Working with Oracle Pulse

Host and database metrics are tracked in Oracle Pulse using information drawn from Oracle® Enterprise Manager. Available at Customer Level, these metrics allow you to see the load on different hosts and databases at a particular point in time.

The host metrics table on the Performance dashboard at Customer Level allows you to check:

  • the average number of jobs waiting for I/O in the last interval

  • the amount of CPU being used in SYSTEM mode as a percentage of the total CPU processing power or the percentage of time the process threads spent executing code in privileged mode

  • the amount of CPU being used in USER mode as a percentage of the total CPU processing power or the percentage of time the processor spends in USER mode

  • the amount of CPU utilization as a percentage of the total CPU processing power available or the percentage of time the CPU spends to execute a non-idle thread

  • the amount of used memory as a percentage of the total memory

  • the number of pages paged in (read from disk to resolve fault memory references) per second or the rate at which pages are read from disk to resolve hard page faults

  • the number of pages written out (per second) by the virtual memory manager or the rate at which pages are written to disk to free up space in physical memory

  • the average number of processes in memory and subject to be run in the last interval

  • the percentage of swapped memory in use for the last interval or the percentage of page file environment used

  • the total number of processes currently running on the system

For more information, see the Using Host Metrics section in Using the Performance Reports.

The database metrics table on the Performance dashboard at Customer Level allows you to check:

  • the current number of logons

  • the average time that the current request (CR) block was received, measured in 100ths of a second

  • the total number of bytes sent and received through the SQL Net layer to and from the database

  • the number of data blocks written to the disk per second during this sample period

  • the utilization of the process resource against the values (percentage) specified by the threshold arguments

  • the utilization of the session resource against the values (percentage) specified by the threshold arguments

  • the number of logical reads per second during the sample period

  • the total amount of memory used, in MB

For more information, see the Using Database Metrics section in Using the Performance Reports.

Understanding the Pulse Dashboard and Levels of Information

Oracle Pulse presents a comprehensive view of all your organization's services using the Customer and Service levels. This section describes how to use these dashboards and the lists to navigate Oracle Pulse.

Pulse Dashboard - The Pulse Dashboard, which is the Oracle Pulse home page, analyzes the recent performance of all your organization's services. Click any metrics to see the table view.

To improve your Oracle Pulse experience on smaller screens, such as iPhones or other smartphones, the Pulse Dashboard widgets stack vertically.

Customer Level - The Customer Level shows the health of all your organization's services. Click any of the options in the navigation menu to see corresponding metrics for all your organization's services in that area:

  • Calendar

  • CSU

  • Availability

  • Storage

  • Transactions

  • Business Insight

  • Performance

  • Incidents

  • Changes

Service Level - The Service Level presents key information for the selected service. Similar to the Customer Level, the service navigation menu provides a range of options that open specific pages with the following metrics:

  • Availability

  • Storage

  • Transactions

  • Self Healing

  • Incidents

  • Changes

To differentiate between the navigation menu at the customer level and

To see the Service Level page for another service, simply select the service you want to view from the navigation menu. Click Oracle Pulse on any dashboard at the Service Level to return to the Customer Level.

Navigating to the Service Level

The Service Level in Oracle Pulse presents key information for the selected service. To access Service Level data:

  1. Sign in to Oracle Pulse as explained in the Accessing Oracle Pulse section in Introduction.

    The Pulse Dashboard is displayed by default.

  2. Open the navigation menu and select the service you want to access.

    The Availability dashboard at the Service Level opens by default.

  3. Click any of the functionalities in the navigation menu to access the required data.

Navigating to Information for Environments

Oracle Pulse presents key information related to availability, storage, Business Transaction Monitoring, service requests, and change requests for the selected environment, as explained in the following sections:

Accessing Availability, Incident Management and Change Management Information for an Environment

To access availability information and information related to the service requests and change requests associated with an environment:

  1. Sign in to Oracle Pulse as explained in the Accessing Oracle Pulse section in Introduction.

    The Pulse Dashboard is displayed by default.

