The Root Cause Analysis (RCA) feature in Enterprise Manager Grid Control provides you with the ability analyze service failures, filtering the availability, performance and configuration data of the system components used by the affected service to help you eliminate problems which may appear to be causes of the service failure but which are only side effects or symptoms of the actual root cause of the problem.
RCA provides administrators with a focused assessment of service problems and allows them to more quickly identify the cause and corrective action for the problem. You can use RCA to identify problems in complex aggregate services, including component failure and redundancy problems in hardware, software or the network itself.
Root Cause Analysis processing is triggered by the occurrence of a service failure event. Once an event occurs, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) determines whether all of the data necessary to perform the analysis is available. If not, then the RCA process waits for the data to be delivered to the system. Once RCA has waited, it performs the analysis. If data is unavailable then those areas of the sub-tree will not be investigated further and cannot be determined as either causes of the service failure or symptoms of the actual root cause. For more information about processing see About Root Cause Analysis Processing.
You can view the RCA feature using the service topology viewer that allows you to see a graphical representation of the service and its relationship to other services, systems and infrastructure components, with the causes identified by RCA highlighted in the display. For more information about the Topology Viewer, see About Using Topology Viewer and Viewing Service Topology.
RCA monitors the status of a service and any defined component tests. The component test tests an aspect of a key component on which the service depends. Add a component test by choosing a metric and setting a threshold on a metric key. When RCA runs, it evaluates the status of key component and component tests and reports violations as possible root causes. RCA also provides the ability to include the details associated with the analysis with notifications sent for service failure alerts.
RCA automates an otherwise difficult manual task by providing you the ability to traverse a large, dependent topology and quickly identify problem areas, notifying you of specific possible causes of service failure.
Related Topics
About Root Cause Analysis Processing
Getting the Most From Root Cause Analysis
About the SMARTS Network Adapter
Enterprise Manager Information Roadmap
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