Enteprise Manager - looking at some myths

Over the years, I've encountered myths around nearly every Oracle product.  Lately the number of challenges around Enterprise Manager seem to have increased.

Blue Medora has created several Cloud Control extensions (plugins) and asked me to blog as a guest on their site.  I've decided to challenge some of the current myths.

Feel free to read my comments there at

http://www.bluemedora.com/blog/debunking-some-persistent-myths-about-oracle-enterprise-manager

OTN Yathra - past the 1/2 way mark

I am currently sitting in the hotel in Bangalore in India, catching my breath. We have finished 4 of the 6 cities in this tour.

I'm going to cheat tremendously and link to Lucas Jellema's blog about the tour, starting with http://technology.amis.nl/2013/01/27/otn-yathra-2013-the-six-city-oracle-tour-of-india/ as the overview.

Shamelessly linking Lucas' map of the Yathra.

I arrived in Chandigarh, Punjab on February 10, and was met by Oracle ACE and friend Aman Sharma.  The trip:  left Edmonton on Friday evening, landed London Heathrow Saturday morning, left LHR Saturday evening, arrived Delhi Sunday morning, left Delhi Sunday afternoon and into Chandigarh early evening.

On Monday and Tuesday, much to my delight, Aman showed me his home country and local community.  And I did some shopping.

Wednesday, headed back to Delhi by taxi, and prepared for the gathering and presentations.

On Friday the team gathered at the Country Inn by Carlson in Saket.  ACE Director team members are

Murali Vallath - our host and RAC ACED from India
Lucas Jellema - Development ACED, including SQL and Java
Edward Roske - BI/Hyperion ACED, presenting on Hyperion, Essbase and BI
Raj Mattamal  - Development ACED, specializing in APEX
Hans Forbrich - Infrastructure ACED, presenting on LDAP, Cloud Control and Linux

In each city we have been fortunate to have ACEs such as Aman Sharma join us to present

Saturday was the first presentation day at the FMDI (Fertilizer Marketing Development Institute) which has wonderful classroom facilities.

Sunday, a quick tour of Delhi, off to the airport to Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and settle into the Holiday Inn.

Monday, presented using the facilities of the Women's Technical Institute, and then by car off to Pune.

Since we arrived in Pune Monday evening, Tuesday was a touring day out to Mahabalshawar and the head of the Krishna river.

Wednesday we presented in Pune at the Oracle offices.

Thursday by plane to Bangalore, and

Friday presented in the Oracle offices in Bangalore.  Lucas has a fantastic half-way write-up at http://technology.amis.nl/2013/02/21/otn-yathra-2013-spreading-the-story-of-oracle-across-india-half-time/

Raj and Edward left today to return home.

Tomorrow Lucas and I will head to Hyderabad and continue this tour.

OTN Yathra

What does Yathra mean?

Yathra is a Sanskrit word which means Journey.  In the northern states of India Yathra is spelled as Yatra.

Why is this relevant?

Oracle Technology Network, and the Oracle ACE and ACE Director programs are sponsoring a 6 city OTN tour, or Yathra, in India this February. 

• February 16 in Delhi
• February 18 in Mumbai
• February 20 in Pune
• February 22 in Bangalore
• February 25 in Hyderabad
• February 27 in Chennai

And I'm going!  (Assuming my Visa application is approved.)  Speaker's list is

• Speaker                           Country
• Vinay Agrawal                  India
• Hans Forbrich                  Canada
• PS Janakiram                  India
• Lucas Jellema                 Netherlands
• Satyendra Kumar            India
• Raj Matamall                   USA
• Harshad Oak                   India
• Edward Roske                 USA
• Vijay Seghal                    India
• Aman Sharma                 India
• Vivek Sharma                  India
• Ganapthy Subramanian  India
• Murali Vallath                   India

For more details, check out 

• www.otnyathra.com
• www.otnyathra.info
• Twitter: @OTNYathra
• Facebook: facebook.com/otn.yathra

Tom's "12 top new features"

Tom Kyte, in Moscone South Room 103, looking ahead to the new features that will come up with new version of DB (12c) when it gets released.

1) "With" clause can define PL/SQL functions

2) Improved defaults, including Default col to a sequence or "default if (on) null".  Or always use a generated as an identity (with optional sequence def info).  Or Metadata-only defaults (default on an added column). 

3) Bigger varchar2, nvarchar2, raw -up to 32K.  But follows rules like LOB, if over 4K will be out of line. (max_SQL_String_Size init param)

4) TopN and Pagenation queries using the 'OFFSET' clause + optional 'FETCH next N rows' in SELECT.  Eg: SELECT ... FROM t ORDER BY y FETCH FIRST 5 ROWS

5) Row pattern matching using the "MATCH_RECOGNIZE" clause.  Gonna take a while to get this one.

6) Partitioning improvements including ASYNC Global Index maintenance (includes new jobs to do work 'later'), cascade truncate & exchange, multi ops in a single DDL, online partition moves (no RDBMS_REDEFINITION), "interval + reference" partitioning.

7) Adaptive execution plans, which sets thresholds and allows execution plans to switch if threshold is exceeded.  (Also 'gather_plan_statistics' hint.)  Shown by 'Statistics Collector' steps in trace/tkprof.

8) Enhanced statistics. Dynamic sampling goes to 'eleven', turning it persistent.  New histograms: hybrid (for more than 254 distinct values, instead of height-balanced) and top.  Stats gathered on data loads automatically. (By the way, don't regather stats if not needed.)  Session private statistics for GTTs. 

9) UNDO for temporary objects, managed in TEMP, which eliminates REDO on the permanent UNDO. (ALTER SESSION/SYSTEM SET TEMP_UNDO_ENABLED=TRUE/FALSE)

10) Data optimization, or Information Lifecycle Management, which detects block use - hot, medium, dormant - and allows policies in table defintion (new ILM clause) to compress or archive data after time.

11) "transaction Guard' to preserve commit state, which includes TAF r/w transfer and restart for some types of transactions.

12) pluggable databases!  Implications too numerous to list right now.  Suffice it to say, huge resource improvements, huge consolidation possibilities.  Looking forward to reality.

Linux, Virtualization and roadmaps

Listening to Wim talking about the roadmap for Virtualization.

The whole idea of Cloud is transforming the IT needs. Data centers are becoming Service centers, the stack is much more integrated and customers are demanding much more scalability, availability, agility.  Hypervisors need to be aware of each other, or at least be coordinated.

Future is *Application* driven Virtualization. Use templates, self provisioning.  Create a RAC for the sake of creating a RAC is "so yesterday". 

New world:  "One throat to choke" becomes "One point of satisfaction"  (my note: Not going to be easy, but that is the way Oracle MUST move.)

OracleVM is foundation for cloud.  Stack -> Storage : Servers : VM : OS : DB : Middleware : Apps

Network virtualization - Xsigo Data Center Fabric ... new acquisition.

Desktop virt - Virtual Desktop Infrastructure; SunRay Client; Secure Global Desktop; VM Virtualbox

Desktop Virtualization

Bring your own device becoming common.  Centralize everything becomes necessary. Access from any location, from any device, BUT be *unobtrusively* secure.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - entire desktop is hosted on server, access from any client.  (Tarentella.)

Secure Global Desktop - individual applications are hosted on the server.

Virtual clients - software (VirtualBox) and hardware (SunRay) clients.  Virtual Desktop Client for iPad!!!

Oracle VM

For x86 and SPARC. 

x86 is Supported AND Certified for ALL Oracle s/w.  Now in Gartner's "Challenger' position for 2012 Magic Quadrant.  CPU-based license on VM, not hardware host.

x86 is Open Source and Free to download and run in production.  You can purchase optional Support, but not required.  Management via Oracle VM Manager - either GUI or CLI.  Under no circumstances manage at server under server control, because that breaks the multi-machine environment.  Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c can manage the VM Servers but does that THROUGH VM Manager.

Storage Connect allows VM Manager to manage Hitachi, Fujitsu, EMC and Oracle storage directly.

OracleVM 3.2.1 now in public beta.

Network Virtualization

Addresses network inefficiencies. 

"Overflow" - network tunneling, which will likely be an interesting technology in the future.

Oracle acquired Xsigo.Fabric director allows configuration subnetting/storage of an Infiniband 'switch'.  No VLans required - configure to get 1G/10g networks plus HBAs as required.  Very interesting.

RAC Attack

Open World - Howard Street Tent, in the OTN lounge.

If you want to build a 2 node RAC on your laptop (which has 4GB RAM, Windows, 50GB disk) or you want to set one up on the Pythian laptops, come over.

I've been here this morning, helping out.

I'll be here from 10:15-11:30 tomorrow as well.

You can also install it on your own, with the core instructions from http://racattack.org

OakTable er ... Closed um ... Open ... whatever ... World

One of the highlights for the database crowd attending Oracle Open World is the unofficial geek conference called Oak Table World.

