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PURPOSE

The purpose of this document is to provide a reference for the data collected by OSWatcher and how to install, run and use OSWatcher.

SCOPE

Intended Audience: All Database Administrators

DETAILS

OSWatcher Quick Overview

OSWatcher (oswbb) is a downloadable utility to capture performance metrics from the operating system. When you install and run oswbb as part of a performance diagnostic data collection best practice, you can aid in a quicker resolution of your SR with support and development. oswbb is comprised of two separate components:

1. oswbb: a unix shell script data collector which collects and stores the data

2. oswbba: a java utility which will analyze the data automatically and provide advice and produce graphs and an html document

Both components are contained in a single downloadable tar file.

OSWatcher Download

Download OSWatcher by clicking on the link below:

OSWatcher User Guides

Each component has a user guide to document the features and how to install and use. Access the user guides by clicking the links below:

 This utility is not to be confused with the version of OSWatcher that is shipped with Exadata.

NOTE:  If a file download dialog box does not appear when clicking on the download link, you may need to clear your web browser's cache and/or restart your web browser.

Versions: Latest Version 7.3.0   May 28, 2014

All customers are strongly recommended to install a version 7.1 or later release of OSWatcher because of a bug in previous releases that caused snapshot intervals to grow over time.

Release (7.3) include a bug fix for HP-UX running the ifconfig command.  The analyzer has been optimized and the time to perform an analysis on subsets of data has greatly been reduced. 

Previous release (7.2) included several bug fixes and enhancements. A new subdirectory oswifconfig was added. This directory contains the results of running ifcongig to check the status of network interfaces. This is especially useful for diagnosing RAC issues. Many updates to the analyzer have also been made around analyzing information about the I/O subsystem, especially throughput. Throuput is key to understanding and troubleshooting I/O issues on storage arrays. New graphs had been added to the profiler for I/O throughput and cpu waits on I/O.

Previous release (7.1.3)  fixed a bug  that effects only the analyzer on AIX with parsing iostat data.

Previous elease (7.1.2)  fixed a bug that effects only the analyzer on Solaris for customers using prstat instead of the top command.

Previous release (7.1) included several bug fixes and enhancements. It fixed an important bug causing the snapshot intervals to increase over time.  There were also enhancements to the analyzer including the ability to exclude specific directories in the archive from being analyzed.

Previous release (7.0.3) fixed a bug with with analyzing a subset of the archive using the  -START / -STOP flags. The -s flag needs to be added if this functionality is desired. The /docs/The_Analyzer/oswbba_README.txt contains an example of this syntax.

Previous release (7.0.2) fixed a bug with oswbba parsing the ps output from older version 6 files.

Previous release (7.0.1) fixed a bug with AIX parsing top output.

Previous release (7.0) included a far more robust analyzer to analyze more metrics than before. Detailed memory accounting per process along with the ability to analyze very specific time windows within your archive directory are some of the new features with this release. Coming soon: This release will also allow for automation by Oracle Support to automatically analyze your oswbb data upon upload of your oswbb data to an SR. The data will then be analyzed automatically before it is even assigned out to a support analyst.

Previous release (6.0.1) included fix for handling blank lines in extras.txt and to fix broken profile option with oswbba.

Previous release (6.0) was the ability for users to add their own data collections to oswbb and have oswbb collect and manage the data. This is useful for collecting additional statistics for applications like PeopleSoft and other applications. oswbb is extensible through an API which allows oswbb to run additional shell scripts. Also included in this release was the additional option on startup to specify the archive directory to any directory or device. The analyzer was also updated to analyze a subset of available data in the archive.

Previous Release (5.2.0.1) was a bug fix for AIX iostat parsing in OSWbba.

Previous Release (5.2.0) was a bug fix release. Bug fixes including a fix for random vmstat corruption in oswbb and fixes for memory status = unknown for linex when running the analyzer along with multiple formatting fixes with oswbba.

Previous release (5.1.1) was a change to allow the analyzer to reject compressed files. Prior to this release, the analyzer would abort if it found files in the archive that were compressed. If compression of the archive is desired then the analyzer should be run on the archive prior to compression.

Previous release (5.1.0) was the addition of a additional nfs collection for linux only and bug fixes for netstat analyzer.network analyzer. The archive directory can now reside on any disk. The built-in analyzer analyzes the data oswbb collects and provides information on system slowdowns, hangs and other OS performance problems. See the OSWatcher Black Box Analyzer User Guide for more details.

OSWatcher Instructional Video Series

OSWatcher Analyzer Instructional Video Series

Related Links

OSWatcher is now extendable. You can add custom data collections to oswbb. To see how you can add data collections for applications like PeopleSoft click on the link below:

Feedback/Support 

If you are using the version of OSW shipped with Exadata, please have your support analyst file a bug with development.

If you are using the standalone version (available for download here), and encounter problems running OSWatcher which are not listed under the Known Issue section of the User Guide or would like to provide comments/feedback about OSWatcher (including enhancement requests) please post to the Community forum here .

Also, if you are entitled with Long Term Support in Oracle Linux, please file a Service Request.

Best Practices

Pro-Active Problem Avoidance and Diagnostic Collection

Although some problems may be unforeseen, in many cases problems may be avoidable if signs are detected early enough. Additionally, if an issue does occur, it is no use collecting information about that issue after the event. OSWatcher is one of the tools that support recommend for collecting such diagnostics. For information on suggested uses, other proactive preparations and diagnostics, see:

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