Quest® Performance Analysis for Oracle
Version 6.5
Release Notes
April 2008
Performance Analysis offers a comprehensive suite for diagnosing and tuning Oracle instance and application workloads. Through advanced diagnostic features and specially-designed interfaces, Performance Analysis transforms Oracle performance management into a faster, easier and more efficient experience.
Performance Analysis is a database real-time monitoring and historical analysis application. The Performance Analysis application uses the StealthCollect(™) resource-light high sampling rate technology, with the capacity to bind between the (anonymous) database activities and the real users, programs and Oracle resource consumers (dimensions) in an intuitive user-friendly interface. Listings, reports, and graphical flows and charts grant you both a system-wide perspective and the ability to drill-down into any existing or user-defined unit.
Oracle instance performance monitoring by system and database administrators is immeasurably enhanced by the Performance Analysis ability to bring together in one screen and report all mission-critical performance data in a customizable manner.
Effective data collection and analysis is essential for identifying and correcting performance problems. Performance Analysis provides the means to comprehensively record Oracle instance activity for an unlimited period for analysis and diagnosis. With Performance Analysis you can:
Performance Analysis 6.5 introduces the Scalability version, improving the product ability to run on resource extensive high-end Oracle environments, differentiating between mission critical and non mission critical customer databases and allowing an easy mass deployment.
For more information on the specific enhancements click here
Performance Analysis is installed with a default 30-day trial license key, which also includes support for three supplementary modules:
Activate the full production version license of Performance Analysis and purchased module support by entering a valid Authorization Key and Site Message in the Help | Help – About | Trial Version | Product Authorization dialog.
Performance Analysis version 6.5 is designed to deliver significant scalability and performance agent improvement. The improved agent is faster, consumes much fewer resources and therefore suitable for mass deployments.
The sampling agent algorithm has been significantly improved.
The Middleware code has been optimized to dramatically reduce the component’s resource consumption.
Performance Analysis version 6.5 supports more installations on the same middle-tier host in comparison to previous agent releases.
Increased Scalability
Improved Execution Plan Collection
The following is a list of issues known to exist at the time of the Performance Analysis 6.5 release.
|
Feature/Component |
Known Issue |
Change Request |
| General | Installing the Performance Analysis Client/Agent in a folder that contains non-English characters is not supported. | CR#217969 |
| Agent | ||
| Initiate the adding of a repository to an existing installation from the monitored host. If the repository is not added from the monitored host, manual SQL scripts for the granting of required privileges to the Oracle user will be unavailable. The scripts can be accessed from the installation DVD accessible via the Performance Analysis Overview page on the Quest web site. | CR#217993 | |
| In rare cases a sql statement is not found and will be represented in the form of a fixed hash value "1 1073741824" | CR#231891 | |
| The user credentials (username/password) are not encrypted when using the Agent installer in console mode (CLI) on Linux x64 | CR#231455 | |
| All changes in the Resource Saving options will take effect only after restarting the Agent. | CR#231293, CR#231228 | |
An Agent with a middleware component that has been configured to use an Oracle
client installation (Oracle Home) of version 10g or later, will be restricted
to:
|
CR#217994 | |
|
Transferring an agent to use a partitioned repository is not supported once an
agent is configured to use a repository that is not partitioned. Workaround: contact Quest Support. |
CR#231470 | |
|
Installing the Performance Analysis Agent files on a network drive (even a mapped one)
is not supported.
|
CR#227254
|
|
| A Performance Repository database can not be configured with a UTF8 character set. |
CR#227253
|
|
| Oracle servers that are configured with the parameters O7_DICTIONARY_ACCESSIBILITY set to False and REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE set to NONE require manual granting of privileges for the monitored host Agent installation. | CR#217997 | |
| Repository installations require only a user with DBA role. If user SYS is used in the granting of privileges then the ‘Manual grant scripts’ option must be used. | CR#217998 | |
| For installations running on the IBM AIX, or HP-UX server platforms, the Total Physical I/O Operations, Total Physical Reads and Total Physical Writes metrics will be displayed as zero, as the operating systems do not support these statistics. | CR#217999 | |
| When performing installation in console mode, avoid pressing the keyboard Insert key as it may append invisible invalid characters to the user input. | CR#218000 | |
| The Performance Repository instance must be version 9i or later Enterprise Edition. | CR#218002 | |
|
Performance Analysis will report the syntax of a running SQL as "No SQL Address" in case Oracle reports the corresponding SQL address as 0. |
Oracle bug | |
| The RedHat 8.0 platform requires application of the 'glibc-2.3.2-4.80.8' or later patch. | CR#218003 | |
| 11g AMM configuration is not supported by this agent version. As result the agent will not be able to monitor 11g instances employing this configuration | CR#233145 | |
| Agent Upgrade | ||
| Upgrading an existing Agent is only supported from version 6.x and on | Known product limitation | |
|
When installing the Agent on an instance serving Oracle Applications that have a
4th minor version number (i.e. 11.5.10.1) the installation will fail with an
internal error, as the installer expects only a three part version
number (i.e.
