Managing Middleware with Oracle 12c Cloud Control

on October 30, 2015


Java EE applications, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and composite applications are being increasingly employed by organizations to perform various functions. While these applications provide great flexibility, the other side of the coin is that they are harder to manage efficiently.
Monitoring numerous WebLogic Server domains and enterprise applications deployed across multiple tiers has become an increasingly more complex endeavor. Tracking ever-changing configurations of servers and applications and managing capacity to meet changing workloads is another major concern.

Tracking multitier transactions and gaining visibility into transactions and the performance of SOA applications are big challenges as well. Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c provides a comprehensive management solution for meeting the enterprise needs that we describe in this chapter, especially for companies that depend on sophisticated applications using Oracle Fusion Middleware and its backbone, the Oracle WebLogic Server application server. OEM Cloud Control provides a comprehensive monitoring system, with built-in sophisticated performance diagnostic capabilities. It also provides automated configuration management, provisioning, and compliance features.

Managing Middleware with Cloud Control

Cloud Control comes with a set of Oracle Management plug-ins that contain management features customized for Oracle Fusion Middleware targets and designed to help you monitor and manage all the middleware targets you’ve deployed. Oracle also offers two additional management packs that enhance Cloud Control’s capabilities to handle middleware. These are the WebLogic Server Management Pack Enterprise Edition and the SOA Management Pack Enterprise Edition, both of which are installed by default, but need additional licensing. Together, these packs provide all the ammunition you need to manage your entire middleware environment. The WLS Management Pack offers performance management, JVM diagnostics, business transaction management, and configuration features, and the SOA management pack provides these same features for SOA applications. You can monitor SOA products such as Oracle BPEL Process Manager (BPEL Process Manager), Oracle Service Bus (OSB), and Oracle SOA Suite 11g through Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, by enabling Oracle SOA Management Pack Enterprise Edition.
OEM Cloud Control 12c is a great tool for a one-stop management center for taking care of numerous Oracle Fission Middleware products such as Oracle WebLogic Server and various components of Oracle Fusion Middleware, as well as many types of middleware from other companies besides Oracle. OEM Cloud Control comes preconfigured with various performance monitoring and availability indicators, and you can, of course, configure your own levels for these indicators. Middleware-related configuration management, performance monitoring, diagnostics, and lifecycle management are the broad areas where you can use the power of OEM Cloud Control 12c.
Cloud Control comes with a number of management plug-ins and connectors that enable you to manage non-Oracle software, including application servers such as IBM WebSphere Application Server and JBoss, as well as EMC storage, BMC Remedy, Check Point Firewall, and F4 BIG IP. You can use the Topology Viewer to view your middleware environment in a graphical format across multiple Oracle WebLogic domains.
It’s natural for you to wonder why and how the OEM Cloud Control interface will be necessary when you already have the OEM Fusion Middleware Control (Fusion Middleware Control) at your disposal. Fusion Middleware Control, which is part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware installation, helps you manage a single Oracle Fusion Middleware farm and a single WebLogic domain. This tool is ideal for performing routine tasks such as monitoring and deploying applications and making configuration changes, for example.
Cloud Control has a much wider scope and has a much more powerful set of capabilities. Cloud Control lets you monitor and manage your entire middleware tier—its capabilities encompass all the Oracle Fusion and other middleware running in your environment. OEM Cloud Control not only helps you monitor and manage middleware, but also fully configure and manage the entire lifecycle of all middleware components. Additionally, it helps you diagnose and tune the performance as well as troubleshoot any component in your middleware tier. Fusion Middleware Control, in addition to being limited to the management of a single domain, won’t let you access and analyze historical performance metrics, whereas OEM Cloud Control provides very strong support for the analysis of historical performance data.
Following is a quick summary of the astounding number of things you can do with Cloud Control in managing your middleware tier:

 

  • Manage Oracle Fusion Middleware components, including WebLogic Server 12c
  • Manage other products, such as IBM WebSphere Application Server and JBoss Application Server
  • Diagnose availability and performance issues relating to middleware
  • Trace end-user requests from client to the service endpoint across all applications
  • Analyze Java EE and SOA applications using Application Dependency and Performance (ADP)
  • Use Java Diagnostics to diagnose performance problems of Java applications

 

Our main thrust in this chapter is to show you how to use OEM Cloud Control to monitor and manage both Oracle Fusion Middleware applications and the heart of Oracle Fusion Middleware—Oracle WebLogic Server 12c, the phenomenal application server that undergirds all Oracle Fusion Middleware applications.
We categorize our exploration of middleware monitoring management into the following sections:

 

  • Discovery
  • Proactive Monitoring
  • Diagnostics
  • Managing Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud

 

Related Posts

Comments

  1. we try to setup OEM 13 c to monitor JBoss 6.4. but the OEM could not discover the JBoss application server.

    we got the “Finding Targets – Failed.
    No JBoss server was found running on the specified port.”

    we use default JMX port 9990 which is defined in standalone.xml.

    Do you have suggestions? any helps are appreciated!

    Thanks
    Charles

Leave a Reply