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Oracle verified data in Snow License Manager

Overview and implementation

2023-05-17

Description

Snow Software is a verified third-party tool vendor for Oracle Databases and Database Options, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Java SE. Oracle verifies that the data collected by Snow License Manager is accurate and complete, and accepted during an audit as an alternative to installing Oracle tooling.

The verified data can be downloaded as a ZIP file from the Oracle overview section in Snow License Manager, provided that the requirements described below are fulfilled.

Requirements

  • To accurately detect the data, the following Snow products must be installed in the following environments:

    Snow products

    Environments

    • Snow Inventory Agents for Windows, Linux, or Unix, version 6.0 or later

    • Snow Inventory Oracle Scanner, version 7.0 or later

    • Snow Inventory Oracle Middleware Scanner, version 3.0 or later

    • Snow Inventory Oracle Hardware Scanner, version 1.0 or later

    • Snow Inventory Java Scanner 4.0 or later

    All environments containing Oracle Database product installations, and any of the following environments, depending on the virtualization technology used:

    • Oracle Solaris Zones – on the Global Zone

    • Oracle VM Server for SPARC – on the Control Domain

    • Oracle VM Server for x86 – on the Dom0

  • In addition, the following must be installed to gather data from a VMware infrastructure:

    • Snow Integration Manager, version 5.39 or later

    • VMware vSphere Connector

  • For the data to be available via the Snow License Manager user interface, Snow License Manager version 9.28 or later, with Oracle Management Option enabled, is required.

  • The Snow License Manager user role must have the Ability to access and manage Oracle verified mode privilege enabled to access the Oracle verified data view in the Snow License Manager user interface. Roles and privileges are managed via Snow Management and Configuration Center.

Overview of the process

In short, the process of gathering Oracle verified data is as follows:

  1. Installing the infrastructure

    The required infrastructure specified above must be installed and configured.

    For more information on how to install and configure the required Snow products, see:

    Note that there are two alternative ways of distributing the Snow Inventory Oracle Scanner, Snow Inventory Oracle Middleware Scanner, Snow Inventory Oracle Hardware Scanner, and Snow Inventory Java Scanner, see Distribute the Snow Inventory Oracle Scanners.

  2. Data gathering

    • Each time the agents perform their regular scan, as part of the Oracle scanners execution, a set of scripts is run, gathering data about basic hardware information for the inventoried computers and the software information for the products installations.

    • The VMware vSphere Connector gathers data about the VMware infrastructure according to the connector configuration.

  3. Data processing

    The data is processed and made available in Snow License Manager. The frequency of the updates to Snow License Manager depends on the scan cadence configured by the customer.

  4. Downloading Oracle verified data

    Via the Snow License Manager user interface, you can export Oracle verified data for the entire estate or for a selection of it. See Oracle verified data tab in the Snow License Manager User Guide for more information.

    The final output is a ZIP file with the following content:

    • Software data output files:

      • ORCL_DBA_USERS.csv - contains information of all Oracle Database users.

      • ORCL_V$SESSION.csv - contains information of all Oracle Database sessions.

      • ORCL_V$LICENSE.csv - contains information about license limits.

      • ORCL_OPTIONS.csv - contains information about the Oracle Database Options usage. The output is used by Oracle to determine Oracle Options and Management packs usage.

      • ORCL_DETAIL.csv - contains aggregated data from both Hardware and Software data outputs.

      • ORCL_OVERVIEW.csv - contains aggregated data from both Hardware and Software data outputs.

      • Middleware files

      • Java report

    • Hardware data output in TXT files.

    • VMware (vCenter) related data output in two CSV files (per vCenter).

Distribute the Snow Inventory Oracle Scanners

Distribute the Snow Inventory Oracle Scanner, Snow Inventory Oracle Middleware Scanner, Snow Inventory Oracle Hardware Scanner, and Snow Inventory Java Scanner in one of the following ways:

  1. Manually replace the required artifact (sios.jar) in the agent’s folder. The following artifacts are needed:

    • sios.jar (version 7.0)

    • sioms.jar (version 3.0)

    • Scan-SIOMSLauncher.snow-ps1 (version 1.3.1) for Windows only

    • siohws.jar (version 1.0)

    • Scan-SIOHWSLauncher.snow-ps1 (version 1.0) for Windows only

    • sijs.jar (version 4.0)

    • Scan-SIJSLauncher (version 1.0.1) for Windows only

    If the Oracle scan is not already enabled, make sure to enable it by configuring the Oracle element in the snowagent.config file. See configuration-doc.html for a complete list of all configuration parameters.

  2. Use agent installation packages or download the Oracle scanners as independent products via https://community.snowsoftware.com/s/downloads.

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