Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.5.0.15 download available on My Oracle Support

If you have been following the EM releases for a while, you are already familiar with Release Updates (RUs). RUs are the agile way to roll out new EM features and bug fixes, so you don't have to wait for a major release. RUs are versioned with a trailing digit indicating the RU version. Note that RUs are cumulative, which means that the most recent RU includes functionality from all previous release updates. Our general recommendation is to apply the most current RU as soon as possible.

Access the download on My Oracle Support > Patches & Updates.

Key updates in Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.5 RU15

This release is packed with a variety of enhancements.  Some of them include UI additions to the built-in database capabilities, such as the Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM), expanded monitoring and lifecycle management options, new support for engineered systems, and new REST APIs.

Database diagnostics

ADDM Spotlight Enhancements

The ADDM support in Enterprise Manager, ADDM Spotlight, now includes an action menu option to "View Recommendations" on the Database Parameters tab. When clicked, EM displays a slide-out with details about that recommendation.

In addition, ADDM Spotlight now has a new Last Run option in the Quick Select menu. When selected, EM sets the time range to the time from the last ADDM run. The findings and recommendations tables now show the ADDM findings and recommendations from that one run. The database parameters setting is also from that same period.

Workload Tab in Performance Hub

The Performance Hub, used to monitor database activity and analyze Oracle databases performance, now includes a new Workload tab. This new tab graphically displays the sets of statistics that you can use to monitor the database workload and identify spikes and bottlenecks. Performance Hub is available with Enterprise Manager as well as some of our OCI services, such as the Database Service and it is a key option for monitoring Oracle databases.

Monitoring enhancements

Webhooks and Slack Notification Methods

Event and notification options now expand to any application that accepts webhook requests, such as Slack.  Using the Oracle EM Generic Webhook,  send event and incident notifications and can parse payload-specific content. The webhook payload format depends on the type of event. 

New Runbooks Features

The Runbooks capability in EM now comes with a set of predefined runbooks of various types that help diagnose and resolve various incidents. One such example is an EM Health Overview runbook, called "Loader issues causing Agent backoff requests (Oracle)".  This runbook provides a comprehensive overview of the OMS and Repository operation and performance and can be used to diagnose the agent's back-office issues. The recommendations in this runbook come complete with videos, embedded in, to guide you through the diagnosing process.
After creating and publishing a runbook as part of Event Rule actions, you can now designate specific runbooks to be used for an incident.
In addition, Runbooks now allow a new OS Command Step that helps in executing a script or command as a part of the step. Specify an interpreter to be used when executing a script as part of a step. All this can be done in a single operation.

Preferred Connect String New Options

EM connects to an Oracle database via the OMS and agents for discovery, monitoring, and admin operations and it uses by default the database SID. EM now connects and monitors databases using service names, and aliases defined to connect to your databases.  Define Preferred Connect Strings for either OMS and agents, as fully qualified connect strings, that can override EM's default connection configuration.

Job System Data Warehouse

The EM Job system now preserves historical job data in a new table called EM_JOB_FINISHED_EXECS. Data in this table enables you to diagnose job issues faster and analyze data over some time. This data collection is enabled by default.

Proxy Credentials when Connecting to OCI

Target data from EM can be uploaded for analysis to an OCI Object Storage using a Cloud Bridge.  When updating OMS and agents to this latest release update, specify proxy credentials as you create a Cloud Bridge.

Non-SYS User Support

Install, patch, and deploy EM plug-ins using a non-SYS admin user.  This is an important addition as administrators continue to restrict privileged credentials like the SYS database user.

New High Availability Role Target Property

The user-defined ‘High Availability Role’ target property allows you to distinguish between primary and standby database roles. When a database role change occurs, EM automatically updates this user-defined target property value, if defined, with the new database role (primary or standby). Apply this property to your Dynamic Groups or Administration Groups.

