Here is what I check:

Database Server Alerts

CPU Overload Alert We monitor for high run queue values and track periods when the
Oracle database server is overloaded. This alert fires when (the CPU run queue > num_cpus)
for more than 30 minutes.

RAM Memory Overload Alert We constantly monitor for RAM memory overloads and provide
our clients with complete reports showing time when the Oracle database server experiences
shortages of RAM memory. This alert fires when the server is experiencing real RAM page-in
operations, triggered when a high scan rate (sr) is followed by high page in (pi) values.

Network Latency Alert This alert fires when network latency (as measured by tnsping
response time) exceeds the pre-defined threshold.

External Oracle Database Alerts (UNIX)

Trace and Dump file Alert We check hourly for any new Oracle trace or dump files, and e-
mail the dumps directly to our support center.

Alert log message Alert - This script e-mails any important alert log messages that are found
in the alert log.

Low free space in archived redo log directory Alert - If the archived redo log directory become
full, our Oracle database will hang up. This alert allows the Oracle DBA to add space before
the database hangs.

UNIX mount point space Alert - The script checks all datafile mount points in Oracle, including
the UNIX Oracle home directory. Since most databases now use AUTOEXTEND ON, the DBA
must be constantly alert for file systems that may not be able to extend. If the free space in
any mount point is less than the specified threshold, an e-mail alert will be sent to the DBA.

Internal Oracle Database Alerts

Broken Job alert This alert will report on any component of dbms_scheduler that has been
disabled, or failed to execute at its scheduled time.

Servererror alert This alert fires when the servererror detects an exceptional error. The
servererror trigger code contains a filter to ignore non-critical server errors (e.g. single user
application failures).

Replication backlog alert - This alert checks the queues for Oracle Streams for excessive
enqueues and disk writes that are associated with Streams queue overloads. We can also
monitor Oracle DataGuard for excessive log transfer times.

Object cannot extend Alert - This report will alert the Oracle DBA whenever an Oracle table or
index does not have room to take another extent. This alert is obsolete if you are using
tablespaces with AUTOEXTEND ON, but many DBAs still keep this alert because they want to
monitor the growth of the database tables and indexes.

Tablespace > 95% free Alert - This report sends an e-mail alert whenever any tablespaces
contain less space than specified. Again, this alert is obsolete when using AUTOEXTEND ON,
but many DBAs still want to see the available space within each tablespace.

Object > nnn extents Alert - This report is very useful for reporting tables and indexes that
experience unexpected growth. Whenever a table or index exceeds the number defined, an e-
mail alert will be sent to the DBA.

Hot File Reads Alert - This script reports on files whose reads are greater than (25 percent or
50 percent or 75 percent) of total reads. This code compares the individual I/O for a file from
stats$filestatxs of dba_hist_filestatxs with the overall I/O for the period specified. When you
find a hot file, you may want to place these files in the KEEP pool or stripe them across
multiple disks.

Hot File Writes Alert - This script alerts you to files whose write I/Os are greater than (25
percent or 50 percent or 75 percent) of total writes. This information can help the DBA locate
files that are consuming more than a normal proportion of I/O writes. You may want to place
these files in the KEEP pool or stripe them across multiple disks.

Disk Sorts Alert - If disk sorts are greater than 100/hr, you may want to increase
sort_area_size or tune SQL to perform index scans. This report is very useful for monitoring
the amount of activity against the TEMP tablespace, and it is also useful for ensuring that
sort_area_size is set to an optimal level. As a general rule, increasing sort_area_size will
reduce the number of disk sorts, but huge sorts will always need to be performed on disk in
the TEMP tablespace.

I/O Wait Alert - This code interrogates to report on any files with an excessive amount of wait
activity. If the number of I/O waits appears excessive, the DBA needs to investigate the cause
of the waits. High I/O waits on files are commonly associated with buffer busy waits, and may
be caused by tables with too few freelists.

Buffer Busy Wait Alert - Whenever you see buffer busy waits, you have a condition where a
data block is in the data buffer but is unavailable. This type of contention is usually for a
segment header block of a high-level index node block. Adding freelists for the object often
corrects these wait conditions.

Redo Log Space Requests Alert - If redo log space requests are greater than 0, you may want
to increase the log_buffer init.ora parameter. A high number of redo log space requests
indicates a high level of update activity, and the Oracle log buffer is having trouble keeping
up with the volume of redo log images.

Chained Row Alert - Table fetch continued rows greater than 3% of row fetches, you may
have excessive disk I/O (because of LOB's or PCTFREE set too low). The table fetch continued
row can also be triggered by reading data blocks with long columns that exceed the block
size. This is common with rows that contain RAW, LONG RAW, NCLOB, CLOB or BLOB
datatypes.

Shared Pool Contention Alert - Enqueue deadlocks can indicate contention within the shared
pool and locking related problems. Enqueue deadlocks are associated with the deadly
embrace condition where one task is locking resources and another task that is holding
resources requests a lock on the resources of the first task. To prevent these tasks from
waiting forever, Oracle aborts the tasks that requested the lock that caused the deadly
embrace.

Full Table Scan Alert - Long-table full table scans are only legitimate when the query requires
access to more than 40percent of ordered table rows and more than 7percent of unordered
table rows. Excessive large-table full table scans may indicate poorly tuned SQL that is not
using an index.

Background Wait Event Alert - This query interrogates Oracle to find events with high waits.
When background events experience more than 100 time-outs/hr, you may have a locking
problem.

System Waits Alert - This query interrogates the Oracle event structures to locate events
where there are excessive waits. If you experience waits on latch free, enqueue, LGWR waits,
or buffer busy waits, you need to locate the cause of the contention.

Library Cache Misses Alert - This query interrogates Oracle to look for excessive library cache
miss ratios. When the library cache miss ratio is greater than .02, you may want to increase
shared_pool_size.

Database Writer Contention alert - This query looks at Oracle for values in summed dirty
queue length, write requests, and DBWR checkpoints. When the write request length is
greater than 3 or your DBWR checkpoint waits, you need to look at tuning the database
writer processes.

Data Dictionary Miss Ratio Alert - This query looks at the Oracle data dictionary to compute
data dictionary gets, data dictionary cache misses, and the data dictionary hit ratio. This
script alerts the DBA to times when requests for data dictionary metadata are high. This
problem can sometimes be relieved by increasing the shared_pool_size init.ora parameter.

Data Dictionary Object Alert - This report looks into Oracle to find individual objects that
experience a row hit ratio. This report can reveal internal contention with the Oracle data
dictionary and times of high dictionary metadata requests.