oracle weblogic server: remote monitoring and management

Raastech, Inc. 2201 Cooperative Way, Suite 600 Herndon, VA 20171 +1-703-884-2223 [email protected]

Oracle WebLogic Server: Remote Monitoring and Management

October 13, 2015

© Raastech, Inc. 2015 | All rights reserved. Slide 2 of 58 @Raastech

About Us

Ahmed Aboulnaga @Ahmed_Aboulnaga

18+ years Oracle experience

OCE (SOA Foundation Practitioner)

Oracle ACE

Harold Dost III @hdost

7+ years of Oracle Fusion Middleware experience

Co-author of “Oracle SOA Suite 12c Administrator’s Handbook”

Oracle ACE Associate

.


About Raastech

Small systems integrator founded in 2009

Headquartered in the Washington DC area

Specializes in Oracle Fusion Middleware

Oracle Platinum Partner – 1 in 3,000 worldwide

Oracle SOA Specialized – 1 in 1,500 worldwide

Oracle ACE – 2 of 500 worldwide

100% of consultants are Oracle certified

100% of consultants present at major Oracle conferences

100% of consultants have published books, whitepapers, or articles


Agenda

1. Monitoring and Managing Oracle WebLogic Server

2. Manual via Consoles

3. Automated via Tools

4. Custom via Scripts

5. Remote Options


Application servers (i.e., middleware) reside between the frontend and the backend

The mostly (but not always) host and execute web application code and web services

Oracle WebLogic Server is one such application server

Middleware


Introducing Oracle WebLogic Server

Obtained through acquisition of BEA Systems in 2008

Latest version is Oracle WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.3)

Industry’s best Java EE application server

Oracle marketing stuff:

New features for lowering cost of operations, improving performance, enhancing scalability

Provides flexibility between on-premise and third-party clouds

Increases developer productivity with mobile application development and maven support

Optimized for Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud

Provides extreme cloud performance, scalability, and elasticity, unmatched integration with Oracle’s Database 12c including multi-tenant database support


WebLogic Server is the core foundation of all Oracle Fusion

Middleware products (and applications)

OEM Grid

Control OBIEE

Access

Manager SOA Suite

WebCenter

Portal

Data

Integrator

Oracle WebLogic Server

Clustering – JNDI – Resource Adapters – JDBC – Security – Self Tuning

WebLogic Server: Foundation for Fusion Middleware


Monitoring versus Management

Monitoring involves being aware of the state of the system

View real-time state of the environment

Obtain historical metrics for analysis purposes

Receive notification and alerts

Management involves the ability to take action somehow

Turn on/off services and components

Modify configuration settings

Execute jobs (e.g., purge, backup, queues, etc.)

Issue a garbage collection


Key Areas of Monitoring and Administration

We want to monitor/administer key areas in WebLogic Server, such as:

Managed servers

Persistent stores

JMS servers

JMS destinations (i.e., queues, topics)

Work managed (i.e., threads)

Java applications

Clusters

Data sources and connection pools

Security realms (i.e., users)

Logs


Monitoring Approaches

Several monitoring approaches exist:

Manual (via the consoles)

Automated (via monitoring tools)

Custom (via custom scripts)


WebLogic Server Administration Console

Indispensable

All administration

performaned through

here

View real-time state of

environment

Does not have to be

running for your

applications to run, but

highly recommend


DMS Spy Servlet

The DMS Spy Servlet is available with WebLogic Server

Provides real-time metrics of your environments at this URL:

Can be invoked via command line as well for scripting purposes

http://<adminhost>:7001/dms/Spy


Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control

OEM Cloud Control 12c is the ideal tool for monitoring WebLogic Server (as

well as your entire infrastructure)

Perform administration, schedule jobs, correlate events, receive email

triggered alerts, and much, much more

Be prepared to spend some money on this


VMware vFabric Hyperic

Was a decent monitoring tool, though less comprehensive than OEM

Very cost effective (at least before VMware acquired them)

Many other 3rd party tools on the market exist as well (e.g., AppDynamics, etc.)

