Oracle Database 12c discovery

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Oracle Database 12c discovery

    The ServiceNow Discovery application supports the discovery of Oracle Database 12c environments, including pluggable databases (PDBs) and container databases (CDBs). These features enable customers to identify and manage Oracle database components accurately within their CMDB. To fully utilize this capability, customers may need to update to the latest Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application from the ServiceNow Store.

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    Prerequisites

    To ensure successful discovery of Oracle Database 12c components, customers must:

    • Configure appropriate user credentials for application access, including Windows credentials for Windows environments and SSH credentials for Unix systems.
    • Set Oracle database discovery credentials with permissions to query specific Oracle tables, such as V$DATAFILE, V$TEMPFILE, V$LOG, DBAFREESPACE, V$DATABASE, V$PDBS, and V$PARAMETER.
    • Assign applicative credentials at the CDB level to discover PDB relationships and CDB size, or at both CDB and PDB levels to also capture size information for individual PDBs.

    Data Collected During Discovery

    Discovery collects detailed information about PDB instances and their relationship to CDBs, including:

    • cmdbcidborapdbinstance: Identifies PDB instances with attributes such as SID, name (combining SID and hostname), version, edition, install directory, oracle home, and the containing CDB SID.
    • cmdbcidbinstancesize: Captures size-related metrics for CDB/PDB instances, including total allocated size, used size, and free space.

    This data establishes the dependency and containment relationships between PDBs, CDBs, and their containers within the CMDB.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By implementing Oracle Database 12c discovery, customers gain accurate visibility into their Oracle database infrastructure, enabling enhanced configuration management, impact analysis, and capacity planning. Proper credential configuration and pattern updates ensure comprehensive data collection, making database components manageable and maintainable through the ServiceNow platform.

    The ServiceNow Discovery application can discover pluggable databases (PDBs) and container databases (CDBs), which are features of Oracle Database 12c. Discovering some of these resources may require updating to the latest version of the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application from the ServiceNow Store.

    A PDB is a portable collection of schemas, schema objects, and non-schema objects that appear to an Oracle Net client as a separate database. A collection of PDBs is called a container database (CDB).

    For more information about PDBs and CDBs, see What are CDBs, PDBs and Containers?

    Request apps on the Store

    Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

    Prerequisites

    Set the user credentials and grant permissions:
    Note:
    Set applicative credentials at the CDB level to discover relationships for PDBs and the CDB size only. Alternatively, set applicative credentials at the CDB/PDB level to discover relationships for PDBs and the CDB/PDB size. If you do not set applicative credentials at the CDB level, no PDB attributes are discovered.

    Data collected during Discovery

    Discovery collects the following data:
    Table and field Description
    cmdb_ci_db_ora_pdb_instance: Relation Type : Managed By​​
    sid Name of the PDB instance​​
    name Name of the CI in CMDB. This is a combination of sid and the hostname​.
    version Version of the PDB as taken from the CDB instance​​
    edition Edition of the PDB as taken from the CDB instance​​
    install_directory Install directory of the PDB as taken from the CDB instance
    oracle_home​ Oracle home of the PDB as taken from the CDB instance
    cdb_name Name of the cdb sid that contains the PDB. This refers to the Oracle database instance configuration item (CI​)
    cmdb_ci_db_instance_size: Relation Type : Contained By​​
    sid Name of the Oracle database CDB/PDB instance​​
    name Name of the CI in CMDB. This is a combination of the sid and the hostname.
    db_size Total size allocated to the database instance
    used_size Size used by the database instance
    free_size Size of the free space on the database instance

    The following is a dependency view of the relationship between PDBs, CDBs, and containers.

    Dependency view of relationship between PDBs, CDBs, and containers