Oracle Distributed Systems

SNMP Support

Beginning with Oracle Version 7.2 and SQL*Net Version 2.2, Oracle has included SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) support in its products. This functionality provides administrators with “hooks” they can use to gather performance and diagnostic information from Oracle for analysis in a third-party tool (such as Hewlett-Packard’s OpenView). The SNMP hooks are integrated into the Oracle product line; however, you must run an SNMP master agent in order to run Oracle’s subagent. Oracle does not provide the SNMP master agent; they provide SNMP subagents that communicate with the master agent. Oracle’s subagent is a separate executable (dbsnmp on the Unix port).

The primary use of Oracle SNMP is that DBAs or data center operators can use a tool such as OpenView to monitor the status of all Oracle databases and listeners on the network. The range of information includes:

• Database instance status

• Performance problems

• Discovery of new databases

• Ability to set alerts for various events and configure automatic notification of the appropriate personnel

• Ability to store and report on historical data

Configuring SNMP Support

Essentially, the only way to configure the Oracle SNMP subagents is with the Oracle Network Manager product, which (as of this writing) exists only on the Windows NT platform. The Network Manager provides an interface for setting parameters and generating the SNMP.ORA configuration file, which is required for each managed node. The SNMP.ORA file resides in the ...