Monitoring the Hosting Platform - Expert Consolidation in Oracle Database 12c - page 274

Figure 8-2. The summary page for Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control after a fresh installation
The final piece of the architecture is the repository database, which is used to store the metric and performance
information as well as the metadata for the Management Service.
Extending Functionality via Plugins
One of the design goals of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control (the current release at the time of this writing)
is to allow Oracle's developers to be more flexible. The previously used framework was quite rigid and made it
difficult to change code. It was equally difficult for Oracle to deploy new functionality. The new approach was to make
the whole architecture a lot more flexible. In addition to easier development, the new architecture also allows the
administrator to deploy a smaller subset of functionality. Instead of deploying all functionality during the installation,
the new release starts with a specific number of plugins. Any further functionality or upgrades to an existing plugin
can be downloaded and implemented later.
Enterprise Manager relies a lot more on communication with My Oracle Support, and both are tightly integrated.
The Management Service will periodically poll Oracle's websites to see if there is new or updated functionality
available. This function is called Self Update and will be discussed later in this chapter in greater detail. When new
functionality is available the administrator can download it to the so-called software library and apply it during
a change window. Plugins are not limited to the Management Service, but also exist for targets and agents. New
functionality can equally be added to the agents, allowing for a smaller initial storage footprint.
The Role of the Agent
The Oracle agent is the part of the infrastructure responsible for gathering information about the monitored
targets. The agent can be installed via the Enterprise Manager console, or alternatively via the command line.
Oracle supplies a response-file based silent installation as well as an RPM for the Linux platform. The latter however