8.8.00 enhancements

This section contains information about enhancements in BMC Database Automation (BDA) 8.8.00.

Oracle enhancements

BDA 8.8 introduces the following enhancements for Oracle databases.

Pluggable Databases on RAC and Restart

BDA 8.8 supports Pluggable Databases on Oracle RAC and Restart (Grid Infrastructure) environments. New functionality includes:

• Discovery of pre-existing (already deployed) environments
• Provisioning and template support:
  
  • A new Container Database section is available in the Create RAC Database template and wizard.
  • A new Create Pluggable Database – Grid Infrastructure template and wizard can be used to provision a pluggable database.
• Management operations including open (also known as plugging), close, and unplug)
• Patching of Container Databases
• Script Actions, SQL Actions, and Compliance: ‘Scope’ and ‘Restrictions’ for granular control of applicable candidates
• Searching from a Standalone Manager or a Content Manager in a Multi-Manager configuration
• Refreshing data without rescanning a node or cluster

For information about all the available provisioning and management activities you can perform with Oracle databases, see Provisioning new databases and click the Oracle tab on the page.

Database support

BDA 8.8 adds the following support for Oracle databases on RAC and Restart environments:

• Oracle 12.1.0.2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6
• Oracle 12.1.0.2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7

For more information about supported databases and OS in BDA 8.8.00, see Databases supported.

Oracle Exadata certification

BDA 8.8 is certified for use on Oracle Exadata systems.

The following versions are supported:

• Oracle 11.2 and 12.1 using Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) 5.10 on X3-2 and X4-2 Exadata systems

The following use cases are supported:

• Provisioning operations
  • Create database
  • Remove database
  • Add instance
  • Remove instance
• Management operations
  
  • Start instance
  • Stop instance
  • Apply/rollback patch (DB patches only)
  • Run action (script and SQL)
• Miscellaneous operations
• Reports

DB2 enhancements

BDA 8.8 adds the ability to natively discover DB2 databases to be approved into BDA. As part of this support, BDA also supports creating Actions and compliance standards for those databases. Additional target scopes have been added so that Actions created with a scope of DB2 Database can be set as script and SQL Actions and can be executed against the targeted DB2 database. Actions and standards created with a scope of DB2 Database define new environment variables when they are run.

BDA provides the following additional enhancements to discovering, approving, and managing DB2 databases and instances:

• Pending Approval display. DB2 databases discovered by BDA appear in the Pending Approval > DB2 section of the Management Console. In previous versions of BDA, if a Manager had the optional DB2 Generic Application installed, discovered and unapproved DB2 databases appeared on the Applications Pending Approval page. If you are using the Generic Application, please consult with BMC support for instructions on how to transition to native DB2 database discovery.
  

• Enhanced capabilities. DB2 capabilities have been expanded to include the ability to approve both DB2 instances and databases with the DB2 Approve capability. (This capability was known as DB2 Approve Instance in previous versions of BDA).
  

• Search ability. This version of BDA adds DB2 database search capability to the existing search functionality. Searches for a DB2 database name returns a value for name, software version, parent, and domain. Search by alias is not supported in this version. For more information about search functionality, see Searching for objects in the Context Frame.

• Provisioning. BMC provides ZipKits (BDA Actions) that enable you to provision and remove DB2 databases.

REST API

BDA 8.8 supports the use of a representational state transfer (REST) API for invoking functionality. The API enables you to programmatically trigger BDA workflows from other applications and perform management tasks relating to the following functions:

• Compliance
• Actions

For more information about using the REST API, see Using REST API.

OpenSSL update

The version of OpenSSL included in BDA has been updated to 1.0.2g.

Compliance content

A new BDA Compliance Standard for DISA MSSQL 2012 V1 R9 is now available. For a complete list of published BDA compliance content, please visit the BMC Electronic Product Distribution (EPD) site.

Supportability improvements

This version of BDA provides the following supportability enhancements:

• An optional sample_rbac_setup.pl script is provided in /app/clarity/manager_scripts/bin that automatically generates a pre-defined set of roles containing pre-defined capabilities in each role. This enables you to instantly configure a comprehensive default RBAC starting point (for Roles only) on a new Manager so that you do not have to define the entire Security plan using the GUI.
• A new deluser.pl script is provided in /app/clarity/manager_scripts/bin that can be used to delete BDA users via the command line.
• An additional .xml file is included in Patch Job log packages that capture information (metadata) from the View page of a patch package. This enables BDA to automatically capture patch package information that, in previous versions, required you to send a screen capture to BMC Support because that information was not included in the job log package.