Setting Up Database Monitoring for RDS Oracle

Database Monitoring provides deep visibility into your Oracle databases by exposing query samples to profile your different workloads and diagnose issues.

The Agent collects telemetry directly from the database by logging in as a read-only user.

Before you begin

Supported Oracle versions
11g, 12c, 18c, 19c, 21c
Supported Agent version
7.50.1+
Performance impact
The default Agent configuration for Database Monitoring is conservative, but you can adjust settings such as the collection interval and query sampling rate to better suit your needs. For most workloads, the Agent represents less than one percent of query execution time on the database and less than one percent of CPU.

Database Monitoring runs as an integration on top of the base Agent (see benchmarks).
Proxies, load balancers, and connection poolers
The Agent must connect directly to the host being monitored. The Agent should not connect to the database through a proxy, load balancer, or connection pooler. Each Agent must have knowledge of the underlying hostname and should stick to a single host for its lifetime, even in cases of failover. If the Datadog Agent connects to different hosts while it is running, the values of metrics will be incorrect.
Data security considerations
See Sensitive information for information about what data the Agent collects from your databases and how to ensure it is secure.

Setup

Complete the following steps to enable Database Monitoring with your Oracle database:

  1. Create the Datadog user
  2. Grant the user access to the database
  3. Install the Agent
  4. Configure the Agent
  5. Install or verify the Oracle integration
  6. Validate the setup

Create the Datadog user

If you already have the legacy Oracle integration installed, the user already exists, and you can skip this step.

Create a read-only login to connect to your server and grant the required permissions:

CREATE USER datadog IDENTIFIED BY <YOUR_PASSWORD>;

Grant the user access to the database

grant create session to datadog ;
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SESSION','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$DATABASE','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$CONTAINERS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SQLSTATS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SQL','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$INSTANCE','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SQL_PLAN_STATISTICS_ALL','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('DBA_FEATURE_USAGE_STATISTICS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$PROCESS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$CON_SYSMETRIC','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('CDB_TABLESPACE_USAGE_METRICS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('CDB_TABLESPACES','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SQLCOMMAND','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$DATAFILE','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SGAINFO','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SYSMETRIC','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$PDBS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('CDB_SERVICES','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$OSSTAT','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$PARAMETER','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$SQL','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$PGASTAT','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$ASM_DISKGROUP','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$RSRCMGRMETRIC','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$DATAGUARD_CONFIG','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$DATAGUARD_STATS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$TRANSACTION','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('V_$LOCKED_OBJECT','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('DBA_OBJECTS','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('CDB_DATA_FILES','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);
exec rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object('DBA_DATA_FILES','DATADOG','SELECT',p_grant_option => false);

Securely store your password

Store your password using secret management software such as Vault. You can then reference this password as ENC[<SECRET_NAME>] in your Agent configuration files: for example, ENC[datadog_user_database_password]. See Secrets Management for more information.

The examples on this page use datadog_user_database_password to refer to the name of the secret where your password is stored. It is possible to reference your password in plain text, but this is not recommended.

Install the Agent

See the DBM Setup Architecture documentation to determine where to install the Agent. The Agent doesn’t require any external Oracle clients.

For installation steps, see the Agent installation instructions.

Configure the Agent

Create the Oracle Agent conf file /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/oracle.d/conf.yaml. See the sample conf file for all available configuration options.

Note: The configuration subdirectory for the Agent releases below 7.53.0 is oracle-dbm.d.

init_config:
instances:
  - server: '<RDS_INSTANCE_ENDPOINT_1>:<PORT>'
    service_name: "<SERVICE_NAME>" # The Oracle CDB service name
    username: 'datadog'
    password: 'ENC[datadog_user_database_password]'
    dbm: true
    tags:  # Optional
      - 'service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>'
      - 'env:<CUSTOM_ENV>'
  - server: '<RDS_INSTANCE_ENDPOINT_2>:<PORT>'
    service_name: "<SERVICE_NAME>" # The Oracle CDB service name
    username: 'datadog'
    password: 'ENC[datadog_user_database_password]'
    dbm: true
    tags:  # Optional
      - 'service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>'
      - 'env:<CUSTOM_ENV>'

Once all Agent configuration is complete, restart the Datadog Agent.

Install or verify the Oracle integration

First-time installations

On the Integrations page in Datadog, install the Oracle integration for your organization. This installs an Oracle dashboard in your account that can be used to monitor the performance of your Oracle databases.

Existing installations

For an existing installation, verify that your configuration is located in the conf.d/oracle-dbm.d/ directory. You may need to migrate the legacy configuration from the conf.d/oracle.d/ directory.

Use the following command to migrate the Oracle integration from the legacy integration to the new one:

cp /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/oracle.d/conf.yaml /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/oracle-dbm.d/conf.yaml

Deactivate the legacy integration:

mv /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/oracle.d/conf.yaml /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/oracle.d/conf.yaml.bak

Deactivating the legacy integration prevents sending the system metrics twice.

Since the Agent doesn’t require an external Oracle client, remove the jdbc_driver_path configuration parameter from the new parameter file /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/oracle-dbm.d/conf.yaml.

Validate the setup

Run the Agent’s status subcommand and look for oracle under the Checks section. Navigate to the Dashboard and Databases page in Datadog to get started.

Custom queries

Database Monitoring supports custom queries for Oracle databases. See the conf.yaml.example to learn more about the configuration options available.

Running custom queries may result in additional costs or fees assessed by Oracle.

Further reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

PREVIEWING: may/unit-testing