Insider For Oracle User Guide

Insider User Guide
Insider User Guide

Table of Contents
Release notes ............................................................................................................................. 1
Version 2.2 ........................................................................................................................ 1
Version 2.1 ........................................................................................................................ 1
Version 2.0 ........................................................................................................................ 2
Version 1.2 ........................................................................................................................ 2
Version 1.1 ........................................................................................................................ 3
Version 1.0 ........................................................................................................................ 3
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 5
What is Insider ................................................................................................................... 5
Quick start ......................................................................................................................... 6
Background mode ............................................................................................................... 7
Installation ................................................................................................................................. 8
Software installation ............................................................................................................ 8
User accounts ................................................................................................................... 11
Concepts ................................................................................................................................. 12
Insider anatomy ................................................................................................................ 12
Views ..................................................................................................................................... 13
Enterprise ........................................................................................................................ 13
Oracle ............................................................................................................................. 25
Operating system .............................................................................................................. 58
Web ............................................................................................................................... 62
Alerts ...................................................................................................................................... 64
Receiving alerts ................................................................................................................ 64
User-defined alerts ............................................................................................................ 65
Alert profiles .................................................................................................................... 65
Alerts configuration ........................................................................................................... 66
Notification profiles ........................................................................................................... 67
Alert descriptions .............................................................................................................. 71
Reports ................................................................................................................................... 85
Availability report ............................................................................................................. 85
Alert history report ............................................................................................................ 85
Configuration ........................................................................................................................... 86
General ........................................................................................................................... 86
Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 87
Timeout .......................................................................................................................... 89
Email notification .............................................................................................................. 90
Sound notification ............................................................................................................. 91
Proxy .............................................................................................................................. 92
Troubleshooting ........................................................................................................................ 93
General ........................................................................................................................... 93
FAQ ....................................................................................................................................... 94
Glossary .................................................................................................................................. 96
Index .................................................................................................................................... 100
iv
Release notes
Version 2.2
Version 2.2 adds supports for grouping. Groups of servers such as Development and Production, or Europe and US
can be created and servers can be assigned to a group. Enterprise view items (servers) can be added (drag and
dropped or created within) to a group or removed from the group. Groups can be nested (a group within another
group). Groups show how many servers they include (total, including all subgroups), how many paused and how
many are down. A group shows alerts from all its servers, the server name is shown on the alert. Monitoring of all
servers within a group can be paused/resumed with a single command. All critical alerts can be acknowledged by se-
lecting Acknowledge on the group item
Multiple alert profiles can be created and assigned on a per server basis.
Multiple notification profiles can be created and assigned on a per server basis.
Multiple schedules and administrators can be created.
Alerts acknowledgment history dialog.
Group selection
Support for MySQL and Oracle as an internal database
Launching sqlplus and startup/shutdown commands from the popup menu requires reentering the password
Version 2.1
Operating system host monitoring has been improved and supports more operating systems, including Solaris,
HPUX, AIX and other UNIXes. Windows 2000 is also supported.
Optional Windows service component can be installed on a Windows server to get extended Windows statistics and
Oracle alert log file
Operating system host overview has been completely redesigned to provide a more consistent look-and-feel and
more operating system host performance information, including network, storage, paging/swapping and processes
statistics
Version 2.1 adds more operating system drill-down views: network connections, user sessions and storage. Process
view can be configured to show process tree (parent processes).
Version 2.1 adds more Oracle drill-down views: file I/O, temp I/O, archive destinations and archived logs, system
statistic table and chart views.
New System statistics chart view allows to display and analyze Oracle statistics for a month
Oracle availability report has been added
Various enhancements to existing views: more information about KEEP and RECYCLE pools on Instance view,
new columns in Session List view: activity, CPU used, redo generated, network - bytes sent, network - bytes re-
ceived, logical reads, PGA memory, UGA memory, physical reads and hit ratio.
Better support for Oracle DataGuard configurations, including detection of a switchover/failover operations, new
DataGuard alerts, and full support for a mounted but not open Oracle database (e.g. a physical standby) in all views.
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Oracle alert log is also retrieved for a mounted Oracle database.
New alert have beed added: standby database not applying logs, archive log gap detected, physical standby out-
of-sync, KEEP and RECYCLE pool usage. Tablespace free space alert can be configured to not fire when any of the
files are auto-extensible
Alerting and notification functionality has been significantly improved to provide for more reliable issue detection
and notification including: testing for new connections to make sure new connections can be created, notification on
connect/disconnect, starting/stopping monitoring, encountering a critical condition that might prevent monitoring
like memory shortage, resending email alerts if the previous attempt failed, alert pending period - a period of time to
wait before raising an alert, more detailed alert logging and better alert identification scheme to skip sending redund-
ant alerts
Various user interface enhancements including new Speed Gauge item on Oracle Instance view and the Activity
column on the Session List view, time period chooser and overview band for drill-down charts to zoom in/out and
analyze historical data, faster drill-down view access with Go To navigation tree, alert popups always on toggle
switch, bar chart showing extended information on mouse hovering over a bar and import of tnsnames.ora entries.
Background (service) mode option has been added
Version 2.0
Version 2.0 introduces two more Enterprise View items: UNIX host and Windows host. OS Overview shows some
of the vital signs of an OS host health including CPU usage, memory usage, context switches, paging and swapping,
load average and runqueue, disk usage and process list.
Insider now saves and allows to view Oracle system statistics for a month. A number of predefined drill-down views
are based on the saved statistics: session statistics, shared pool, I/O, redo, PGA and network statistics.
Version 2.0 adds more drill-down views: top sessions, processes, latches, buffer cache pools and wait statistics, seg-
ments I/O, undo tablespace, statistics and retention, redo groups and members, log switch history, OS overview, pro-
cesses and shell in addition to the views based on the saved Oracle statistics.
Copy/paste and export to file functionality has been added to all grids.
Free space alert now detects and reports problems per tablespace. New alerts have been added, including new OS
alerts.
Search functionality in Oracle alert log window has beed added. Flat chart displays actual values on mouse over.
Current session and current redo log are highlighted. Alert popups are linked to the corresponding drill-down views.
Version 1.2
Version 1.2 adds four more drill-down views: Configuration, Waits, Top SQL and Storage.
Configuration view shows and allows to edit Oracle initialization parameters including hidden parameters as well as
other important database and instance configuration data.
Waits view displays Oracle wait events. The user can sort by the time waited and analyze wait event history for the
selected event(s).
Top SQL view allows to pinpoint SQLs that account for most of the system load using various criteria such as logic-
al and physical I/O, executions, memory, sorts and others. Explain Plan and SQL statistics panels can further help
identify a problem with a SQL statement.
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Storage view shows tablespaces, datafiles, objects and their space usage statistics.
Version 1.2 adds user-defined alert functionality. The user can now send custom alerts from any application. These
user alerts will be displayed next to the corresponding Enterprise view or Instance view item just like regular Insider
alerts.
Start/stop trace in session functionality has been added to Sessions and Locks view.
SQL statistics panel has been added to Sessions and Locks view.
Session wait panel has been added to Sessions and Locks view.
Version 1.1
Version 1.1 adds external tools configuration support. Some tools like SQL*Plus are preconfigured and more can be
added via External Tool Configuration dialog. Database startup and shutdown commands have been added via
SQL*Plus interface. Predefined variables allow for reusing of Enterprise item connection parameters.
Enterprise Console has been added to provide support for external tool output and system messages
Oracle Sessions view allows to view all or selected user and background Oracle sessions, current SQL, EXPLAIN
PLAN, open cursors and accessed objects. Parallel servers are displayed under their query coordinator session. The
user can kill and disconnect sessions and their shadow processes.
Oracle Locks view displays all sessions holding or requesting a lock in a tree-like view. Waiters are shown under the
holders in the order in which they requested the lock. The object requested, time waiting, mode and status are dis-
played next to the waiting session. The current SQL and objects being held are shown in the Details section below.
The user can kill and disconnect sessions and their shadow processes.
Alert log item has been added to Instance view. All discovered Oracle alert log errors are displayed next to this item.
In addition to it the user can view alert log file tail by clicking on Alert log item.
Instance info box has been added to Instance view. Database info box shows most important information about the
database such as database name, version, instance name, host name and uptime.
Support for a simple Web (HTTP) server monitoring has been added. Response time and availability history as well
as operating system statistics are shown in its Instance view.
Oracle Instance view items can be selected individually and each has been provided a context menu. Using the con-
text menu the user can see the alert history for the selected item and drill down to a more detailed view.
Email notification can be customized to allow for integration with other software. From, Subject and Body fields of
email messages can be adjusted by the user for easier parsing.
Version 1.0
Version 1.0 includes Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g support, Enterprise and Oracle Instance views. It collects over a hundred
various Oracle statistics and defines over 60 customizable alerts notifying the user about conditions that may negat-
ively affect server performance. Full history of triggered alerts is saved for later performance troubleshooting. The
user can choose to have sound and email notification
Version 1.0 supports connections through Oracle OCI (Oracle Net Services) and thin (pure Java - no Oracle client
software required) drivers.
Insider 1.0 provides full support for Oracle DataGuard physical and logical standby databases and displays vital stat-
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istics about primary-standby link performance.
On the operating system side both Windows and UNIX (over ssh) are supported. The user can choose whether to use
shell for UNIX logins. Insider collects and analyzes statistics it gets from the servers it monitors. The longer a data-
base is monitored the more Insider knows about its functional and performance characteristics adjusting its visual
display to help better interpret the meaning of the server performance statistics. In order to avoid showing short-time
peaks averaging is used to smoothen the values where appropriate.
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Introduction
What is Insider
Insider is the first real-time cross-platform performance management solution! Insider lets you see your system
through by displaying real-time performance data in a unique way such that you can identify the root cause of the
problems immediately. The key features of Insider are:
• Real-time monitoring. Insider is a real-time tool meaning you examine the problems before they occur not after.
• Unique extensible user interface. Insider features a unique extensible user interface that not only shows prob-
lems when they occur but also where they occur.
• True cross-platform solution. Insider's flexible architecture allows for collecting data from virtually anything
you might be interested to monitor from database servers to custom applications on any operating system. Not
only can it collect its data from any platform but Insider itself having been written in Java can be installed on the
platform of your choice
• Very little overhead. Insider was designed with performance in mind. Every effort has been taken to reduce its
impact on the system it monitors. The monitored system resources are never used to perform any data processing
activity. Your system is never asked for more than an absolute minimum of information required
• Easy installation. Unlike many tools on the market today Insider's installation is a breeze. No server or network
components are used. No configuration files. No client libraries. No prerequisites. Just install and run
• Non-intrusive. Insider never modifies the environment it monitors. In fact the user accounts Insider uses can
safely be configured with read-only access
• Self-learning. As you learn more about your system with Insider so does Insider itself. It does not simpy collect
the data it gets from your system - it analyzes it to adapt its user interface to the kind of work your system per-
forms
• Comprehensive analysis. Insider collects hundreds of performance metrics and throws around a hundred cus-
tomizable alerts to draw user's attention to the factors that negatively affect performance or availability of the sys-
tem
• Oracle support. Insider supports Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g, Personal, Standard, Enterprise and XE editions
• Robust. With all of its features Insider is very undemanding. It does not require an Oracle client to be installed. It
won't crash or disconnect if your system goes down. It will patiently wait until the system is back up and resume
monitoring without any manual intervention
• Oracle DataGuard support. Insider includes full support for Oracle DataGuard feature and displays relevant in-
formation about your hot standby database state and performance. Moreover it automatically discovers primary-
standby relationships between databases as they are being entered
• Operating system support. In addition to collecting comprehensive Oracle statistics Insider also support some
vital operating system information like CPU and memory data. A large number of operating systems are suppor-
ted including major UNIX and Windows versions
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Quick start
Installing and using Insider is easy. No complex installation or setup is required. You just download and run the in-
staller and start using it. No prerequisites. No assumptions are being made about your computer configuration. All
you need is a computer and a network. And yes, you have to know where your servers are. That's it. You are ready
to start. Here is the procedure that will help you jump-start using Insider with an Oracle database:
Start Insider and select Add > Add Oracle
Fill in connection parameters to an Oracle database and click OK . An Oracle database item is added to Enterprise
view:
An enterprise item shows you some basic performance information like the number of active and waiting users, data
files space utilization and CPU and memory statistics. You may also see an Alert icon next to the item (an exclama-
tion mark in a yellow circle in the right upper corner). It means an alert condition has been encountered that may in-
dicate a potential performance problem in your database. If you position you mouse over the alert icon you will see a
pop-up list of alerts active for this database:
An alert may be just informational, warning or critical. They are displayed in green, yellow and red color respect-
ively. You can configure threshold levels for alerts using Alert Configuration window.
To get a more detailed view of the database performance double-click on the enterprise item. An Instance View will
open that shows you a real-time snapshot of your server activity. Voila. You have just successfully started using In-
sider to get most of your systems performance!
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Background mode
To start Insider in the background mode execute the following command from INSTALLDIR/bin directory:
java -Dinsider.server=true -Xmx256M boot.jar
Insider starts its data collection services but displays no user interface. The background mode is useful when Insider
is installed on a server and runs unattended. To set up the databases, configure email notifications and other settings
start Insider in the user interface (normal) mode first, make all necessary configurations, exit and restart it in the
background mode.
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Installation
Software installation
System requirements
• 256 MB RAM minimum
• 512 MB RAM recommended
• 50 MB hard disk space (may vary if history saving feature is enabled)
• 1024x768 minimum screen resolution
Windows
• Intel Pentium III/800 MHz or higher (or compatible)
• Microsoft Windows 2003/XP/2000/NT 4.0 SP6a
Linux
• Intel Pentium III/800 MHz or higher (or compatible)
• Red Hat Linux Fedora, Debian, SuSe, Mandrake, Slackware, Gentoo and other distributions with JDK 1.5.0
• GNOME or KDE desktop
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Insider installation
Download the installer and run it. You will be prompted for installation directory. No server components are re-
quired for Insider to function. A Windows service can be installed on a Windows server to get an Oracle alert log
file and some extended Windows statistics.
Windows service installation

