and special routines. UniMaster provides powerful tools, interfaces and hooks which makes this job very efficient and automatically creates a standard operations environment.

Powerful and easy-to use routines to create a standardised user interface on shell scripts, commands and programs.
Customisable menus with multi-session capabilities for your operations staff and end users.
Functions to administrate, distribute and execute your own routines on any or several nodes in the network.
Make your shell scripts become client/server applications, taking advantage of UniMaster's powerful host selection facilities.
Centralise logging and event notification in a way suited to your organisation. Let your own applications and routines take advantage of the powerful Event Notification Services provided by UniMaster.
Customise UniMaster functions by plugging in your own routines in UniMaster hooks.

UniMaster/Admin

UniMaster/Admin is a collection of Systems Management Applications, covering the basic system administration tasks and security features in the Unix network. The product covers multi-node and multi-platform system administration tasks like:

User and group administration including user attributes like disk quotas, language and shell access permission.
Administration of Unix network definitions and NFS.
Efficient and flexible backup and restore routines.
Storage management.
Printer administration.
Systems operation.

UniMaster/DBadm for Oracle

UniMaster/DBadm for Oracle is a collection of Systems Management Applications, integrating the administration and operations of ORACLE RDBMSs with the day-to-day Unix operation and administration environment.

UniMaster/DBadm makes use of standard Oracle procedures and interfaces where ever possible, and enhances the usability and increases the availability of standard Oracle tools. UniMaster/DBadm has the unique capability to view the database operations and administration in relation to the current status of the rest of a Unix operations environment. This functionality increases the total efficiency and stability of the whole system and includes:

Database operations
Export/Import and log archiving
Database user administration
Database storage administration
Database utilities
Database backup and restore
Database monitoring and tuning
Personal queries

UniMaster/SysOp

UniMaster/SysOp is complementing UniMaster/Admin in the areas of advanced systems and applications management. With UniMaster/SysOp the system administrator get multi-node and multi-platform job scheduling, routine administration, systems automation and monitoring.

Monitor and collect historical data on system capacity and performance.
Set tresholds for warnings and alarms.
Trigger actions on events.
Distribute and schedule batch jobs in the network.
Manage, ditribute and execute your own routines in the network.

UniMaster/OVmanager

UniMaster/OVmanager integrates the UniMaster systems management environment with Hewlett Packards network and system management platform - HP OperView. For organisations already using, or planning to use HP OperView platform for managing their networks and multi-platform computer environment, the UniMaster OVmanager offers an additional level of integration and unification of their systems management environment.

Indicate warning and error situations on HP OpernView maps and symbols.
Explode symbols into system management area symbols and the full message text from UniMaster's Event Notification Services.
Easy customisation of detail levels.
Start UniMaster functions from HP OpenView, and use the HP OpenView symbols to indicate the node or group of node you wish to operate on.

Availability

The development of new SMAs is a constantly on going process to further enhance the functionality and cover new tasks in the constantly increasing area of system management. UniMaster is available on a wide range of platforms from different vendors. Call us for information on availability on your machine. This product sheet provides an overview of the current products and platforms available at the present time. UniMaster is currently available on the following machine platforms:

Bull
DEC/Ultrix
IBM RS/6000
Intel/SCO
HP9000/800 & 700
NCR3000
Sun/Solaris 1 & Solaris 2

UniMaster DBadm 3.2

Oracle 7.0 and heterogeneous Unix systems in network integrated administration software.

Using UniMaster DBadm the DBA can administer Oracle databases in a network of homogeneous or heterogeneous Unix systems without using SQL*Net.

Works in conjunction with UniMaster Admin (Unix administration) which means eg. backup of Oracle is not a separate part of a DBA's work but may be handled by the Unix administrator.

The UniMaster DBadm lays above Oracle and the OS and checks with the OS if certain Oracle tasks may be performed. (Do we have anough diskspace, remove files and so on)

The following DBA functions are run from the UniMaster DBadm interface:

Start/Stop

	Show database status and numbers of Oracle users logged on.
	Log active Oracle users out of the database.
	Show Oracle information (memory, processes, semaphores, sgafile)
	Start database.
	Start database in DBA mode.
	Stop database.
	Stop database immediate.
	Stop database abort.
	Cleanup function after eg. power failure.

User administration

	      Create  Change  Drope   Examine
	User	X	X	X	X
	Role	X	X	X	X
	Profile	X	X	X	X

	Resource limit administration.

Export/Import

	Export table.
	Export user.
	Export database.
	Automatic (cron) export.
	Import table.
	Import user.
	Import database. (Rebuild entire database first)

Storage admin

	Show controlfiles.
	Logfile administration. 
	Tablespace administration.
	Rollback administration.
	Object spaceadministration.