  2. Follow the steps in Navigating to the Service Level to access the Availability, Incidents or Changes dashboard for the service the environment is associated with.

  3. Click List view to see information for all the environments associated with the selected service.

    By default, information is shown for all the environments associated with the selected service.

  4. Click environment filter, then select the Individual Environment option.

  5. Select an environment from the drop-down list to see information for the environment of your focus.

Accessing Storage Information for an Environment

To access storage information for a specific environment:

  1. Sign in to Oracle Pulse as explained in the Accessing Oracle Pulse section in Introduction.

    The Pulse Dashboard is displayed by default.

  2. Follow the steps in Navigating to the Service Level to access the Storage dashboard for the service the environment is associated with.

    By default, information is shown for all the environments associated with the selected service.

  3. Click environment filter, then select the Individual Environment option.

  4. Select an environment from the drop-down list to see information for the environment of your focus.

Accessing BTM Information for an Environment

To access BTM-related information for a specific environment:

  1. Sign in to Oracle Pulse as explained in the Accessing Oracle Pulse section in Introduction.

    The Pulse Dashboard is displayed by default.

  2. Follow the steps in Navigating to the Service Level to access the Transactions dashboard for the service the environment is associated with.

    By default, information is shown for all the environments associated with the selected service.

  3. Select an environment from the drop-down list to see information for the environment of your focus.

Understanding the User Interface

This section describes the layout of the Oracle Pulse user interface (UI).

Oracle Pulse Dashboard Layout

The Customer and Service levels use key performance indicators, tables and charts to show the health of all your organization's services.

Key performance indicators show data in both chart and table views, and are displayed side by side. Click any key performance indicator to open the associated table view or, where no table view is available, to open the corresponding dashboard in Oracle Pulse.

Charts show graphical representations of data. Toggle between the chart view and table view using the Open Table View in the lower right corner of the chart.

Tables list all records, and are integrated among the widgets or shown in the lower part of the screen. Click any record in a table to open the lower level dashboard.

On Web browsers, the dashboard design also responds to the device size. Widgets stack vertically, and you can scroll up to see more widgets or the table of records.

Navigation Menu

The navigation menu, accessible by clicking View at the top of each page displays options for the Pulse Dashboard and the Customer and Service levels. The navigation menu options respond to the screen width, with options tabbed vertically to the left.

Customer Level

For example, use the navigation menu at Customer and Service levels to move between the Calendar, CSU, Availability, Storage, Transactions, Business Insight, Performance, Incidents, and Changes dashboards, and various services.

Service Level

You can access a list of all your organization's services from any screen in Oracle Pulse using the Menu View icon in the upper left corner. Select any service to access the corresponding dashboard populated with the most recently collected metrics.

Controls

The following table shows the controls available in Oracle Pulse with descriptions:

Name Description
Oracle Pulse Click this icon to return to the Pulse Dashboard, which is the Oracle Pulse home page.
Menu View Click this icon to open the navigation menu.
My Services Click this icon to open the My Services menu.
Help Click this icon to open the help documentation for the page you are currently viewing.
More Actions

Click this icon to perform the following actions:

  • What is new: See the Oracle Pulse online help.

  • About Oracle Pulse: See the Oracle Pulse End User License Agreement.

  • Sign Out: Sign out of Oracle Pulse.

Dashboard/Monthly View Click this icon to access the widgets and charts on the home page of the Availability, Incidents, and Changes dashboards, as well as the Calendar Monthly View.
List/List View Click this icon to open the list of relevant records in the Availability, Incidents, and Changes dashboards.
Chart Click this icon to access the charts in the Availability, Incidents, and Changes dashboards.
Status Click this icon to access stability and performance information for the services where Business Transaction Monitoring has been enabled.
Personalize charts Click this icon in the Chart view of the Availability, Storage, Incidents, and Changes dashboards to select the charts that you want to display or in the Performance dashboard to select the environments for which to display host and database metrics.
Search Click this icon to display the results that match the string you entered.
Open Table View Click this icon in any widget to flip to the data used to create the chart.
Export Click this icon to export table data to one of the following formats: PDF, MS Excel, or PPT.
Sort Click these icons to sort the records in a table in ascending or descending order.

