We are attempting to use the "free" version of OEM (called OEE) to troubleshoot the top 10 most common problems that we regularly encounter when trying to use the OpenEdge database in production.
One common issue is when long-running transactions take a record lock and the database is unable to enforce any reasonable timeout. (Thereby requiring workarounds in the ABL programs themselves, or requiring manual intervention by an OE dba to disconnect misbehaving client program).
We hoped that this ("no reasonable timeout") problem could be diagnosed by a dba if they would simply refresh the "Database Performance Summary" screen under "Operational Views". One symptom of the "no reasonable timeout" problem would be seen in the "Oldest transaction age" (under heading: "Record and Transaction Summary".) This should be visible and should start to grow excessively long (10..30..60 mins).
Unfortunately we are *not* seeing any meaningful information for "Oldest transaction age". It always remains blank for us. Can anyone who uses OEE (or OEM) let me know if you have ever seen anything appear for this value?
Keep in mind that, with OEE, we are running a simple Monitoring Agent for the database but no "monitoring plans" or "maintenance jobs". I believe those are only available for the more advanced "OEM" product.
I am already aware that OEE is not a widely used product, and that Progress relies on third-parties (eg ProTop) to deliver better management tooling for their RDBMS. However, I don't think that displaying the "oldest transaction age" is too great of a ting to ask for. The only other place I am able to find such a thing is buried deep in the "R&D" menu of promon (R&D->1->4->3). While digging around in promon is not the end of the world, we'd prefer it if all our top 10 problems could be diagnosed with one or two mouseclicks in OEE.
Any help would be appreciated.
OEM / OEE basically has kept the same monitoring functionality for the last 10 years, since OEM version 3.x
In my experience OEE is useful for users that don't like the command line utilities to manage ubroker.properties or to start / stop an OE object. I would not use it to track down problem users / programs. A few fairly basic ABL programs can monitor transaction age and locking information.
I'm going to try to open a tech support ticket about the misleading OEE information ("oldest transaction age").
Given that OEE is the only graphical DB monitoring tool that comes in the box (and given that it is so minimal compared to OEM) you would think that Progress could support it better and maybe even enhance it! Maybe they are hoping to acquire ProTop in the near future, and that would avoid having to support their own home-grown stuff. (Although I suspect that OEE was something they had acquired in the past as well.)
When the OE database is misbehaving it is almost always for the same couple of reasons and our DBA should be able to hop into OEE to confirm.
The two problems are typically lock table overflows and long-running concurrency conflicts.
Basically our OE DBA should be able to check on those two things, and they would indicate the need for disconnecting the related database users that are misbehaving.
Hopefully this can be fixed in the near future (in OE 11.7.5.x or OE 11.7.6) We cannot be the only ones who struggle with OEE. In a similar vein, I wish Progress would start including the full OEM in their database product ("OE Enterprise RDBMS"). It surprises me that an "enterprise" database would be sold without having any management console that is graphical and easily approachable.