Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Scripting, Doom


Scripting

This posting Effect Of Multiple SHMMAX Settings at the AskDba.org Weblog is useful in itself, but points out something I learned back in my days as a DBA that is of wider utility: Computers are dumb. Yes, I know they seem smart enough, but if you tell them in a batch file: Pour coffee. Put cup in coffee machine filling bracket, that's exactly what they'll do: Pour the coffee all over the floor and then drop the cup in place. The duplicate settings problem can be especially vexing. It reminds me of a time a friend of mine played a CD. Only something completely different played than he had expected. He took out the CD, looked at it, and only then realized that there had been a CD already in the drive and he put the new one in on top of it. Silly error? Perhaps, but things happen. Scripts are prone to this kind of error, and all the more prone if you don't document changes. Let's say Oracle Support solved a problem you were having in 10.2.0.3 by giving you an underscore parameter. You put it in your initialization parameters and all is good....at least until you move to 10.2.0.5 and find whackiness breaking out all over the DB. If you documented things you will find the date and reason that unserscore parameter was set and comment it out. If not, you may have to do a lot of exploring before you remember that change and track down why it is there and why it has kept you up nights all week.

Doomed Again
Every few years (well every few months, really) another death knell sounds for the relational model. Trouble is, it's based on solid math and just doesn't die off. Other bright attempts, however, like the hierarchical database and its stepchild the object oriented application-implemented approach, seem to haunt us regularly, but they never quite measure up to reality. The relational model, of course, is not implemented as theoretically envisioned, in any commercial RDBMS. But the fundamentals are there. This article at ReadWrite Enterprise has some interesting thoughts (in spite of calling tables 'entities' when a relational table is a relation, thus the name: relational): Is the Relational Database Doomed?

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

Here is a handy link for information concerning RAC:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/clustering/overview/index.html
It contains links to white papers, data sheets, tools and more.

An excellent note for Oracle Support processes and best practices is
Note:166650.1. Check it out. It contains numerous hints and tips for getting the most from Oracle Support.

The latest version of the Application Technology Group (ATG) Newsletter is available in
Note:1158513.1. It contains valuable information for E-Business Suite customers.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Security

Security

An iTunes security flaw from a week or so ago (since fixed) has given rise to a more fundamental issue in Windows security. Ars Technica discusses it:
Windows DLL-loading security flaw puts Microsoft in a bind .

EBS, Storage Performance, Exadata, Book Review, ADF, JDE



The start of a series over at James Morle's always entertaining and useful blog: SaneSAN2010: Serial to Serial – When One Bottleneck Isn’t Enough

Exadata

An Oracle employee has some well-reasoned responses to what is being published by the competition over on his personal blog, Oracle Exadata and Netezza TwinFin Compared – An Engineer’s Analysis

Book Review

We've already passed along some kind words for Tom Kyte's latest book, but this review from Charles Hooper was so thorough I couldn't resist linking to it: Book Review: Expert Oracle Database Architecture: Oracle Database Programming 9i, 10g, and 11g Techniques and Solutions, Second Edition.

ADF

Some ideas from the on what's coming up from the GE2ORGE MAGGESSY blog on ADF at Oracle Open World (you are going, aren't you?): ADF and JQuery working together.

JD Edwards

A lighthearted rundown over at ITToolbox.com of the Top 10 Signs Your Company Needs Additional JDE Training (light-hearted in a 'ha, ha, only serious' manner, that is).

Thursday, August 19, 2010

PeopleSoft, Siebel, ADF, BI, RDBMS, EBS, Exadata


PeopleSoft


Siebel

At the Siebel Essentials blog, some valuable insight on upgrades: Siebel Upgrade Advisor

and on a related matter, Siebel Unleashed brings us a posting on Siebel Deployment -Release management. An approach using scripts that proves that in IT, it isn't 'better living through plastic' like in the campy old adverts, but better living through scripting.

ADF

Shay Shmelzer's Weblog directs our steps toward an ADF deep dive:

BI

A pointer from the Oracle Business Intelligence blog to the all-important certification matrix: OBIEE 11g Certification Matrix

RDBMS

Three great postings of links, one from Eddie Awad:


and....

the 199th issue of the Log Buffer, A Carnival of the Vanities for DBAs: Log Buffer #199 at the Pythian Blog

and finally a reminder that the Oak Table Net site is now a rich hunting ground for articles from the leading lights in the realm of Oracle optimization: http://oaktable.net/ for instance this valuable series by Jonathan Lewis on Joins.

EBS

The last couple of weeks from the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

Exadata

Seems like the more people dig into Exadata, the more cool stuff they find. It's an exciting product. Have a look over at Kerry Osborne's blog: Oracle Exadata - Storage Indexes

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

Oracle Technical Support Policies

Have a question concerning Oracle's Technical Support Policies? Bookmark this handy link: http://www.oracle.com/us/support/policies/index.html. It contains links to support policies for individual Oracle products.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

iPods and iPhones and ADF


IPods and iPads and the Like


I generally don't get under the covers a lot on programming these days, but I'm doing a little exploring to figure out why all parts of a particular portal page render find for me...except the one I need...on the iPad, and found a really
good overhead summary of the underying OS and interfaces/languages involved over at the Enterprise Software DEvelopment with Java blog.

