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Monitoring application tier

Application servers are used as the middle tier between the desktop clients and the database server. They provide load balancing, business logic, and other functionality.

This topic contains the following information:

Application tier monitoring

Application servers are used as the middle tier between the desktop clients and the database server. They provide load balancing, business logic, and other functionality.

The forms server is a specific type of application server that hosts the Oracle Forms Server engine. The Oracle Forms Server mediates between the desktop client and the Oracle database server, displaying client screens and causing changes in the database records on user actions. Data is cached on the forms server and provided to the client as needed. The forms server exchanges messages with the desktop client across a standard TCP/IP network connection.

Automatic load balancing can be achieved among forms servers with Metrics Server configuration. The Metrics Server is a single coordinator located on one application server. Metrics Clients located on the other application servers periodically send load information to the Metrics Server so it can determine which has the lightest load. When a client issues a request to download the Forms client applet, the Metrics Server provides the name of the least-loaded host for the applet to connect to.

The web server is another type of application server, which runs an HTTP listener. The HTTP listener, a component of the HTTP server, accepts incoming HTTP requests from desktop clients via the web browser or applet viewer. The requests are either immediately processed for HTML documents or are passed to the Oracle Web Application Server to access the forms server which connects to the database.

When configuring a middle tier web server to monitor Oracle Applications versions earlier than 11i, PATROL automatically selects an Oracle Web Server to be configured. When monitoring Oracle Applications version 11i or later, an Apache Server is selected for configuration.

Before you begin

You must complete setting up an application ID before you can set up the web server monitoring. See Configuring-the-application-system.

You must also set up each web server application tier. PATROL will not discover the application classes under the OA_APPSERV application class until you set up the web server information for each application tier. See Configuring-middle-tier-servers.

Warning

Note

If you have set up an Access Control List on your web server, you must make sure the web server is alllowed to communicate with the database server before you can monitor the web server. To do this, you must change the pconfig variable on the web server to give the Oracle account the same permissions as the PATROL account. See Access Control List (ACL) permissions.

Oracle web server monitoring

When monitoring Oracle Applications versions earlier than 11i, you can perform the following functions from PATROL:

  • start and stop the web request broker
  • start and stop a web listener
  • add and delete monitored URLs

To start the web request broker (WRB)

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > WEB (OA_WEB) pathway.
  2. Select the Start WRB command from the WEB (OA_WEB) menu. A message appears, verifying that the web request broker has been started successfully.

To stop the web request broker (WRB)

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > WEB (OA_WEB) pathway.
  2. Select the Stop WRB command from the WEB (OA_WEB) menu. A message appears, verifying that the web request broker has been stopped successfully.

To start a web listener

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > listenerName (OA_LISTENER) pathway.
  2. Select the Start Listener command from the listenerName (OA_LISTENER) menu. A message appears, notifying that the web listener has been started successfully.

To stop a web listener

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > listenerName (OA_LISTENER) pathway.
  2. Select the Stop Listener command from the listenerName (OA_LISTENER) menu. A message appears, notifying that the web listener has been stopped successfully.

To add new URLs

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > listenerName
    (OA_LISTENER) pathway.
  2. Select the Add Urls command from the listener Name (OA_LISTENER) menu. The Add URLs dialog box appears.

  3. Enter the URL you want to add, and click Accept.

    Warning

    Note

    If the URL points to a directory, end the URL string with a slash / character.

A message appears, notifying that the new URL has been added successfully.

To remove URLs from monitoring

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > listenerName (OA_LISTENER) pathway.
  2. Select the Delete Urls command from the listenerName (OA_LISTENER) menu. The Delete URLs dialog box appears.
  3. Select the URL you want to delete, and click Accept.
    A message appears, notifying you that the URL has been removed from monitoring.
Warning

Note

Default URLs to be monitored are defined in the initial configuration of the web server. These default URLs cannot be removed.

Apache server monitoring

When monitoring Oracle Applications version 11i or later, you can perform the following functions from PATROL:

  • start and stop the Apache server
  • add and delete monitored URLs

To start the Apache server

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > ApacheServerID (OA_APACHE) pathway.
  2. Select the Start Apache command from the ApacheServerID (OA_APACHE) menu. A message informs you that the Apache server has been started successfully.

To stop the Apache server

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > ApacheServerID (OA_APACHE) pathway.
  2. Select Stop Apache from the ApacheServerID (OA_APACHE) menu. A message informs you that the Apache server has been stopped successfully.

To add new URLs

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > ApacheServerID
    (OA_APACHE) pathway.
  2. Select Add Urls from the ApacheServerID (OA_APACHE) menu. The Add URLs dialog box appears.

  3. Enter the URL you want to add, and click Accept.

    Warning

    Note

    If the URL points to a directory, end the URL string with a slash / character.
    A message informs you that the new URL has been added successfully.

To remove URLs from monitoring

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > ApacheServerID (OA_APACHE) pathway.
  2. Select Delete Urls from the ApacheServerID (OA_APACHE) menu. The Delete URLs dialog box appears.
  3. Select the URL you want to delete, and click Accept.
    A message informs you that the URL has been removed from monitoring.
Warning

Note

Default URLs to be monitored are defined in the initial configuration of the web server. These default URLs cannot be removed.

Forms server monitoring

You can perform the following functions from PATROL:

  • stop and start the forms servers
  • kill forms client orphan processes

You can list the forms client orphan processes. From the list of orphan processes, you can select multiple orphan processes and kill the selected processes.

To start the forms server

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > formsServerID (OA_FORMS) pathway.
  2. Select the Start Forms Server command from the formsServerID (OA_FORMS) menu.
  3. Ckick Accept.
    A notification window appears verifying the forms server starts successfully.

To stop the forms server

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > formsServerID (OA_FORMS) pathway.
  2. Select the Stop Forms Server command from the formsServerID (OA_FORMS) menu.
  3. Click Accept.
    A notification window appears verifying the forms server stopped successfully.

To kill forms client orphan processes

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > formsServerID (OA_FORMS) pathway.
    Select the Kill Clients Orphan Processes command from the formsServerID (OA_FORMS) menu. The Kill Process selection box appears.
  2. Select a process that you want to kill. You can select multiple processes and kill the selected processes.
  3. Click Accept.
    The Confirmation dialog box prompts you for confirmation that the process listed in the
    Confirmation dialog box is the process that you want to kill.
  4. Click Yes to kill the listed process, or click No to preserve the selected process and return to the applicationServerID window.
    The Enter Password dialog box appears.
  5. Enter the OS root user name and password, and click Accept. The Recover Orphan report appears informing you of the command result.

Metrics server monitoring

Use these procedures to start or stop the metrics server.

To start the metrics server

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > MTXS_MetricsServerID (OA_METRICS_SRV) pathway.
  2. Select the Start Metrics Server command from the MTXS_metricsServerID
    (OA_METRICS_SRV) menu.
  3. Click Accept. A message appears, notifying you that the metrics server starts successfully.

To stop the metrics server

  1. Follow the applicationID (OA_SYSTEM) > APP_SERVER (OA_APP_CONT) > appServerID (OA_APPSERV) > MTXS_metricsServerID (OA_METRICS_SRV) pathway.
  2. Select the Stop Metrics Server command from the MTXS_metricsServerID
    (OA_METRICS_SRV) menu.
  3. Click Accept. A message appears, notifying you that the metrics server stopped successfully.

 

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