Understanding the Service and Environment Configuration

Click the Configuration link in the navigation menu to see lay-of-the-land information on your services, environments and associated hosts, as explained in the following sections:

Starting with Pulse release 20.3, you can use the Configuration page to see information and details on environments that are currently being provisioned.

The Configuration page further enables you to search for a specific service, environment or host. To do this, type the name of the service, environment or host, then click Search or press Enter. Partial strings return all services, environments, or hosts containing the searched text.

Accessing the Configuration Page

To access the Configuration page

  1. Sign in to Oracle Pulse as explained in the Accessing Oracle Pulse section in Introduction.

    The Pulse Dashboard is displayed by default.

  2. Click Configuration in the navigation menu, under Governance.

    The Configuration page opens.

Analyzing Environments

This section describes how to use the widgets on the Configuration page to analyze your services and production and non-production environments, as explained in the following sections:

Environments Widget

Location: On the Configuration page. For more information on how to access the Configuration page, see Accessing the Configuration Page.

The Environments widget displays your total number of environments and their percentage split into production and non-production environments.

Environments KPI/donut - Shows environments as Production/NonProduction, taking into account the Instance Prioritization value. In this KPI, what is shown as Production is calculated based on Instance Type and Instance Prioritiation.

Status Widget

Location: On the Configuration page. For more information on how to access the Configuration page, see Accessing the Configuration Page.

The Status widget displays the environment status per environment type. Available statuses are:

  • Production.
  • Implementation.
  • Migration and Upgrade.
  • Provisioning.

Status KPI/chart - Shows environment and their type: Production, Development, etc. and for each, it also shows the value of Instance Prioritization. In this KPI, what is shown as Production is the Instance Type. You can see the value of the Instance Prioritization in a tooltip.

Disaster Recovery Widget

Location: On the Configuration page. For more information on how to access the Configuration page, see Accessing the Configuration Page.

The Disaster Recovery widget displays the total number of active Disaster Recovery environments.

Managed Security Service Widget

Location: On the Configuration page. For more information on how to access the Configuration page, see Accessing the Configuration Page.

The Managed Security Service widget displays the total number of environments with associated Managed Security services.

Service and Environment Configuration

The Configuration table displays all active services associated with your customer. For each service, you can see active environments, provisioning environments (if available), and associated child services, such as Disaster Recovery services.

Use the filter to display all active environments, or only display services that have active environments or that are currently being provisioned. Select one of the following options:

  • All environments
  • Active environments
  • Provisioning approval

Click Expand to the left of a service name in the Configuration table to display service information, including the:

  • Service details.
  • Associated environments and their details.
  • Managed Security Service label, if an environment has the Managed Security Service associated.
  • Associated hosts.
  • Disaster Recovery services, if available. These are marked with a light green Disaster Recovery icon at the parent service level.
  • Provisioning environments, and their associated details, if available. These are marked with an orange Provisioning icon at the parent service level.

Detailed information for services includes the:

  • Service Description: Specifies the service type.

  • Service Name: Specifies the service name. The light green Disaster Recovery icon next to the service name indicates that the service has been recovered through disaster recovery procedures.
  • Service Delivery Manager: Specifies the email address of the Service Delivery Manager associated with the service.
  • Phase: Specifies the service phase. Available options include:

    • Development
    • Implementation

    • Initialization

    • Production

    • Stabilization

  • Go Live Date: Specifies the date when the service went live.
  • Support Identifier: Specifies the customer support identifier associated with the service.

