RDS Oracle monitoring options

There are several tools and methods available to monitor SQL performance and execution plans in AWS RDS Oracle, offering functionality similar to Oracle Enterprise Manager:

1. Performance Insights: This is a powerful feature provided by Amazon RDS that offers deep visibility into database performance. It samples every second of database sessions, collecting SQL statements, wait events, and other dimensions. Performance Insights allows you to visualize your database workload, troubleshoot performance issues, and analyze root causes. It displays database load using the average active sessions (AAS) metric and doesn't rely on the Oracle Diagnostics Pack, making it suitable for Oracle Database SE2 and other non-Enterprise editions.

2. Amazon CloudWatch: This is AWS's native monitoring and observability service. For RDS Oracle, CloudWatch provides several built-in metrics such as CPU utilization, database connections, and storage space. You can set up alarms for these metrics and configure notifications when thresholds are exceeded. CloudWatch Logs can also be used to collect and analyze database logs, including error logs, audit logs, and slow query logs.

3. Enhanced Monitoring: This feature provides more granular, real-time metrics about the operating system of your RDS instance. It offers additional metrics like disk I/O, CPU, and memory utilization at the OS level, which can help identify performance bottlenecks and potential issues.

4. Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM): While not an AWS native tool, OEM can still be used with Amazon RDS for Oracle. You can use OEM Database Express for certain Oracle versions, or set up the OEM Management Agent to connect your RDS Oracle instance to OEM Cloud Control. This allows you to leverage familiar OEM features for performance monitoring and SQL analysis.

5. Custom Monitoring Solutions: For more specific monitoring needs, you can set up custom monitoring solutions. For example, you can use StatsD, an open-source daemon that can gather metrics from your database and send them to CloudWatch. This allows you to monitor custom metrics like tablespace free space, long-running queries, and other database-specific performance indicators.

These tools provide a comprehensive set of options for monitoring SQL performance and execution plans in AWS RDS Oracle, allowing you to choose the most suitable approach based on your specific requirements and familiarity with different tools.
Sources
Monitoring tools - AWS Prescriptive Guidance
Using StatsD for monitoring Oracle databases running on Amazon RDS or Amazon EC2 | AWS Database Blog
Working with OEM Agent software for Amazon RDS for Oracle | AWS Database Blog
Monitoring your Amazon RDS DB instance - Amazon Relational Database Service
Monitor Amazon RDS for Oracle instances using Oracle Enterprise Manager | AWS Database Blog