The Windows service is an optional component that can be installed on a Windows server in order to get the Oracle
alert log file and some extended statistics.
Simple installation. The default installation of the Windows service adds InsiderWinMonitor service running un-
der System account. All communication between the service and Insider is encrypted and the service listens on the
port 12766. To install the Windows service with the default parameters execute:
InsiderWinMonitor.exe install
Note that the service is not started by default. You need to start it with:
InsiderWinMonitor.exe start
To stop the service execute:

InsiderWinMonitor.exe stop
To uninstall:
InsiderWinMonitor.exe uninstall
The service can also be started/stopped and configured using Windows Services applet. See My Computer > Man-
age > Services and Applications > Services
Advanced configuration. To start the Windows service as a console application, change the user account or make
it listen to a non-default port or to change any other options run InsiderWinMonitor.exe with non-default paramet-
ers.
Usage:
InsiderWinMonitor.exe [ operation ] [ options ] [ parameters ]
Operations:
[-k] install
Install service.
[-k] uninstall
Uninstall service.
[-k] console
Start as console application (default).
[-k] start
Start service.
[-k] stop
Stop service.
[-k] restart
Restart service.
-i Install service (alias for -k install).
-u Uninstall service (alias for -k uninstall).
-c Run as console application (alias for -k console).
Options:
-n name
Specifies the name of the service
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-a Automatic service start (valid with operation "install" only).
-m The service will be started manually (valid with operation "install" only).
-p account password
Run the service under the specified account.
Notes:
This option is valid with operation "install" only.
Specified user MUST have permissions to logon as service.
Use form .\username for local accounts.
Use form domain\username or username@domain for a user registered in a domain.
-f file
Use parameter file.
Parameters:
[parameter_name=] parameter_value
port=port_number
TCP port number.
logfile=filepath
Service log file.
protocol=protocol_flags
Set protocol flags:
transparent - transparent transmission;
scramble - scramble network traffic.
Notes.
• Options -p, -m and -a are valid only when installing the service. Some other options are valid only when installing
the service or starting it as a console application. The arguments, specified at the installation are saved in Win-
dows registry and used when starting the service (-p, -m, -a options and parameters)
• -f option can also be used at the installation or starting as a console application only. If specified at the installation
the parameters are copied to the Windows registry. At the subsequent starts the parameter file is not read again
• The user account, configured with the -p option must have LOGON AS SERVICE permissions. See Programs >
Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy > Security settings > User Rights Assignment > Logon as Service.
The user account/password can also be changed using Windows Services applet: My Computer > Manage > Ser-
vices and Applications > Services
• Permission "Act as part of operating system" should be granted to run on Windows 2000 in console mode
• If transparent protocol flag has been specified the communication between Insider and the service is not encryp-
ted. However the username and password are still encrypted
• At the installation or starting as a console application if -f option has not been specified but an InsiderWinMonit-
or.properties file is found in the same directory where the exe file is located it is used as a parameter file. Insider-
WinMonitor.properties is included into the Windows service installation package.
• The arguments to the service are processed in the following order:
• .properties file if found
• command line arguments
• Windows registry (only when starting the service)
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User accounts
Oracle account configuration
The Oracle user account used by Insider to collect Oracle statistics must be able to access Oracle dictionary in read-
only mode. Use the following script to create Oracle user:
• CREATE USER myusername IDENTIFIED BY mypassword; (specify tablespaces and other options if required)
• GRANT CREATE SESSION TO myusername;
• GRANT SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE TO myusername; (alternatively you can grant SELECT ANY DICTION-
ARY)
Some requirements are optional and are only necessary if you need a specific functionality:
• GRANT ALTER SYSTEM TO myusername; (if you need to be able to kill user sessions)
• GRANT EXECUTE ON DBMS_SYSTEM TO myusername; (if you need to be able to start/stop trace in user ses-
sions)
• GRANT EXECUTE ON DBMS_PIPE TO myusername; (if you need to be able to send/receive user-defined
alerts)
• GRANT SYSDBA TO myusername; (if you need to connect to a physical standby in a DataGuard configuration
or any database in a mounted state)
Operating system account configuration

The operating system user account used by Insider to collect statistics must satisfy the following requirements:
UNIX. Generally Insider is using vmstat command to collect operating system statistics. The user account therefore
must be able to execute vmstat command on the target host; in some cases Insider can collect operating system in-
formation without using vmstat command but that is not guaranteed
Windows. No special user requirements. The user must be able to login to Windows operating system
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Concepts
Insider anatomy
Items. Insider functionality is based on three notions - items, views and alerts. An item can be a database, a file
server, a web server, an application - anything you might be interested to see inside out. You start monitoring an
item by placing in on Enterprise view. Enterprise view is a special kind of a view in that it is your starting point.
Once an item is placed on Enterprise view Insider starts monitoring it by sending periodic requests to it and analyz-
ing the responses it gets.
Views. Other views allow for a more detailed display of an item's activity. For example, Oracle Instance view is a
real-time snapshot of an Oracle instance activity. It displays various Oracle components such as memory regions and
data files and their real-time performance metrics.
Note
Even if a more detailed view like Instance view is not currently displayed for an item the complete statist-
ics for it is still being gathered
Alerts. An item such as a database or a file server may encounter a condition that triggers an alert. An alert is a
visual notification to the user that something might possibly go wrong with your server. By way of an example free
space in your data files might be approaching zero or CPU usage on your web server might be close to 100%. Con-
ditions that require the user's attention are reported as alerts. Alerts are shown on all views but not every alert is
shown on every view and not every alerts may make sense for every item. For instance the data file free space alert
does not make sense for a web server and is not triggered for one. All alerts are always reported on Enterprise view
where you can see them by clicking on the alert icon next to the item the alert is being reported for. You can also ac-
cess the complete history of alerts for an item by clicking on it and choosing Alert history menu item
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Views
Enterprise
Enterprise view is the starting point where you add, remove and arrange the items you would like to monitor, view
some basic information about them, enable and disable items, view and configure alerts
What's on the Enterprise view?

Group. A group item is a logical group of servers such as Production and Development, or Europe and US. A
group shows the number of servers within a group and their states. All alert triggered for all servers within a group
are shown next to the group icon. You can double-click on the group icon to open the group's overview and you can
drag and drop servers to and from a group. You can also start/stop monitoring all servers withing a group by right-
clicking on a group and selecting Start/Stop monitoring command. Groups can be nested withing other groups.
Oracle database. Once an Oracle database is added an icon is placed on the Enterprise view showing some vital in-
formation about it including the caption, the database state, the number of active and waiting users, percentage of
free space in data files, cpu and memory utilization if monitoring operating system option was selected and an alert
icon if alerts were triggered for this database
Database states. An icon in the left upper corner shows the current instance and database state
Instance down
Shutdown pending
Instance up, database not mounted
Database mounted
Database open
Database open read-only
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Disabled items. If you are not interested in watching an item on the Enterprise view you can disable it by right-
clicking on it and choosing Stop Monitoring . Once an item is disabled statistics is not gathered for this item until it
is reenabled again. A disabled item is shown in gray color.
An item may also become disabled if a connection to it cannot be established for a certain period of time. In this
case the item stays disabled but is pinged at regular intervals until a connection is established again and reenabled
automatically. Timeout and pinging interval parameters can be adjusted in Settings dialog.
Physical standby. An Oracle physical standby icon is different in that it shows the sequence of the last redo log
shipped from the primary database and the last that has been applied. Its database state icon shows that a physical
standby is in the mounted state.
Link. Two or more items on Enterprise view can be linked if they form a group or a relationship such as Oracle
primary/standby databases. Insider recognizes these relationships automatically as you add items so you need not
manually define them
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OS host. Operating system host icon shows the system type (the icon in the left upper corner) and some vital in-
formation about system load, including load average for UNIX systems and cpu and memory utilization if monitor-
ing operating system option was selected and an alert icon if alerts were triggered for this operating system host.
Web server. Once a Web server is added an icon is placed on the Enterprise view showing some vital information
about it including the response time and cpu and memory utilization if monitoring operating system option was se-
lected and an alert icon if alerts were triggered for this web server.
Alert notification. When an alert is triggered for a database a pop-up alert notification is displayed for a couple of
seconds to draw user's attention. Once the alert notification closes the alert can be viewed by clicking on alert icon
next to an item
Alert list. All alerts currently active for an item can be accessed by clicking on a small alert icon in the right upper
corner of the item they are triggered for. Alerts are ordered by severity first, then by the time (most recent first).
Click on the alert you are interested in to see detailed information about the alert. If you right-click on an alert in the
alert list you access a pop-up menu where you can choose to disable or configure the alert
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Alert history. To view the log of alerts for an enterprise item right-click on the item and choose Alert History . It
will bring an Alert History dialog where you can see the full history of alerts for this item ordered by time the alert
was triggered
You can filter alert history by severity, alert type and time range and export the alerts to an HTML file
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Adding and removing items
To add an Oracle database to Enterprise view right click anywhere inside the view and choose Add Oracle Database.
This will bring up an Oracle database configuration window. Depending on what driver type you choose you will
either have to fill in parameters using a tnsnames entry or fully specify an Oracle connection parameters
You can also choose to assign a meaningful name to your item such as "Sales db" (optional)
OCI driver.
If you have Oracle client software installed

on you workstation you can use Oracle OCI
driver (default) to establish connections to
you databases. Select a TNS name from a list
of tnsnames entries or type in a tns name for
your database, enter username, password and
connection type. Refer to User Configuration
section for Oracle account requirements
Tip
If your tnsnames.ora file is not found (TNS names list is not populated) press Locate tnsnames button
next to TNS names combo and navigate to your tnsnames file, then press OK
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Thin driver.
If you don't have Oracle client software in-

stalled on you workstation you can use Or-
acle thin driver to establish connections to
you databases. Oracle thin driver requires no
Oracle client software of you machine. Just
type in the host name, listener port (1521 is
the default for Oracle), service name or SID,
enter username, password and connection
type. Refer to User Configuration section for
Oracle account requirements
Web server. To add a Web (HTTP) server to Enterprise view right click anywhere inside the view and choose Add
Web Server. This will bring up a Web server configuration window.
You can choose to assign a meaningful name to your server such as "Intranet" (optional)
Enter the URL to your web server
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Operating system host. To add a OS host to Enterprise view right click anywhere inside the view and choose Add
host. This will bring up a OS host configuration window.
You can choose to assign a meaningful name to your server such as "File server" (optional). See below for operating
system configuration dialog
Operating system monitoring.
If you are monitoring an Oracle database or a

web server it is a good idea to get some addi-
tional information from the operating system
on the machine where your database or web
server is running. You will be able to see
such vital information as CPU busy, used/
free memory, swapping/paging activity and
run-queues.
In addition to that a connection to OS enables