11.5.10). Workaround:
|
CR#218007 | |
For clients of Oracle8 connecting to a repository of Oracle9i, when using NCHAR
data types and AL16UTF16 character set, you will encounter problems if:
- And -
- And -
|
CR#218008 | |
|
Performance Analysis Client |
||
| Installation procedures (install/uninstall) of Performance Analysis Client on a Windows Vista environment requires use of the "Run as Administrator" option in order to finish successfully. | CR#227252 | |
| A User Define Collection name must contain explicitly English characters, creating a User Defined Collection that contains non English characters will fail. | CR#224808 | |
| Supplying a username that is different than the current logged in user in Citrix environment under the scheduled reports module will result in an in an access violation message. This message can be ignored since the report scheduling process is successful. | CR#224074 | |
| Uninstalling Performance Analysis in the Citrix environment removes the Performance Analysis configuration files and saved reports of the uninstalling user only, in the following directory: C:\Documents and Settings\<Logged In User>\Local Settings\Application Data\Quest Software\Performance Analysis 6.0. | CR#217970 | |
If the following three circumstances occur:
Then, the connection profile parameter dialog box will include a Default connection check box, which should be disregarded. |
CR#217972 | |
| Compare reports of dimension values <EMPTY> may generate reports with a dimension whose name is a blank string. | CR#217973 | |
| Only the HTML and PDF file types are supported in the Executive Workload Summary Reports wizard | Print dialog, Print to File option. Other file types will not be correctly formatted. | CR#217974 | |
| A second clicking of the Explain Plan History dialog Print button is required for the printing to be initiated. | CR#217976 | |
|
The Refresh Now button functionality in the initial Performance Analysis
connection screen will not detect 'tnsnames.ora' entries created while the
connection dialog was active.
Workaround: To detect the newly added entries close the dialog, open it again and click Refresh Now. |
CR#217977 | |
|
If the uninstall procedure of the Performance Analysis or of the Quest installer
itself fails to remove all of the installed software directories, subsequent
installations will automatically be placed under the previous installed
directories.
Workaround: Remove all of the installation directories prior to reinstalling the product. |
CR#217978 | |
| Due to third party incompliance this version does not support the Chinese language. | CR#217980 | |
| The Advisory tab in the Agent Administration utility may display an error in case of a Repository database problem. The Agent administration utility remains otherwise functional. | CR#217981 | |
|
In extremely rare situations, using Oracle versions 10.1.x might cause metric
data overflow resulting in a client crash. Workaround: Please contact Quest Support. |
CR#217983 | |
|
The Save to PDF option might result in an error or in no action at all. This case is a result of a faulty PDF tool installation which logs into the Quest Software installation directory\PDF tool setup directory\install.log. The actual problem is an extra space after the directory path in the system variables. Workaround: Verify that the above is the case and work around as follows:
In case the problem persists or if during the work around the space character was not found, contact Quest Support. |
CR#217984 | |
| Real Application Cluster (RAC) | For installations supporting Real Application Clustering (RAC), when in RAC mode, cross-instance blocking locks are not displayed. | CR#217985 |
| When monitoring RAC configurations, the Execution Plan Change properties may contain blanks. To work around this problem, access the instance of interest not from within a RAC configuration. | CR#217986 | |
| When installing StealthCollect on a RAC system, all StealthCollect Agents installed on all RAC nodes MUST use the same Performance Repository database. Otherwise, Explain plans including Change Tracking might be corrupted. | CR#217987 | |
| When monitoring RAC configurations, shortcuts consisting of instances without any data may result in an error message. | CR#217988 | |
| Performance Analysis ignores user-defined changes initiated when monitoring a RAC system. In RAC configurations, user-defined changes must be created at the instance level. Log on using Performance Analysis directly to each of the underlying Oracle RAC nodes (so you're actually in a single instance mode) to add user-defined changes from that mode. These changes will also be visible when monitoring the consolidated RAC system. | CR#217989 | |
| Quest recommends monitoring up to 4 nodes in an RAC environment. | ||
|
Online Help |
Online help is not accessible from within the Schedule Report configuration dialog. | CR#217990 |
The Performance Analysis agent version 6.0 (and later) has been certified to run on Solaris 10 Containers (also known as Solaris Zones). This configuration requires installing the Performance Analysis agent in the zone in which the Oracle server is installed.