Tim Gorman just had a great presentation on fast database warehouse updates using transportable tablespaces and partition exchange.   Well done.

EM 12c

Kellyn Pot'vin presenting on EM12c - full house!

Why monitor? To  be proactive. Keep the users from becoming annoying, and keep management in the procurement cycle.



Challenges: White noise, wrong noise, late noise.


Manage incident manager.  Create incident from alerts using rules.  New visuals, new shift.  This is a shock and a learning curve.

To use existing rule sets - don't mess with the existing ones.  Instead disable and create-like.  Several reasons:  they work; they might get overwritten with patches.

Highlight: 12.1.0.2 - the metric thresholds are only set for Warning, not Critical.  If you have incident notification on "Critical only", default results in no messages.

"Metric Extensions" replaces "User Defined Metrics".   Much more flexible, wider scope, build your own library, keep your own stand-alone scripts and fold them in.  Has a 'development lifecycle', so you can test *before* production.

Performance pages have not changed much.  "Pink (and Orange) is not a girl's best friend".   SQL Monitor is very useful - learn it if you don't know it yet. 

ASH Analytics!  Real Time ASH.  Drill into events, SQL, SQL details, over a variety of time frames. Load Map is a new way of showing the load.  Very useful, especially when trying to convince people to address an issue.  Replaces "Top Activity", which will likely go away.

IOUG Virtualization Sig - Expert Panel

OracleVM
Discussion around OracleVM, which has a no-Cost, no-Fee license.  You can optionally purchase support, however the product itself is $0.

- consists of one or more VM Servers, managed by one VM Manager.
- 3.1.1 is in production
- 3.2 is in beta

As of 3.1, VM Manager can be installed as a VM inside the VM Server. 

Is based on XEN, installs on bare metal (replaces an existing OS, just like to VMWare enterprise hypervisor), on install you have a Dom0 (Domain 'zero') which is a minimalist Linux used to provide core services to the active VMs.  Each Virtual machine is known as a 'DomU' (Domain 'User').

Moving from OracleVM 2.x to 3.x is a migration, not an upgrade.

Templates are available for many Oracle products.  Templates are similar in concept to Amazon Gold Images.  RAC template can be deployed in under an hour.

Can create VMs using P2V (Physical to Virtual) and V2V (Virtual to Virtual) utilities.  Possible to convert VMWare and VirtualBox VMs.

Management is through GUI.  You do not log in to VM Server and make OS command line changes.  However, 3.1 has a CLI that can be used on the server.  Also EM CLI can be used remotely.

For learning and testing, you can install OracleVM inside of VirtualBox.

VirtualBox

3.x is available.  Also $0, no cost, no fee license.   Significant product, runs on top of an existing Windows / MacOSX / Linux environment.  It works.  I use it - a lot!

OOW - Post 1 of many

For ACE Directors, OOW kicked off on Wednesday with Sofitel by Oracle HQ being a general collection point.  On Thursday and Friday we had briefings on many topics, from many product groups as well as from Thomas Kurian of Oracle.  Friday evening we shuttled to the Hilton San Francisco Union Square which we will call home for the next several days.

I'll be wandering around downtown San Francisco, attending events, talking, and generally having a great time.  Although this year is bittersweet with some important people missing.

For those who want to chat with me, here are some known times and locations:

Sunday
     18:00-22:00 ACE Dinner (invitation only)

Monday
    10:45-12:00 at the RAC Attack table in the OTN Lounge

Tuesday
       8:45-  9:45 at Big Data SIG in Moscone West Level 3, Overlook 3
     10:15-11:30 at the RAC Attack table in the OTN Lounge
     16:30-18:30 at the Tweet Meet (meet the faces behind tweets) at OTN Lounge

 Wednesday
     15:30-16:30 presenting ZFS (CON5101) at Moscone West - 3014
     17:30-19:00 at the Blogger's meetup (contact Pythian)

Other than that, at random I'll be
- at the OTN Lounge (tent) on Howard Street a lot,
- attending various Open World sessions, https://blogs.oracle.com/oracleopenworld
- attending various IOUG SIG sessions, 
- over at the OakTable World (http://oaktableworld.com/),
- and [other places] where there is beer to be found.

See you there.
/Hans

Free Data Modelling book

Fellow ACE Director, Ken Graziano, has created a book "A Check List for Doing Data Model Design Reviews" available for free this week.

Check out his blog at http://kentgraziano.com/ for more details.

VirtualBox on Mac Lion 10.8.2

Over the past few months I've been using VirtulBox on my new MacBook Pro.  Absolutely love the combination!

Yesterday I finally upgraded the MacBook from 10.8.1 to 10.8.2 and immediately VirtualBox stopped working.  Instead of opening my VMs, I was greeted by the message:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Windows XP.
VT-x is being used by another hypervisor. (VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE).
VirtualBox can't operate in VMX root mode. Please close all other virtualization programs. (VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE).

 Turns out this is a new bug tracked at https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10965

It is fixed using HotFix package 4.2.1 for Virtualbox available at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Bye Bye, DBControl

Thanks to Hemant for noticing the following article in Oracle Support

Database Control To Be Desupported in DB Releases after 11.2 [ID 1484775.1]

I've been encouraging people to switch to Cloud Control for a while now.

See you at Oracle Open World

Dear Hans,
We have finalized the session schedule for Oracle OpenWorld 2012.

We would like to inform you of your speaking schedule along with the location information. Since there will be multiple venues, we recommend that you make a note of your session location.
SESSION SCHEDULE INFORMATION

Session ID: CON5101
Session Title: Integrating Oracle Database Appliance with Sun ZFS Appliance to Achieve HA Security
Venue / Room: Moscone West - 3014
Date and Time: 10/3/12, 15:30 - 16:30

Data Design Myth-takes - an ongoing list

This post will likely be updated frequently over time. 

It got started because I renewed Oracle Support online today.   Oracle insists that my billing address must be in a certain format.  However, about 2 months ago, I received a letter from Canada Post that I need to get mail addressed a certain way if I wish to continue to receive it - and that way is NOT the way Oracle insists is "the standard format". This will be the third time in 3 years I have had to fight with Oracle about the format of my corporate address. 

Myths about names: 

• Instead of going through the list myself, I'll kickstart it with an excellent one from Kalzumeus http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

Myths about addresses: 

• the format the developer wants to use is the correct one, even if it does not agree with the format required by the post office;
• a commercially available centralized list of city names provides the correct spelling of the city, even when that does not agree with the spelling used by the city council.  My company is in St. Albert, Alberta - the commercial lists do not like the St. abbreviation and insist in "Saint Albert", even though the city council and all maps use St. Albert. ; 

DB Roles - it's worth repeating ...

The Oracle RDBMS Server has a GRANT command that permits assignment of privileges to a user or a role.

And it has a REVOKE command that removes privileges from a user or a role.  That command simply removes the privilege from the list currently available to the user or role.

However, the Oracle database does not have a 'DENY' command that could be used to store a REVOKE in a role, allowing the removal of a privilege based on the addition of a role.

A lot of [new] DBAs believe that revoking a privilege from a role will remove that privilege from a user who is granted that role. 

Test case (as DBA):

CREATE USER hans IDENTIFIED BY hans;
CREATE USER test IDENTIFIED BY test;
GRANT CREATE SESSION TO hans, test;

GRANT RESOURCE TO test;
CREATE TABLE test.testtab (x NUMBER);
INSERT INTO test.testtab VALUES (1);
COMMIT;

CREATE ROLE A;
GRANT SELECT, UPDATE ON test.testtab TO a;

CREATE ROLE B;
GRANT SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE ON test.testtab TO b;

GRANT a,b TO hans;

CONNECT hans/hans
SELECT X FROM test.testtab;
UPDATE test.testtab SET x=2;
COMMIT;

CONNECT {dba}
REVOKE UPDATE ON test.testtab FROM b;

CONNECT hans/hans
SELECT X FROM test.testtab;
UPDATE test.testtab SET x=3;
COMMIT;

If the revoke was stored in the role, then the update to set x to 3 would fail.

This question happens in nearly every DB Admin Workshop I've held or watched. 

How to absolutely panic a DBA using AUDIT_SYSLOG_LEVEL

I'm teaching the Oracle Database 11gR2: Security course this week.

During the auditing module, students are asked to enable auditing, and then configure to send audits to syslogd.  The steps are simple:  tell the database to send audits to OS; tell the database to flag the audits as a specific syslog facililty and level.  These two items are in the initialization parameter file, and you restart the DB after making the change.

The challenge:  get the facility right OR ELSE!

If the syslog facility or the message level being requested is not valid, the database instance will NOT restart.

Heck - it won't even MOUNT. 

So there is NO WAY of fixing the now-corrupt SPFILE using the ALTER SYSTEM command.

So how did we get around this?

