The document summarizes new features in version 18.4.0 of ORAchk and EXAchk, which are tools from Oracle that perform health checks on databases and Exadata systems. Key updates include automatically running EXAchk on Exadata user domains, added support for Exadata 19.1, improved performance through caching of discovery information, ability to patch between releases, and new health checks.

1. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
ORAchk & EXAchk
What’s New in 18.4.0
1

2. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Automatic proactive warning
of problems before they
impact you
2
Get scheduled health reports
sent to you in email
Why Oracle ORAchk & EXAchk
Health checks for most impactful
reoccurring problems
Runs in your environment
with no need to send
anything to Oracle
Findings can be integrated
into other tools of choiceEngineered
Systems
Non
Engineered
Systems
EXAchk
Common Framework
ORAchk

3. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
3

4. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
4

5. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
• EXAchk will be automatically setup on Exadata user domain (DomU) as part of TFA
install
• Autostart will configure the daemon to restart at 1am every morning to rediscover any
environment changes
• Full Local client run will be triggered at 2am every morning
• Most impactful checks will be run every 2 hours via the exatier1 profile
• Any collections older than 2 weeks will be automatically purged
• To configure Autostart from exachk standalone install use:
• Once enabled daemon settings can be changed as per normal
• Remove with: or
exachk -autostart
exachk -autostop tfactl run exachk -autostop
5

6. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
6

7. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | 7
Support for Exadata 19.1
• This release adds EXAchk support for the latest
Exadata release 19.1

8. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
8

9. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
• Health Check information is constantly changing
over time
– What is applicable today, may not be applicable several
months later
– This is the reason ORAchk & EXAchk have always had a
quarterly release cycle
• The older Health checks are the more risk of them
containing out of date information
• If ORAchk/EXAchk is more than one year old, it will
not execute any checks
1 Year
Lifetime
9
Ensure only up to date checks are run

10. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
10

11. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
• ORAchk/EXAchk now has the ability to cache the discovery information
• Internal testing shows Exadata runtime took half the time using caching
• To use discovery caching:
–Cache discovery information:
–Optionally verify discovery:
–Use discovery information:
–Refresh discovery information:
–Remove discovery information:
11
-discovery
-checkdiscovery
-usediscovery
-refreshdiscovery
-rmdiscovery

12. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
12

13. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Patch Between Releases
• Patch between releases
• Where patches are produced they will be made available via the normal
patching mechanisms on support.oracle.com and updates.oracle.com.
• To use patching do the following
– Apply a new patch:
– Find all patches installed:
– Find if a specific patch is installed:
– Rollback a specific patch:
13
-applypatch {exachk_bug_num.zip/orachk_bug_num.zip}
-querypatch all
-querypatch {bug_num}
-rollbackpatch {bug_num}

14. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
14

15. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
• Sometimes Health Checks can get skipped. This usually happens because
the check takes longer to run than the default timeout value.
• This release adds check specific timeout values.
• When checks are written by Oracle a check specific timeout value is
applied. This timeout value is based on our understanding of how long we
expect that check to take to execute.
• If you find certain checks are still timing out, you can override the
individual check timeout value using:
15
export RAT_{CHECK-ID}_TIMEOUT={value_in_seconds}

16. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
What’s new
Automatically run on Exadata user domain (DomU)
Support for Exadata 19.1
Ensure only up to date checks are run
Performance improvement through caching of discovery
Ability to patch between releases
Check specific timeouts to reduce skipped checks
New health checks
1
2
4
3
5
6
7
16

17. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
• New Oracle Stack Health Checks
– Including checks for several new Exadata critical issues
– For details of the new checks see:
• ORAchk Health Check Catalog
• EXAchk Health Check Catalog
– The Health Check Catalog is also contained within the download
New Oracle Stack Health Checks
17

18. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
More Info:
ORAchk: Doc 1268927.2 EXAchk: Doc 1070954.1
18

19. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Safe Harbor Statement
The preceding is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for
information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a
commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon
in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or
functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
19

20. Copyright © 2018, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | 20