The Oracle Network Manager is apoorly named tool; it does not perform network management at all.Rather, it is a tool provided by Oracle to configure the variouscomponents of Oracle's networking software.
Oracle networks can be very complex, often with servers running onvarious operating systems, and with multiple network topologiesrunning different protocols and frequently utilizing WAN technologiesto implement geographically dispersed networks. In such complexnetworks, change is often the norm, and since detailed informationabout the composition of most components of the network must be madeavailable to Oracle products in various parameter files, it would bedifficult indeed to keep all network parameter files up to date.
Network Manager was developed and bundled with Oracle7 to help handlethis network complexity and to simplify the DBA's job ofconfiguring and maintaining an Oracle network. Network Manager is aGUI tool that you can use to create, change, and distribute therequired Oracle parameter files.
It is important to know that Network Manager was originally developedto run under Windows 3.1, and while it runs on Windows 95, Windows98, and Windows NT clients, it is not installed with the normalOracle installer on those platforms. Rather, you must navigate to the\WINDOWS\INSTALL directory on the Oracle clientinstallation CD-ROM, then run ORAINST to installNetwork Manager. The resulting executable will be found in the\ORAWIN \BIN directory on the client, ratherthan in the expected \ORAWIN95 directory.
Although Network Manager can be used to configure a network runningOracle8 and Net8, Oracle is now shipping a new configuration productcalled the Net8 Assistant that replaces Network Manager for Oracle8installations.
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A major advantage of Network Manager isthat data about the network is entered only once, then stored in arepository that may be either a flat file (operating- system-level)structure or an Oracle database. When a change is required, only theaffected component is changed, and all parameter files can be quicklyand easily regenerated and distributed as required.
If the Network Manager data is being stored in the database, severalscripts must be run by the SYSTEM account to create the requireddatabase objects. These scripts, which are normally found in the\ORAWIN \DBS directory on a Windows clientmachine, are shown in Table 5.1.
Before beginning to define an Oracle network using Network Manager,you'll need to collect the answers to some basic questions,including the following:
What protocols will be supported?
Will the MultiProtocol Interchange be used?
How will you name your Oracle services?
Will you use Oracle Names?
What are the physical or logical addresses of the servers in your Oracle network?
What are the SIDs (instance names) of the databases on each server?
Once this information is available, you can begin defining yournetwork. Network Manager easily walks you through the configurationprocess. After starting Network Manager, choose the "new"option from the "File" menu, and answer "yes"to the prompt that asks "Would you like to walk throughconfiguration of a network definition?" From this point on, youcan simply answer questions on the screen and provide the necessaryinformation to complete your configuration.
When the network is specified toNetwork Manager (or a change is made to an existing networkdefinition), a set of SQL*Net configuration files is created on theWindows workstation. Individual directories are created for eachclient and server node defined in the network. In each of thesedirectories, you'll find the files shown in Table 5.2.
Once these files are created, the DBA must copy the files, using atechnique such as FTP or Windows copy, to the appropriate node(identified by the directory name).