This in turn pointed to a handy page on our web on
Developing for the Apple iPhone with Oracle JDeveloper and ADF. The article is a bit old, but still a lot of good stuff in there.

And yes, this is my first blog entry done from the iPad. I wouldn't try it from Safari, but using iCab browser, the best browser available for the iPad, it was only like pulling teeth to do it, not like pulling teeth with greased chopsticks, as it would have been in Safari for iPad.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Performance, Indexing, Sun Ray, GoldenGate


Performance


Cary Millsap, who may be one of the better pretenders to the title of 'Mister Trace' himself, has come out with a program to use with Oracle SQL Developer called 'MR Trace'.
Have a look here. And Tom Kyte seems to think it looks interesting as well.


Indexing

In this posting on Partially Index a Table Christian Antognini over at the Striving for Optimal Performance blog has found a workaround for an indexing feature we actually don't have in Oracle, at least not yet:
Partially Index a Table

Sun Ray Desktop Virtualization

Sun Ray developer Craig Bender takes us on a demo tour of the Sun Ray 3+ and explains the elegance and efficiency of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in this MP3 format interview.

Optimizer

At the Inside the Oracle Optimizer blog we have a posting on adaptive cursor sharing. This is a feature that has caused more than its share of confusion over the years. See what the experts have to say here: Explain adaptive cursor sharing behavior with cursor_sharing = similar and force.

GoldenGate

Over at the Oracle DBA – Tips and Techniques is a handy article on commands for GoldenGate: Useful GoldenGate commands - SHELL, OBEY, HELP, HISTORY,VERSIONS. What, no SIT?



Monday, August 9, 2010

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

InformationWeek Global CIO: Larry Ellison and the New Oracle Rock the Tech World

On August 4, 2010, InformationWeek published an article titled, “Larry Ellison And The New Oracle Rock The Tech World,” which points out how “Oracle promises to redefine not only product categories but also customer expectations.”

From recent interviews with Oracle executives, plus an extensive analysis of public comments made by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and other Oracle executives in the past 15 months, the author came up with what he thinks are the five main elements of Oracle's strategy for the next couple of years. It is definitely an interesting read.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

BI Publisher, APEX, Hyperion, Security, EBS


BI Publisher

Over at the Oracle BI Publisher Blog we have some belated but very handy links from Collaborate: BI Publisher for PeopleSoft.

Also in the realm of BI is this posting from A Bi Publisher developer's diary on the sometimes arcane art of getting foreign fonts to function properly: Non-English characters appears as ???? in BI Publisher PDF output

APEX

Over at Let's talk about APEX . with Anthony Rayner, there are some useful postings on the latest version:


Hyperion

Patchset 9.3.3.0.0 is out for Hyperion

Hyperion System 9 release 9.3.3. is now available via My Oracle Support [https://supporthtml.us.oracle.com]. Please search on the Patches and Updates section for the products you need to obtain. Here is a listing of the products with their respective patch numbers:

Hyperion Capital Expense Planning and Workforce Planning Release 9.3.3.0.0 Flat (Patch 9947254 )

Hyperion Data Relationship Management - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9911511 )

Hyperion Essbase Administration Services - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9895359 )

Hyperion Essbase Integration Services - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9895342 )

Hyperion Essbase - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 Server (Patch 9895273 )

Hyperion Essbase - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 Client (Patch 9895284 )

Hyperion Planning System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9900210 )

Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9912542 )

Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management Adapter for Financial Management Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9912589 )

Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management Adapter Suite Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9912611 )

Hyperion Financial Management - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9829066 )

Hyperion Remote Authentication Module - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9934896 )

Hyperion Reporting and Analysis System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9900557 )

Hyperion Performance Scorecard System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9885803 )

Hyperion Provider Services Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9895309 )

Hyperion Shared Services - System 9 Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9904620 )

Hyperion Smart View for Office Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9904235 )

Hyperion Strategic Finance - System Release 9.3.3.0.0 (Patch 9904675 )
_______________________________________________

Another good tool for all our Hyperion customers is:

the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) System Cumulative Feature Overview Tool. The CFO Tool is interactive and offers customers a simple way to determine the new features between releases. This first version covers Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Release 9.3.1 through Release 11.1.2.

The tool is available on the My Oracle Support site via this link: https://supporthtml.oracle.com/oip/faces/secure/km/DocumentDisplay.jspx?id=1092114.1.

Security

Pete Finnigan posted a link to the Cervello Consultants site that is both scary and useful: The ignored evidence of data breaches …. It turns out 48 percent of the attacks on a survey of data breaches were inside jobs. Integrity is indeed a valuable resource.

EBS

Only one link this week from the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog, about 1/4 their usual rate. Must be the heat:


Official, Youbetcha Legalese

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