* We are not endorsing any product over another; just merely demonstrating the availability of 3rd party monitoring tools


Agents

All monitoring tools require an “agent” to be installed on the target server

Usually employ a “push” concept

Advantages

Agents can

continue collecting

even if there is no

connectivity to the

management server

Powerful features

and capabilities can

be built into the

agents

Disadvantages

Becomes painful if

trying to install /

upgrade hundreds

or thousands of

agents

Management Server

Target

Target

Target

Target

Agent

Agent

Agent

Agent


WLST (WebLogic Scripting Tool)

WLST is WebLogic Servers’s preferred scripting language

Common among administrators from a BEA background

WebLogic Server centric

Uses Jython (which allows Python scripts to be executed)

Scripts can be developed cross-platform, requiring little to no changes

Example of starting up a managed server using WLST:

$WL_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh

wls:/offline> connect('weblogic', 'welcome1', 't3://adminhost:7001')

wls:/soa_domain/serverConfig> start('soa_server1' , 'Server')


WLST Example: Managed Server State & Heap Size


WLST Example: JDBC Connection Pool Information


WLST Example: JMS Destination Message Information


WebLogic RESTful Management Service

Oracle WebLogic Server 11g introduces the RESTful Management Services

The monitoring resources are hosted by an internal web application

This is a feature that must be enabled

It provides access to key metrics easily accessible via REST (i.e., essentially

another API into WebLogic Server metrics)

They are generally accessible via a URL, for example:

http://<adminhost>:7001/management/tenant-monitoring/servers


WebLogic REST Service: Servers


WebLogic REST Service: Managed Server


WebLogic REST Service: Clusters


WebLogic REST Service: The “full format” option


HTML, JSON, and XML Formats

Data can be retrieved in HTML, JSON, and XML formats


Disadvantages of the RESTful Management Service

No historical metrics (only real-time, similar to the DMS Spy Servlet)

No administrative capabilities (monitoring only)

Limited to the following object types:

Servers

Clusters

Applications

Data Sources


Remote Monitoring

Our definition of remote monitoring:

“Not-at-your-desk monitoring”

Could be through:

Emails

Web-based console

Mobile app

Only alerts, but cannot view adhoc

Difficult if VPN access required first

Ideal scenario


Remote Management

Our definition of remote management:

“Issue commands when away from your desk”

Could be through:

Parsed email replies

Web-based console

Mobile app

Was cool back in 2004

Difficult if VPN access required first

Ideal scenario


Raastech Mobile Manager

“Raastech Mobile Manager for Oracle Fusion Middleware 1.0.0”

Developed by Raastech

Beta launch in October 2015

The world’s only mobile monitoring and management solution for

Oracle Fusion Middleware


Mobile App

Support for iOS and Android

Must connect to a backend management server


Designed with UX and CX in Mind

Emphasis placed on usability

Extremely responsive UI, even when viewing huge data sets

Focuses on top 20% core features

Management requests are instantaneous

Can literally get up and running within minutes


True Mobile Monitoring and Management


Remote Management

Runs on GlassFish Server or

WebLogic Server, with a

backend MySQL database

Relies on cloud service for

notifications

The 3 components are:

Raastech Mobile Manager

Raastech Management Server

Raastech Notification Server


Customizable Views

Display data as:

Raw

Percent bar

Line graph

Time bar

Framework allows the ability

to dynamically add additional

metrics to monitor


Historical Metrics

Hourly

Daily

Weekly

Monthly (6 months max)


Agentless Architecture

No “agent” required on target servers

Employs a “pull” concept

Intended to simplify provisioning

Simply enter host, port, username, and password!

Management Server

Target

Target

Target

Target


Management & Administration

Start and stop managed servers

Start and stop JMS servers

Start and stop data sources

Start and stop JMS resources such as topics and queues

Dump thread stacks

Garbage collect

Logs


Complete Oracle Fusion Middleware

Current:

Oracle WebLogic Server

Near term:

Oracle SOA Suite

Oracle Service Bus (OSB)

Oracle Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)

Oracle Access Manager (OAM)

Oracle Internet Directory (OID)

Future:

TBD


Features and Differentiators


Summary

Monitoring approaches:

Console-based

Tool-based

Custom-based

Poor remote monitoring and management options

No mobile app solution by any vendor (except for Raastech Mobile Manager), likely due to complexity

They’re missing the point, the key is to narrow focus to the most widely used areas


Q&A


Contact Information

Ahmed Aboulnaga

Technical Director

@Ahmed_Aboulnaga

[email protected]

Harold Dost III

Principal Consultant

@hdost

[email protected]

oracle weblogic server: remote monitoring and management

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