Expanding a service also displays detailed information about its associated environments. You can see the:

  • Environment Label/Name: Specifies the environment label and name and label. An orange Provisoning icon next to the environment name indicates that the environment is currently being provisioned.

  • Type: Specifies environment type. Available options are:

    • Development
    • Implementation

    • Initalization

    • Production

    • Stabilization

  • Available Date: Specifies the date when the environment became available.
  • Lifecycle: Specifies the environment lifecycle. Use the slide button to select one or more environments to approve (even from different services) for instances with the Lifecycle status of "Awaiting Customer Approval".
    Note

    The slide button is only displayed for users with Architect Approval role and if the environment lifecycle is Pending Customer Approval.
  • (Optional) Managed Security Services (MSS): Where applicable, lists the Managed Security Services service types associated with an environment. These are marked with a dark green MSS icon at the parent service level.
  • Hosts: Specifies the names of the hosts associated with the environment.
Note

Users with the Architect Approver role can also see additional details about the environments that are currently being provisioned , such as the Tier, Tenancy-Region, URL, Software Components, Oracle Product Version and OS Version.

Viewing Environment Details

Location: On the Configuration page. For more information on how to access the Configuration page, see Accessing the Configuration Page.

Click any environment name in the Configuration table to display the environment’s information at a glance:

  • Environment name and label: Specifies the environment name and label. An orange Provisioning icon next to the environment name indicates that the environment is currently being provisioned.
  • Type: Specifies environment type. Available options are listed in the Service and Environment Configuration section.

  • Available date: Specifies the date when the environment became available.

  • Lifecycle: Specifies the environment lifecycle. Available options are listed in the see Service and Environment Configuration section.

  • Hosts: Specifies the names of the host associated with the environment.

Working with Service Groups

The My Services feature lets you create service groups, allowing you to concentrate on your line of business with the help of reports focused on those services you have selected for your service group.

The following sections explain how to use the My Services feature:

Creating a Service Group

To create a service group:

  1. Click My Services in the upper right corner of the page.

    The My Services side pane opens.

  2. Select the check boxes corresponding to the services you want to include in your service group.

  3. Click Apply to save your changes and create your service group. Your selected services are grouped on the side pane, under My Services. The My Services, along with the number of selected services is displayed on every dashboard where the data is filtered by the selected services:

    • Dashboard

    • Calendar

    • Availability

    • Storage

    • Transactions

    • Performance

    • Incidents

    • Changes

    Your service group is saved for future logins, until you decide to modify or delete it. For information on how to modify or delete a service group, see Editing a Service Group or Removing a Service Group.

Editing a Service Group

Service groups can be edited by adding or removing services. To do this, click My Services.

) on any of the dashboards where the data is filtered by the selected services, add or remove the desired services, then click Apply.

Removing a Service Group

Service groups can be edited by adding or removing services. To do this, click the My Services icon (My Services Icon) on any of the dashboards where the data is filtered by the selected services, add or remove the desired services, then click Apply.

Identifying Contacts for Your Organization

Click the Contacts link in the navigation menu to see lee all the contacts associated with your organization's services.

Contacts include users from your organization and all Oracle personnel associated with your organization's services. Your customer user administrator authorizes approvers and defines the scope of approval authority. Your SDM and your customer user administrator maintain these records.

The following information is displayed for each contact record:

  • Name: Specifies the full name and the email address of the contact person.

  • Role: Specifies the role granted to the contact person.

  • Approval Authority: Specifies the approval authority assigned to the contact person by your customer user administrator.

Searching for a Contact

To search for a contact, enter the search criteria in the Search Contacts field, located at the top of the Contacts page. Partial strings return all contacts containing the searched string. Click Search to see all records containing the string.

Filtering Contacts

You can filter the records on the Contacts page using one of the following options in the list in the upper left corner of the page:

  • All Contacts: Displays all contacts associated with your organization's services, from both Oracle and your organization.

