OTN Appreciation Day: The ORAchk and EXAchk Tools #ThanksOTN

otnlogoThanks Tim for coming up with this idea! Pretty neat… And THANK YOU OTN!!

There are quite a few features I like in the Oracle Database, but today I choose ORAchk (and EXAchk). Troubleshooting and diagnostics are my favorite area and I was amazed by the enhancements Oracle made in integrating the various diagnostics tools and preserving history. And ORA/EXAchk is a no-cost tool, provided by Oracle, enhanced every quarter with more and more health checks…

ORAchk and EXAchk tools started as just another configuration verification tool (used to be called RACcheck). ORAchk (for non-Engineered systems) and EXAchk (for engineered systems) grown into a “product” from a “tool”. This is evident in 12.2, as the documentation from a simple MOS note grown into a full document User Guide.

What’s cool is that ORAchk and EXAchk can be daemonized to run these checks periodically. The daemon can also purge old reports based on the retention policy you set. The most favorite enhancement I like is the ability to compare two reports. Oracle ORAchk and Oracle EXAchk automatically compare the two most recent HTML reports and generate a difference report, when run in an automated daemon mode.

To manually compare two reports, orachk (or exachk) can be invoked with the -diff option.

$ ./orachk –diff report1 report2

$ ./exachk –diff report1 report2

The comparison report’s sections are very appropriate.

  • Difference between report 1 and report 2 (status change of checks)
  • Unique findings in report 1 (issues that were fixed)
  • Unique findings in report 2 (new issues after report 1)
  • Common findings in report 1 and 2 (issues that were not fixed)

Oracle Health Check Collections Manager is another cool application that comes with these tools, where the ORAchk (and EXAchk) results can be uploaded to an Oracle database APEX workspace for analysis and reporting. ORAchk (and EXAchk) can be configured to automatically upload check results to the Oracle Health Check Collections Manager database. Specify the connection string and the password to connect to the database to upload collection results. Oracle Health Check Collections Manager stores the connection details in an encrypted wallet.

If you have not run ORAchk recently, it’s time to download and run the check today. And, don’t forget to schedule it! Forgot to mention, since 12.1.0.2.5 version you have the ability to Create User Defined Checks too!

Download ORAchk – My Oracle Support Note 1268927.2

While you are there, check out TFA (Trace File Analyzer: MOS 1513912.2) and CHM (Cluster Health Monitor: MOS 1328466.1) as well!

EBS R12.1.3 Post-upgrade Invalid Objects

It is common to have many new invalid objects after an EBS upgrade, and many DBAs take it as the new norm. I think a little bit of research can help to clean out the invalid objects – in fact most of the custom objects that are invalid are pretty much unused by the application and can be dropped right away (take a backup of the code).

We can drop many seeded objects also. Here is a list of invalid seeded objects we found after an EBS upgrade, and related MOS notes identifying them as not needed for application functionality in EBS 12.1.

  • Drop ARP_DDREMIT_FMT_PKG – Refer to Doc ID 1534108.1
  • Drop AP_CCE_BANK_UPGRADE – Refer to BUG 9679899
  • Drop CSE_PROJ_TRANSFER_PKG – Refer to Doc ID 1098989.1
  • Drop CZ_IMP_SINGLE_DEBUG – Refer to Doc ID 398525.1
  • Drop EGO_DEMO_PUB – Refer to Doc ID 2079240.1
  • Drop FA_JOURNALS_PKG – Refer to Doc ID 1078410.1
  • Drop GL_BALANCE_FIX – Refer to Doc ID 1540767.1
  • Drop OE_CREDIT_CARD_MIGRATE_UTIL – Refer to Doc ID 603741.1
  • Drop OKS_CCENCRYPTION_PKG – Refer to Doc ID 413213.1
  • Drop PA_AP_XFER_PKG – Refer to Doc ID 1674338.1
  • Drop ZPB_BUILD_METADATA – Refer to Doc ID 1951646.1
  • Drop view GMF_END_PRD_HLTH_CHK_MAIN_V – Refer to Doc ID 1954028.1
  • Follow the instructions in “APPS.MSC_DEMANTRA_PKG PACKAGE WILL NOT COMPILE (Doc ID 1067492.1” to make MSC_DEMANTRA_PKG valid
  • Package body AP_PAYMENT_EVENT_WF_PKG do not have package definition. Follow instructions in “PACKAGE APPEWFPB.PLS MISSING AFTER THE UPGRADE TO 12.1.1 (Doc ID 1180533.1)”
  • Follow the instructions in ” Unable to Compile WMS_EPC_PVT get ‘MGD_IDCOMPONENT_VARRAY’ Must be Declared Error (Doc ID 1070991.1″ to make WMS_EPC_PVT valid.

There may be more depending on the patches applied and modules enabled in your database. Do a search with the invalid object name on MOS. Most likely you will find a note.

Hope this helps…

B