Beware of OEM 11g

Hi Fellow DBA's,

I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that now might not be a good time to upgrade or install the new EM Grid Control 11g.

I've been fighting with it for about a month now and have nothing but bad things to say about it (and i'm the single biggest OEM proponent in my department!).

Here are the main issues I'm seeing with a fresh 11.2 database and a fresh OEM install:

• It's a major pain to install - go look at MetaLink, er, I mean, Oracle Support note [ID 1067438.1] "Master Note for Grid Control 11.1.0.1.0 Installation and Upgrade" for an idea of what you're in for.
• The JDK is hosed - Agent deploys of any kind fail with the dreaded "java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class oracle.sysman.oii.oiip.osd.unix.OiipuUnixOps" error (and just for the record: no, upgrading the OMS_HOME jdk to even the newest 1.6_21 does not fix the issue).
• There are almost no support notes for OEM 11g - you'll never solve any issues without opening an SR.
• It's unpatchable - there is a bug that prevents you from adding the Software Library path, which of course OPatch patches need once you get to the point of deploying PAR files.
• Job reporting is broken - the "Jobs" tab always shows no history no matter how you search.
• Policy Violations are broken - you know those great "All Targets Policy Violations" icons on the home page that you can click on? Yeah, try clicking on one and you'll get a nice "No Search Results found matching the criteria specified." message.

And this is just what I found - what about you guys, what issues have you seen?

PS: I hope to update this list with fixes as they come back from Oracle.

UPDATE: It turns out that some of these issues are due to a blunder on my part! I installed the 32-bit version of WLS 10.3.2, instead of the 64-bit one that you need your own Java install for.

This eliminated the horrible issue with the "OiipuUnixOps" error on Agent deploys and when trying to create a Software Library path.

If you did not install WLS using this syntax on a 64-bit system (eg: running the .bin file), then you did it wrong:

/usr/lib/jdk16/jdk1.6.0_18/bin/java -d64 -jar wls1032_generic.jar

Unfortunately, all the other gripes I have with OEM persist... :)

HowTo: Resolve Oracle 11g X-Windows installer issues on UNIX

Have you run the new Oracle 11g installer on *NIX and received a nasty message?

It happened to me this week! So, let's say you download the oracle11g installer for AIX, start x-windows (I prefer CygWin), export your display, test with xclock, then go into the "database" folder and do: ./runInstaller

These are the errors I received:

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking Temp space: must be greater than 190 MB. Actual 11907 MB Passed

Checking swap space: must be greater than 150 MB. Actual 19968 MB Passed

Checking monitor: must be configured to display at least 256 colors. Actual 16777216 Passed

Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM. Please wait ...

[oracle@myserver 12:26:03] (brent01) /oracle/INSTALL/database

$ Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a ( 0509-022 Cannot load module /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a.

0509-150 Dependent module /usr/lpp/X11/lib/libXt.a(shr_64.o) could not be loaded.

0509-152 Member shr_64.o is not found in archive

0509-022 Cannot load module /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a.

0509-150 Dependent module /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a could not be loaded.)

at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibraryWithPath(ClassLoader.java:986)

Well, that's a fine mess!

Before you comb MetaLink and create soft links to other libraries, etc. do yourself a favor and try this:

$ env | grep -i libpath

If your LIBPATH environment variable contains the system's X11 lib, then that's your problem. Mine showed:

LIBPATH=/lib:/usr/lpp/X11/lib:/oracle/oracle8i/product/8.1.7/lib

Removing "/usr/lpp/X11/lib" piece from my LIBPATH resolved the error.

$ export LIBPATH="/lib"

$ ./runInstaller

Success!