Oracle LMS detection in a Clustered env. with failover Servers

[mschwach]

When discovering Oracle DB-Instanzes in a clustered env with one failover Server, Oracle LMS detection throws an Error on the failover Server, let's call him "B". Error is about a missing Instanz which is configured on "B" but not running.

Instanz is currently running on Server "A" and "B" has only configurations for this Instanz. So in case of Errors, "B" can take over from "A".

Oracle error is also complaining about a missing a directory, which is located on a NFSshare. In case of errors this share will switch from "A" to System "B", but is not present during the OracleLMS-scan.

So, seems like an Oracle-false-positiv message, which is confusing.

Any idea how to handle this?

[JohnSorensenDK]

@mschwach 

I'm a little confused about your description that I'm interpreting into that the Oracle LMS scan fails on server "B", but at the same time you're claiming that it results in "false positives". Do you see the Oracle instances running on server "B" in the Oracle Instances view although the scan has failed?

Thanks,

[mschwach]

Hello JohnSorensenDK

the Instanz is not running on "B". B is only prepared to take over from A in case of Errors.

When scanning B with FlexNet Agent 2020 R1 - we can see following error message in tracker.log:

[Fri Nov 20 09:54:21 2020 (G, 0)] {56951004} WARNING: Configuration properties for the Oracle home "/pkg/addp/oracle/base/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1" could not be discovered and instances in this home will not be inventoried.
[Fri Nov 20 09:54:21 2020 (G, 0)] {56951004} +-- "/pkg/addp/oracle/base/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1": Discovered by = Oratab, Executable ID = 0:0, DBA group = "dba", Home owner = "", Has SQLPlus = false, SQLNet Authentication Services = "", Can Inventory = false, Real Home = ""
[Fri Nov 20 09:54:21 2020 (G, 0)] {56951004} | +-- Instance "LISTENER_addp": Discovered by = Oratab, Process ID = 0, State = unknown, Process owner = "<N/A>"
[Fri Nov 20 09:54:21 2020 (G, 0)] {56951004} | +-- Instance "addp": Discovered by = Oratab, Process ID = 0, State = unknown, Process owner = "<N/A>"
[Fri Nov 20 09:54:21 2020 (G, 0)] {56951004} WARNING: The SQLPlus command was not found in Oracle home "/pkg/addp/oracle/base/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1".
[Fri Nov 20 09:54:21 2020 (G, 0)] {56951004} WARNING: Did not detect instance "LISTENER_addp" in "/pkg/addp/oracle/base/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1" to be in a running state.
[Fri Nov 20 09:54:21 2020 (G, 0)] {56951004} WARNING: Did not detect instance "addp" in "/pkg/addp/oracle/base/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1" to be in a running state.

Also in our FNMS reports we can see following errormsg for this particular instanz.

Unable to gather Oracle database information, sqlplus or sqlnet.ora file may be missing for oracle home: /pkg/addp/oracle/base/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1

We thought that's an Error so we investigated with our DB-Admins, they told us, it's not an Error because the System is prepared for the Instanz but it is currently not running there.

Maybe the false-positiv statement is wrong here. Sorry for the confusion. 

[JohnSorensenDK]

@mschwach 

No worries, just want to make sure that your expectations are being addressed...

The error message indicates (correctly as I understand your scenario) that the Oracle instance isn't currently running on server "B", and therefore it obviously cannot run the Oracle LMS scripts against the instance database.

So please allow me to return to your expectations now, i.e. which outcomes did you expect the FlexNet inventory to collect from server "B"? Do you need to somehow make both server "A" and server "B" consume from an Oracle license?

Please elaborate on this.

Thanks,

[mschwach]

Hi JohnSorensenDK,

we're a little afraid to chase possible Errors just to find out, that's not an Error.

In my honest opinion, I've would have expected that OracleLMS-scans or FlexNet Agent could give a hint, that this particular System might be part of a cluster and therefore the failure message in tracker.log - or somewhere else - is more precise about the current situation.

Else wise, as an global acting company, we've a lot of Oracle DBs installed. And this error message appears for almost 100 Systems.

hope this helps

regards,
Matthias

[JohnSorensenDK]

@mschwach 

I understand where you're coming from with your expectations.

However, such "intelligence" of the inventory agent would then also require that it takes hypervisor/virtualization and clustering technologies as well as operating system differences into consideration when scanning and interpreting cluster membership or not (IMO).

Please raise an enhancement request if you think that this is important, and please include the business value and outcomes that you feel this would provide to your team and organization.

Thanks,

[mschwach]

Hello JohnSorensenDK,

I understand your position. And a case is already open @flexnetsupport.
But is the inquiry here not enough to see the business value for the customers?

I also understand that OracleLMS detection is built into FlexNetAgent - and that OracleLMS scripts must provide the necessary information to be fetched by FlexAgent.

I'm sorry here - but do you really think a customer will turn to Oracle for their scripts?

If I am wrong here - then I would like to sincerely apologize.

regards,

Matthias

[JohnSorensenDK]

@mschwach 

I'm sorry for not making myself clear in my previous update. I.e. it's me owing you an apology, not the other way around...

I was trying to explain that clustering (and virtualization) technologies vary by operating system as well as by hypervisor technology. The FlexNet inventory agent and the correlation of inventory collected by multiple inventory agents in a cluster currently doesn't properly handle the scenario where an Oracle instance isn't running on one of the cluster nodes and therefore results in the error message you've seen when it executes the Oracle LMS scripts without correlating this to check whether the instance is running on another cluster node. Hence my reference to an enhancement request through support...

Your expectation of Flexera including the Oracle LMS scripts and having the inventory agent execute these is valid.

I would still like to better understand whether there are any license consumption consequences for your organization in the described scenario by FlexNet Manager missing to make the correlation of the Oracle instances running/not running on the specific cluster nodes?

Thanks,