Insider to track Oracle alert log errors and es-
timate archive log destination space. Enter
the host name, type of operating system you
have (Windows and UNIX are supported)
username and password. Refer to User Con-
figuration section for user account require-
ments.
If you are connecting to a UNIX box over ssh

you have to also provide port and choose
whether you want to connect using the shell
(default). If you are connecting to a Windows
machine locally (i.e. where Insider itself is
installed) leave username and password
fields blank. If you are connecting to a Win-
dows host on another domain prefix the user-
name with the domain name e.g. ANOTH-
ER_DOMAIN\myusername
Removing items. You can remove items on Enterprise view by right-clicking on an item and choosing Delete . If
you want to remove multiple items click on each item while holding Ctrl key and choose Delete Selected
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Configuring alerts
Enabling/disabling alerts on Enterprise view. If you are not interested in receiving particular alert for an item
right-click on the alert in the alert list and choose Disable for ... menu
If you are not interested in this alert at all you can disable it altogether by selecting Disable this alert for all items
Configure alert shortcut. You can use a convenient shortcut on an Enterprise item that will take you directly to
this alert configuration by right-clicking on the alert in the alert list and choosing Configure this alert menu
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External tools
Extending Insider functionality. You can easily extend Insider functionality by configuring external tools such as
SQL*Plus, ssh or SQL Developer right on an Enterprise View item. Right-click any item and select
Tools>Configure menu to add external tools.
You can use predefined variables to avoid having to type in parameters you already entered for an Enterprise item.
For example, if you created an Oracle Database Enterprise View item you can configure tools like SQL*Plus to
open and connect to your database using the same user name, password and connection string. Once you add an ex-
ternal tool you can access it right from an Enterprise item pop-up menu. Some items like SQL*Plus are precon-
figured and more can be added using Configure Tools dialog
Configuring external tools. To configure external tools right-click any Enterprise view item and select
Tools>Configure. You can add, remove, copy and rearrange external tools in the list or change parameters for an ex-
ternal tool.
21
Parameters. You can choose the name for the external tool to display on the context menu, its window caption, the
command to start the tool, its working directory and icon. To access the full list of predefined variables position the
cursor to where you would like to insert a predefined variable and press Ctrl-Space. For example to add SQL*Plus
as an external tool choose SQL*Plus as the name and window title and enter:
sqlplus ${username}/${password}@${tnsname}
on the command line. If you just need to capture the output of the command select Run as is and Capture Output to
have the output displayed on the enterprise view console
Predefined variables. To avoid having to type the same information twice you can use predefined variables e.g. to
specify connection parameters for an external tool. Whenever Insider encounters such a variable it substitutes it with
the actual value.
Note
Sensitive information like the username and password are always stored in encrypted form
22
${USERNAME} Oracle user name
${PASSWORD} Password for the account used to connect to Oracle
${TNSNAME} TNSNames entry used to connect to Oracle
${SERVICENAME} Service name
${CONNECT-FORM} Connect form
${CONNECTION-TYPE} Connection type: normal, sysdba, sysoper
${DRIVER-TYPE} Driver type: thin or OCI
${URL} URL
${HOST} Host
${ALIAS} Enterprise item name
${PORT} Port
${SID} SID used to connect to Oracle
${ORACLE_HOME} Oracle Home
${OS_HOST} Operating system host
${OS_PORT} Operating system port
${OS_USERNAME} Operating system account
${OS_PASSWORD} Operating system account password
Switching between views

Enterprise view is always on. You cannot close it because it's the application main view. All other views can be
opened and closed.
When you open another view a tab is added at the top of the window as shown on the picture. To switch to another
view simply select its tab. To close a view click on X button on its tab
Console
Insider may need to report some important information back to you or display the output of an external tool. These
are typically shown on Enterprise console. Enterprise console is displayed on Enterprise view whenever a new mes-
sage arrives. You can safely close it once you have read the message
23
Status Bar
Some useful statistics about Insider can be found on the status bar at the bottom of the application window. These
include Insider internal database size, number of pending requests to the items on Enterprise View, allocated and
used memory
Ideally the number of pending requests should be zero. It means that all the requests Insider sends to the monitored
servers are processed in a timely manner. In some cases however such as when the network is too slow or some of
the servers are too busy requests begin to accumulate. If a server is not responding for a prolonged period Insider
cannot adequately display this server and eventually an internal alert will be raised and the number of pending re-
quests is shown in red. By default Insider automatically increases the refresh rate if the server appears too slow. You
can turn off this feature on a Data Collection page of the Settings dialog.
24
Oracle
Instance overview
Oracle Instance view is a detailed real-time snapshot of an Oracle database showing performance and other critical
information for a single Oracle instance. The layout of the Instance view reflects the way Oracle works at the con-
ceptual level - from users and sessions at the top over the network down to memory components (SGA and PGA)
and eventually saving the data and reading it from storage
A unique feature of Instance View is that it learns about your database over time. All databases are different both
functionally and performance-wise. Some are based on expensive parallel servers, some use commodity hardware.
500 SQLs per second may be a low-activity period for some systems and extremely high for others. Insider is aware
of this difference. It accumulates and analyzes the statistics collected for your database and the longer you are mon-
itoring your database the more Insider knows about it and adjusts its visual interface to more accurately display your
database performance.
Tip
To help Insider speed up its auto-tuning feature it is a good idea to allow it to run over both low and high-
activity periods on your database.
Just like Enterprise view Instance view displays alerts about your database. There are some differences however.
The Enterprise view shows you all alerts that are triggered for the database, the Instance view does not. The Instance
view shows only the alerts that are relevant in the context of a single Oracle instance. For example DataGuard alerts
are not displayed on Instance view because they are outside of scope of a single Oracle instance. Likewise Oracle
RAC specific alerts are not shown on Instance view either.
Another important difference is that alerts on Instance view are shown next to the component they are related to. For
example "SQLs not shared" alert will be shown next to the Shared Pool component while "Temp free space" will be
shown next to temp files so that the user can immediately pinpoint what component of an Oracle instance requires
attention.
An alert is shown next to the component it is related to
Other than that the alerts function in much the same way as on Enterprise view. You receive an alert notification
when a new alert is triggered that draws your attention to the component. You can then click on the alert icon next to
the component to see the alert or alert list for that component. You can also disable and configure alerts in the same
way you do it on Enterprise view.
Item selection and context menus. Every item on Instance view can be selected with a mouse. Once the item is se-
lected the user can bring up a context menu for this item by right-clicking on it.
25
Some context menu choices are specific to the item and some apply to all items. So Alert History option is provided
for all items and lets you view all alerts raised for the selected item only.
Instance info box. Instance info box displays important information about the instance: database name, instance
name, Oracle version and edition, operating system version, operating system host and database uptime
Sessions and network. The upper part of Instance View shows information about user sessions and network statist-
ics. It shows the time it takes to send a simple request to the server and get back the results (response time). High re-
sponse times may indicate that server is too busy or the network is experiencing a problem.
It also shows the number of active sessions and inactive sessions currently connected to the database and network
statistics - bytes per second sent and received by Oracle from the clients over Oracle Net Services and the number of
roundtrips (messages) per second.
Operating system statistics. If the option to monitor operating system statistics was chosen an operating system
box is dislayed in the right upper corner, showing CPU and memory statistics
System Global Area. SGA (System Global Area) box displays some vital information about Oracle shared memory
areas. The caption shows the maximum size (sga_max_size) and allocated memory and pool area shows information
for every memory pool configured in SGA. All memory pools configured for the instance are shown each in its own
box inside SGA, including buffer caches, shared pool, large pool etc. Only the pools that are configured are shown.
If for instance Keep Pool has not been configured for the instance it will not be displayed. Inside each pool's box is
the information relevant for this pool including:
26
• For each pool its name and current size
• Advisories where available. For example if advisory (V$DB_CACHE_ADVICE) is enabled for the buffer cache
it is depicted by arrows in the upper right corner of the box. Arrows up show that the advisory suggests that the
respective pool may benefit from increasing its size. Arrows down show that according to the advisory size can be
reduced without performance penalty; no arrows means size is adequate or advisory is not available
• Hit ratio where applicable
• Percent used where applicable
• Buffer cache - rate of block changes per second
• Shared pool - rate of SQLs per second
• Library cache - soft parse rate
• Redo buffer - redo entries per second
Program Global Area. PGA (Program Global Area) box displays some vital information about server processes
private memory areas. The caption shows the maximum PGA size allocated since startup and current amount of al-
located memory. PGA memory mode (MANUAL or AUTO) and hit ratio are shown in the box below the caption
27
Work areas staticstics including maximum size alllocated for work areas since startup and the amount of PGA cur-
rently consumed by work areas as well as memory sort ratio and work area executions statistics are shown in Work
Area box in the lower part of PGA box
Oracle Processes. One level below memory areas on Instance View is occupied by various Oracle processes in-
cluding Oracle background and user processes. Each type of Oracle processes is represented by a process box.
Where the number of processes can vary and the maximum can be set by initialization parameters as for parallel or
shared processes the current number and the maximum are depicted by the quantity gauge below the process box.
Processes that read or write data usually have a link to the memory region or the files from which they are reading or
writing data (blue for writing and yellow for reading data). The number next to the link shows the current speed of
the data flow averaged if necessary.
Files. One level below processes on Instance View is occupied by various Oracle files including Oracle datafiles
undo and temp tablespaces. Each type of Oracle tablespace is represented by a cylinder, showing percent used space
as well as current size and maximum configured on a quantity gauge below the cylinder.
28
Links coming in and out of the cylinder represent the data flow i.e. the amount of data read from or written to the re-
spective tablespace per second.
Redo logs and archive destinations. The right lower corner of the Instance view is occupied by various Oracle
components related to redo generation and archiving. Redo buffer at the bottom of SGA displays important informa-
tion related to the functioning of the redo buffer such as the size and redo entries per second statistics. The links con-
necting the redo buffer and log writer process and log writer process to online redo log show the speed at which log
writer writes the information to the current redo log. Online redo log is depicted by a ring below the log writer re-
flecting its circular nature. The number at the top of online redo log item is the current sequence number
If the database is in NOARCHIVELOG mode no more information related to redo is shown. If the database is in
ARCHIVELOG mode an archiver process box is displayed showing the number of currently configured archive pro-
cesses and archive logs cylinder. Archive logs information is only available if Monitor OS option was selected.
Oracle alert log file. Oracle alert log item is shown next to other Oracle files. Whenever an error is discovered in
the Oracle alert log an alert is shown next to this item as shown on the picture:
29
In addition to it you can view the Oracle alert log file tail by right-clicking on the Alert log item and choosing Open
Oracle Alert log. To search in the Oracle Alert log window enter the text to search into the search box and press
Enter. Press Enter again to move to the next occurence.
30
Drill-down views
If you identify a problem with an Oracle database performance you can further analyze it using drill-down views.
Drill-down views are different from Enterprise and Instance views in that they do not collect their information in
real-time and do not show the overall system performance but rather allow to concentrate on one specific aspect or
component like e.g. Shared Pool or Network performance. Some of the drill-down views are composed of multiple
subviews and some views can appear in more than one parent view:
• System. Parameters, Configuration, System statistics, Charts
• Sessions. All Sessions, Top Sessions, Locks, Processes, Statistics.
• Top. Top SQL, Top Sessions, Top segments
• Memory. Buffer pools, Buffer wait stats, Shared pool stats, PGA stats
• Waits. Events, Locks, Buffer wait stats, All latches, Parent and child latches, Current latch holders
• Storage. Tablespaces.
• I/O. Files, Top Segments, Logical, Physical, Tables
• Buffer cache. Buffer pool list, Buffer wait statistics.
• I/O. Segments, Logical I/O, Physical I/O, Tables scan statistics.
• Undo. Undo tablespaces, Statistics, Undo retention
• Redo. Redo groups and members, Log switch history, Statistics, Archived logs
• Temp. Files
• Backup. Archived logs.
• Network. Statistics.
All drill-down views share some common widgets used to display or change the settings for the view.
Toolbar
Drill-down view toolbar located just above the view allows to refresh the contents of the view manually (Refresh
button on the left) or set the interval to automatically update the view.
The rotating flower icon on the left shows that the view is being updated. Once the update is complete the last up-
date time is shown on the toolbar.
31
Some views also have other controls on the toolbar specific to the view, for example, Kill Session button on the Ses-
sions view.
Tables
Tables are often used to display list-like (processes list) or tree-like (explain plan) information in drill-down views.
The user can sort by a single column, move, resize and

change the order of columns, show or hide a colum
and copy or export the contents of the table. To copy a
row or rows in a table select the row or multiple rows
using Ctrl or Shift buttons, right-click on the table and
select Copy as HTML or Copy as text. The copied
rows are placed on the clipboard.
To hide or show a column in a table right-click on any

column caption and check or uncheck the columns you
need to show or hide.
To sort by a column simply click on its caption. To

sort in descending order click again. To change the or-
der of columns click on a column caption and drag it
to the desired location. To resize a column position the
mouse between the column captions click and drag the
caption end to the desired width.
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Drill-down chart
Drill-down charts are used to visualize performance statistics over time. Drill-down charts can be configured to dis-
play a single or multiple statistics at the same time and move or narrow/stretch the time period to see statistics for.
Drill-down charts settings can be adjusted using drill-