New PDB Mode Metrics for PDBs in RAC Instances

Real-time alerts on the operational states (modes) of PDBs in RAC instances are now available through the PDB Mode metrics. Use these metrics to track the mode of PDBs across all instances in a RAC database.

Database Lifecycle Management

TDE Support for Migration Workbench

Oracle Database provides Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) to encrypt sensitive data stored in data files. Enterprise Manager Migration Workbench now supports migrations of TDE-encrypted data using its user interface, REST APIs, and EM CLI.

Fleet Maintenance Variables for Oracle Home Path and Working Directory

EM Fleet Maintenance now accepts the use of variables for Oracle Home paths and the Working Directory, allowing for easier bulk updates and upgrades. Deploy to multiple Oracle Homes on the same host within the same task.

Suppress Patch Recommendations for Compliance

A new EM CLI verb, suppress_recommended_patch, allows you to suppress Compliance patch recommendations for a given target type or target name.

Migration Workbench Transportable Tablespace Pre-Migration Analysis Enhancements

Migration Workbench Transportable Tablespace (TTS) pre-migration activities are now easier with the integration into a TTS deployment procedure, use of more consistent terms, and enhancements to the REST APIs pre-migration analysis procedure execution ID.

Engineered Systems

Advanced Customizations for Exadata Warehouse

Customize the following in Exadata Warehouse:  the storage location for the data collected from compute nodes and storage servers,  the space limit threshold, the settings used for performing forecasts, and the set of curated metrics collected.

Exadata Warehouse Support for ExaDB-C@C Metric Data

Fine-grained performance metric data collected from Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer (ExaDB-C@C) can now be set up in an Exadata Warehouse through Enterprise Manager.  This allows you to build a repository of historical data for performance analysis and capacity planning.

ZDLRA Recurring Archival Backup Job

EM now allows Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance (ZDLRA) administrators to schedule a recurring Archival Backup job or procedure for a given protected database. This feature provides the administrator strategy-based scheduling options, for example, end of the month, for recurring Archival Backups in accordance with corporate compliance standards. Archival backup jobs are automatically delayed to run only after the underlying elements needed to synthesize a full backup are available on the ZDLRA.

REST APIs

A new set of REST APIs are now tested and available in the REST APIs reference guide:  Database Maintenance REST Endpoints and ZDLRA Management REST Endpoints.  Note that the existing Database Fleet Maintenance REST APIs, in a different format, continue to be supported.

And...there is more!!  Related recent additions:

Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana Version 4.0.0

The new version of the Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana introduces two brand new dashboards (Exadata Capacity Planning Report and Exadata Cloud Capacity Planning Report) and several new features, such as alerting on the data queried from OEM repository or a target, new UI for query template variables, custom variables definition using data from the EM repository, ability to dynamically fetch data from different tables based on user selected time range, option to automatically change the time range from other variables, and use of conditional expressions in queries.  See also this recent blog for details on the new features added with this EM App for Grafana version. 

IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector

This connector integrates EM with IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus through Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus’ REST API, enabling the sharing of event information from Enterprise Manager to IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus. It monitors all events sent from EM and automatically updates alert information in Netcool/OMNIbus.

Complete List of Updates

View the full list of enhancements and bug fixes in the Release Update READMEs and the My Oracle Support note: "Enterprise Manager 13.5 Main Release Update List (Includes Plug-ins)" (Doc ID 2760230.2).

For more details on the enhancements available with all EM 13.5 Release Updates, see:

• New Features by Release Update
• New Features by Focus Area

We hope you enjoy Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.5 Release Update 15!

As always, we welcome feedback on how we can improve your experience with Enterprise Manager.  Use the Oracle Help Center or Support Feedback pages. 

Be sure to also check the following locations for continuous updates:

Oracle Manageability Solutions for Database and Cloud (solution briefs, customer stories, technical briefs)

Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13.5 Technical Content (documentation, videos, technical blogs, and other resources)

My Oracle Support > Certifications (for the latest certified platforms and version combinations)