In the classroom Linux environment, the spfile is stored in ASM.  So we took the following steps to recover for instance XYZ:

• configure to access ASM by using ". oraenv" (dot space oraenv) and enter "+ASM"
• use "asmcmd" to get to the SPFILE (as identified in the ifile line of the initXYZ.ora)
• copy the spfile to the OS using "cp {spfile} /home/oracle/initXYZ.ora"
• edit the wierd initXYZ.ora to remove the binary lines and to fix the AUDIT_SYSLOG_LEVEL  information
• configure back to access the database instance
• STARTUP MOUNT pfile=/home/oracle/initXYZ.ora
• CREATE SPFILE='{ASM location of SPFILE}' from MEMORY;
• SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE;
• STARTUP

 I'm more than a bit surprised that an unknown syslog facility setting would stop getting into the MOUNT state.  And this one could cause an extended outage for a relatively lightweight reason.

Happy TAU Day

Today is June 28.  6.28 ...  2-PI ... TAU!   Happy TAU Day.

No, really, PI is wrong.

For more information, please go to http://tauday.com

That is all!

Oracle Database Applicance - SWEET!

Last week I taught the Oracle University RAC class in Victoria, BC.  On Thursday, I took my class on a field trip ...

The Victoria Oracle Users Group brought in Dan Morgan to chat about the Oracle Database Appliance.  They lent him one to demonstrate during his presentation.

The ODA is about the same size and weight as my NetApp F810 Filer which has about 1 TB of disk. 

However - the ODA has 4TB of active data disk triple mirrored (eg: 12TB with plenty of redundancy in case of disk failure).  It includes 2 completely separate computers (nodes) each with 2x 6-core CPUs,  96 GB RAM, a 1GB cluster interconnect with redundancy, and gobs of 1GBethernet connectivity.  All on Oracle Linux 5 update 8.  With the Oracle DB as well as Oracle Grid Infrastructure and RAC s/w staged to install as per your license agreement.

Installing and completely configuring a 2 node RAC using ODA involved:  the DBA and 2 hours from the time the DBA has access to the machine.

Building a 2-node RAC from scratch involves computer hardware, HBAs to SAN, sufficient SAN space, public NICs, private NICs and appropriate switch (not VLAN), and a team of experts in the OS, SAN and network areas (all of whom think they know better than Oracle on how a RAC works).  Nominally a few weeks of effort.

The only kicker is that the database must be under about 3.5TB.

And Dan's experience - NO ORA-00600 or ORA-07445 have happened since his installs last year.

Why am I talking about this?

I know of situations where an ODA would save customers much money, and seriously reduce the corporate investment in Tylenol (or other headache pain reliever).

I ALSO know that with ODA, the future of viable RAC-only consultancies is severely limited. 

(I'm hoping some of my customers pick up this post.  Mutual benefit - fewer concerns on my side, fewer outages and better reliability. Which is what RAC is SUPPOSED to provide.)

OEM Pack Cost Myth resurfacing ...

Discussion yesterday:  "OEM Grid Control / Cloud Control is expensive!  You have to pay for the Packs to make it useful.  You don't need to pay for the Diagnostics Pack in Database Control."

Sorry folks - that is totally incorrect. 

The DB Diagnostics Pack and the SQL Tuning Pack (as well as other packs) are options added to the database.  To use them, you need to pay for them.

These packs happen to collect information.  Accessing that information (using the views) requires a license, and [in production] you (usually) need to pay for that license. 

It does not matter whether you use Database Control or Grid/Cloud Control to display the contents of those views as rows/columns, or as alert messages, or as charts or graphs.  You still need to license it.

From the Database side, see the Licensing document at the doc home page (for 11gR2 see http://www.oracle.com/pls/db112/homepage).

From the OEM side, see the Licensing document found through ttp://docs.oracle.com (for 12c, see http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/index.htm)

UYOUG Workshop, May 9th

If you are in Montevideo, or can get there for May 9th, note that the UYOUG is presenting a 1 day workshop on Oracle topics,  from 16:00 to 20:30 hs, Aulario del Faro - Facultad de Ingeniería - Universidad de la República (Senda Nelson Landoni esq. Julio Herrera y Reissig).

Details at http://www.uyoug.org.uy/

 

Collaborate 2012 - Day 1

Monday was a busy day. 

In preparation for my OBIEE-Spatial presentation, I looked through the onsite bookstore.  And, of course, bought more books than I had intended - including the excellent "Business Dashboards: A Visual Catalog for Design and Deployments" which provides some interesting ideas and variants in designing Dashboards. 

After my OBIEE presentation, I dashed to the Mandalay Bay C to present an overview of LDAP for Oracle DBAs.  Rushed it a lot, as the confirmation email from the Collab organizers indicated the session was from 12:15-12:45, but the attendees insisted that the official schedule went to 1:15 and they insisted on listening right to the end. 


Both presentations are available for download from the IOUG Collaboration 2012 site.


After that I rushed over to listen to Edelweiss Kammermann present "BI Publisher 11g - Only good news".  As usual, Edelweiss gave an interesting and very informative presentation which provided the highlights of the changes in BI Publisher, and you could really tell that she spoke from experience. 
I was most impressed at the number of attendees to her session, especially since Mark Rittman had an OBIEE presentation at the same time, in the next room. 


I did get to see Mark Rittman's presentation on Tips for Administering OBIEE.  I have some customers who have been asking for exactly that, and there are few courses and even fewer books on the topic.  I would have no challenge filling 3-4 days of discussion on that, and was impressed at how much Mark got into his 1 hour.


Over to Mandalay Bay C again to see Nelson Calero discuss MySQL Administration for Oracle DBAs.  One word: Wow!  Nelson has promised to follow up with a series of Webinars - we'll announce those on the UYOUG web site, and other places as well.


Capped it off with a wonderful view from the Mix at the top of TheHotel.

 Collaborate 2012, for me, was too short.  Indeed, I needed to leave Tuesday morning to be back on stage Tuesday evening with the Edmonton Opera.  Thus I missed a number of excellent presentations and a lot of great networking opportunities.

Thanks to the IOUG and the organizers for Collaborate 2012 for the opportunity.

Now off to write my submissions for DOAG 2012 in November, UKOUG 2012 in December, and for the OTN Tour in India next February.

Collaborate 2012 - Day 0

Officially Collaborate 2012 starts Monday.  However, in the tradition of "thread the best before, during and after", the really deep dive sessions started Sunday.

Since I am in the chorus for Edmonton Opera's  staging of Beethoven's Fidelio (April 21, 24, 26), and it's no fun being an opera widow (as actors/singers tend to focus on the show this close to performance) I asked my wife to go ahead to Las Vegas on Friday afternoon and meet me there.

Side note:  Opening of Fidelio was fantastic.  A fitting thank you to Brian Deedrick, former artistic director of Edmonton Opera and opera director superb-lious,  and Peter Dala, former music director and chorus master of Edmonton Opera and musician extraordinaire.  I know the entire chorus joins me wishing Brian and Peter all the best in their future.

I arrived at the Mandalay Sunday around 9:30 AM, completed my hotel check-in (early room availability was not requested), met with my lovely wife for coffee, then picked up my Collab registration badge, and went to the show.

First session I attended:  Alex Gorbachev's excellent discussions around ultra high availability: the first part I managed to see was on the impact of multiple disk failure in an ASM environment, and why ASM Normal and even High redundancy are important protections against data loss.  That was followed by his discussion around Data Guard.

My partner, Nelson Calero from Uruguay, met up with me in Alex' session.  Both of us found the information very useful. 

At lunch, our other partner, Edelweiss Kammermann, also from Uruguay (and Nelson's life partner) joined us and we met up with Arjen from DBVisit.  I first met Arjen in Santiago , Chile at the forst OTN Latin America session.

DBVists fits very well with Alex Gorbachev's discussion, as their primary product is a very cost effective equivalent for Oracle Data Guard for Standard Edition.  

After lunch, off to Tom Kyte, Graham and Andrew's session on performance tactics in the database.  Very interesting demo proving that increasing connections in a connection-pool based application can be counter-productive.  This presentation will be repeated as a road show - if you hear about it, GO!  I know that it will be presented through the Uruguay Oracle User's Group in August.

A big benefit of conferences like Collaborate is networking, so we went to the opening mixer.  The annual awards were handed out - congratulations to Arup Nanda, Rich Niemec, and posthumously to Mark Townsend, who received the Ken Jacobs award.  Ken Jacobs himself received the award in Mark's memory.  All three awards richly deserved.

Dinner at the Lupo by Wolfgang Puck with Susanne, Edelweiss, Nelson, and our good friend Kai Yu.

Moderately early to bed, as the only sleep after the opening of Fidelio was on the plane from Edmonton to Las Vegas.

Long, but absolutely amazingly fantastic, weekend.

