Problem management involves the functionality that helps track the underlying root causes of incidents. Once the immediate service disruptions represented by incidents are resolved, you can then progress to understanding and resolving the underlying root cause of the issue.

For Enterprise Manager 12c, problems focus on the diagnostic incidents and problem diagnostic incidents/problems stored in Advanced Diagnostic Repository (ADR), which are automatically raised by Oracle software when it encounters critical errors in the software. A problem, therefore, represents the root cause of all the Oracle software incidents. For these diagnostic incidents, in order to address root cause, a problem is created that represents the root cause of these diagnostic incidents. A problem is identified by a problem key which uniquely identifies the particular error in software. Each occurrence of this error results in a diagnostic incident which is then associated with the problem object.

When a problem is raised for Oracle software, Oracle has determined that the recommended recourse is to open a service request (SR), send support the diagnostic logs, and eventually provide a solution from Oracle. As an incident, Enterprise Manager makes available all tracking, diagnostic, and reporting functions for problem management. Whenever you view all open incidents and problems, whether you are using Incident Manager, or in context of a target/group home page, you can easily determine what issues are actually affecting your monitored target.

To manage problems, you can use Support Workbench to package the diagnostic details gathered in ADR and open SR. Users should then manage the problems in Incident Manager. Access to Support Workbench functionality is available through Incident Manager (Guided Resolution area) in context of the problem.