Post a recent migration to consolidate a number of new databases to one of my client’s Exadatas, I found myself staring at a familiar wait event on one of them that I run into way too often when hopes of Exadata migration performance glory is reviewed.  Where, with all the features that are available to the consolidated database to perform more effectively on Exadata, Temp usage just isn’t one of them. Many know that I’m a proponent of ensuring design and code is as efficient as possible to not “over run” PGA allocation per session and “swap” over to temp.…

Didn’t know that was the name of a little know feature in 11g, eh? OK, so I may have named it that, but this is where I’m at right now with dynamic sampling at many of the shops I’ve worked at.  I know it’s due to the common sizes and types of databases I’ve worked on, too.  Many of them have unique hybrid databases that require unique solutions. These databases often have both transactional and ETL processing/reporting, along with adhoc queries from GUI tools.  For best results we’ve implemented the following in most of them: 1.  Throughout ETL loads, I work…

Thanks to everyone that tuned in for Redgate’s All things Oracle Webinar I did on Database 12c today.  I know we went way over on time and appreciate everyone staying on for the extra time as we went through and demo’d how many ways we can create, copy and clone DB12c pluggable databases. As promised, here’s the demo playbook and the links to the Virtualbox image with the DB12c installation files on it.  You will need to do the following to set everything up: 1.  Set the host name in the /etc/hosts file, (in case you want to rename your…

I will be presenting another webinar with my good friends at Redgate this Wednesday, July 17th on the new Database 12c feature, Pluggable Databases.  This session will be one hour, but will include a live demo on the pluggable database feature. Seats are limited and I know in just one week, over 500 have already registered, so if interested, register here! See you on Wednesday and thanks!

So for those of you that aren’t going to be “deep diving” soon, there will be two interfaces for creating a pluggable database-  a GUI or through a CLI and for many, the former is going to be the choice as we ascend into DB12c land. Many are still asking why we even want to go the pluggable database route, “What’s all the fuss?”  The concept is easy for any MSSQL DBA to comprehend-  they’ve had a lot of the feature set in place for quite some time as we detached and attached SQL Server databases since version 7. So what…

As we all know, it’s always the little things that come back to bite us when we are working with our own VM setups.  I’m using the newest Oracle Virtualbox 4.2.16 and have been quite happy with my new Linux6 installation.  I configured my listener and was ready to work with EM Express, but when logging in, received the error that I needed Adobe Flash Player to proceed. Strange thing was, I was quite aware of this and had already updated it.  Just for the fun of it, I tried again, and was told that it was already installed…which means…

How many performance specialists have experienced projects where reporting was horrid in the beginning, maybe didn’t even complete?  The focus of the project may have sat with data loads or due to the data architect’s design specialty, etc., the reporting aspect was just the last thing on everyone’s mind until it was too late. I come into this conversation with companies all the time and it is a difficult one, as there are so many database myths. “Can’t you just do something to make the database go faster?  I don’t know, isn’t there a parameter that can be updated, maybe…

Exachk does a number of health checks.  One of them is to verify the connectivity, settings and such of the ethernet cables in the Exadata environment.  If one is found amiss, the following will be returned in the Exachk summary report: FAIL OS Check One or more Ethernet network cables are not connected. Node_Name To validate the Exachk findings, you are asked to run the following as root on the specific node that is reporting the issue: for cable in `ls /sys/class/net | grep ^eth`; do  printf “$cable: “; cat /sys/class/net/$cable/carrier; done This command, if run on one of the…

There have been some great blog posts from folks on the RMOUG Training Days 2013 Conference, (I’ll add some links to my favorites I’ve come across at the end of this post!)  Due to this, I thought I would leave mine in my drafts folder and focus for now on the Conference from my viewpoint as the Conference Director.  John Juenette was gracious enough to send me a beginning blog post he’d started last year and I need to review it and add my own data for future “victims”, but until then, here were my experiences during this year’s run…

As I spend more and more time optimizing Exadata environments, I seem to be answering the same questions repeatedly when it comes to database design, parameter settings, etc. Here’s a few high level notes to always remember- Always have baselines from previous environments.  Don’t go into performance expectations blind.  Have AWR and ASH data from the previous environment and mine AWR data for anything when others start “guessing”. Look at the big picture-  those that focus on one thing, often find that it’s a combination of issues that brew the perfect storm. What are your top 10 goals by going…

While at conferences, I attend a lot of dinners/social events outside of the day time festivities and although the topics on the table are often technical, sometimes they veer off to those of each person’s interest.  Discussions with me often fall into one of my areas of interest, which happens to be history, (American, European or Russian…)  Many who know me realize that if I hadn’t ended up in the technical world, I might have become a history teacher.  The common question during these conversations is “Who is your favorite American president?”  When I answer “Andrew Johnson”, I always get…

I’m always taken aback how much conferences cost, even if they are way cheaper options than many formal classes.  Education costs money, we all know that, but considering how little it costs to attend RMOUG Training Days, I always tell people, this is one of the best training opportunities anyone can take advantage of. I need to remind folks of some of the highlights of this great conference that I am very proud to be the Training Days director of.  This year you have new speakers like Oracle Open World’s Technologist of the Year, Arup Nanda along with so many…

If you know Exadata and you want to present with the best of the best on the subject in one of the more exclusive and fun conferences around, come join me at the Enkitec E4 2013 conference in Irving, Tx this August 5th and 6th! This is your chance to share your Exadata knowledge with attendees who goal is to learn new Exadata skills.  Last years conference was incredibly successful and had an A+ list of presenters and attendees. To find out more and to keep up to date with the latest news on the event, check out Enkitec’s E4…