Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c Release 5 Update 13 (13.5.0.13) is now available

Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.5.0.13 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 quickly to customers, so they 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 RU13

Functionality added or enhanced includes new options for dashboards, new REST APIs, enriched integration with OCI services, as well as multiple databases and engineered systems management additions. Highlights of Enterprise Manager 13.5 RU13, released earlier this week, include:

Use Aggregate Target Type Input and RAW Metric Data in Dashboards Widgets

Now, the Aggregate Target Type can be configured for the data displayed in a widget, part of a Custom Dashboard.  The default aggregate target type option is Group, however, you can edit the widget inputs and select other aggregate target types such as Cluster ASM and Database System.  In addition, for out-of-the-box metric widgets, if you opt to display metric data for less than two days in, namely Target - Metric - Line and Group - Metrics - Line, the metric data is obtained from RAW data.

Global Target Properties, Target Type, and Updated Target REST Endpoints

The EM REST API reference guide is continuing to grow.  The following REST endpoints have been added or updated:

• Global Target Properties: Manage global target properties such as obtaining definitions and known values.
• Target Types: Endpoint for target create samples.
• Target: Endpoints updated to include all target Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations.

Integrate EM with OCI Service:  SQL Statistics Collection for Database Targets

If you are using the OCI Operations Insights (OPSI) service, you can take advantage of the SQL Statistics Daily data object exposed through SQL Explorer. It includes SQL performance statistics collected continuously on Operations Insights-enabled databases. Starting with the Database Plug-in version 13.5.0.13, the same SQL performance statistics metrics are also automatically collected from databases managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager. When enabling data export from Enterprise Manager to OCI, these new statistics will be exported to an OCI Object Storage bucket. Therefore, the same SQL analysis on Enterprise Manager can be performed on managed databases, using Operations Insights.

ADDM Spotlight

The Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM) is built into the Oracle Database and automatically detects and reports performance problems with the database. ADDM Spotlight is a new Oracle Enterprise Manager interface that summarizes the performance problems reported by ADDM that were executed during a time period. It highlights the findings with the biggest performance impacts and makes recommendations on how to fix them. In addition, it shows database parameter values as well as changes to these during the analysis period. The ADDM spotlight information is also shown on the Database home page, including a summary of ADDM findings over the last day and a link to drill down to the ADDM Spotlight page.

Top Activity Lite in Performance Hub

The new Top Activity Lite capability is now available in Performance Hub in Oracle Enterprise Manager. Top Activity Lite is a simplified yet highly efficient mode of Performance Hub. In this mode, database administrators can monitor the live performance of managed databases in a single view for easy visualization of issues. Top Activity Lite allows quick response time for real-time monitoring while providing critical information required for performance diagnosis.

Enterprise Monitoring:  User-defined Event Compression Policies

Event Compression Policies serve as a noise reduction mechanism and state the condition under which multiple correlated events are grouped together in one incident. In addition to the out-of-box policies supplied by Oracle, Enterprise Manager now allows users to define their own custom event compression policies.

Enterprise Monitoring - Discovery:  Agent Preferred Connect Descriptor field

The Agent Preferred Connect Descriptor field is a new optional field in the existing Pluggable Database (PDB) discovery workflow. If an Agent Preferred Connect String is specified, it will be used by the agent for the monitoring connection to the PDB. In addition, you can set the Agent Preferred Connect Descriptor for an already discovered PDB via the AgentPreferredConnectString target property using the EMCLI modify_target command.

Fleet Maintenance Patching: NFS Storage Type Support

Now, Fleet Maintenance Gold Images can be created and imported using NFS storage options. This allows for a more efficient deployment to multiple hosts, reducing the number of copies and files by storing the Gold Image in an NFS reference location.

Database Management:  Modernized Workflow for Configuring Backup to Cloud

For managing database targets, a new JET workflow is now available to configure a database backup to OCI Object Storage. This workflow is available as a new Configure Oracle Cloud Backup menu item under Availability on the Database home page.

Oracle Exadata Infrastructure: New Incidents Tab on the Home Page

A new tab for incidents is now available in the Oracle Exadata Infrastructure home page. In this tab, you can view the alerts and their details like the severity of the issue, summary of the incident, target name, target type, status of the incident, its escalation level, the age of the incident, and the date when it was last updated.

On-Demand Archival Backups for ZDLRA Protected Databases

Archival Backups is a new feature of ZDLRA version 21. A new workflow is now available from Oracle Enterprise Manager for initiating on-demand, one-time archival backups for an individual database protected by a ZDLRA running ZDLRA 21.1 software. The new workflow can be launched from the Protected Databases page under the ZDLRA target administration menu.

In other related news, the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 5 update 10 (13.5.0.10) image is now available on OCI Marketplace! This Marketplace stack contains the pre-configured Oracle Enterprise Manager version 13.5 RU10, with a co-located Oracle database version 19.17.  This image has the option to configure a single node or an OCI 2-node RAC database system for as the Oracle Management Repository.   For more details, be sure to check the EM13.5RU10 Image on OCI Marketplace. 

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 13!

As always, we welcome feedback on how we can improve your experience with Enterprise Manager.  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)