  • Approvers: Displays contacts who have the authority to approve change requests. The customer user administrator defines the scope of this approval authority.

  • My Organization: Displays all contacts from your organization associated with your organization's services.

  • Service Delivery Team: Displays all Oracle personnel associated with your organization's services.

Viewing Notifications

Click the Notifications link in the navigation menu to see all active and historical notifications associated with your organization’s services, over the past 30 days.

Notifications inform you about newly available software versions, Pulse service interruptions, outages or upcoming maintenance intervals, any actions users need to perform and other and other relevant communications.

The following information is displayed for each notification record:

  • Planned/Unplanned: Indicates whether the outage is planned or unplanned. For example, a scheduled outage for maintenance or a new software release is a planned outage.

  • Event Type: Indicates the type of event in question. Examples include:

    • New Software Release, announcing a new release of Oracle Pulse software.

    • Proactive Maintenance, announcing a scheduled maintenance outage to proactively address issues.

  • Description: Provides a full description of the event in question, typically including the event date, the start and end times, the systems or areas affected, the reasons for the event, and any other relevant details.

  • Date: Shows the date when the notification was created. The event date is listed in the description.

You can filter the records on the Notifications dashboard using one of the following options in the list in the upper left corner of the page:

  • Active notifications have not yet reached their expiry date.

  • Historical notifications have passed their expiry date, and were issued in the past 30 days.

Your Oracle SDM manages all your notifications, creating the necessary messages and setting an expiry date for each notification.

Once you sign in to Oracle Pulse, all active notifications for your organization's services are displayed by default. Notifications are ordered by the creation date, which is listed in the upper right corner. You can also scroll down to see earlier active notifications.

By selecting Do not show again option at the top right hand side of your notifications, you can ensure they are not displayed the next time you sign in.

Generating Reports for Different Time Periods

Reports in Oracle Pulse are generated for default periods of time, as explained below:

  • the widgets on the Pulse Dashboard, the Performance dashboard, the Incidents and Changes Dashboard views, as well as the Transactions dashboard, report data as of the current day. This setting cannot be changed.

  • the Calendar Monthly View and List View, the CSU Dashboard and List views, as well as the Dashboard view on the Availability, Incidents and Changes menus, report data for the current month.

  • the List and Chart views on the Availability, Incidents and Changes menus, as well as the Storage dashboard, report data for three months prior to the current month.

The default time periods for reports can be changed using either the page time selector or the widget time selector, as explained in the following sections:

Note:

If the page time selector default value is updated in any page, the default values are no longer preserved, but the new selections will propagate from one menu to another. To revert to the default values, log out and relogin to Oracle Pulse.

By default, reports in Oracle Pulse are generated in the GMT time zone. Oracle Pulse allows you to change the default time zone for the reports on the Transactions and Performance dashboards, as explained in Changing the Timezone of Your Reports.

Using the Page Time Selector

Use the page time selector in the upper right corner of a page to change the time interval for all the information displayed on that particular page.

To change the time interval using the page time selector:

  1. Click Select Time Intervalin the upper right corner of the page.

    To generate the report for one of the available time intervals, continue to step 2. To generate the report for a custom time frame, continue to step 3.

    Note

    Only valid time frames can be selected, where the end date is higher than the start date.

  2. Select any of the options in the list.

    The page is automatically refreshed to show information for the selected time frame.

  3. Click Custom Timeframe.

  4. In the calendar window that opens, use the Start Date and End Date drop-down lists to select your preferred time frame.

  5. Click Apply.

    The page is automatically refreshed to show information for the selected time frame.

Using the Widget Time Selector

Use the widget time selector above a chart to change the time interval for that particular chart only.

Note:

The widget time selector is available only for the charts in the Availability, Incidents, and Changes Chart views, as well as for the charts on the Storage and Transactions dashboards.

To change the time interval using the widget time selector:

  1. Click Select Time Interval above the chart.

    To generate the report for one of the available time intervals, continue to step 2. To generate the report for a custom time frame, continue to step 3.

