Anyone using the Oracle Enteprise Manager Grid Control plug-in for F5 LTM in production?

We started testing with Grid Control Plugin, but the collected data is different from what we have been expected.

 

 

The plugin was downloaded from the following Forum and our LTM version is 9.4.7.

 

"(From Beta Forum) Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control Plug-In Update"

 

 

In our environment, we can observe some connections and some traffc using "b pool show" command and "b node show" command,

 

but the following values are always zero on Grid Control GUI.

 

 

BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager > ALL METRICS > Server Pool Members

 

Current Connections

 

Maximus Connections

 

Total Connections

 

Server Pool Member Total Connections/Sec

 

Server Pool Member Bits In Rate(kbps)

 

Server Pool Member Bits Out Rate(kbps)

 

Server Pool Member Connection Used (%)

 

 

BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager > ALL METRICS > Nodes

 

Current Connections

 

Maximus Connections

 

Total Connections

 

Node Total Connections/Sec

 

Node Bits In Rate(kbps)

 

Node Bits Out Rate(kbps)

 

Node Connection Used (%)

 

 

I am not sure if these values should be zero or not.

 

If those values should not be zero, I would like to know a solution.

 

If they should be zero, please kindly advise me which commmand is issued by Grid Control Plugin

 

when collecting these information.

 

 

Looking through plugin source, I guess the following values are achieved as the results,

 

 

APIReference > Common > StatisticType

 

STATISTIC_CLIENT_SIDE_BYTES_IN

 

STATISTIC_CLIENT_SIDE_BYTES_OUT

 

STATISTIC_CLIENT_SIDE_CURRENT_CONNECTIONS

 

STATISTIC_CLIENT_SIDE_MAXIMUM_CONNECTIONS

 

STATISTIC_CLIENT_SIDE_TOTAL_CONNECTIONS

 

 

Thanks.

Hi sn,

 

 

I suspect that you may be using one of the beta versions and not the final release.

 

 

May I suggest that you try the final release, located at http://devcentral.f5.com/Community/GroupDetails/tabid/1082223/asg/63/showtab/activity/Default.aspx

 

 

There, you will find the plug-in, installation instructions, and source code. Click 'read more' next to each posting to download the files.

 

 

Ron

New and improved download location for the OEM Plug-in!

 

 

http://devcentral.f5.com/Community/GroupDetails/tabid/1082223/asg/63/Default.aspx

 

 

Ron

Ron,

 

Thanks for the plugin.

 

 

We installed the new release, but we have two problems now.

 

1. "Server Pool Members" metrics and "Nodes" metrics are zero even when we access pool members.

 

2. Collection schedule values for "Server Pool Members" and "Nodes" have been changed from 10 minutes to "Real-time Only".

 

We cannot set specific values like "Every 10 Minutes".

 

 

Both previouse release and new release are version 10.2.0.5.

 

and as far as I have seen, collection schedule for the following metrics have been changed.

 

Physical_Interfaces: 10Min to 1HR

 

Virtual_Server_Stats: 10Min to 30Min

 

Server_Pool_Members: 10Min to Real-time Only

 

Nodes: 10Min to Real-time Only

 

 

Do you have any solutions for these two problems?

 

 

Thank you for your support!

 

Hi sn,

 

 

I'm sorry to learn that you are still encountering challenges.

 

 

I was looking at the following thread from the developer:

 

 

http://devcentral.f5.com/Forums/tabid/53/aff/42/aft/813784/afv/topic/Default.aspx813784

 

 

I made many of the metric collections less frequent with this version of the plug-in. Several metrics that were collected every 10 minutes are collected hourly in this version. As a result, there is about an 8x reduction in stats space compared to the previous.

 

 

Because this is still pre-release, the plug-in has the same version number as the previous release (10.2.0.5.0) if you've installed an older version, to update you need to remove, undeploy, and delete the old version, then go through the process to import, deploy, and add this one.

 

 

So, I'm not surprised that the version number changed. Did you un-install the previous version first?

 

 

If this doesn't work, I'll e-mail the developer to see if they have any ideas.

 

 

Ron

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, should have should "I'm not surprised that the version number DID NOT change"

 

 

Ron

Ron,

 

 

We deleted the old version then installed the new one, but we got two prolems as I previously posted.

 

 

In terms of prolbem 1, we still have the same problem.

 

Connections to server pool members and nodes are always 0 even when we access those nodes via BIG-IP virtual servers.

 

Could you kindly contact the developers about this issue?

 

 

We have solved the problem 2 by changing some parts of a plugin file

 

about intervals for the Server_Pool_Members metric and Nodes metric.

 

 

Original file was like the following.

 

IntervalSchedule INTERVAL="1" TIME_UNIT="HR" /

 

 

We changed "HR" to "Hr" like the following.

 

IntervalSchedule INTERVAL="1" TIME_UNIT="Hr" /

 

 

 

Thanks.

Thanks for your message. I'lll alert the developer (he's actually an Oracle employee who did this work in his spare time). Hopefully, he will be able assist.

 

 

Short of that, your best recourse will be to work with the source code on your own.

 

 

Ron

Hi SN,

 

 

I just heard back from the developer. He was having difficulty posting to the discussion group, but wanted me to let you know that he is looking into it. He's traveling today, so he won't be able to to much until tonight.

 

 

Regarding the collection time questions, he did have to dial those back in order to get certified--it was collecting way to much info and bloating the DB with the original settings. Of course, customers like yourself are free to set times for frequently, if desired.

 

 

Ron