Guardian

Oracle Guardian Signature release 1.1.26 was made available through the Update feature of Oracle Guardian on February 18, 2009. This signature release addresses:

1.Adjustments in Security Advisory signatures to reflect changes made in Security Advisories in regards to eSupport decommissioning. These changes address modifications in “Suggested Action” of the advisories and the location where these advisories are moved from eSupport.

2.Adjustments in Remedy portion of signatures to convey latest location to find different types of product installers for BEA products.

3. Addition of new critical and informational signatures based on Oracle WebLogic Server.

More details on latest signature releases will be available through the “Oracle Guardian Resource Center” on My Oracle Support https://metalink.oracle.com .

Oracle Guardian Signature Patterns - also simply referred to as "signatures" - provide Oracle Guardian with a definition of the conditions that indicate a potential trouble area in the system. Each Oracle Guardian Signature Pattern defines an individual issue. This definition contains the following information:

When you use Oracle Guardian to evaluate your domain, Oracle Guardian compares the information contained in each Signature Pattern against the conditions in your domain, and then generates a report of all of the Oracle Signature Patterns that apply to your domain. The report includes the following information:

Oracle Global Customer Support defines new Signature Patterns and regularly publishes Signature Patterns releases. The Signature Patterns are based on best practices, service request work, software defects, common customer discoveries, security vulnerabilities, critical patches, and more.

Oracle Guardian Signature Pattern Releases

Oracle plans to release new Signature Patterns approximately once a month. Plus, there will be additional "rush releases" when unplanned, critical Signature Patterns must be released immediately.

All Signature Pattern releases are cumulative; that is, they contain any new Signature Patterns and all previous Signature Patterns, unless specific Signature Patterns are removed for a specific reason. This ensures the highest level of integrity.

Regular releases of Signature Patterns are even numbered releases. If a rush release is required between regular Signature Pattern releases, it will have the odd number falling between the previous and post regular Signature Pattern release numbers. For example, a rush release between regular release 1.0.8 and regular release 1.0.10 will be numbered 1.0.9.

Latest Signature Patterns Release 1.1.24

Oracle Guardian Signature release 1.1.24 was made available through the Update feature of Oracle Guardian on January 16, 2009. This release mainly includes signatures in support of the former BEA products based security advisories released on January 13, 2009 as well as critical and informational signatures on Oracle WebLogic Server.

Beginning in February 2009, more details on latest signature releases will be available through the “Oracle Guardian Resource Center” on My Oracle Support https://metalink.oracle.com .

Oracle Guardian, formerly known as BEA Guardian, is a pre-emptive diagnostic tool that proactively identifies, troubleshoots, and reports potential configuration issues in your WebLogic environment. By using Signature Patterns downloaded from Oracle. Guardian works like a virus detection program, using definitions to identify known issues and potential problems. It also offers corrective action information to avoid them. Guardian is available to any Oracle customer with a valid support contract.

This Blog will be used to discuss Guardian related topics including Guardian functionality, usage, Signatures, releases, and the like. This first introductory message will discuss the current status of Guardian and alert you to the coming changes with related to the migration of Guardian to the Oracle infrastructure.

The latest version of Guardian is version 10gR3 and is currently available from Oracle, but it straddles the legacy BEA systems and the new Oracle systems. Customers that wish to download Guardian need to login to the legacy BEA support site called eSupport and find Guardian in the downloads section. Once you select Guardian you will be re-directed to an Oracle OTN site, where you will need to login using your Oracle OTN credentials. The current version available 10gR3 (10.3.0) is a re-branded version of Guardian 1.1 with a couple of bug fixes and a couple of new features. General Guardian information is currently available on www.bea.com/support/guardian, but will only be available there for the next month or two and will then be moved to the new Guardian Resource Center that is accessible through My Oracle Support.

There are a few changes with respect to the Oracle BEA integration that are going to affect Guardian over the next couple of months that you should be aware of. Former BEA customers are migrating from the BEA support systems to the Oracle support systems in the near future. Guardian will have a release in early 2009 to coincide with these changes. This release of Guardian will communicate with the Oracle support infrastructure for updating signatures, and will use the Oracle terminology instead of BEA terminology. For example a support case will be called a service request, eSupport credentials will be replaced with MetaLink credentials, and site ID will be replaced with customer support ID (CSI).

When the migration is finished in early 2009, all Guardian related information and downloads will be available through My Oracle Support https://metalink.oracle.com at a central location called the Guardian Resource Center. The Guardian Resource Center will be available from the knowledge tab/link at “Tools and Training”>”Diagnostic Tools”, in the “Diagnostic Tools - Database and Fusion Middleware” section. This will be the new and permanent home of Guardian and Guardian related information for the foreseeable future.

This wraps up our introduction of the new Guardian blog and information related to Guardian and its current status and location. There will be entries related to the new features in the latest release, more information on the integration effort, and other topics coming soon. Visit frequently for more Guardian information and updates.