Extended discovery of Oracle Database

You can retrieve granular information about the edition (Standard or Enterprise), options, Management Packs (including Oracle Real Application Cluster, RAC), and user concurrent sessions of Oracle Databases that are deployed in your environment. When you combine this information with the collected hardware inventory data, you can use it to calculate the demand for Oracle Database licenses. The functionality is supported for Oracle Database versions 11.2, 12.1, 18.3, 19.0, and 21.0

Starting from version 10.15.0, BigFix Inventory supports the feature of collecting audit information for Oracle Java. For more information, refer to Collecting Oracle Measurements Data.

Starting with version 11.0.0, BigFix Inventory introduces a new way of constructing Oracle Database inventory reports. It does not require external scripts, is more accurate and faster. This solution is based on Oracle Measurements and employs Get Oracle Database Measurements task. Get Oracle Features fixlet is deprecated and Get Oracle Database Measurements fixlet is available to perform the actions that were earleir supported by Get Oracle Features fixlet.

Table 1. Discovered versions and editions of Oracle Database
Oracle Database version Edition Supported operating systems Offering type
10.0.11 21c Oracle Database Standard Edition and Oracle Database Enterprise Edition
Oracle Database is discovered on the following operating systems.
  • AIX
  • Linux
  • Windows
  • Solaris
 On-premises
10.0.11 19c
9.2.15 18c
12c
11g
Note: BigFix Inventory supports Oracle Database Standard Edition and Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. Other editions for example, Oracle Database Cloud Service Enterprise Edition - Extreme Performance are not supported.

Configuring Get Oracle Database Measurements fixlet

The configuration is now done using the "Get Oracle Database Measurements" fixlets.

The Get Oracle Database Measurements fixlet collects information about the Oracle Databases. The fixlet identifies all running instances and operating system accounts that own them. The fixlet tries to connect to each of them without providing the password, using sqlplus command depending on the operating system:

On Linux, Solaris, and AIX systems the Get Oracle Database Measurements fixlet identifies user accounts that run Oracle Database instances (database instance owners), switches to them using su command, and executes sqlplus / as SYSDBA to connect to the database without credentials.

On Windows the Get Oracle Database Measurements fixlet executes sqlplus / as SYSDBA from an operating system account that is used to run the BigFix Agent service (usually the LocalSystem Account) to connect to the database without providing credentials.

In order to collect Oracle licensing details before executing the Get Oracle Database Measurements fixlet, make sure that every Oracle database is configured accordingly.

To invoke sqlplus, owners of instances must have write permission and execute permission in specific folders. Auditing script outputs and executes temporary scripts in the following paths:

On Linux, Solaris, and AIX systems

  • /var/opt/BESClient/LMT/ORACLE
  • Oracle Database Home of database instance owner or /tmp

On Windows

  • C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client\LMT\ORACLE