DB Statistics Collection - a poll

Just a very quick note that Timur Akhmadeev has an informal poll about methods of collecting DB stats at
 http://timurakhmadeev.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/method_opt/

If you do respond, you might want to add your DB version(s) in the comments.  That's one critical piece (of several) of information not in the poll. 

In spite of the lack of formality and process in the poll, it is still interesting to see the results.

Exciting news about Oracle and OL/RHEL 6

Hot stuff! Thanks to Mark Bobak for letting us know on Oracle-L.


Oracle just announced that the Oracle Database and Fusion Middleware are now supported on RedHat 6 and Oracle Linux 6.

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1563775

Timing-wise, distros and installations with the Oracle UEK2 (therefore Oracle Linux) are basically supported now, and those based on the standard RH kernel (both OL6 and RHEL 6) will be fully supported in 90 days,

While good news, I would be careful to jump too fast on a regular kernel installation for an ASM environment until we know exactly how the ASMLib support will proceed. Until now, changing kernel has forced a change in the ASMLib. And that has required finding and downloading the kernel-matching ASM libraries OR using a completely separate way of handling ASM presentation (UDEV) which is immensely more error-prone. Until we understand what has changed there, I recommend caution.  Of course, searching for the ASMLib is easier if you start from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/linux/asmlib/index-101839.html

And the announcement mentions that the free public YUM server (http://public-yum.oracle.com/) is being enhanced.  (That is one service people keep overlooking.)

Thanks, Oracle! :-)

Collaborate, Opera, shilling Books, Open World

In case you had not heard, Collaborate 2012 is happening this year in Las Vegas on April 22-26,  I'll be there Sunday thru Tuesday morning - on Monday I chat about LDAP for the DBA and present on Oracle Maps in OBIEE.

Silly schedule conflict - Saturday April 21, and Tuesday and Thursday the Edmonton Opera presents Beethoven's Fidelio.  I get to shave my hair!  Which means I'll be sporting a completely different look for the presentations at Collaborate.

As you know, I firmly believe in reading all about Oracle, from as many sources I can get close to my eyeballs. In preparation for Collaborate, Packt Publishing - for whom I have done a fair bit of technical reviewing - has announced they are discounting all Oracle titles, whether printed or eBook. Quoting their announcement

To lend a helping hand to those in attendance or professionals who are simply excited about the buzz that the glamorous Las Vegas event will bring, Packt’s discounts apply to all of their Oracle titles and formats.

If you are interested, check out their web site http://www.packtpub.com and click on the 'coupon' at the top.  (I get nothing other than the enjoyment of more people understanding Oracle.)

The call for papers for Oracle OpenWorld is now open.  Give it a try and see if you can get a slot!

xhost and DISPLAY - again!

It's that time of year again, when people try to install their databases on a Linux or Unix host.  And run into issues with xhost and DISPLAY.

The typical complaint is "I issued the DISPLAY command and it tells me I don't have permission." or "I tried to runInstaller"

This is often an indication of doing things in the wrong order.


The correct sequence is:

1. Log on to the computer that *owns* an XWindows screen.  This could be a Linux machine with gnome/KDE/twm, or perhaps a Windows machine with cygwin/X, Xming, or perhaps Hummingbird (now OpenText) eXceed ... these are known as XServers.
2. Tell that Xserver (screen) to accept remote requests, by issuing "xhost +" (note that the + disables security) 
3. Log on to the computer / user that is to use the XWindows - the one that contains the runInstaller 
4. Tell that to display on the computer that is to be used for display using export DISPLAY=(host):display.screen
5. Run the program that needs a display

Many people, especially students, log in to root on the computer and then su to oracle to do the installs. While this is fundamentally a stupid thing to do, because using root unnecessarily increases potential security risks and is it NOT good practice and will it NOT be allowed in any self-respecting business, the following would be the sequence

1. Log on to XWindows as root.  Do NOT su to root!  Do NOT pass GO.  Do NOT collect $200.
2. Open a terminal
3. Enter: xhost +
4. Find out which DISPLAY is used by entering: set | grep -i DISPLAY
5. Enter: su - oracle
6. Enter: export DISPLAY=:0.0 # of course, base this on step 4
7. Enter: runInstaller # (or whatever is required, such as xeyes) 

The most common mistake is running xhost after su. This will not work. The xhost must be issued by the first user - the one that owns the screen.

 

I am simply amazed that IT instructors don't discuss this basic thing, but I suspect it is caused by a lack of understanding - or bad assumptions.

 

 

 

 

Oracle 11gR2 Express Edition on Ubuntu 11.10

A number of people have asked, in the forums and through email directly to me, how to install the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Express Edition (XE11g) on Ubuntu.

XE 10g had native Ubuntu support. 

XE 11g does not support Ubuntu, according to the official documentation (see links below).

The big reason I discourage using an unlisted/unsupported platform is: after install, should any issue occur, you will never really know whether that issue is a result of the platform mismatch.  In other words, it might have been avoidable, and the problem might be a direct result of your decision. 

And if you don't have the experience and background to do the install on your own, how do you expect to support that unsupported environment, possibly in production.  That is a heck of a risk to place on your application and potentially on your customer/employer.

Today I stumbled upon an amazing install HowTo for XE11g on Ubuntu 11.10. 

So, while I still strongly discourage installing XE11g on Ubuntu (or any other "unsupported" platform) at least I can point you to a decent resource so you have a chance to get it right.  From the Oracle Forums:

Oracle 11gR2 Express Edition on Linux Ubuntu 11.10 howto

If you have any issues with XE11g, here are some of the better resources I've found:

Oracle's OTN XE Portal
Oracle Database 11g Express Edition Documentation
Forum: Oracle Database Express Edition (XE)
Oracle's OTN APEX Portal
Oracle Application Express Documentation
Forum: Application Express


Hope that helps.

DB TimeZone-itis - what it is, and what to do about it ...

It's that time of the year again: snow mold allergies, hay fever, and DB TimeZone-itis are about to hit us ...

This weekend, a number of countries and regions will perform a semi-annual ritual of changing their clock either ahead or back one hour.  Aside from irritating the cows and shifting costs of lighting from business to consumer >D , this also has an impact on unpatched Oracle9i and Oracle 10g database applications. This is called TimeZone-itis, and occurs twice a year.

 

Before 2007, many places shifted on first Sunday in April and last Sunday in October.  (I use 'shifted', because south of the equator, where fall is approaching, the shift is opposite to the that in the north..)  In 2005, President Bush enacted a law that moved this shift date 3 weeks earlier in March and 1 week later into November: this law came into effect in 2007 and many other jurisdictions around the world have since followed suit.

 

The symptoms: unexpected crashes, errors that did not occur before the time shift, applications suddenly stop working, applications (such as dbconsole) not starting.

The root cause: Oracle databases up to, and including, 10.2.0.1 were built using the 'old' time zone shift.  Publicly available downloads of Oracle Database 9i,10gR1 and 10gR2 were released before 2007 and most have not been updated.

Who can this affect?: any application that stores data in "Timestamp with TimeZone" data type in an unpatched Oracle9i or Oracle10g (incl 10gR2) database, that compares the timestamp information against the operating system, or that uses the OJVM, might experience some symptoms. 

One particularly nasty one is the Oracle Enterprise Manager - database console and grid control are affected.

Why am I raising the alarm?: I teach a lot of Oracle University courses, and therefore see a lot of students who have downloaded a copy of the Oracle software.  Many students and developers will, by default, reach for the Oracle 10g database, and may experience trouble using the Enterprise Manager console.  This is often getting close to 'spring break' and 'year end' when students and developers want to cram.

Solutions:  Four practical solutions at the top of my personal list:

1. Use Oracle Database 11gR2, as it is the one currently supported and is pretty much backward compatible to 10g;
2. Get the appropriate patches from Oracle Support;
3. Switch operating system anmd DB to GMT/UTC;
4. Take 2 Aspirin, go to bed, and try again in 3 weeks.

For more details how this affects the database, look at

"Impact of changes to daylight saving time (DST) rules on the Oracle database [ID 357056.1]"
"USA 2007 DST Changes: Frequently Asked Questions for Oracle Database Patches [ID 402742.1]"

 

and a 'master note' covering a lot of product is

"Updated DST transitions and new Time Zones in Oracle Time Zone File patches [ID 412160.1]"

 

For Application Servers, WebLogic Server, and other Java environments, search out TZUpdater tool at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/tzupdater-readme-136440.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should the Oracle docs be 100% trusted

A few days ago, a member of the Oracle Forums asked a question about a number referenced in the Oracle DB documentation.  The immediate question did point to a doc bug, but a number of the responses (correctly) indicated that the specific numbers being referenced might not be absolute.  The poster countered that if the numbers can not be trusted, perhaps the documentation can not be trusted.

Like Wikipedia, the Oracle documentation is a great place to start.  It provides a lot of information, and a lot of 'facts'.  However, also like Wikipedia, blind faith in the documentation as an absolute source truth can occasionally be misplaced.

