Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

My Oracle Support Release 5.4
During October, My Oracle Support (MOS) was upgraded to Release 5.4. Learn more about the new features and functionality at My Oracle Support Center, Note:1326487.1.

Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 19-OCT-2011

OOW


We're in the great post-OpenWorld quiet in the blogosphere; that time when the chattering of keyboards and scribbling of notes being collated builds in the background in preparation for many, many OOW posts in the next few weeks. The networking, the knowledge exchange, and the lessons learned are all out there jelling. For the present, here is Tom Kyte's first post-OOW posting: A little more on Oracle OpenWorld... 

OBIEE

Some of the complexities of Changing your password in OBIEE 11G over at the RittmanMead blog.


Hyperion


Also from the good folks at RittmanMead is this posting on Oracle BI EE 11g – Hyperion Financial Management Analytics (HFM Analytics)

Oracle Internals


Over at Martin Widlake's Yet Another Oracle Blog one of the reviewers gives us a look into the future, announcing preordering available on Jonathan Lewis' book. Bound to be a must for all fans of internals and the esoteric knowledge that can come in handy when something 'odd' seems to be going on: Want to Know More about Oracle’s Core?


EBS


The latest from the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:


OpenWorld 2011 Presentations Available for Download


Latest DSTv16 Timezone Patches Available for E-Business Suite 11i


A well-deserved award:
A "Lifetime" Already?


Latest DSTv17 Timezone Patches Available for E-Business Suite R12


Performance and Upgrades


What looks like the start of a great series over at the Upgrade your Database - NOW! blog: It's always the Optimizer, isn't it?! - Part 1

ADF


Lots of goodies out there of late on ADF. Let's start with this from the ISV Migration Center Blog: Pather Webcast- Reusability in Oracle ADF Development.


Shay Shmeltzer's Weblog brings us: Warning of Uncommitted/Unsaved Changes in ADF Faces Pages 


and AMIS Technology contributes ADF Faces: Handle task in background process and show real time progress indicator for asynchronous job using Server Push in ADF to the mix.

Patches


David Niven summed up the human dilemma when he said of his health: 'After 50, it's just patch, patch, patch.' Most binaries aren't over fifty (unless they were written on punch cards), but you still need to patch. Here's some important ones:


Oracle Java SE Critical Patch Update - October 2011
The Oracle Java SE Critical Patch Update for October 2011 was released on October 18th, 2011. Oracle strongly recommends applying the patches as soon as possible. Please note that Sun products are included in this Critical Patch Update.

The Critical Patch Update Advisory is the starting point for relevant information. It includes a list of products affected, pointers to obtain the patches, a summary of the security vulnerabilities, and links to other important documents. Supported Products that are not listed in the "Supported Products and Components Affected" Section of the advisory do not require new patches to be applied.

Also, it is essential to review the Critical Patch Update supporting documentation referenced in the Advisory before applying patches, as this is where you can find important pertinent information.

The Critical Patch Update Advisory is available at the following location:

Oracle Technology Network:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alerts-086861.html

Oracle Java SE Critical Patch Update - October 2011:

Oracle Technology Network:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/javacpuoct2011-443431.html

The next three Java SE Critical Patch Update release dates are:

• February 14, 2012
• June 12, 2012
• October 16, 2012

_____________________

Oracle Critical Patch Update - October 2011
The Oracle Critical Patch Update for October 2011 was released on October 18th, 2011. Oracle strongly recommends applying the patches as soon as possible. Please note that Sun products are included in this Critical Patch Update.

The Critical Patch Update Advisory is the starting point for relevant information. It includes a list of products affected, pointers to obtain the patches, a summary of the security vulnerabilities, and links to other important documents. Supported Products that are not listed in the "Supported Products and Components Affected" Section of the advisory do not require new patches to be applied.

Also, it is essential to review the Critical Patch Update supporting documentation referenced in the Advisory before applying patches, as this is where you can find important pertinent information.

Critical Patch Update Advisories are available at the following location:

Oracle Technology Network:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alerts-086861.html

The Critical Patch Update Advisory - October 2011 is available at the following location:

Oracle Technology Network:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/cpuoct2011-330135.html

The next four Critical Patch Update release dates are:

• January 17, 2012
• April 17, 2012
• July 17, 2012
• October 16, 2012

Musings

And finally some Oracle musings from, appropriately enough, the Oracle Musings blog: The Social Development Database.

Oracle OpenWorld On Demand

If you missed any or all of the dynamic and informative Oracle OpenWorld keynotes or some of the interesting and inspiring general sessions or Executive Solution sessions, you can access them at any time, at your convenience. Here's where you'll find them.

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

Oracle Technical Support Policies now include policies for Exadata and hardware. The index for technical support policies can be found at: http://www.oracle.com/us/support/policies/index.html.

Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 12-OCT-2011

WLS

The latest issue of the WebLogic Weekly (it's kind of like Better Homes and Gardens, but more like Better Servers and Services). It's at the WebLogic Server Blog: WebLogic Weekly for October 3rd, 2011

Performance: Hotsos Symposium

As we said last week, early bird registration is open for Hotsos 2012, the best performance conference on the market. Have a look at 2012: Hotsos Symposium .

Solaris

New Solaris Security White Paper: Overview of Security Controls in Oracle Solaris 10

ADF

AMIS Technology posts about ADF 11g Rich Faces: using popup for viewing and editing big fields.

Virtual Box

Have you taken look at Oracle Virtual Box? The ORACLE-BASE Blog lets us know: VirtualBox 4.1.4 Released…

Exadata

Some thoughts on Exadata and the DBA skillset. The DBA professional has been expanding for some time to include a deeper knowledge of the OS, the storage and the tiers of the enterprise beyond the cloistered walls of the SGA, and this article over at SearchOracle.com touches on some key points when thinking of managing the new Exadata machines: Can the DBA manage the Exadata machine?

Pythian discusses a new capacity for Exadata, with some interesting discussion of the pros and cons down in the discussion area of the article: Exadata smart flash cache now supports redo writes.

Finally, Jonathan Lewis' Scratchpad blog discusses Hybrid Columnar Compression in Exadata: HCC.

Performance

Charles Hooper's Oracle Notes gives us another excellent technical run down on traces, this time the 10200 trace: 10200 Trace Shows Consistent Reads, but Not All Consistent Reads.

Hyperion

Unexpected and unwanted growth. In medical texts it's called things like neoplasia and hyperplasia and is not pleasant. The surprise of having your planning and forecasting databases grow for apparently no reason at all is also not a happy thing. The In 2 Hyperion blog discusses it here: Why is my database growing? It’s killing my calc times!

RDBMS Unicode Conversion

Converting an existing DB to Unicode has always been one of those 'I told you so moments' in many enterprises. Usually the routine goes: DBA warns the team that they should use Unicode up front to avoid grief later. That costs more. The DBA is vetoed. Later the Unicode is needed and the process to convert the existing database costs a lot more than doing it up front. Well The Arup Nanda Blog brings us some relief. This posting on Unicode Migration Assistant for Oracle is a must read for those facing a character set conversion.

Oracle Magazine

The latest issue of Oracle Magazine is out. Okay, admittedly a centerfold of a 6-node RAC may not be considered 'piquant', but there you can tell people you read it for the articles. Really. Oracle Magazine November - December 2011.

Oracle Priority Service Infogram for 05-OCT-2011

It's OOW week, so to be in clear contrast to the rest of the world this issue of the Infogram is about all kinds of things...except OOW.

ODA

People are starting to use the ODA and post about it. Example? Karl Arao's Blog, which brings us this posting: Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) Installation / Configuration.

Oracle's Twitter Presence

Twitter is a great resource for Oracle information that many of our customers don't use. Read all about the possibilities: Oracle Twitter List, over at Chris Warticki's Blog - Oracle Support.

Performance: Hotsos Symposium

There's no such thing as budgeting too early for a conference, especially one of the quality and fun of the Hotsos Symposium. Many of the leading lights of Oracle performance gather yearly in Texas to reduce the overall quantity of in-state BBQ while learning and networking about performance. Have a look at 2012: Hotsos Symposium .

PeopleSoft

Over at The PeopleSoft Road blog there's a discussion of load balancing and failover for Peopletools 8.5.1: Application server load balancing and failover.

And at Jim's PeopleSoft Journal we find another 8.51 posting, this time on Creating Binary Arrays.

Compellent SAN

Using a Compellent SAN with Oracle? The Dell TechCenter has some handy info on Best Practice of sizing Compellent SAN for Oracle deployments.

Oracle VM

One of the coolest things about the new version of Oracle VM are the templates. Think of them as a collectable, like baseball cards or stamps, only for enterprise databases. Here's an example over at the Wim Coekaerts Blog: New Oracle VM template : Oracle 11g Release 2 + Real Application Cluster patchset 3 (11.2.0.3).

Data Guard

Okay, this article does talk about OOW a little, but it's mainly To SYNC or not to SYNC – Part 2 at the Maximum Availability Architecture blog.

MySQL

There's a new update out to the MySQL for Database Administrators course.


Utilities

This tool looks very useful for elimanating drudgery: Log Templater (Artificial Ignorance Utility) at the SecViz - Security Visualization site.

Technology News

Neal Stephenson is a popular science and fantasy author, and this article shows two things: 1) He is concerned about innovation and our place in history 2) He's middle aged (we start comparing generations as soon as we get into the 'next' generation and can look back): Innovation Starvation at the World Policy Institute.

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor

Getting the most from My Oracle Support (MOS)

Did you know that there are many brief recorded training sessions on MOS to help you learn more about this vital tool. Topics covered include Dashboard Customization, Quick Search, Power Views and more. Check out Note:603505.1.