8.5.00 enhancements

This section contains information about enhancements in BMC Database Automation 8.5.00.

Integration with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management

BMC Database Automation version 8.5.00 is integrated with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management version 4.0. This integration enables you to provision databases using BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management workflows so that you can define all the input parameters you would typically have to perform in the BMC Database Automation GUI. For more information about this integration and how to enable end-to-end provisioning, see Overview of the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management integration.

Action output retrieval

With this version of BMC Database Automation you can easily collect the output of an Action. In previous versions, you could query the status of a job from the command line (pass or fail), but not query errors that might come from those jobs. To determine the actual output from an Action, you had to download the log package, unpack it, manually read the log files to determine which file contained the standard output (stdout), and then copy that file elsewhere to be further processed outside of BMC Database Automation.

In BMC Database Automation 8.5, two new command line interface tools, job_output_status.pl and job_output.pl, provide the ability to retrieve the stdout and standard error (stderr) files from an Action. You can trigger different activities based on that output. For example, you no longer need to read log files manually to troubleshoot an error. Any orchestration tools you are using can route information appropriately and automatically. Files can now be truncated, which means that very large output files are not streamed to the server.

You can view or download either output file by clicking the button that corresponds to the output file displayed in the Job Output section in the Job Summary page. When viewing the output file, you can also copy the contents to paste elsewhere for analysis or troubleshooting.

For more information about the enhancement to the Job Summary page, see Monitoring jobs and viewing job history.

For more information about the command line tools, including the syntax and available arguments used with the commands, see Using command line tools .

Restricted Actions

In this version, BMC Database Automation administrators can limit the Actions certain operators can run by using Restricted Actions. Restricted Actions enable you to control capabilities of Actions in a more granular manner. To restrict Actions, you create users with Run a Restricted Action capability and select the Restricted Action option in the General page of the Create New Action wizard. From the Actions Repository, the new Action can only be run by users with the Run a Restricted Action capability, and not by users with the Run Action capability. In previous versions of BMC Database Automation, an operator that had the capability to run Actions in a given domain could run any Actions in the domain.

For more information about the capabilities related to managing BMC Database Automation, see Roles. For more information about creating Actions, see Creating an Action.

OPatch auto

BMC Database Automation now includes full support of the OPatch auto option for applying Oracle patches. OPatch auto facilitates the patching of a CRS/GI home and all applicable RDBMS homes in one operation. The Patch Candidate selection page in the GUI has been updated to allow users to select both home types in one patch job. 

In previous versions of BMC Database Automation, multiple patch jobs were required when applying Clusterware patches.

For more information about using OPatch, see Setting up Oracle media.

Oracle 12c support

This version of BMC Database Automation supports the provisioning of Oracle single-instance, restart, and RAC version 12c databases. For information about updated support added after version 8.5.00, see Release notes and notices.

IPv6 communication

BMC Database Automation supports communication over IPv6 protocol. This version supports discovery and Actions over IPv6 between stand-alone managers and the following agents:

• Linux (in both IPv6-only and dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) environments)
• AIX (in both IPv6-only and dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) environments)

This version of BMC Database Automation does not support IPv6 communication on Microsoft Windows and HP-UX PARISC platforms.

Although there are no explicit GUI changes in BMC Database Automation to support IPv6, you can see IPv6 address formats throughout the GUI when you perform functions in the product (for example, in the Job Summary pages or in log files).

Compliance

This version of BMC Database Automation supports a new compliance framework that enables you to create and run compliance standards.

Highly Available Internet Protocol (HAIP)

BMC Database Automation version 8.5.00 supports Highly Available Internet Protocol (HAIP) implemented by Oracle. HAIP, available beginning with Oracle 11.2.0.2 databases, enables you to make redundant private cluster interconnections by using multiple private interconnect IP addresses. HAIP provides an out-of-the-box redundant interconnect setup that load balances two or more interconnect interfaces, without having to bond multiple interconnect interface cards. HAIP requests that each interconnect interface have a separate IP. Previous versions of BMC Database Automation provided one interconnect IP that was used with two bonded interconnect interfaces, requiring that the product choose the interconnect bond when a cluster was installed.

For more information about using HAIP, see Creating an Oracle cluster.