My response to that thread was

I like Tom Kyte's attitude around this, which can be paraphrased as "it ain't true until you've proven it for yourself - and even then, recheck periodically"

In an engine such as Oracle, where things can automatically adjust themselves based on statistics, it is probably unwise to take things like '20% or 20 blocks' as an absolute.

For example, consider the following: "When is it better to do a full table scan instead of using an index that is referenced in the query?"

We will often say "when you get back 'N'% of the data", and 'N' will be typically between 10 and 25%.

SQL is designed around the idea that we declare what is to be accomplished, not how it is to be accomplished.  The Oracle Server database engine is free to interpret the request in a variety of ways, and come up with different ways to implement the response. 

Once the different code paths have been determined, the optimizer can apply different weight to each path based on the cost of doing that, the number of rows involved, and so on. 

However, a much more accurate answer would be "when the optimizer has determined the total cost of the table scan to be lower than the total cost of using the index". And factors that could adjust that cost might include:

- current statistics on the table and the column
- whether the data in the column is required for any subsequent operation
- whether the column is involved as an expression in the output

which could possibly change the percentages in the answer from 5% to 50%.

For years, Oracle Tuning courses have emphasized that there are only two ways to speed things up - reduce the time waiting on resources, and reduce the time working toward the end result.  Over time the designers and developers of the Oracle engine have collected a lot of information about how things are done and where the bottlenecks occur.  Some of that research has resulted in new code paths, but some has resulted in interpreting the statistics in new ways, of changing the weight of specific code paths - making more efficient choices.

As the optimizer has been improved, it has added some quite unexpected capabilities but it has also added some interesting 'opportunities for improvement' and side effects.

The documentation is a great, and even a mandatory, starting place to understand Oracle.  However, there are several points to keep in mind, highlighted by my colleagues Joel Garry and Justin Cave:

• The documentation is written by humans and can easily have some errors;
• The documentation is published periodically and may not reflect each update that has occurred in the rush to deliver product;
• The documentation normally does not reflect behaviour due to bugs;
• The documentation can not reflect every possible decision-tree variant chosen due to statistics

So, should the documentation be 100% trusted?  My take, based on my experience, is roughly:

• 90% of the time the concepts and the general ideas that are provided in the docs are good enough to use unchanged
• 9% of the time, the docs are a great springboard to move you in your own direction, if you have your own tests.  A rule of thumb for this category is when the docs provide a number, and no supporting script or test.
• 0.9% of the time, the docs may be completely insufficient, and you need to turn to My Oracle Support or to experts like Jonathan Lewis or Tanel Poder who are willing to share their knowledge.  However, this is beyond the normal day-to-day DBA activity and goes into the realm of 'very interesting stuff'.
• 0.009% of the time, you have the opportunity to become an expert yourself.
• And perhaps for 0.0009% of the time (if that high), the docs have mistakes - which you should report to the Documentation forum at http://forums.oracle.com/

And to refer to an old engineering joke - that's close enough for all practical purposes


Don't give up on the documentation.

Oracle Support - First Impressions

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Make it a good day ... 

Just logged on to the new My Oracle Support at https://supporthtml.oracle.com using Firefox 9.0.1 and Chrome 16. ... So far so interesting. As compared to my response to the Flash version, I am pleased to give this a passing grade.

Both browsers provide very snappy response, so the ADF implementation seems reasonably good. ADF is assumed since the URL references 'faces'. If true, this will be a great poster child for ADF and hopefully Oracle will provide some details - version of ADF, coding techniques, lessons learned.

On Firefox, I was greeted by a Personalization display to verify my information. Apparently Canada no longer has provinces, as that dropdown is greyed out. I'll assume an early implementation quirk.

Browser BACK BUTTON WORKS! At least for those areas I tried. Thank You!

Dashboard:

We still are forced to see "News" and "Getting Started". Hopefully these boxes will become intelligent but at least we can minimize them.

However: Psych 101 - excessively repeated exposure results in ignoring the message.

Knowledge:

Using the Knowledge Browser is amusing. First text box is 'Product Name' with autocomplete and type-ahead search. So type in 'Server' and instead of seeing Oracle Server, the company's bread and butter, we start up with all sorts of application server variants. Type in 'Database' and you still scroll down several pages to see that which the probable majority of MOS users will be needing. How about a check-box quick filter on "x Applications x Tools x Management x Middle Tier x Data Tier" to assist?

That said, it is fun to use the multiple box entry technique to get to Certify in stead of clicking the Certify tab. Seriously, though, I can see how this browser will help. Still a bit crude, but in the right direction.

Service Requests:

Looks clean. Right now I have no need to open a SR - and don't particularly want to have a need.

Patches and Updates:

Looks identical to the old HTML. Which is great, because that is the most important area of MOS for me, and the HTML version (especially the quick links section) was by far the most usable part of MOS. Also much more responsive than before.

Certifications:

I am reasonably pleased with the changes introduced in the Certifications area last year. Still a bit confusing, but very very functional. And also very responsive.

For the other screens, I can only comment on the clean lines, quick update response and general appearance. The look and feel is professional and clean - I wonder whether Oracle will allow us to use custom CSS to tailor that LAF?

First impressions are favorable. Now to see how it works in real life ... we have all experienced released Prototype code before which falls flat under production load and exceptions. Somehow I get the impression this will not be Prototype code.

New UI coming for Oracle Support

Just received the email this morning - Oracle Support interface is changing again. In a nutshell, they are converting from the HTML and Flash interfaces to an Oracle ADF-based interface. This will be happening over the next month and a bit. I applaud the decision to use the Oracle ADF product. I look forward to seeing whether Oracle has learned anything about UI design from the miserable Flash interface. And I do wonder why they insist on eliminating the useful SupportHTML interface for pure query work. This should be interesting. A lot of the lull in the past few years has been due to the Support interface. If this works, I may just start being happy with Oracle again.

Yippee - Oracle VM 3

Over on Oracle blogs, we find http://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization/entry/great_things_come_in_3s

Announcing Oracle VM 3.0. Still not available for download, but at least there are white papers and stuff. RSN!

Oracle LA Tour Part 2

Yes, Virginia, there is a Part 2. Not quite the same way as expected, though.

Last October we toured Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica. A few of us added some extra trips - Dan Morgan (DB, RAC), Ben Prusinski (DB, Apps) and I added a day in Macchu Piccu, Peru (from where I celebrated my wife's birthday); I got a tour of Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay; Francisco Alvarez (DB), Ronald Bradford (MySQL) and I scooted to Galapagos; Ronald and I had a tour of the Costa Rican country and jungle.

But, by far more important and memorable was the amazing set of presentations and people in each location. In most cities, we ended up at a University to do the presentation. Local user group members hosted and presented. In spite of the language barrier, I learned an amazing amount and was able to present on the "Basics of App Servers for DBAs", "Spatial" and "Fusion Middleware". Due to Visa timing, (Immigration, not Credit) I had to miss Brazil in October.

Francisco organized an even better tour this time, although he himself could not attend in person. Debra Lilley (Apps) has a very significant description of the tour on her blog at http://debrasoracle.blogspot.com/ for those interested in more detail than I provide here. I posted an awful lot (for me) on Facebook as well.

The tour this time went San Jose, Costa Rica; Quito, Ecuador; Cartagena, Colombia; Lima, Peru; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Montevideo, Uruguay; Santiago, Chile.

I had a seminar to present at the beginning of July, so I missed Costa Rica, and the wonderful people there. I was sorry not to see Gerardo - who always gives us an interesting time - and people like Alejandra (my handler last time, and an absolutely charming young lady) and the rest of the ULACIT group.

So my first stop was with Paola, Christian and the ECUOUG. Debra's notes are more than decent for the area. I was a bit off-energy as I got to the hotel at 1AM before the 8AM conference on Friday. But the city and the people are exactly as friendly and welcoming as last time. Afterward, dinner with Tom Kyte and Megan, Debra Lilley, Kuassi Mensah (DB Connectivity) and Murali Vallath (DB, RAC), Ronald Bradford (MySQL) and Cindy. Tom and Megan ended their tour at Ecuador.

Saturday 3AM wakeup call came quickly since the plane to Cartagena, Colombia was fairly early. Robin and the Colombian team made us very welcome on Sunday, and I enjoyed the boat, although Debra didn't quite like it as much. On Monday, Arup Nanda (DB, RAC) joined us, as did Manuel Contreras and Pedro Andrade (Oracle MySQL) at the ASUOC sessions held at the Universidad Tecnológica de Bolivar. Many thanks to all there.