down chart configuration dialog. Press the Configure
chart button at the top of the drill-down chart. In the
configuration dialog you can add or remove statistics
from the chart, change the line thickness, color and
read the description of the statistics.
Drill-down chart has three major components: the

chart area, the overview band/time period chooser and
the legend. The chart area is where the charts are dis-
played. The overview band and time period chooser
become visible when the mouse is positioned over the
overview line. The overview band shows all available
statistics values. The time chooser allows to move and
change the width of the selected time period. The le-
gend shows the selected statistics and their chart color.
Choosing time period. You can change the selected time period by moving it back and forth in time and by nar-
rowing or stretching the time period.
Moving time period. The easiest way to move the selected time period is by dragging the chart area. Position your
mouse over the chart area, press its left button and drag the mouse to the right or to the left to move the time period.
The same can be achieved by positioning the mouse over the time chooser handle and dragging it in the desired dir-
ection.
Stretching time period. To narrow or widen the selected time period position your mouse over the overview line.
The overview band and the time period chooser will show up. Position your mouse over the left or the right handle
of the time period chooser and drag it to narrow or widen the time period. There are also shortcuts for the most com-
mon time periods in the upper part of the chart area.
33
34
Flat chart
Flat charts are most often to display 24 hours by 7 days summary of some performance statistics. The values are
shown with the intensity of the color. The legend below the chart helps understand the distribution of statistics and
the actual value can be seen by hovering the mouse over the corresponding square.
Bar chart
Bar charts display values as vertical bars. To see more detailed information about each value position your mouse
over the bar. The value for the selected bar as well as some additional information will be shown in a tooltip.
35
System
Oracle System view has 4 subviews that allow you to view and edit Oracle initialization parameters including hid-
den parameters, other important database and instance configuration data, system statistics table and charts. You can
set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle System view can be filtered
and sorted, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show columns in System view right-
click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open System view double-click on an Oracle data-
base and choose System tab.
Parameters. To view or edit Oracle initialization parameters click on the Parameters tab below System view tab.
You can sort Parameters list by any colum, filter by name by typing the first letters of the parameter name into Filter
by name box. You can also choose to see only the modified parameters and show or hide hidden parameters.
Editing parameters. To change the value of a parameter select an editable parameter in the list (parameters that
cannot be edited are shown on a gray background) and press Edit Parameter button or simply double-click the on
parameter.
36
In the Edit Parameter dialog you can set various options available for an Oracle ALTER SYSTEM (SESSION) com-
mand such as scope, comments, sid, deferred and others.
Configuration. Configuration subview shows other important Oracle database and instance configuration data as
well as licensing, options and NLS parameters. To open Configuration view click on the Configuration tab below
System view tab.
System statistics. System statistics subview shows Oracle system statistics (current value).
Charts. System statistics charts subview allows to select any number of Oracle statistics and add them to a drill-
down chart. A month worth of statistics history can be analyzed.
37
Sessions
Sessions view can be used to view Oracle user sessions and processes, find the sessions that consume most of the
system resources, kill and trace sessions. Sessions view includes 5 subviews: all sessions, top sessions, locks, pro-
cesses and statistics
All sessions
Oracle Sessions view shows a list of Oracle sessions currently connected to the database and the details for the se-
lected session. You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle
Sessions view can be filtered and sorted, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show
columns in Sessions view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Sessions view
double-click on an Oracle database and choose Sessions tab.
Current session. The current (own) session is always highlighted for easy identification
Activity column. One column in the All Sessions list is a special column in that its value is not directly retrieved
from Oracle but rather calculated based on the sessions statistics. The value is displayed as a speed gauge and the
more active the session is i.e. the more resources it is using on the server the faster the speed gauge moves. The rota-
tion of the speed gauge helps easily and quickly pinpoint the sessions that are the most resource-intensive right now.
This column is shown for active sessions only.
38
Long op column. The long op column is based on the Oracle long op (long operations) statistics. If a session is re-
ported by Oracle as performing a long operation this column shows the estimated percentage of work done as a pro-
gress bar.
Parallel server sessions. You can easily see which sessions spawned parallel servers and how many. Parallel server
sessions are displayed under their query coordinator as shown on the picture:
As you can see a session with SID=12 has spawned 4 parallel servers
Killing or disconnecting a user session. To kill or disconnect a user session select the session in the list and press
Kill Session toolbar button. You can choose whether to allow the current transaction to finish to kill immediately. In
some cases it is preferrable to kill the shadow process first. It is not recommended by Oracle but sometimes it is the
only way to ensure that killed session does not hang in the database until reboot. Use this option only if you cannot
get rid of killed sessions otherwise.
Starting/stopping trace for a session. To start/stop trace for a selected session or sessions select the session(s) and
press Start trace or Stop trace buttons.
39
Top sessions
Top sessions view can be used to find sessions that consume most of the system resources. Select the statistics to
sort the sessions by in the list on the toolbar and the number of top sessions to display.
All statistics or selected only. Top sessions view has an option to display all statistics for all top sessions or only
the statistics by which the sessions are sorted.
If Show All option was

chosen the top sessions will
be displayed as 3D charts
where each chart shows all
statistics for the session.
The legend at the bottom of
the view explains what stat-
istics are displayed. The ac-
tual values are shown right
below the chart.
If Selected only was chosen

a single 3D chart shows the
selected statistic value for
all top sessions. The session
attributes (SID, serial# and
username or background
process) are displayed next
to the session's bar.
Locks
Oracle Locks view shows a list of Oracle sessions currently holding or requesting a lock and the details for the se-
Locks view can be filtered and sorted, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show
columns in Locks view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Locks view
double-click on an Oracle database and choose Sessions/Locks tab.
Holders and waiters. You can easily see which sessions are waiting for other sessions to release a lock. The
waiters are shown under the holders in the order in which they requested a lock and the object they are waiting for is
displayed next to the waiting session. For example in a situation as shown on the picture:
40
you can easily see that session SID=23, TEST1 is holding a transaction lock and a lock on TEST_TABLE. Further,
SID=33, TEST2 is waiting for this session to release a lock on TEST_TABLE. The requested mode is Exclusive and
it has been waiting for 105 seconds. Next the sessions SID=19 and SID=20 are waiting in turn for SID=33 to acquire
and release its lock to proceed.
41
Processes
Oracle Processes view shows a list of Oracle processes as returned by V$PROCESS system view. You can set the
view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle Processes view can be filtered and
sorted, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show columns in the view right-click on a
column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Oracle processes view double-click on an Oracle data-
base and choose Sessions/Processes tab.
Statistics
Oracle session statistics view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour, day
or month. It collects and displays session-related Oracle statistics:
• Logons
• User calls
• User commits
• User rollbacks
• CPU used by sesions
• Logical reads
You can read the description for each statistic, adjust its color or line thickness or adding additional statistics if
available by pressing Configure chart button at the upper right corner of the corresponding chart.
42
Top
Oracle Top view allows to analyze and find the most expensive SQLs, sessions or database segments that account
for most I/O
Top SQL
Oracle Top SQL view allows to analyze and find the most expensive SQLs in terms of logical or physical I/O, CPU
or other criteria. You can select the number of top N SQLs to display and the statistic to sort by: buffer gets, disk
reads, executions etc.
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle SQL view can be
sorted by clicking on a column but it is important to know that sorting affects only the top N SQLs that were re-
trieved according to the criteria (buffer gets, disk reads etc.), The columns can be moved and resized with a mouse.
To hide or show columns in SQL view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open
SQL view double-click on an Oracle database and choose SQL/Top SQL tab.
To see the details for a SQL select it in the list. The full text, explain plan and SQL statistics are displayed in the
panels below.
43
Top sessions
Top sessions view can be used to find sessions that consume most of the system resources. Select the statistics to
sort the sessions by in the list on the toolbar and the number of top sessions to display.
All statistics or selected only. Top sessions view has an option to display all statistics for all top sessions or only
the statistics by which the sessions are sorted.
If Show All option was

chosen the top sessions will
be displayed as 3D charts
where each chart shows all
statistics for the session.
The legend at the bottom of
the view explains what stat-
istics are displayed. The ac-
tual values are shown right
below the chart.
If Selected only was chosen

a single 3D chart shows the
selected statistic value for
all top sessions. The session
attributes (SID, serial# and
username or background
process) are displayed next
to the session's bar.
Top segments
To find out what tables/indexes are most heavily stressed or cause contention choose Segments I/O view. For ex-
ample, to pinpoint the table, index or materialized view that accounts for most physical I/O select physical reads or
writes in the list on the toolbar and sort the segments list by value in descending order by clicking on Value column
caption.
Warning
Segments I/O view is available on Oracle 9i Release 2 and higher only.
Full statistics for the selected segment are shown in the Stats tab below the segments list.
44
Memory
Oracle Top view allows to analyze and find the most expensive SQLs, sessions or database segments that account
for most I/O
Buffer pools
Oracle buffer pools view shows the list of buffer pools, configured for the system, including default buffer pools for
all data block sizes, keep and recycle pools.
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle buffer pools view
can be sorted by clicking on a column caption, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or
show columns in the view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Buffer pools
view double-click on an Oracle database and choose Buffer Cache/Buffer Pool tab.
The statistics for a buffer pool are shown in the buffer pool statistics tab when a buffer pool is selected in the list.
Wait statistics
The type of buffer that causes the most waits can be found using the Wait statistics view. This view shows the waits
per buffer type for buffer busy waits
Shared pool statistics

Oracle shared pool statistics view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour,
day or month. It collects and displays shared pool-related Oracle statistics:
• Hard parses
• Total parses (hard and soft)
• Executes
• CPU time spent parsing
PGA
PGA statistics view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour, day or month.
It collects and displays PGA-related Oracle statistics:
• workarea executions - optimal
• workarea executions - onepass
• workarea executions - multipass
• sorts (disk)
45
• sorts (memory)
• sorts (rows)
46
Waits
Wait events
Oracle Waits view shows Oracle wait events and their related statistics. The user can choose to display or hide idle
wait events
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle Waits view can be
sorted by clicking on a column caption, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show
columns in Waits view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Waits view
double-click on an Oracle database and choose Waits tab.
To see the history for a wait event or a group of wait events select the wait events in the list. The wait history chart
shows wait event statistics for a week. If several wait events have been selected their statistics are added up.
47
Locks
Oracle Locks view shows a list of Oracle sessions currently holding or requesting a lock and the details for the se-
Locks view can be filtered and sorted, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show
columns in Locks view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Locks view
double-click on an Oracle database and choose Sessions/Locks tab.
Holders and waiters. You can easily see which sessions are waiting for other sessions to release a lock. The
waiters are shown under the holders in the order in which they requested a lock and the object they are waiting for is
displayed next to the waiting session. For example in a situation as shown on the picture:
you can easily see that session SID=23, TEST1 is holding a transaction lock and a lock on TEST_TABLE. Further,
SID=33, TEST2 is waiting for this session to release a lock on TEST_TABLE. The requested mode is Exclusive and
it has been waiting for 105 seconds. Next the sessions SID=19 and SID=20 are waiting in turn for SID=33 to acquire
and release its lock to proceed.
48
Wait statistics
The type of buffer that causes the most waits can be found using the Wait statistics view. This view shows the waits
per buffer type for buffer busy waits
Latches
Oracle latches view shows the list of latches, parent and child latches and current latch holders.
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle latches view can
be sorted by clicking on a column caption, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show
columns in the view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Latches view
double-click on an Oracle database and choose Lathces tab.
49
Storage
Oracle Storage view shows the tablespaces, datafiles, objects and space usage statistics.
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Oracle Storage view can
be sorted by clicking on a column caption, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show
columns in Storage view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list. To open Storage view
double-click on an Oracle database and choose Storage tab.
To see the details for a tablespace select it in the list. The data or temp files that belong to the selected tablespace
and the objects (segments) that reside in the selected tablespace are displayed in the panels below. For example to
find the largest table in a tablespace, select the tablespace in the list, then open Objects tab below and sort by Size
column.
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I/O
I/O view helps identify and eliminate I/O bottlenecks and both physical and logical I/O related problems. I/O view
includes 4 subviews: segments, logical I/O, physical I/O and table scans.
Files I/O
Files I/O view shows the breakdown of I/O activity by Oracle files. By sorting this view you can find out what files
and tablespaces account for most I/O activity
Top segments
To find out what tables/indexes are most heavily stressed or cause contention choose Segments I/O view. For ex-
ample, to pinpoint the table, index or materialized view that accounts for most physical I/O select physical reads or
writes in the list on the toolbar and sort the segments list by value in descending order by clicking on Value column
caption.
Warning
Segments I/O view is available on Oracle 9i Release 2 and higher only.
Full statistics for the selected segment are shown in the Stats tab below the segments list.
Logical I/O
Logical I/O view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour, day or month. It
collects and displays logical I/O-related Oracle statistics:
• db block changes
• consistent changes
• db block gets
• consistent gets
Physical I/O
Physical I/O view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour, day or month. It
collects and displays physical I/O-related Oracle statistics:
• Physical reads
• Physical writes
• Physical reads direct
51
• Physical writes direct
Table scans
Table scans view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour, day or month. It
collects and displays table scans-related Oracle statistics:
• Table scans block gotten
• Table fetch by rowid
• Table scans rows gotten
• Table fetch continued row
• Table scans (short tables)
• Table scans (long tables)
52
Undo
Undo view can be used to analyze undo-related problems such as ORA-01555 errors or tune undo retention. Undo
view includes 3 subviews: undo tablespaces, statistics and undo retention.
Warning
Undo view is available on Oracle 9i and higher only.
Tablespaces
Undo tablespaces view shows the list of undo tablespaces configured for the database. The tabs below the list show
the details about the selected undo tablespace, such as files that comprise the tablespace, rollback segments and their
statistics and current transactions using the tablespace.
Statistics
To find out what was the longest query on the database or when most undo was generated or what was the highest
number of concurrently running transaction use Undo statistics view. Undo statistics view is based on
V$UNDOSTAT system view and shows undo statistics for the past week grouped by hour in a 24x7 flat chart.
Undo retention
Undo retention view can be used to calculate undo space requirements for a given undo_retention parameter setting.
53
Redo
Redo view can be used to analyze redo-related statistics and current redo logs configuration. Undo view includes 3
subviews: redo groups and members, log switch history and statistics.
Groups
Redo groups view shows the list of redo log groups configured for the database. When a group is selected its mem-
bers are shown in the redo members table. The current group is highlighted.
Log switch history

