PSU

PSU vs. CPU

No, it's not a matchup between cybernautic champions in a sci-fi novel, it's something you need to make a decision on when doing the quarterly patches. There's a very good rundown on the concepts involved in a PSU over a The Oracle Global Product Security Blog: The Benefits of Database Server Patch Set Updates (PSUs)

Contributions By Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

The Working Effectively With Customer Support document contains a wealth of information concerning support best practices, policies and procedures. Check it out at Note:166650.1.

Oracle Infogram This Week: EBS, Chrome, DB Stories, Scripting, DBA Tasks

EBS

Some valuable links at the E-Business Suite Technology blog:

E-Business Suite TechnologyStack Roadmap (Sept 2010) Now Available

Upgrading From EBS R11i to R12 Using a Staged System

Something you learn early on as a DBA is that there are a lot of IT people who think indexes solve everything, therefore more indexes are automatically good. This simplistic approach sometimes creates monsters, tables bedecked with layer upon layer of optimizer-confusing, I/O-slamming, unneeded indexes. Here is an interesting posting of some basic tests on EBS indexing by someone studying the specific question of custom indexes in EBS.

Search Utilities

Eddie Awad has a good update to his Oracle related search engines in Google Chrome at his blog.

Stories

Oracle Musings brings us a tale of woe and redemption in the world of accessing the DB: Locked Out.

Scripting

Charles Hooper has a very valuable article on setting up an easy method for building Oracle database test case scripts at his Oracle Notes blog.

DBA Tasks

One of the items that sometimes causes DBA angst is covered over at the Oracle related stuff blog: Cleanup of partitioned objects residing in offlined tablespaces.

Over at the Oracle Sponge we have a posting on another topic that often plagues designers and DBAs (often plaguing the designer, who in turn plagues the DBA):

Generating A Gap-free Series Of Numbers — Not Always A Problem

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

The Oracle Architecture Center on Technet offers a wide array of articles and white papers on how to create an efficient Oracle environment. Check it out at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/architect/resources/articles/index.html

Contributions by Mark Harris, Infogram Contributor


New Oracle iPhone App

The oracle.com team just released an iPhone application called "Oracle Now".

With this app our goal is to promote everything that is currently happening at Oracle.

You will be able to read:

latest news
upcoming events
latest blogs
Press Releases

The Oracle OpenWorld tab does not only tell you the latest around Oracle OpenWorld, but also has a QR Codes reading functionality. If you are going to Oracle OpenWorld this year, use it to read the various QR codes.

In the next version we are going to bring you the "Video" tab, which will display the latest Oracle videos.

Also if you have any feedback or suggestions use this email address oracle_iphone_app_us@oracle.com. We look forward to hear from you!

Oracle Infogram this Week: ADF, Siebel, APEX, OTN, Exadata, PeopleSoft

ADF

Over at ADF Inspired is a useful posting on Undoing changes using Middle Tier Savepoints.

Siebel and BI

The Siebel Essentials blog continues its series of useful tips, for instance #5, Pivot Table Options.

Rittman Mead Consulting has an item on Oracle BI EE 11g – Action Framework – BI Web Services for SOA

APEX

Over at the Apex Blog Aggregator is a good hint for when you want to join a lot of tables in a hurry. The builtin interface function of SQL Developer lets you do the joins without writing the SQL and even aliases the names for you. Read about it here: Fast writing of Queries with Joins in SQL Developer.

OTN

Delicious is a handy gathering place for info. Here's a listing on Oracle Technet material.

One that stands out for me is the whitepaper on Application Failover with Oracle Database 11g.

Exadata

Okay, you're at a cocktail party and you realize that everyone in the room is an Exadata expert except you. How are you going to bluff your way through? Yes! This article on the key terms and concepts of Exadata from Oracle's Kevin Closson.

(And yes, I know the cocktail party thing is fictitious because Exadata experts never leave the server room, but it's a literary device.Another item from Kevin Closson this week, this time on patching: Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Patchset 1 (11.2.0.2) Is Now Available, But This Is Not Just An Announcement Blog Entry.)

PeopleSoft

The PeopleSoft DBA Blog has a handy posting on Performance Overhead of Multiple SQL calls in SQR

Oracle Infogram this Week: OOW, Design, Exadata, EBS, Messups

OOW

Several items of interest as the buildup to OOW reaches a

crescendo. First, have you ever wanted to climb into Oracle's

acrobatic plane for a ride? Now you don't have to break into an

airport at night to do it. The Pythian Blog tells us how to

Attend Implementing Exadata @OOW10 & Win a Flight with Team Oracle.

To help you plan, over at Marc Sewtz' blog about Oracle Application Express is a really nice app (in APEX, of course), to help you plan your OOW experience.

Design

Over at the DBA Kevlar blog we have some wisdom on design and the cost of hurry and compromise: Building Right or Build Twice- That is the Question...

On a related topic over at Oracle Musings is a small and painful tale of sequences avoided for all the wrong reasons and how redtape can compromise the integrity of a system: Sequence Smackdown.

SOA

This is pretty spiffy: Download a Pre-built VM for Oracle SOA Suite and BPM Suite 11g.

Exadata

Over at Jonathan Lewis' Oracle Scratchpad you can find a handy post of posts on Exadata. Well worth a look:

Exadata

EBS

Over at the Oracle E-Business Technology blog this week:

Upgrading From EBS R11i to R12 Using a Staged System

Windows 7 64-bit Clients + 32-bit Browsers Certified with EBS 11i & 12

What Are the Minimum Desktop Requirements for EBS?

Historic Mess-ups

Feel like confessing? Or maybe just reading about the monumental mess-ups of others? This is the article for you (add your own):

IT Disasters: What Was Your Biggest Screw-Up?