We left Cartagena Tuesday afternoon to fly to Lima, Peru. Arrived at 1AM on Wednesday the morning of our presentations. Debra was keynote in the conference, held at the NM Hotel in Miraflores. This one was a 2 day conference, with the second day providing some very in depth sessions. I did enjoy Graham Wood's session - he joined us there and stayed 'till the end. I would have enjoyed Miguel's session the next day as he is a good, very knowledgeable, speaker. As it was, we parted after dinner (thanks Miguel and PEOUG) the first night, with several of us heading on to Brazil on Thursday, some coming later, and Murali heading back.

On Thursday, Kuassi, Arup and I became the advance guard to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The GUOB – Grupo de Usuários de Tecnologia Oracle do Brasil is an amazing user group: extremely efficient, highly tuned, and very hospitable. Due to time required to complete the visa, I could not attend the Brazil tech day in person in October (only by webcast), so I excited to see Sao Paulo in person. I was certainly not disappointed. Amazing, astonishingly large, and astoundingly clean. You can tell the locals have pride in their city. Kai Yu from Dell joined the tour at that time, so I was able to enjoy both Kai's and Kuassi's sessions. Debra and Graham, Ronald and Cindy joined arrived Friday and stayed Sunday, whereas Arup and Kuassi returned home on Sunday and Kai and I headed to Uruguay.

Almost everyone knows that I have a soft spot in my heart for Uruguay. The landscapes are similar to home. (Except that Alberta does not have the sea.) The climate feels like our spring, summer and fall - so no harsh winters. And the people are all truly friends on sight. We managed to be there when Uruguay won the semifinal of the COPA Americas cup, and a great time was had by all. Debra has captured some small sense of the time there. A small timing challenge, as our sessions were scheduled between the long weekend (Uruguay's Constitution day) and the COPA Americas games, so I am amazed that so many people showed up for the sessions at the Communications Tower. (Excellent facility, by the way.) For me, well, I can't wait to get back. To Edel, Nelson, Daniel, Bruno, Pablo, and the others, who provided such hospitality and unqualified friendship with open arms, I miss you. ;-)

Ronald and Cindy split off in Uruguay, which meant that it was up to Kai, Graham, Debra and myself to carry on to Santiago, Chile. This was the start of the OTN Tours, several years ago, when Francisco had a number of us present at the Ritz Carleton. The sessions were somewhat reduced but reasonably well attended. I found the time in Chile much more relaxed than ever before, but that may have been because we were starting to wind down. Thank you Felipe, for your efforts and your hospitality. You have seen a lot of changes in these 3 OTN Days, and have done a lot of work. Thank you.

Graham caught the flight out the evening of the sessions, Kai and I headed out on Saturday and Debra caught some tours and stayed until Sunday.

I left Santiago at 6:30 PM on an Air Canada 093, a plane that started in Buenos Aires a few hours earlier. After 12 hours in the air flying due North, I landed in Toronto, and two hours later took off on a 4 hour, west-north-west flight back to Edmonton.

Seventeen days, 94 hours in airports and airplanes, a dozen hours of formal discussions about Oracle and several dozen hours of informal Oracle team-building, much food and wine, some song, and a huge number of memories and friendships later, I got home.

Thank you to all the translators and interpreters for making my talks, and those of our colleagues, accessible to the attendees.

Thank you Francisco and the members of the the LAOUC for making it happen. I look forward to the next one.

Thank you Justin, Vikki, Lillian, the entire OTN Team, and Oracle for making it possible.

Saturday, October 9, 2010 Lima to Cuzco (Part 1)

Saturday, October 9, 2010 Lima to Cuzco

Wow, 3:30 AM came early. ‘Specially considering we only got to bed around midnight.

I’d planned on repacking to just take my grey carry on bag and leave the big bag at the hotel since we return after Macchupicchu, but that one is still in the Lima airport – on the wrong side of Peruvian customs. So the decision is to take the big bag and go through the bag check-in process.

(As I later found out, the bag check and the bag pickup is not all that bad, in comparison to the time required to simply check in.)

We used a different route back, and (in spite of being dark), this was a lot more visually comfortable. I’m starting to get a feeling that Lima is real big, that there are no traffic rules that will be followed, and that the police have given up on the bulk of traffic control. The driver confirms this. There are a number of traffic circles and a few stop lights. Officially the people entering have right-of-way, but the reality is that the first to get to a spot, regardless of which ‘lane’ that spot is in, has the right of way and the rest have the right to honk. I use the term ‘lane’ loosely, since the marked lanes do not in any way correlate to the number of lanes being used. The vehicles are smaller (Peugot is common, as is Fiat) and they can sometimes get 4 or 5 abreast on a ‘2 lane’ road.

The public transit system is based on bus. There is no light rail transit. The busses (all sizes and shapes) seem to be colour coded, and people just flag them down when they want on. Some seem to go about ½ a block before being flagged again. In some areas, the lineup of different busses is literally a block long, with a lot of stop and go.

Anyway, Dan and I got to the airport before our target of 6:00AM. Limo has it’s privilege as it dropped us at the airport door. The first thing we noticed was that we could have arrived an hour earlier, as the lineup at LAN was incredible and SLOW. They wanted us to get the ticket first at the kiosk, then line up for checked bags, but the kiosk didn’t accept our reservation information.



Note to self: Always allow extra time at Lima airport. Or travel executive. ;-)

An hour in the line and we got to the counter. (Still no sign of Ben.) Oooooops – an oversold flight and we’ve been bumped, but fortunately only by ½ hour.

From the checkin counter, we head upstairs, first to pay the airport fee (different fees for domestic and international) and then through security. Dan’s carryon got flagged – he had a pair of moustache trim scissors that obviously could be dangerous, so they got confiscated. Finally a quick breakfast, and off to the gate.

Takeoff in Lima was uneventful, and we soon had our first glimpse of the Andes. That was cut short by the clouds and the fact that I was in a middle seat. As we approached Cusco, things cleared a bit and we had an incredible sight – it turns out that Cusco metropolitan area has over 1¼M people, scattered across an amazingly large set of mountains and high valleys.

After a loooooong approach, apparently due to the thin air at 13,000 feet, we landed on time. Off the plane, onto the tarmac, and into the terminal. Since I had a bag, Dan went to find out about taxi to the hotel, and to see whether he could resolve an issue with his Macchipicchu train ride, while I waited for my bag. First thing to notice was the ‘oxygen bar’ and the ads for portable oxygen. We soon found out why.





Dan found a tour operator - an enterprising young lady who had all the answers! She arranged for a taxi and escorted us to the hotel (which she uses as a base). She got us checked in at the Sonesta Hotel and then made our arrangements. These included an afternoon of sightseeing (private bus and guide) around Cusco, shuttle from bus to train (and back) for Sunday, and a contact number in case of issues.

Note to self: In Cusco, contact Karen Buleje Lazarte (linda_kbl@hotmail.com or reservas@inkastreasures.com) to arrange tours.

We finally caught up with Ben at the hotel. He had decided to take his own taxi to the Lima airport somewhat earlier than Dan and myself, and actually made it on the original plane.
First thing I noticed in Cusco is that it is a tourist town. One can find all the favorite American amenities, such as MacDonald’s. ;-) Also, it is very mountainous (duh!) and they build on the side of the mountains with abandon.

It sure is high up here, and if I move quickly or do some moderate exercise (even climbing the 3 flights to my room) I notice a slight shortage of breath. So for the duration, I need to slow down.

Another thing, and one we found out as soon as we were in the hotel, is that everyone drinks Coca tea. According to my guide from Macchupichu (tomorrow), the locals of Inca descent chew up to ½ kilo of Coca leaf a day. It is a vitamin and calcium supplement, and contains trace minerals, all of which are needed by the locals. And visitors – it does help with the altitude. Even Stanley got into the tea.

After settling into our hotel rooms, I took a quick look at the neighborhood. In front of the hotel is a monument with artificial waterfall. The local cabbies get pails of water from the pool to wash their cars. Across from that is an art and craft market.

Note to self: Get gifts from the market!

We had a quick lunch in the restaurant down the street from the hotel. One of the staff is a young lady dressed in traditional costume. Since Ben speaks Spanish, we asked him to ask her for a picture with Stanley. She was kind enough to do that, but quickly returned to work. We returned to the restaurant that evening and she was still working there.

Just after noon, we met up with our guide for the day for a relatively quick tour through Cusco. It is interesting to note that Cusco is shaped like a Pumo. The tour followed a bit of that and consisted of a trip to the historical Cathedral and convent at the main square, Plaza de Armas, which was build on top of the ancient Inca temple. Amazing thing about the original temple is the lack of 90 degree corners and mortar in the ‘bricks’. The shape of the blocks ad the close fit is very earthquake resistant. followed by a trip to the archeological dig at Conventas del Sacramentos, over to a silver smith and wool products store for some shopping for Alpaca and Vicuna wool products, and another ruins.

My only comment is ‘Wow!’ Repeatedly! In spite of the (relatively light) rain.

