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Terry_Koch_9116's avatar
Terry_Koch_9116
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Sep 03, 2009

(From Beta Forum) F5/Oracle Plug-in BETA

Welcome to the Oracle Gid Control 10.2.0.5 F5 BIG-IP Plug-In Beta!

 

 

This is an early versison of the updated plug-in - the goal was to establish connectivity with BIG-IP 9.4.x LTMs, and allow navigation to all of the existing reports with no stack traces, hangs, or other adverse side affects.

 

 

Because this is a beta, there are no assumed or implied warranties that this will not break either Grid Control or the BIG-IP. I highly recommend this to be installed on a test Grid Environment and non mission critical load balancer(s). That said, I haven't managed to crash either. I have not tested against BIG-IP version 10 LTMs yet but am planning to in the very near future.

 

 

The installation is exactly the same as the original plug-in, with these additional requirements:

 

 

The minimum Grid Control version is 10.2.0.5*

 

The minimum Agent version is 10.2.0.5 **

 

 

* I changed the minimum grid control version in the plug-in metadata.

 

** The agent needs to be using the JDK 1.5 version for the JVM.

 

 

Because this is a remote agent deployment (remote from the load balancer) and if you're paranoid like me, you may want to consider installing an agent just for the beta. Because I'm testing in a sandbox that nobody else uses, the agent I'm using is also monitoring the 16 other targets hogging memory on my laptop, with no adverse affects to said hogs. Also, the beta plug-in should be able to co-exist with the old plug-in. Users with mixed environments may want to leave the BIG-IP 9.1.x LTMs on the old plug-in, and point the beta plug-in at the newer ones. As I don't have access to any BIG-IP 9.1 LTMs, I'd be interested to hear feedback on those as well. Other than the user report will be empty (because I currently have it commented out) it should work.

 

 

 

This first version does not include the source. The source version will be packaged separately, once I'm done documenting procedures for making updates to the plug-in. Feel free to comment on the relative priority between this task and the one listed at the bottom of the post.

 

 

 

Basic instructions for loading the plug-in:

 

 

1. Download the jar file from the link below, and save to a temp directory.

 

http://devcentral.f5.com/LinkClick.aspx?link=http%3a%2f%2fdevcentral.f5.com%2fdownloads%2foracle%2ff5_bigip_ltm_mpi.jar&tabid=73&mid=433

 

 

2. From the Grid Control homepage, click the Setup link in the upper right corner.

 

 

3. Click the Management Plug-Ins link in the left margin.

 

 

4. Click the Import Button on right side of the page, then the Browse button next to the input field. Browse to and select the jar.

 

 

5. Click the List Archive. You should now have a 10.2.0.5.0 version of the plug-in listed.

 

 

6. Click the Deploy button and go through the wizard to attach it to an agent. Note that you'll need to have preferred credentials set for the agent (and probably the host it is on also). Once this completes you'll be back at the Management Plug-ins Page, and Deployed Agents should now display 1 for the plug-in.

 

 

7. Click the Agents link up in the blue menu stripe, or if there isn't a link, Targets tab, then the All Targets link from the blue stripe.

 

 

8. Click the agent that the plug-in is installed on to go to its home page.

 

 

9. At the upper right corner of the Monitored Targets table, Select the Add [initial val is Database Instance] dropdown menu, scroll up and select BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager.

 

 

10. Name the LTM - this is what will be displayed in the Targets Table, and fill out the LTM host name (don't preface with https:// as the plug-in will prepend it), port (probably 443) and user / pass.

 

 

11. Press the test button and make sure you can connect to the LTM before applying/saving the changes.

 

 

That's it and you should now be able to view the LTM from the Targets tab.

 

 

Known issues

 

 

Home Tab:

 

1. Availability reads down, even though LTM is up

 

 

Reports Tab:

 

Switch Status - reads No Data Found

 

Performance data empty

 

User data missing

 

From Virtual Server report, Stats, Performance, and Connection stats data tables empty

 

Server Pools tables empty

 

Top 4 tables in Manager Profiles report empty

 

 

I'll be checking into and hopefully resolving whether all of the empty reports are a data collection or upload issue over the weekend, and will publish an updated plug-in when I fix it. Will also look into the operational status being incorrect.

 

 

Please include the following environmentals with reports:

 

 

OEM version and OS

 

Agent version

 

Plug-in version

 

BIG-IP version

 

 

Thanks, and have fun!

4 Replies

  • Ron_Carovano_75's avatar
    Ron_Carovano_75
    Historic F5 Account
    Posted by Ron Carovano from an e-mail by Phil Whitehead.

     

     

    From: Philip Whitehead

     

    Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 11:57 PM

     

    To: Ron Carovano, Jr.

     

    Subject: RE: Oracle Grid Control plug-in for BIG-IP now available for beta testing

     

     

    Looks good so far.

     

     

     

    1. The fact that is is marked down is a problem.

     

    2. HTTP profiles missing from metrics.

     

     

    I will continue testing.

     

     

    Phil Whitehead

     

    Principal Technical Consultant

     

     

     

  • Hello,

     

     

    We have it installed as well and it appears to be working... No more errors like before. Will do further testing and report later..

     

     

    - Alex DeMarco
  • Hi there,

     

     

    is this still in BETA? Just in case this forum is out of date.

     

    ta

     

    natasha