Log switch history view helps find out how often and when most of redo log switches occured and shows the redo
log switch statistics for the past 2 weeks grouped by hour in a 24x14 flat chart.
Statistics
Redo statistics view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour, day or month.
It collects and displays redo-related Oracle statistics:
• redo size
• redo blocks written
• redo entries
• redo wastage
Archived log
Archive destination and archived logs view shows the list of all archive destinations. When an archive destination is
selected the list of archived logs for this destination is shown in the archived logs table.
54
Temp
Temp view displays information about Oracle temp space and usage.
Temp I/O
Temp I/O view shows the breakdown of I/O activity by Oracle temp files. By sorting this view you can find out
what temp files and tablespaces account for most I/O activity
55
Backup
Backup view displays information related to Oracle backup and archived log.
Archived log
Archive destination and archived logs view shows the list of all archive destinations. When an archive destination is
selected the list of archived logs for this destination is shown in the archived logs table.
56
Network
Network statistics view is a history view that can be configured to show statistic history for the past hour, day or
month. It collects and displays network-related Oracle statistics:
• bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
• bytes received via SQL*Net from client
• SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
• bytes sent via SQL*Net to dblink
• bytes received via SQL*Net from dblink
• SQL*Net roundtrips to/from dblink
57
Operating system
Operating system overview
Operating system overview is a detailed real-time snapshot of an OS server showing performance and other critical
information for a single OS.
Just like Enterprise view Operating system overview view displays alerts about your OS host. There are some differ-
ences however. The Enterprise view shows you all alerts that are triggered for the OS host, the Overview does not.
The Operating system overview shows only the alerts that are relevant in the context of a single OS server.
Sessions and network. The upper part of OS overview shows information about user sessions and network statist-
ics. It shows the time it takes to send a simple request to the server and get back the results (response time). High re-
sponse times may indicate that server is too busy or the network is experiencing a problem.
It also shows the number of active sessions and inactive sessions currently connected to the server and network stat-
istics - network packets sent and received per second.
Info box. Info box displays important information about the OS host: operating system type and release, server
name, uptime, current time, users, and runqueue length.
CPU box. CPU box shows all available CPUs and their load, including system and user-mode CPU usage.
58
Memory and load charts. Other vital OS host performance metrics, including available and free memory, memory
used for file cache, paging and swapping, context switches and load average are displayed in the memory and load
charts.
Processes. The total number of processes, running, sleeping and zombies (zombie process or defunct process is a
process that has completed execution but still has an entry in the process table, this entry being still needed to allow
the process that started the zombie process to read its exit status) are show below memory statistics.
Disks. The disks show used space on the disk drives and the swap partition/files. The quantity gauge below the cyl-
inder shows the actual amount of free and total space.
Links coming in and out of the cylinder represent the data flow i.e. the amount of data read from or written to the
disk drives per second.
Processes
Processes view shows a list of operating system processes currently running. You can set the view to automatically
59
refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Processes view can be filtered and sorted, the columns can be
moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show columns in the view right-click on a column and check or un-
check a column in the list. The hierarchy of processes (parent-child relationship) can be shown with Show hierarchy
toolbar checkbox.
Killing a process. To kill a process select the process in the list and press Kill Process toolbar button or select Kill
Process in the pop-up menu.
Storage
Operating system storage view shows the drives (mounts) and space usage statistics.
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Storage view can be sor-
ted by clicking on a column caption, the columns can be moved and resized with a mouse. To hide or show columns
in Storage view right-click on a column and check or uncheck a column in the list.
The breakdown of the total, free and used space on all volumes (mounts) is displayed below the table
Network
Operating system network view shows active TCP connections, ports on which the computer is listening and ether-
net statistics
60
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Network view can be sor-
Warning
Network, sessions and shell views are available on UNIX only
Sessions
Operating system sessions view shows all currently connected operating system users and the details of their con-
nection such as login time, idle time and IP address.
You can set the view to automatically refresh every N seconds or refresh it manually. The Network view can be sor-
Shell
Shell view is a special type of view in that it allows you to login to you operating system host using your login and
password you entered when adding an Enterprise view item and execute any command that your user account is
configured to access.
Note
The connection to your operating system host is established using secure SSH protocol
Press Login to login to the operating system shell. You can then execute any command your user account is con-
figured to access. For example, you can type: vmstat to analyze your operating system performance.
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Web
Web server overview
Web server view is a detailed real-time snapshot of an Web server showing performance and other critical informa-
tion for a single web server.
Just like Enterprise view Web Server view displays alerts about your web server. There are some differences
however. The Enterprise view shows you all alerts that are triggered for the web server, the Instance view does not.
The Web Server view shows only the alerts that are relevant in the context of a single web server.
Response time. Response time shows the time it takes to send a simple request to the server and get back the results
(response time). High response times may indicate that server is too busy or the network is experiencing a problem.
Response time history item shows last and maximal time it took to process a single request as well as response time
chart over the last 20 measurements
Availability chart shows the overall response time statistics
62
Operating system statistics. If the option to monitor operating system statistics was chosen an operating system
box is dislayed showing CPU and memory statistics
63
Alerts
Receiving alerts
An item such as a database or a file server may encounter a condition that triggers an alert. An alert is a visual noti-
fication to the user that something might possibly go wrong with your server. By way of an example free space in
your data files might be approaching zero or CPU usage on your web server might be close to 100%. Conditions that
require the user's attention are reported as alerts. Alerts are shown on all views but not every alert is shown on every
view and not every alerts may make sense for every item. For instance the data file free space alert does not make
sense for a web server and is not triggered for one. All alerts are always reported on Enterprise view where you can
see them by clicking on the alert icon next to the item the alert is being reported for.
Tip
If you are not interested in receiving particular alert click on alert list and choose Disable this alert for all
items
Internal alerts. Some conditions may trigger what is called an internal alert. If for example a database server is too
busy and does not respond to requests eventually the queue of requests gets overfilled and an internal alert is fired.
Internal alert icon is similar to a regular alert and is placed next to the regular alert icon. Just as a regular alert it
shows detailed alert information when clicked and can be closed. Unlike regular alerts internal alerts cannot be con-
figured, disabled and do not have severities.
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Sometimes an internal alert text contains an Oracle error code returned by the database. You can find out more about
the Oracle error by typing the error code into Oracle Lookup error code box on the toolbar and pressing Enter. You
can omit the leading and trailing zeros.
User-defined alerts
You can define your own alerts according to the business needs and have them displayed on the Insider views just
like internal Insider alerts.
You can send an alert to Insider from any Oracle application or job using Oracle DBMS_PIPE.SEND_MESSAGE
procedure. You need to supply (pack) alert text, ON/OFF switch and severity and send the message to the 'IN-
SIDER' pipe. Here is an example of a user-defined alert:
DECLARE
RES INTEGER;
BEGIN
DBMS_PIPE.PACK_MESSAGE('My custom alert');
DBMS_PIPE.PACK_MESSAGE('ON');
DBMS_PIPE.PACK_MESSAGE(50);
RES:=DBMS_PIPE.SEND_MESSAGE('INSIDER');
END;
The first call to pack_message supplies the alert text. The second call passes the alert state. ON turns the alert on.
OFF turns it off. You need to pass the same alert message when turning off an alert. The third parameter is severity.
To raise an alert with Info severity pass 30 as the third parameter, 50 for Warning and 100 for Critical severity.
Using custom alerts you can extend Insider's functionality to include virtually any condition you consider important
in your environment.
Alert profiles
If you have to maintain multiple servers with different availability requirements you can define multiple alert pro-
files and assign them on a per-server basis. You may want, for example, define one alert profile for production serv-
ers and another for development servers. The production alert profile would report all alert and have lower threshold
levels while the development alert profile would only report critical alerts. You can define alert profiles in the Alert
Profiles and Configuration window. You can either select Alerts > Alerts in the main menu or right-click on an alert
pop-up and choose Configure this alert. Alternatively, you can go to Alert Profiles and Configuration dialog directly
by pressing Alerts configuration button on the application toolbar. It brings up Alert Profiles and Configuration win-
dow where you can edit alert profiles, adjust alert parameters and their severities or enable/disable alert in the selec-
ted alert profile.
65
Alerts configuration
Selecting alerts
Unless you open Alert Profiles and Configuration dialog by selecting pop-up menu Configure this alert on an alert
list on either Enterprise or Instance view which takes you directly to the alert you want to configure you need first to
find the alert. All alerts are listed on the left side of the dialog next to the profiles list. If you know the name of your
alert you can start typing it in the textbox above the list of alerts and the list will scroll to the first matching alert.
66
Editing alerts parameters
On the alert editing panel you can see the full

description of an alert and modify alert para-
meters or turn on/off alert severities or dis-
able the alert altogether. Disabled alerts ap-
pear grey in the alert list. Sometimes it is also
desirable not to fire an alert immediately, as
soon as the alert condition has been met. For
example, if you do not wish to be notified of
a CPU usage peak unless it lasts longer than
2 minutes you can specify an alert pending
time. Alert pending time is a time period In-
sider waits before firing an alert. The alert is
fired only if the alert condition has been met
for at least the alert pending time. You start
editing an alert by reading its description and
deciding at what severity levels you want to
receive this alert. If you do not need e.g. to
see the alert until it becomes critical turn off
informational and warning severities by
clicking on its captions. Then adjust alert
parameters for critical severity and press OK
or Apply
For alerts that do not allow more than one