Friday October 8th, 2010 Edmonton->Lima via Houston

I got up at 03:00 to get to the airport for a 6AM departure on Continental. As usual, Brinky’s was there right on time and it was a pleasant, albeit dark, drive to the airport. It turns out that this dark drive was the first of many!

Check-in at Continental was pleasant and fast. Even better, my Nexus card got me to the front of the security lineup. I checked in 2 bags and had my backpack as carry-on.

The plane to Houston left on time, and I dozed off and on for the flight, Arrived in Houston ahead of time and settled in. Daniel’s flight was pretty much on time and we met at the gate with enough time to order a bite to eat. However the restaurant was too busy to deliver the meal in a timely fashion and Dan had to take his lunch ‘to go’.

On to Lima … plane left on time with reasonable travel weather. We crossed the equator and headed to South America in the dark.

Landing in Lima was amazing. I never realized that Lima is both a city and a ‘province’ made up of a collection of ‘administrative districts’. Population of the province is over 7million, and from the air at night you can tell it is huge. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Province and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_of_Lima for more on this.)

Immigration is a simple matter – fill in the form, stand in line, smile at the agent, and get the passport stamp. (Remember to keep the second part of the form tucked away safely, because it’s needed to get out.) Wander through the duty free area as one enters the country (man … there are a lot of bright colours), and get to the baggage area.

We got to the baggage area around 10:00 PM. Dan and I chatted while waiting for my baggage. He only used carry-on. We were tired and distracted each other, so when I spotted my main bag, I grabbed it and we left.

We need to go through the customs area. The main concern is import revenue, and protecting local agriculture from foreign contaminants. Simple matter of handing the customs form (yet another form) to the customs agent and pushing a button to determine whether you are going to be inspected or just let through. Both Daniel and I got the green light and out the door to the hawkers of taxi rides.

An hour later I realized I had forgotten my smaller bag. (sigh) That will prove to give an adventure in itself.

Our hotel was the Doubletree in Miraflores. Miraflores is one of those administrative districts in the Lima ‘province’. A $45 / ½ hour cab ride later we check in to the hotel around and get to the room around midnight. There was a taxi desk just outside the customs area, but before the various individual driver get to molest you, so I grabbed a round trip fare. If you ask, they will give a discount on the round trip – but you gotta ask.

The drive was ‘interesting’. Lima has older, impoverished areas and we drive through areas that I would hesitate to walk through (probably because of the cultural differences). Houses surrounded by tall gates with electrified or razor wire at the top, or garden walls deliberately topped by broken glass, could unnerve me. However, viewed from the inside of a safe taxi (actually a Limo, based on what we were later to recognize as ‘taxi’) while listening to a golden oldies DVD, things were merely interesting, rather unnerving.

Note to self: Going to the hotel from Lima airport, arrange the taxi at the desk just outside the customs area, and get the round trip price.

We are supposed to meet Ben at the hotel, or have some communication with him, since we need to catch the 8AM flight, and we find out that means leaving the hotel by 5AM. Nothing, so I send him an email.

All in all it was simply a day of travel.

Good night! From an incredible upgraded room in Lima are.

Latin America OTN Tour is finished

And now I have the time to write the blog, including photos. So I'll do that - day by day.

What was the LAD Tour? Initiated by fellow ACE Director Francisco Alvarez, the tour was "7 one day OTN presentations by 5 ACE directors, in 2 weeks."

Although the exact number of people presenting in person and by webinar varied from city to city, the core group was Francisco Alvarez (DB), Daniel Morgan (DB), Ben Prusinski (DB, EBiz), Ronald Bradford (MySQL) and myself (DB, Spatial, Fusion Middleware)

Each day will get it's own blog post, but the general sketch of the tour is

Oct 8-10: Arrive in Peru
Oct 11-12: Peru
Oct 13-14: Chile
Oct 15-16: Uruguay
Oct 17-18: Brazil
Oct 19-20: Colombia
Oct 21-22: Ecuador
Oct 23 : Ecuador break
Oct 24-25: Costa Rica
Oct 26-27: Costa Rica wrap and return

Due to (time to arrange) Visa issues, I attended Brazil by Webinar while enjoying Uruguay.

Most of the presentations will be available from the User Group web sites at some time in the future.

Bottom line is that I want to thank Francisco Alvarez of DBIS for all the hard planning up front, the OTN Team (especially Lillian) for their support, my colleagues and friends who presented with me, and most of all my new friends, the leaders and executives of the 7 User Groups.

I am truly exhausted. And exhilarated. And happy that we did this. And sad that it's over.

But most of all, I am proud to be part of the success called OTN and the ACE program.

OOW - Day 1

Dan Morgan (http://www.morganslibrary.com), Ben Prusinski, and I signed in to OOW early this morning at Moscone South. After the relatively painless sign-in, we wandered around and bumped into a dozen people I know from previous years or from my Oracle classes.

Officially OOW events, mainly those presented by, or sponsored by User Groups and partners, started at noon today. I managed to take in a few very interesting sessions already, including some from fellow ACE Directors Peter Koletzke and Cary Millsap.

I will always lean toward presentations by Oracle ACE Directors because I always learn something. Highly recommended.

Currently sitting in the session that discusses realities of migrating from OC4J to WebLogic Server, presented by Liran Zelkha of Scalebase. This is typical of the partner sessions - high quality and very informative. Since a lot of people will be migrating very soon (OC4J is nearing official end of life, and waaaaay past realistic end of life), a lot more people will be needing this information as well.

Next session is the OOW official opening keynote and the Party! I'll be at the Mason Street tent.

Open World, Oracle Develop AND JavaOne

OpenWorld officially starts tomorrow. As does Oracle Develop and, new to the family, JavaOne.

I arrived at the Hilton last night and spent part of today walking around. This one looks to be even bigger than last year. There is a new tent taking over Mason right next to the hotel. See you there ...

Quick reminder - Oracle 'hosted' sites

As much a reminder for myself, as a quick listing of the official Oracle websites:


Product info:
Oracle = http://www.oracle.com
Oracle Technet = http://otn.oracle.com

Software and Docs
Electronic delivery of software = http://edelivery.oracle.com
Developer license downloads = http://download.oracle.com
Documentation main site = http://docs.oracle.com (all docs)
Searchable doc site = http://tahiti.oracle.com (DB, AS, Beehive)

Education and Certification
Education = http://education.oracle.com
Certification requirements = http://certification.oracle.com
View YOUR Certification = http://certview.oracle.com
Understanding database = http://asktom.oracle.com

Support, patches, knowledge base
Support = http://support.oracle.com
Support - non-Flash = http://supporthtml.oracle.com

Communities
Wiki = http://wiki.oracle.com
Forums = http://forums.oracle.com
Oracle (employee) blogs = http://blogs.oracle.com
Oracle Support (moderated) = https://communities.oracle.com

Purchase
Shop online = http://shop.oracle.com

Usable & demo sites
Application Express = http://APEX.oracle.com
Sales = http://sales.oracle.com
"Semi-semantic" news filter = http://www.iamthenode.com/

Feel free to add others in the comments and I'll update the main list. (I'll create a separate entry for Useful Oracle-related Sites and Useful Oracle-related Lists)

Oracle 11gR2 for Windows is out

###Update - the 32-bit version is also available now.###

Released this morning. Details are


Download from http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/index.html

And according to http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e10843/toc.htm

* Windows Server 2003 - all editions
* Windows Server 2003 R2 - all editions
* Windows XP Professional
* Windows Vista - Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions
* Windows Server 2008 - Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, and Foundation editions. The Server Core option is not supported.
* Windows 7 - Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions

Note: Check My Oracle Support (formerly OracleMetaLink) for more information about Hyper-V support.


No discussion in doc or in Support about 2008R2, even though it is a different core to 2008 (same difference as Vista to Windows7).

The release information discusses both32 and 64 bit. Keep checking for the 32 bit download if you need that.

Install guide is at http://www.oracle.com/pls/db112/portal.portal_db?selected=11&frame=#microsoft_windows_installation_guides

The database software is in 2 zip files, which include the database and companion distribution. Unzip them both into the same directory.

When you get the software, MAKE SURE you get the deinstall download as well. It is the only correct way to remove the software, and (on the *nix platforms) it does an excellent job.

ASM is moved to the Clusterware, so if you want ASM you will need to get the Clusterware s/w and install that first.

And yet another

Another side effect of not having a Back button usable in MOS-F - I had written a reply and some suggestions to the MOS Communities discussion about the new Health Checks.

The session hung.

In a normal browser environment, I would have hit Back, copied my text to a safe place (Notepad), and tried again (perhaps later knowing that Communities is about to undergo some shutdowns this weekend).

In this environment, the feedback is lost forever.

Perhaps that was the intent ...

Another look at the MOS Certify UI

Another set of Certify UI discussions has been announced for Feb 16th. Details later in this blog...

I still dislike the My Oracle Support Flash version, but that does not stop me from providing suggestions and feedback on the UI. Indeed, I have encountered even more reasons and opportunities to both dislike the interface and provide (hopefully constructive) feedback.