    Note:

    Only valid timeframes can be selected, where the end date is higher than the start date.

  2. Select any of the options in the list.

    The page is automatically refreshed to show information for the selected time frame.

  3. Click Custom Timeframe.

  4. In the calendar window that opens, use the Start Date and End Date drop-down lists to select your preferred dates.

  5. Click Apply.

    The page is automatically refreshed to show information for the selected time frame.

Changing the Timezone of Your Reports

Oracle Pulse allows you to change the default time zone for the reports on the Calendar, Transactions and Performance dashboards, enabling you to see data in your preferred time zone and streamlining the correlation between your outages or performance issues and the Oracle Pulse reports.

Preferred timezones can only be selected on the dashboards enumerated above, whereas the rest of the application displays data in the UTC timezone. Selecting a timezone on any of the three dashboards that support this feature automatically sets the selected timezone on the other two.

To change the time zone for your reports:

  1. Click Select Time Interval in the upper right corner or above the chart that you want to display in your preferred time zone.

  2. Select your preferred time zone from the drop-down list or use the search box to look for your preferred time zone.

    The page is automatically refreshed to show information for the selected time zone.

My Charts and Environments

In Pulse, you can select the charts you want to display, as explained in My Charts. This feature is available only for the Availability, Incidents, and Changes Chart views, as well as for the Storage dashboard.

On the Performance dashboard, the My Environments feature allows you to select up to five environments for which to display host and database metrics, as explained in My Environments.

My Charts

To select the charts you want to display in the Availability, Incidents, and Changes Chart views, as well as in the Storage dashboard:

  1. Click My Charts in the upper right side of the dashboard.

    The My Charts list is expanded, with the check box of the charts already displayed selected.

  2. Select the check box corresponding to the charts you want to display.

    Note

    To select all the charts in a category, you can select the check box to the left of the category name.
  3. Deselect the check box of the charts displayed by default.

  4. Click Apply.

    The dashboard is refreshed to show only the charts you have selected. Your selection is preserved for your next logins.

My Environments

To select the environments for which to display host and database metrics in the Performance dashboard:

  1. Click My Environments in the upper right side of the dashboard.

    The My Environments list is expanded, showing all the active services in your organization.

  2. Click Expand to the left of a service name to display the list of associated environments.

  3. (Optional) If there are more than three services associated with your organization, start typing the name of your environment(s) of interest in the search box at the top of the My Environments list.

  4. Select the check box corresponding to the environments for which to display host and database metrics.
    Note

    Oracle Pulse Release 18.4 and up allows you to select up to 5 environments.
  5. Click Apply.

    The dashboard is refreshed to show host metrics for the environments you have selected. Your selection is preserved for your next logins.

To remove a selected environment from view:

  1. Click My Environments in the upper right side of the dashboard.

    The My Environments list is expanded, showing all the services in your organization.

  2. Click Unselect environment to the right of the environment you want to remove.

  3. Click Apply.

Exporting Data

Oracle Pulse allows you to export data in the table views of reports for later use. To export data:

  1. Click Open Table View in the lower right corner of the chart whose data you want to export.

  2. Click Export in the upper right corner of the table.

  3. Select one of the available formats:

    • PDF

    • MS Excel

    • PPT

    The Save As dialog box opens.

    Note

    The reports on the Business Insight dashboard can only be exported as MS Excel.
  4. Browse to the location where you want to save your report.

  5. In the File name field, enter a name for your report.

  6. Click Save.

Sorting Records

The table views of reports in Oracle Pulse can be sorted to allow the easy identification of records of interest to you. To sort the columns in table views:

  1. Click a widget or the Open Table View in the lower right corner of a chart.

    By default, tables are sorted by the most recent record.

  2. Identify the column by which you want to sort the records.

  3. Click arrows to sort the records in ascending or descending order.