severity at a time (single-severity alerts) such
as "Server down" you won't be able to enable
more than one severity
Notification profiles
Notification profiles can be used when multiple administrators monitor the same server or a group of servers, or
when different servers have different notification requirements. Like alert profiles, notification profiles can be as-
signed on a per server basis. If you need, for example, to direct all alert notications to one person during work hours
and to another after hours you can define two administrators and two schedules and add these to a notification pro-
file. Notifications will be sent according to the schedule. Alternatively, notification profiles can be used to define
different availability requirements to different servers. You can define, for example, two notification profiles, one
that would send all alerts to multiple administrators and another that would only send critical alerts to one adminis-
trator and assign these profiles to production and development servers respectively. You can define notification pro-
files in the Notification Profiles window. You can select Alerts > Notification profiles in the main menu to bring up
the Notification Profiles dialog. Alternatively, you can go to Notification Profiles dialog directly by pressing Noti-
fication Profiles button on the application toolbar. It brings up Notification Profiles window where you can edit noti-
fication profiles, create or edit administrators and schedules and assign them to notification profiles.
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Administrators
Administrators are the users of this application, those responsible for monitoring and reacting to the alerts sent out
by Insider. You can define administrators in the Administrators window. You can select Alerts > Administrators in
the main menu to bring up the Administrators dialog. Alternatively, you can go to Administrators dialog directly by
pressing Administrators button on the application toolbar. It brings up Administrators window where you can edit
create or edit administrators, define their primary and backup emails, SMTP server to use and other properties.
68
Schedules
Schedules can be used to define when notifications should be sent. You can define schedules in the Schedules win-
dow. You can select Alerts > Schedules in the main menu to bring up the Schedules dialog. Alternatively, you can
go to Schedules dialog directly by pressing Schedules button on the application toolbar. It brings up Schedules win-
dow where you can edit create or edit schedules.
69
To include an hour into the schedule click on the cell that represents this hour. For example, to include Tuesday,
1pm-2pm into the schedule click on the cell at the intersection of Tuesday and 1pm row (the hours shown in the ta-
ble are the start time of a one-hour period). The cell will turn blue to show that the hour has been included into the
schedule. To deselect click on the same cell again. You can select an entire day by clicking on a column header or
an hour by clicking on a row header. You can select or deselect the entire week by clicking on a button in the left top
corner.
Profiles
Once you have defined administrators and schedules you can assign them to a notification profile. To edit a notifica-
70
tion profile open the Notification profiles dialog, select a profile to edit and press Edit button or create a new profile.
You can add multiple Administrator-Schedule assignments to a profile. Once a notification profile is assigned to a
server and an alert is fired Insider will go over the list of assignments of the notification profile and send notifica-
tions to all administrators whose schedule includes the time the alert was raised. In addition to defining administrat-
or and schedule you can also selectively disable any alert priority from the assignment. If you need, for example, to
notify the selected administrator only about critical alerts in the night, select the administrator, create and select
Nights schedule and uncheck Warning and Info checkboxes on the assignment before adding it to the profile.
Alert descriptions
Oracle alerts
Oracle user alert User alert
71
Data tablespace free space Percentage of free space in a tablespace
Temp tablespace free space Percentage of free space in a temporary tablespace
Undo tablespace free space Percentage of free space in an undo tablespace
No temp space allocated No temp space is allocated for the database. Some opera-
tions requiring temp space will fail
Unarchived logs Percentage of unarchived online redo logs
PGA - multipass executions Under the one-pass threshold, when the size of a work
area is far too small compared to the input data size mul-
tiple passes over the input data are needed This could
dramatically increase the response time of the operator.
This is known as the multi-pass size of the work area For
example, a serial sort operation that needs to sort 10GB
of data needs a little more than 10GB to run optimal and
at least 40MB to run one-pass If this sort gets less that
40MB, then it must perform several passes over the input
data
PGA - one-pass executions When the size of the work area is smaller than optimal,
the response time increases, because an extra pass is per-
formed over part of the input data. This is known as the
one-pass size of the work area. The goal is to have most
work areas running with an optimal size (for example,
more than 90% or even 100% for pure OLTP systems),
while a smaller fraction of them are running with a one-
pass size (for example, less than 10%)
Buffer cache (2K) hit ratio Buffer cache hit ratio shows how frequently data blocks
are accessed from the memory (buffer cache) rather than
from disk. A hit ratio of 95% or greater is considered to
be a good hit ratio for OLTP systems. The hit ratio for
DSS (Decision Support System) may vary depending on
the database load. A correctly tuned buffer cache can sig-
nificantly improve overall database performance. By it-
self however, the buffer cache hit ratio is not very mean-
ingful, and the data buffer cache hit ratio is largely
meaningless for decision support and data warehouse ap-
plications because of their propensity to have full-table
scans and parallel full-table scans (which may bypass the
data buffers entirely, using PGA memory).
72
Keep pool hit ratio The KEEP pool is where you place the objects you want
to keep cached in memory. After a short warmup period
the KEEP pool hit ratio should be as close to 100% as
possible
Recycle pool hit ratio The RECYCLE pool is where you place the objects you
never want to keep cached in memory. The cache hit ra-
tio for the RECYCLE pool should be as close to 0% as
possible (i.e. all access to the RECYCLE pool should
result in a physical read)
Dictionary cache hit ratio Misses on the data dictionary cache are to be expected in
some cases. On instance startup, the data dictionary
cache contains no data. Therefore, any SQL statement is-
sued is likely to result in cache misses. As more data is
read into the cache, the likelihood of cache misses de-
73
creases. Eventually, the database reaches a steady state,
in which the most frequently used dictionary data is in
the cache. At this point, very few cache misses occur.
Typically, if the shared pool is adequately sized for the
library cache, it will also be adequate for the dictionary
cache data
Redo buffer allocation retries The value of redo buffer allocation retries should be
near zero over an interval. If this value increments con-
sistently, then processes have had to wait for space in the
redo log buffer. The wait can be caused by the log buffer
being too small or by checkpointing. Increase the size of
the redo log buffer, if necessary, by changing the value
of the initialization parameter LOG_BUFFER. The value
of this parameter is expressed in bytes. Alternatively, im-
prove the checkpointing or archiving process.
Sorts to disk ratio Sorts on disk are sorts that could not be performed in
memory, therefore they are more expensive because
memory access is faster than disk access. When Oracle
writes sort operations to disk, it writes out partially sor-
ted data in sorted runs. After all the data has been re-
ceived by the sort, Oracle merges the runs to produce the
final sorted output. If the sort area is not large enough to
merge all the runs at once, then subsets of the runs are
merged in several merge passes. If the sort area is larger,
then there are fewer, longer runs produced. A larger sort
area also means that the sort can merge more runs in one
merge pass
Soft parse ratio Soft parse ratio: This shows whether there are many hard
parses on the system. The ratio should be compared to
the raw statistics to ensure accuracy. For example, a soft
parse ratio of 0.2 typically indicates a high hard parse
rate. However, if the total number of parses is low, then
the ratio should be disregarded
Parse to execute ratio In an operational environment, optimally a SQL state-
ment should be parsed once and executed many times.
This alert could indicate poor cursor reuse. Find out what
specific SQL statements have a parse count that is equal
to the execute count. These statements are contributing
to ineffective cursor sharing
Archive destination error Oracle reports an error archiving to one of the archive
destinations
Archive destination error Archive destination configuration error
Response time The time it takes for the Oracle server to respond to a
simple query is too high. The server may be overloaded
Timed Statistics Timed statistics is not enabled on the database. Statistics
information is not available for this database. To enable
timed statistics set STATISTICS_LEVEL initialization
parameter to TYPICAL or ALL
Buffer cache advice Buffer cache advice is not enabled on the database. Stat-
istics information is not available for this database. To
enable buffer cache advisor set DB_CACHE_ADVICE
74
initialization parameter to ON
PGA Advice PGA Advice is not enabled on the database. PGA Advice
is not available if PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET is not
set. In addition, PGA Advice is not updated if the STAT-
ISTICS_LEVEL parameter is set to BASIC. To enable
PGA Advice set STATISTICS_LEVEL initialization
parameter to TYPICAL or ALL
Shared pool advice Shared Pool Advice is not enabled on the database. Stat-
istics information is not available for this database. To
enable timed statistics set STATISTICS_LEVEL initial-
ization parameter to TYPICAL or ALL
Physical standby out of sync A standby database is out of sync. It may not be receiv-
ing redo logs from the primary database or is too busy to
process in a timely manner
Physical standby not applying logs A standby database is receiving redo logs from the
primary database but is not applying them in a timely
manner. It may be too busy or the log apply process is
down
Archived log gap detected An archive gap can occur on the standby system when it
is has not received one or more archived redo log files
generated by the primary database. The missing archived
redo log files are the gap. If there is a gap, it is automat-
ically detected and resolved by Data Guard by copying
the missing sequence of log files to the standby destina-
tion. For example, an archive gap can occur when the
network becomes unavailable and automatic archiving
from the primary database to the standby database tem-
porarily stops. When the network is available again,
automatic transmission of the redo data from the primary
database to the failed standby database resumes. Data
Guard requires no manual intervention by the DBA to
detect and resolve such gaps. In some situations, auto-
matic gap recovery may not take place and you will need
to perform gap recovery manually. For example, you will
need to perform gap recovery manually if you are using
logical standby databases and the primary database is not
available
Number of waiting sessions The number of sessions waiting to proceed is high. This
could be due to resource contention
Log file sync When a user session commits (or rolls back), the ses-
sion's redo information must be flushed to the redo log-
file by LGWR. The server process performing the COM-
MIT or ROLLBACK waits under this event for the write
to the redo log to complete. If this event's waits consti-
tute a significant wait on the system or a significant
amount of time waited by a user experiencing response
time issues or on a system, then examine the average
time waited. If the average time waited is low, but the
number of waits are high, then the application might be
committing after every INSERT, rather than batching
COMMITs. Applications can reduce the wait by commit-
ting after 50 rows, rather than every row. If the average
75
time waited is high, then examine the session waits for
the log writer and see what it is spending most of its time
doing and waiting for. If the waits are because of slow I/
O, then try the following:
- Reduce other I/O activity on the disks containing the

redo logs, or use dedicated disks
- Alternate redo logs on different disks to minimize the

effect of the archiver on the log writer
- Move the redo logs to faster disks or a faster I/O sub-

system
- Consider using raw devices to speed up the writes
- Depending on the type of application, it might be pos-

sible to batch COMMITs by committing every N rows,
rather than every row, so that fewer log file syncs are
needed
Log buffer space This event occurs when server processes are waiting for
free space in the log buffer, because all the redo is gener-
ated faster than LGWR can write it out.Modify the redo
log buffer size. If the size of the log buffer is already
reasonable, then ensure that the disks on which the on-
line redo logs reside do not suffer from I/O contention.
The log buffer space wait event could be indicative of
either disk I/O contention on the disks where the redo
logs reside, or of a too-small log buffer. Check the I/O
profile of the disks containing the redo logs to investig-
ate whether the I/O system is the bottleneck. If the I/O
system is not a problem, then the redo log buffer could
be too small. Increase the size of the redo log buffer until
this event is no longer significant
Log file parallel write The log file parallel write alert is triggered when the ses-
sions are waiting for log writer to write redo from log
buffer to all the members of the redo log group. LGWR
writes to the active log file members in parallel only if
the asynchronous I/O is in use. Otherwise it writes to
each active log file member sequentially. If the sessions
are waiting on this event you may want to put redo log
files on faster devices or investigate if there is a conten-
tion on the redo log drives
Log file switch (archiving needed) The log file switch (archiving needed) alert is triggered
when sessions are waiting for a log switch because the
log that the LGWR will be switching into has not been
archived yet. Check the alert file to make sure that
archiving has not stopped due to a failed archive write.
To speed archiving, consider adding more archive pro-
cesses or putting the archive files on striped disks
Log file switch (checkpoint incomplete) The log file switch (checkpoint incomplete) alert is
triggered when sessions are waiting for a log switch be-
cause the sessions cannot wrap into the next log. Wrap-
76
ping cannot be performed because the checkpoint for that
log has not completed. You may see this alert when the
redo log files are sized too small
Write complete The write complete waits occur because Oracle cannot
allow blocks that are about to be written to disk by DB-
WR to be modified, lest an inconsistent block image be
written to disk. If write complete waits constitute a signi-
ficant part of the overall waits then an inefficiency in the
I/O subsystem could be the cause. Possible solutions are:
- Spread datafiles across multiple disks
- Use multiple database writers
- Turn on asynchronous I/O

Buffer busy waits The buffer busy wait alert is fired when a session wants
to access a data block in the buffer cache that is currently
in use by some other session. The other session is either
reading the same data block into the buffer cache or it is
modifying the one in the buffer cache. It might be that
many processes are inserting into the same block and
must wait for each other before they can insert. The solu-
tion could be to use automatic segment space manage-
ment or partitioning for the object in question. Also look
at the specific buffer wait statistics available in the view
V$WAITSTAT to see which block type has the highest
wait count and the highest wait time. The possible ac-
tions might be:
If the predominant buffer waits are for:
Data blocks - Eliminate HOT blocks from the applica-

tion. Check for repeatedly scanned / unselective indexes.
Change PCTFREE and/or PCTUSED. Check for 'right-
hand-indexes' (indexes that get inserted into at the same
point by many processes). Increase INITRANS. Reduce
the number of rows per block.
Segment header - Increase of number of FREELISTs.