The latest is that I find MOS-F very very susceptible to local network traffic.

Since they postpone some of the look-up traffic, and perhaps even some of the software traffic, until needed, I find that when I want to access something that has a lookup (such as the list of values for Patch filters), the performance is directly affected by the total network traffic on the internet pipe. In a classroom of 15-20 attendees, all using Microsoft or Cisco remote desktop or VNC to a remote site, the delays in my additional MOS-F session become very noticeable.

The alternate is to use the non-Flash (ADF-based) site at http://supporthtml.oracle.com which is becoming more and more attractive every day. Even though is less exciting, it is only marginally less functional for my needs.

That said, the MOS-F team IS trying to address the issues and is trying to provide us with opportunities to give feedback. For that, they have announced another round of Certify UI dial-in forums.

The invitation apparently is not important enough to make it as MOS News or as MOS Community News. You can find it in the MOS Communities "Using My Oracle Support" forum under Featured Discussion title " Seeking Customers to Participate in Certify user interface reviews Feb 16 and Feb17 ". With TonyC's permission, the core of the invite is

The Oracle product team developing the enhanced Certify capability in My Oracle Support is looking for customers to review a Certify user interface redesign. If your job responsibility is to understand what products and hardware are certified for use with the Oracle products in your environment, we invite you to join one of the following web conferences:

Session 1: Application user experience

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 9am Pacific.

Session 2: Data Base and Middleware user experience

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 9am Pacific

They have my input from previous 2 hours of 1-on-1 discussion, so I don't need to attend. Now it's 'your turn'.

Oracle DB - Personal vs Express

After all these years, there is still a lot of confusion about Personal Edition and Express Edition capabilities.

First of all, the Personal Edition (PE), Enterprise Edition (EE), Standard Edition (SE) and Standard Edition One (SE-1) are all found in the same download. The choice of Edition is made at install time, not download time. Fire up the installer and the Edition will be available either in a drop-down menu or in a radio-button list. (On the other hand, Express Edition, or XE, is a separate download from http://download.oracle.com)

Second, there is no difference in the installed software between SE and SE-1, so the same selection is used for either one. The difference is in the license agreement as paraphrased on page 12 of the Software Investment Guide at http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/sig.html

When to choose PE or XE?

Personal Edition is *the most powerful version* for the price. It is a single user license of the Enterprise Edition with nearly all options and features turned on. It is designed for Developers who need access to Oracle Support.

Express Edition is the smallest version. It is light weight (under 300M download instead of 1-2GB download) and has the same SQL and PL/SQL engine as the Enteprise Edition, BUT it does not include Java in the database so advanced things like Java Stored Procedures and related Oracle-supplied functionality are not possible. It also has limits in how much data may be stored (4GB). That means it can only store about 20 years of accounting data for a typical under-25 person company.

Express Edition is IDEAL for a beginner to get used to developing using an Oracle database. However, one can NOT learn to administer an Oracle DB on Express Edition and therefore it is useless for a person who wishes to learn how to be a DBA.

Personal Edition also does not permit Management Packs to be licensed. Therefore performance tuning, diagnostics, etc. are not technically available. For DBA practice, Personal Edition is also not ideal - one really should install the Enterprise Edition to learn about those tools.


I really wish Oracle would rename Personal Edition to Developer Edition

... and make it available on Linux as well.

Getting users involved - interesting concept

I just attended the second open web conference about the proposed direction of the Certify capability and UI in MOS.

Again, I was the only non-Oracle attendee.

Sad.

MOS: Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. A chapter in the Oracle 10g Portal class discusses taxonomy when dealing with Portal organization. (I always recommend organizations who are serious about classification to hire a librarian to lead any taxonomy project.)

Since starting with the My Oracle Support, I have not felt very comfortable with the navigation. Admittedly, part of this is habit - once I'd figured it out, I'd been satisfied with the Metalink navigation style and requirements. But switching navigation styles should not have bothered me so much, and I've been struggling with 'why does MOS feel cumbersome?'

(I've discussed some of this repeatedly, and covered a few reasons. These are a few of my favorite things

• Flash - form before function;
• Flash - performance;
• Flash - proprietary, security risk, banned from some customer sites;
• non-standard UI - no back button, no 'open new window' on articles
• ... )
  

Today's topic is 'consistency in classification'. And this is probably going to be the most controversial topic of the entire MOS-related group of blogs. I hope this one will generate some discussion!

What is there?

MOS uses different classifications in different areas. This would not be so bad, if I could understand why they are different. "Knowledge" tab has a "Browse Knowledge" region (which seems overly complicated); "Patches" has a different classification scheme to select patches; "Certify" has an other.

"Browse Knowledge" was obviously sponsored by the Applications division of Oracle. At the top level, it classifies "AIA, JD Edwards Enterprise, JDE World, Siebel, Peoplesoft, E-Biz, More Applications, Middleware, Database, Linux/VM, Services, Support, Tools/Training, Doc, and Japanese KB". With all the dynamic changing of shapes and entries in other areas of MOS, I think I'd be happier if I could suppress those areas that have no interest for me.

"Patches" go by "Product or Family" which has a list of approximately 1400 entries of which you can select one or more.

"Certify" is undergoing change. But so far, they have invented "Product Line, Product Family, Product Area, Product, Product Release, Product Version" which seems to be some form of hierarchy. (In fairness, they acknowledge this needs to change. Hopefully some others will join us on Tuesday AM for the discussion about what should/could change.)

My thoughts

I have a chart that I use to help Oracle customers understand Oracle products. It's a bit dated, but basically it summarizes my thinking, which is that Oracle has 3 product areas

• Services
• Technology
• Applications

Services to me are

• Consulting (Tech Consulting, Apps Consulting, Upgrade Services, Partner Services)
  
• Training (Oracle University, Knowledge Center, Oracle Academy, Certifications, CertView)
  
• Support (Premier, Advanced, MOS-F, MOS-H, OSS)
  

Technology includes the following

• Management Infrastructure: Oracle Server, RDB , Times Ten, Berkeley, (MySQL)
  
• Middleware Infrastructure: WLS, OC4J, Tuxedo, TopLink,
  
• Manipulation: Tools (SQL Developer, JDeveloper, Forms, Reports, etc.), AIA
  
• Movement: Warehouse Builder, Data Integrator, Golden Gate, ESB, Queue
• Consolidation: Portal, WebCenter
• Collaboration: Collaboration Suite, Beehive
  
• Control: SOA and all it's components, Registry, ESB, Web Services
  
• System Infrastructure: OEL, OracleVM, OSS, Grid, ASM, OSB, Exadata, (Solaris)
• Security: Single Sign On, Identity Management, OVD, OID
• Intelligence: Discoverer, Reports, BI Beans, BI Publisher, BI Suite EE, ...
  
• Management: Enterprise Manager, Grid Control, Packs (other than those included above)

and I often group the above into

• Infrastructure (System, Data Management, Middleware, Security)
  
• Development (Tools)
  
• Coordination (Consolidation, Collaboration, Control, Intelligence)
  
• Management (Grid Control)
  

Applications (something I try not to get involved in - as Tech above has enough areas to amuse me):

• Oracle Fusion Applications
• Oracle E-Business Suite
• PeopleSoft Enterprise
• Siebel
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
• JD Edwards World
• Hyperion Financial Performance Management
• Primavera Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
• Enterprise Management
  

I acknowledge that the above is simply a list of the products from the referenced site, and that another meaningful classification is by business area (Supply Chain, Financials. HR, etc.) or by Industry.

Where am I going with this?

As an engineer and technologist, I drill into support requirements by product. "My 'product x, version y' is having the following problem."

My first thought is that the Knowledge Browser, Patch, and Certify should allow me to filter by area of interest.

That implies that I could set a global filter (which I think is the purpose of 'Power View') which would allow me to include one or more of the three areas. Within each of those areas, I would have product lines (as given above), product families, product, product edition, and product version.


A good taxonomy

A good taxonomy has 3 characteristics that I can identify:

1. It is designed by someone independent of the stakeholders, but with input by stakeholders
   
2. It is created over a number of years
   
3. It is NOT rigid - as things change, it will evolve.

That first one is perhaps the most surprising. My experience indicates that if the stakeholders try to provide classification, the job will never get done since too many people have a vested and personal interest. Hire a librarian - they know how to classify AND how to keep us in line. :-)

So perhaps

Perhaps more important than using a taxonomy based on what I describe, there needs to be a visual 'tree' that people could pull up while in MOS that would show whatever taxonomy Oracle intends to use.

(I note that there is not a single occurrence of a visual expandable-folder-like tree in the entire MOS UI that I can find. Anyone?)

And that taxonomy needs to be used consistently across all the tabs, areas, regions, communities, etc. With flexibility allowing changes - but with discussion and warnings when things are to change.