Quest will use commercially reasonable efforts to investigate potential issues with the Performance Analysis agent running in conjunction with Solaris Zones. As part of the investigation Quest may require the customer to reproduce the issue in the Global Zone.
Where issues are confirmed to be unrelated to Solaris Zones, Quest will support its software in a manner that is consistent with support provided when that software is not running in conjunction with Solaris zones. If support determines that the issue is with Solaris Zones or the problem cannot be replicated on a physical system not running Solaris Zones, then the customer will need to work with Sun to resolve the issue.
The following is a list of third party issues known to exist at the time of the Performance Analysis 6.5 release.
|
Feature |
Known Issue |
Change Request |
|
McAfee v5.5 |
McAfee v5.5 installations may not allow the Performance Analysis installer to complete. Workaround: Contact Quest Support. |
CR#214140
|
|
Operating system |
Client machines that are running under regional settings that are configured with UTF8 settings are not fully supported in this version. |
CR#217991 |
|
Citrix |
When running Performance Analysis on Citrix, sufficient OS permissions are required to run scheduled reports. |
CR#213889 |
For detailed instructions visit the Performance Analysis Overview page or contact Quest Support.
Before installing Performance Analysis 6.5, ensure your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements:
| Platform | Pentium III (Pentium IV recommended) or compatible processor |
| Memory |
Dedicated Client: 512 MB of RAM minimum Shared Client: 1024 MB of RAM minimum Note: The memory required may vary based on the following:
|
| Hard Disk Space |
450 MB of disk space required for a full installation, which includes 200 MB download of temporary setup files that can be removed at the completion of the installation. Notes:
|
| Monitor | VGA with a minimum resolution of 1024x768, small fonts |
| Printer | Optional for printing graphs and reports |
| Mouse | Required for accessing all features |
| CD drive or Internet connection | Required for installation only |
| Operating System |
|
| Browser | Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later |
| Citrix Support |
|
| Solaris Container Support | Performance Analysis for Oracle is compatible with Solaris 2.10 Zones. |
| Platform | UNIX
Linux
|
| CPU |
According to the Hardware requirements document accessible through the Performance Analysis Overview page. |
|
Memory |
According to the Hardware requirements document accessible through the Performance Analysis Overview page. |
|
Hard Disk Space |
According to the Hardware requirements document accessible through the Performance Analysis Overview page. |
| Operating System |
|
| CD/DVD drive or Internet connection | Required for installation only |
| PeopleSoft Versions | 8.0 or later |
| Oracle Applications Versions |
|
| Performance Repository | Oracle version 8.1.7 or later with Bitmap indexes supported. Quest Software periodically extends the support for new database and platform versions. For registered Quest SupportLink users, click here to view and download the latest support patch updates. |
| Oracle Versions |
|
Performance Analysis requires 2.5GB of free disk space on the repository host in order to create the repository database – 2GB for data files and 512MB for transaction log files. An additional allocation of 2GB of free space is required for each additional instance that is attached to this Performance Repository.
This section contains information about installing and operating this product in non-English configurations, such as those needed by customers outside of North America. This section does not replace the materials about supported platforms and configurations found elsewhere in the product documentation.
This release supports any single-byte or multi-byte character set. In this release, all product components should be configured to use the same or compatible character encodings and should be installed to use the same locale and regional options. This release is targeted to support operations in the following regions: North America, Western Europe and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Far-East Asia, Japan.
This release has the following known capabilities or limitations:
2. Using the Japanese "Publish to PDF" feature with non English characters is not supported.
Performance Analysis Agent installation should be performed as follows.
Download the Agent installation file matching the target Oracle platform
Run the installation file on the Oracle host and follow the displayed instructions.
For detailed instructions please visit the Performance Analysis web site or contact Quest Support.
| info@quest.com | |
| Quest Software, Inc. World Headquarters 5 Polaris Way Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 USA | |
| Web |
Refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.
Quest Support is available to customers who have a trial version of a Quest product or who have purchased a commercial version and have a valid maintenance contract. Quest Support provides around the clock coverage with SupportLink, our web self-service.
Visit SupportLink at http://support.quest.com. From SupportLink, you can do the following:
View the Global Support Guide for a detailed explanation of support programs, online services, contact information, and policy and procedures. The guide is available from http://support.quest.com/pdfs/Global Support Guide.pdf.
This document contains proprietary information protected by copyright. The software described in this guide is furnished under a software license or nondisclosure agreement. This software may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of the applicable agreement. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording for any purpose other than the purchaser’s personal use without the written permission of Quest Software, Inc.
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This product includes software developed by third parties. License information for these components is available from the Performance Analysis Overview page.
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