Use FREELIST GROUPs (even in single instance this
can make a difference).
Freelist blocks - Add more FREELISTS. In case of Par-

allel Server make sure that each instance has its own
FREELIST GROUP(s).
Undo header - If you are not using automatic undo man-

agement, then add more rollback segments or increase
their size
You can select also from V$SEGSTAT (or its user-

friendly but costly equivalent
V$SEGMENT_STATISTICS) the top segments that
cause the buffer busy waits
77
Free buffer waits This alert indicates that a server process was unable to
find a free buffer and has posted the database writer to
make free buffers by writing out dirty buffers. A dirty
buffer is a buffer whose contents have been modified.
Dirty buffers are freed for reuse when DBWR has writ-
ten the blocks to disk. DBWR may not be keeping up
with writing dirty buffers in the following situations:
- The I/O system is slow.There are resources it is waiting

for, such as latches.
- The buffer cache is so small that DBWR spends most

of its time cleaning out buffers for server processes
- The buffer cache is so big that one DBWR process is

not enough to free enough buffers in the cache to satisfy
requests
If this event occurs frequently, then examine the session

waits for DBWR to see whether there is anything delay-
ing DBWR.
Writes
If it is waiting for writes, then determine what is delay-

ing the writes and fix it. Check the following:
Examine V$FILESTAT to see where most of the writes

are happening
Examine the host operating system statistics for the I/O

system. Are the write times acceptable?
If I/O is slow:
Consider using faster I/O alternatives to speed up write

times
Spread the I/O activity across large number of spindles

(disks) and controllers
Cache is Too Small
It is possible DBWR is very active because the cache is

too small. Investigate whether this is a probable cause by
looking to see if the buffer cache hit ratio is low. Also
use the V$DB_CACHE_ADVICE view to determine
whether a larger cache size would be advantageous
Cache Is Too Big for One DBWR
If the cache size is adequate and the I/O is already evenly

spread, then you can potentially modify the behavior of
DBWR by using asynchronous I/O or by using multiple
database writers
78
Consider Multiple Database Writer (DBWR) Processes
or I/O Slaves
Configuring multiple database writer processes, or using

I/O slaves, is useful when the transaction rates are high
or when the buffer cache size is so large that a single
DBWn process cannot keep up with the load
Lock waits The lock wait alert is triggered when the sessions spend
signigicant time waiting on locks; these can be either ex-
plicit user locks or implicit locks Oracle puts on objects
during their modifications like e.g. locks on rows or in-
dex entries during inserts, updates or deletes
Cache buffers LRU chain latch waits The cache buffers LRU chain alert is usually triggered by
excessive buffer cache throughput. For example, ineffi-
cient SQL that accesses incorrect indexes iteratively
(large index range scans) or many full table scans. The
cache buffer LRU chain latch must be obtained in order
to introduce a new block into the buffer cache, and when
writing a buffer back to disk. It is possible to reduce con-
tention for the cache buffer lru chain latch by increasing
the size of the buffer cache and thereby reducing the rate
at which new blocks are introduced into the buffer cache.
Cache buffers chains latch waits The cache buffers chains alert is usually triggered by
contention in the buffer cache. Reducing contention for
the cache buffer chains latch will usually require redu-
cing logical I/O rates by tuning and minimizing the I/O
requirements of the SQL involved. High I/O rates could
be a sign of a hot block (meaning a block highly ac-
cessed)
Redo allocation latch waits The redo allocation latch controls the allocation of space
for redo entries in the redo log buffer. There is one redo
allocation latch per instance. You need to consider to in-
crease the size of the LOG_BUFFER or reduce the load
of the log buffer using NOLOGGING features when pos-
sible
Redo copy latch waits The redo copy latch is used to write redo records into the
redolog buffer. This latch is waited for on both single
and multi-cpu systems
Library cache latch waits The library cache latches protect the cached SQL state-
ments and objects definitions held in the library cache
within the shared pool. The library cache latch must be
acquired in order to add a new statement to the library
cache. During a parse, Oracle searches the library cache
for a matching statement. If one is not found, then Oracle
will parse the SQL statement, obtain the library cache
latch and insert the new SQL
The first resource to reduce contention on this latch is to

ensure that the application is reusing as much as possible
SQL statement representation. Use bind variables
whenever possible in the application. Misses on this
latch may also be a sign that the application is parsing
79
SQL at a high rate and may be suffering from too much
parse CPU overhead.If the application is already tuned
the SHARED_POOL_SIZE can be increased. Be aware
that if the application is not using the library cache ap-
propriately, the contention might be worse with a larger
structure to be handled
Library cache pin latch waits The library cache pin latch must be acquired when a
statement in the library cache is reexecuted. Misses on
this latch occur when there is very high rates SQL execu-
tion. There is little that can be done to reduce the load on
the library cache pin latch, although using private rather
than public synonyms or direct object references such as
OWNER.TABLE may help.
Shared pool latch waits The shared pool latch is used to protect critical opera-
tions when allocating and freeing memory in the shared
pool. If an application makes use of literal (unshared)
SQL then this can severely limit scalability and through-
put. The cost of parsing a new SQL statement is expens-
ive both in terms of CPU requirements and the number
of times the library cache and shared pool latches may
need to be acquired and released. Before Oracle9, there
use to be just one such latch to the entire database to pro-
tects the allocation of memory in the library cache. In
Oracle9 multiple childs were introduced to relieve con-
tention on this resource
Ways to reduce the shared pool latch are, avoid hard

parses when possible, parse once, execute many. Elimin-
ating literal SQL is also useful to avoid the shared pool
latch. The size of the shared_pool and use of MTS
(shared server option) also greatly influences the shared
pool latch
Row cache objects latch waits The row cache objects latch comes into play when user
processes are attempting to access the cached data dic-
tionary values. It is not common to have contention in
this latch and the only way to reduce contention for this
latch is by increasing the size of the shared pool
Chained row fetches The chained rows alert is triggered when the percentage
of chained or migrated rows fetched exceeds a threshold.
Retrieving rows that span more than one block increases
the logical I/O by a factor that corresponds to the number
of blocks than need to be accessed. Exporting and re-
importing or reorganizing the table with the
dbms_redefinition utility may eliminate this problem.
Evaluate the settings for the storage parameters PCT-
FREE and PCTUSED. This problem cannot be fixed if
rows are larger than database blocks (for example, if the
LONG datatype is used and the rows are extremely
large)
Session high physical reads The session high physical reads alert is triggered when
the database is performing a lot of physical reads and a
small percentage of active sessions is responsible for a
significant percentage of the total physical reads
80
Session high physical writes The session high physical writes alert is triggered when
the database is performing a lot of physical writes and a
small percentage of active sessions is responsible for a
significant percentage of the total physical writes
Session high logical reads The session high logical reads alert is triggered when the
database is performing a lot of logical reads and a small
percentage of active sessions is responsible for a signific-
ant percentage of the total logical reads
Session high network load The session high network load alert is triggered when a
lot of data is being sent to/from the database and a small
ant percentage of the total network traffic
Session high redo generation The session high redo generation alert is triggered when
a lot of redo is being generated and a small percentage of
active sessions is responsible for a significant percentage
of the total redo
Session high memory consumption The session high memory consumption alert is triggered
when a lot of memory is being used and a small percent-
age of active sessions is responsible for a significant per-
centage of the total amount of used memory
Session high CPU consumption The session high CPU consumption alert is triggered
when a lot of CPU resources is being used and a small
ant percentage of the total used CPU time
Session high sorts The session high sort alert is triggered when a lot of sorts
is being performed and a small percentage of active ses-
sions is responsible for a significant percentage of the
total number of sorts
Library cache reloads Previously cached SQL statements were aged out of the
library cache. This could indicate that shared pool is too
small. In an application that reuses SQL effectively, on a
system with an optimal shared pool size, the number of
reloads will have a value near zero
Library cache invalidations Library cache data was invalidated and had to be re-
parsed. Invalidations should be near zero. This means
SQL statements that could have been shared were inval-
idated by some operation (for example, a DDL). This
statistic should be near zero on OLTP systems during
peak loads. Consult V$LIBRARYCACHE view for de-
tails
Parallel servers available Parallel execution performs SQL operations in parallel
using multiple parallel processes. One process, known as
the parallel execution coordinator, dispatches the execu-
tion of a statement to several parallel execution servers
and coordinates the results from all of the server pro-
cesses to send the results back to the user. PARAL-
LEL_MAX_SERVERS initialization parameter specifies
the maximum number of parallel execution processes
and parallel recovery processes for an instance. As de-
mand increases, Oracle increases the number of pro-
cesses from the number created at instance startup up to
81
this value. The Parallel Server alert is triggered when all
or most parallel servers are busy. Try increasing PAR-
ALLEL_MAX_SERVERS initialization parameter to
make more parallel servers available. If you set this para-
meter too low, some queries may not have a parallel exe-
cution process available to them during query pro-
cessing. If you set it too high, memory resource short-
ages may occur during peak periods, which can degrade
performance.
Open sessions limit The number of open sessions is close to a limit. The limit
is set by the initialization parameter SESSIONS. SES-
SIONS specifies the maximum number of sessions that
can be created in the system. Because every login re-
quires a session, this parameter effectively determines
the maximum number of concurrent users in the system.
You should always set this parameter explicitly to a
value equivalent to your estimate of the maximum num-
ber of concurrent users, plus the number of background
processes, plus approximately 10% for recursive ses-
sions.
Processes limit The number of Oracle operating system user processes is
close to a limit. The limit is set by the initialization para-
meter PROCESSES. PROCESSES specifies the maxim-
um number of operating system user processes that can
simultaneously connect to Oracle. Its value should allow
for all background processes such as locks, job queue
processes, and parallel execution processes. Try increas-
ing PROCESSES initialization parameter is you are ap-
proaching this limit.
Open cursors limit The number of opened cursors is close to a limit. The
limit is set by the initialization parameter
OPEN_CURSORS. OPEN_CURSORS specifies the
maximum number of open cursors (handles to private
SQL areas) a session can have at once. You can use this
parameter to prevent a session from opening an excess-
ive number of cursors. This parameter also constrains the
size of the PL/SQL cursor cache which PL/SQL uses to
avoid having to reparse as statements are reexecuted by a
user. It is important to set the value of
OPEN_CURSORS high enough to prevent your applica-
tion from running out of open cursors. The number will
vary from one application to another. Assuming that a
session does not open the number of cursors specified by
OPEN_CURSORS, there is no added overhead to setting
this value higher than actually needed
Sessions are waiting A session or sessions are blocked and waiting to proceed
longer than a predefined threshold. You may need to
check what specific event the sessions are waiting for
and resolve the situation according to the type of event
Cannot establish new connection Attempt to establish a new connection failed. Listener
may be down or maximum number of open session
reached
82
Oracle Alert Log ${errorCode}
83
Operating system alerts
CPU utilization CPU utilization too high
System CPU utilization System CPU utilization too high
Free memory Free memory is too low
Disk free space Disk free space is too low
Context switches Too many context switches
Swapping Swapping too high
Average load Too high average load
Runqueue Run queue length indicates the number of processes that
are ready to run (on the run queue). To ensure each pro-
gram has a fair share of resources each one is run for a
period, when a program is taken out to let another run it
is placed on the end of the run queue, and the program at
the head of the run queue is then allowed to execute. Pro-
cesses are also removed from the run queue when they
ask to sleep, are waiting on a resource to become avail-
able, or have been terminated. If the run queue becomes
too long it may indicate a performance problem
Server response time The time it takes for the server to respond to a simple
query is too high. The server may be overloaded
84
Reports
Insider allows you to configure and export to HTML a number of preconfigured reports. In addition to the precon-
figured reports you can also export any table e.g. the session list or parameters list to HTML.
Availability report
You can generate an availability report for any server Insider is monitoring. To generate an availability report right-
click on an item on the Enterprise view and select Availability report. You can then select the time period to gener-
ate the report for and export the report to HTML.
Alert history report

You can generate an alert history report for any server Insider is monitoring. To generate an alert history report
right-click on an item on the Enterprise view and select Alert history. You can then select the time period to generate
the report for, alert severities and alert types and export the report to HTML.
85
Configuration
You open the Settings dialog by selecting Tools > Settings and navigating to the page you need by selecting it in the
list at the top
General
On the General page you can adjust various application parameters such as whether to confirm exit, grid width, pre-
ferred browser as well as whether to display pop-up alert notifications
Tip
You may want to disable pop-up alert notification if you experience high CPU load on your workstation
By default Insider uses its high-performance embedded database engine to store its data. The embedded database en-
gine is the best choice both space and performance-wise but in some situations you may want to use another data-
base such as MySQL or Oracle. You may choose to use Oracle, for example, if you want to look at your data with a
tool other than Insider or if you believe that the amount of data collected over time became inadequate for the em-
bedded database engine.
To configure MySQL or Oracle as an internal database select the type of database you need on the General settings
page and fill out the connection information in the dialog.
86
Data Collection
On the data collection page you can adjust various parameters related to the way Insider collects and process the
data retrieved from the servers. You can select the desired refresh rate by either dragging the slider at the top or
manually setting the values for rare, medium and frequently updated statistics information
Note
Manual settings take precedence over the slider i.e. it is the numbers for Rare, Medium and Frequent that
will eventually be used
If a server becomes irresponsive due to high load Insider will automatically increase refresh rate until it gets server
responses in a timely manner, overriding user-defined parameters. You can choose to disable this behaviour by un-
checking Increase refresh rate on slow response box
87
To avoid getting occasional peaks in the statistics gathered from the servers we recommend that you smoothen the
data by allowing Insider to average the statistics over several measurements. You can choose to select the number of
measurements to smoothen your data over or to not use averaging and see the actual data
Warning
High refresh frequency should be used with caution. Setting refresh frequency too high may negatively
affect your server performance as well as slow down Insider itself especially if you have configured many
items on Enterprise view
88
Timeout
An item such as a database can be down or the network may experience a failure. There may be other circumstances
where an item can become irresponsive. If this occurs and an item won't respond for a certain period the item gets
disabled. Settings/Timeout page allows you to define the period in seconds before an item gets disabled
If an item becomes irresponsive as a result of a crash or a network failure it gets disabled after timeout. You may
choose to have the item pinged at regular intervals and automatically reenabled once it becomes available again or
leave it disabled
89
Email notification
On the Email notification page you can define a mail template and select the conditions that Insider should notify
about such as memory shortage or an internal exception.
Using mail templates you can customize From, Subject and Message Body fields to easier integration with mail
parsing software. Press Ctrl-Space to get a list of predefined variables to use in email fields
Predefined variables. To insert alert parameters such as alert text or severity into a mail field you can use pre-
defined variables. Whenever Insider encounters such a variable it substitutes it with the actual value.
${alertTime} Time the alert was triggered

${alertName} Alert name
${itemName} Name of the item the alert was triggered for
${description} Alert description
${itemType} Type of the item the alert was triggered for
${alertText} Alert text
${alertType} Alert severity
90
Sound notification
On the Sound notification page you can selectively enable sound notification so you can leave Insider running in the
background and never miss an important alert. Whenever an alert is triggered it will be accompanied by a sound you
select for this alert severity. You can choose your own mp3 files and specify whether the sound should play once
when the alert is triggered or at a specified interval
91
Proxy
If you are behind a firewall or a proxy you need to specify your proxy parameters for Suggest Feature and Report Is-
sue dialogs to work
92
Troubleshooting
General
See FAQ section
93
FAQ
Q:
I don't have an Oracle client installed on my workstation. Can I still use Insider to monitor my Oracle data-
bases
A:
Yes. Select Thin Driver connection type when entering your database. Oracle thin driver does not require Or-
acle client software to be installed on the machine
Q:
I am trying to add an Oracle database however my tnsnames.ora file is not found (TNS names list is not popu-
lated)
A:
Press Locate tnsnames button next to TNS names combo and navigate to your tnsnames file, then press OK
Q:
Can Insider support 100+ databases?
A:
Yes. Insider requires about 2Mb per database connection so if you have 100 databases you need approxim-
ately 200Mb RAM. To lower CPU utilization you may want to turn off alert pop-up notifications ( Tools >
Settings > General > Alert ). Lower refresh rate to avoid excessive load on the network.
Q:
Why am I getting Parse To Execute Ratio greater than 100% alert?
A:
Please see Why Parse count is higher than execute count in V$SYSSTAT Metalink Note 220617.1. This beha-
viour is observed on Oracle 8i only
Q:
I am getting lots of login messages in UNIX system log
A:
Select Use Shell option when you specify operating system connection parameters
Q:
I am using Use Shell option and keep getting error messages
A:
Use Shell option does not work with variables within UNIX command prompt like e.g. date/time etc. Try re-
moving variables from UNIX command prompt or switch off Use Shell option
Q:
I am getting a "Not enough priviliges to read alert log" alert
A:
When choosing an operating system user account make sure it has correct priviliges to read from Oracle alert
log file. If these priviliges are missing Analyze alert log feature will be disabled and you will receive "Not
enough priviliges to read alert log" alert
Q:
I am trying to connect to my physical standby however Insider keeps telling me ORA-12520: TNS:listener
94
could not find available handler for requested type of server or similar error?
A:
To connect to a physical standby or any database in mounted or down state what you should do is:
• connect as sysdba
• try using SERVICE_NAME rather than SID in your tnsnames.ora file
• try configuring the database STATICALLY with the listener. It means lines like
(SID_DESC =
(GLOBAL_DBNAME = mydb)
(ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.0.5.0)
(SID_NAME = mysid)
should be added to your listener.ora
95
Glossary
A
Alert
An item such as a database or a file server may encounter a condition that trig-
gers an alert. An alert is a visual notification to the user that something might
possibly go wrong with your server. By way of an example free space in your
data files might be approaching zero or CPU usage on your web server might be
close to 100%. Conditions that require the user's attention are reported as alerts.
Alerts are shown on all views but not every alert is shown on every view and not
every alerts may make sense for every item. For instance the data file free space
alert does not make sense for a web server and is not triggered for one. All alerts
are always reported on Enterprise view where you can see them by clicking on
the alert icon next to the item the alert is being reported for.
See Also Enterprise View.
Alert history
All alerts triggered for an Enterprise view item such as a database are saved for
analysis and troubleshooting purposes. Alert history can be accessed by clicking
on an Enterprise view item and selecting Alert history
See Also Alert.
Alert list All alerts currently active for an item can be accessed by clicking on a small
alert icon in the right upper corner of the item they are triggered for. Alerts are
ordered by severity first, then by the time (most recent first). If you right-click
on an alert in the alert list you access a pop-up menu where you can choose to
disable or configure the alert
See Also Alert.
Alert notification
If an alert is triggered for an item a small popup is displayed for a while next to
this item. Alert notification stays on the screen for a few seconds to draw your
attention to the item. After the notification balloon disappears you can still ac-
cess alert list for the item by clicking on the alert icon next to it
See Also Alert.
Alert severity
The condition that triggers an alert can become more serious as the situation
worsens or less serious if it improves. For example if there is less than 20% of
free space on a drive it is worth drawing user's attention. If it becomes less that
10% then it is better be approached as soon as possible before the drive fills up.
If it is approaching 0 it becomes critical. Correspondingly three severities can be
defined per alert: informational, warning and critical in the order of importance
depending on the amount of free space. You can change the default settings for
an alert in the Alert Configuration dialog or turn off some severities altogether.
For example if he chooses not to be notified unless the alert conditions become
critical he can disable informational and warning severities for an alert
Some alerts can have only one severity defined at a time. Indeed it doesn't make
sense to have multiple severities for a Server Down alert. It is critical, period.
You can however change the severity level for such alert for example from crit-
96
ical to warning
See Also Alert.
Averaging
The statistical data received from the servers can (and usually does) have short-
term peaks. In most cases these peaks are irrelevant if the statistics is good over
a longer-term period. For example a short-term spike in reads from disk may not
be important if overall cache-hit ratio is 99%. To smoothen the data a technique
called averaging is used. In its simplest form it means that the data is added up
and distributed over a longer period so that lower-activity intervals would com-
pensate for occasional spikes. You can choose whether to smoothen the data and
if yes over what period
E
Enterprise View
Main application view showing birds-eye overview of all items being mon-
itored. As soon as an item is placed on the Enterprise view Insider starts collect-
ing statistical data for the item and triggering alerts if necessary
Enterprise view item

An item on the Enterprise view. Can be a database, a file server, a web server,
an application - anything you might be interested to see inside out.
Enterprise link
A link between two or more items on the Enterprise view. Represents a relation-
ship between items such as Oracle DataGuard primary-standby configuration
I
Instance view Detailed real-time snapshot of an Oracle database showing performance and oth-
er critical information for an Oracle instance
Item See Enterprise view item.
L
Link
A link between two items on a view representing a relationships between items.
For example a link between two Enterprise View items such as Oracle databases
may represent a primary-standby relationship
The exact meaning of the link varies and depends on context. A link between a
97
process and a memory region on an Instance View for example usually repres-
ents the data flow i.e. the amount of data read or written by the process to this
memory region. To find out the exact meaning of a link position your mouse
over it and read the tooltip
See Also Enterprise link.
Q
Quantity gauge
An item on some views showing the current number or the current amount and
the maximum configured. For example a quantity gauge for Oracle user pro-
cesses show current number of processes and the maximum defined by PRO-
CESSES initialization parameter.
The exact meaning of the numbers on the quantity gauge varies and depends on
context. For a data file item for example the quantity gauge shows its current
and maximum size. To find out the exact meaning of a quantity gauge position
your mouse over it and read the tooltip
S
Server See Enterprise view item.
Severity See Alert severity.
Speed gauge
An item on some views showing the speed or intensity of a process. For ex-
ample a speed gauge is used for the Activity column of the All Sessions table to
show how active the session is i.e. how resource-intensive it is.
Statistics
The data collected for an item for example an Oracle database. E.g for an Oracle
database typically data dictionary views would be interrogated while for some
other database it could be stored procedures or variables
V
View
A view is a visual image capturing certain aspects of real-time information for
an item or items being monitored. For example Enterprise view is a birds-eye
98
overview of all items while Instance view is a detailed picture for a specific Or-
acle database. In other words Instance view is a way of zooming in on an Oracle
database item on the Enterprise view.
See Also Instance view, Enterprise View.
99
Operating system overview, 58
Operating system processes, 59
Index Operating system shell, 61
Oracle network, 57
Oracle processes, 42
A PGA, 45
Administrators, 68 Physical I/O, 51
Alert profile, 65 Redo, 54
Alerts, 96 Redo groups and members, 54
history, 96 Redo statistics, 54
list, 96 Segments, 44, 51
notification, 96 Session statistics, 42
severity, 96 Sessions, 38, 61
Averaging, 97 Shared pool statistics, 45
Storage, 50, 60
E System, 36
Enterprise view Table scans, 52
item, 97 Temp, 55
link, 97 Temp I/O, 55
Top, 43
L Top sessions, 40, 44
Link, 97 Top SQL, 43
Undo, 53
Undo retention, 53
N Undo statistics, 53
Notification profiles, 67 Undo tablespaces, 53
Waits, 47
Q Web Server, 62
Quantity gauge, 98
S
Schedules, 69
Speed gauge, 98
Statistics, 88, 98
V
View, 98
Views
All sessions, 38
Archived log, 54, 56
Backup, 56
Buffer pools, 45
Buffer wait statistics, 45, 49
Drill-down, 31
Enterprise, 13, 97
Files I/O, 51
I/O, 51
Instance, 25, 97
Latches, 49
Locks, 40, 48
Log switch history, 54
Logical I/O, 51
Memory, 45
Network, 60
100

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Insider User Guide

Insider User Guide

Multiple schedules and administrators can be created.

Alerts acknowledgment history dialog.

Support for MySQL and Oracle as an internal database

Oracle availability report has been added

Background (service) mode option has been added

Start Insider and select Add > Add Oracle

• 256 MB RAM minimum

• 512 MB RAM recommended

• 50 MB hard disk space (may vary if history saving feature is enabled)

• 1024x768 minimum screen resolution

• Intel Pentium III/800 MHz or higher (or compatible)

• Microsoft Windows 2003/XP/2000/NT 4.0 SP6a

• Intel Pentium III/800 MHz or higher (or compatible)

• GNOME or KDE desktop

Windows service installation

To stop the service execute:

• The arguments to the service are processed in the following order:

• .properties file if found

• command line arguments

• Windows registry (only when starting the service)

• GRANT CREATE SESSION TO myusername;

Operating system account configuration

What's on the Enterprise view?

If you have Oracle client software installed

If you don't have Oracle client software in-

Enter the URL to your web server

Operating system monitoring.

If you are monitoring an Oracle database or a

In addition to that a connection to OS enables

If you are connecting to a UNIX box over ssh

Switching between views

An alert is shown next to the component it is related to

• Hit ratio where applicable

• Percent used where applicable

• Buffer cache - rate of block changes per second

• Shared pool - rate of SQLs per second

• Library cache - soft parse rate

• Redo buffer - redo entries per second

• System. Parameters, Configuration, System statistics, Charts

• Sessions. All Sessions, Top Sessions, Locks, Processes, Statistics.

• Top. Top SQL, Top Sessions, Top segments

• I/O. Files, Top Segments, Logical, Physical, Tables

• Buffer cache. Buffer pool list, Buffer wait statistics.

• I/O. Segments, Logical I/O, Physical I/O, Tables scan statistics.

• Undo. Undo tablespaces, Statistics, Undo retention

• Backup. Archived logs.

The user can sort by a single column, move, resize and

To hide or show a column in a table right-click on any

To sort by a column simply click on its caption. To

Drill-down charts settings can be adjusted using drill-

Drill-down chart has three major components: the

If Show All option was

If Selected only was chosen

• CPU used by sesions

If Show All option was

If Selected only was chosen

Shared pool statistics

• Total parses (hard and soft)

• CPU time spent parsing

• workarea executions - optimal