*Previously on the Microsoft Tech Community Data Architecture Blog There are considerable focus areas to infrastructure that the IaaS DBA needs to be aware of, so Part I of this blog can be found here. Now that we’ve covered storage and VM series in Part I of this blog post on Infrastructure, we can go onto the detail areas for performance. Let’s start on performance gains with host caching. Cache it Out Right Host caching, by default, for premium SSD is turned off. This is a feature only available on certain VM series, (look for an ‘S’ in the D, E…
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*Previously on the Microsoft Tech Community Data Architecture blog Those responsible for data will tell you that no matter what they do, at the end of the day, they’re value is only seen when the customer can get to the data they want. As much as we want to say this has to do with the data architecture, the design, the platforming and the code, it also has to incorporate the backup, retention and recovery of said data, too. Oracle on Azure is a less known option for our beloved cloud and for our customers, we spend considerable time on…
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*Previously on the Microsoft Data Architecture Blog in the Tech Community An an Oracle SME at Microsoft, it’s always important to find new ways to make the few of us that specialize in Oracle scalable. One of those is to find ways to provide documentation, blog posts and tools available to others so they can do some of the work we’re commonly brought into. Infra vs. the RDBMS It’s a standard practice in a lift and shift to simply take the existing server and move it to the cloud. This is rarely the best approach with an Oracle database, but…
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*Updated 03/10/2022 This is a consistent question I receive often and although RAC isn’t supported in any third-party cloud by Oracle, it’s an important topic as more workloads lift and shift to Azure and there is absolutely a reason to have or not to have Real Applications Clusters, (RAC) as part of them. The only current option for RAC on Azure available is: Flashgrid using Azure VM Images in IaaS The goal of this post is to push past the idea that a lift and shift should always be a 1:1 move. It’s important when moving to the cloud to use…
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There are only a few Oracle on Azure SMEs out there. OK, let’s be honest, the majority of the brain power is living in one floating home in Portland, Oregon and that’s not a good thing in many ways. It’s always difficult to specialize in a non-native solution at any company, but Microsoft is such an awesome place to be employed and our work is so critical to the overall success to Azure migrations that I’m very happy to do what I do. To help scale, I blog whenever I can on the questions that I most commonly end up…
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First things first- The following opinions expressed in this post are my own and in no way connected to my employer. I’m getting slaughtered with questions about the multiple news stories and releases on the announcement for the Oracle Database Service for Azure, which is a rebrand and updated OCI Interconnect with an Azure Portal overlay in OCI. It allows the customer to deploy and monitor an Oracle Autonomous database or ExaCC and then have the application tier in Azure. This is touted as a multi-cloud solution, and I’m going to write this post and point people to it with…
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When migrating an Oracle database to another platform, there are the common indicators and discussion topics around PL/SQL conversions, data types, application rewrites, etc., as being roadblocks to refactoring, but being successful also has to do with the SIZE of the workload coming from Oracle. I find this is often dismissed, even though this is one of the quickest ways to identify if an ENTIRE Oracle database, (not even by schema or a subset of the Oracle database) can run on a Platform as a Service, (PaaS) solution. The following post involves limits for each Azure PaaS solution and how…
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I just finished an interview with a friend for a blog post where he was surprised how differently I was viewed in the Oracle community, (a multi-platform DBA who wasn’t very loyal to Oracle like she should be) vs. the Microsoft community, (that odd Oracle girl.) The truth is, I’ve always enjoyed database technology and few know that my first database (MSSQL 6.5) as well as my first book was in Microsoft SQL Server (Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices). I’m not platform centric at all, work mostly in Oracle, SQL Server/Azure SQL and MySQL, but I’m just CUSTOMER centric. Azure…
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I had an interesting opportunity with a complex Oracle environment that exemplified the challenges of technical debt and dependency on database platforms. There are those that believe a database should only be used to hold data and should be completely platform interchangeable. As DBAs, we know this results in very little usage of relational database features and platform strengths and rarely, if ever can scale. I fully support using the strength of RDBMS platform features, but what happens when we embrace what a feature does and attempt to build it better at the database layer than the RDBMS vendor? …
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Three years ago today, I walked into Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA and started my journey with onboarding. After a flurry of directions, presentations and shock at the diverse individuals in the process with me, I returned home and started as the lucky person taking over Patrick LeBlanc’s previous position in a specialized group in the EDU. I always hate starting a new job and this was no different. I had no idea what I was doing, was drinking from the fire hose, (which at Microsoft is always the case with how much is constantly evolving in the technology) and…
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I’ll be speaking along with a slew of fantastic other presenters on mental health and wellness as part of the Women in Tech Data Platform on May 7th, 2021. This is a day we all come together to recognize the importance of self-care in our lives, but especially during this unprecedented time of the pandemic. I’ll be presenting a session titled, “Turning ADHD into “Awesome Dynamic Highly Dependable” It’s a long time coming, as I’m so often asked how I make ADHD look so easy. As most folks know, I don’t consider ADHD a disorder, but a unique wiring of…
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Disclaimer: I’m not a big fan of benchmark data. I find it doesn’t provide us as much value in the real world as we’d like to think it does. As Cary Milsap says, “You can’t hardware your way out of a software problem” and I find that many folks think that if they just get the fastest hardware, their software problems will go away and this just isn’t true. Sooner or later, it’s going to catch up with you- and it rarely tells you what your real database workload needs to run most efficiently or what might be running in…
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I’m about simplifying anything for customers as we bring over complex environments into Azure and Oracle databases running on Exadata is a big part of these challenges. Decoupling the database from the engineered features is a crucial part of my work and with Oracle 19c, having customers running on the terminal release isn’t the only reason to upgrade if the database is on an earlier release. As I’ve discussed in other posts, blogs and articles, I have numerous ways to address latency when losing cell node offloading, hybrid columnar compression (HCC), thin cloning with sparse clone, flash cache, flash logging,…
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With my upcoming session on “Migrating Oracle Workloads to Azure IaaS” this week at PASS Virtual Summit 2020, I wanted to take some time to dig deeper onto the performance side. The last thing you want to have happen is to migrate your database to the cloud and have it just screech to a halt. The truth is, its often a combination of database and infrastructure issues that are the cause. Although many of you may want me to dig into database performance data, I’m actually going to first focus on infrastructure, as it’s the area that most aren’t privy…
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It’s not uncommon for different recommended practices to arise in technical sizing and optimization practices. For many, it’s a compromise between most optimal data and ease of access vs. impact on production environments, which is no different from what we face when sizing Oracle on Azure. As we know it’s important to lift and shift the workload vs. moving the hardware, we must have as simple way to perform this task. The question comes up repeatedly as to our preferred method of working with a one-week Automatic Workload Repository, (AWR) report to do so. This post will be focused on…
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I barely have enough time to breathe let along blog these days, but lucky for me, I am taking some downtime today, so I can come out here and write! Anyway, since I’m so busy, I volunteered to help judge the Azure SQL Championship that you can be part of! This is a great opportunity to level up your skills from onprem to be more cloud-centric and you’re not too late! The competition is from Oct. 12th-30th and there will be new contest challenge each week and daily quizzes that offer you the chance to win badges and prizes, including…
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There’s so much I need to get written down these days, but there’s only so many hours in a day and days in a week and I’ve totally failed in this area. Well, I have a little time right now, so going to try to get something down. It only took me four times to get this published! 🙂 I’m often asked how I migrate an Oracle database to Azure and although each database is unique, there are some things that are pretty consistent that need to be identified and some that should be resolved before migrating to the cloud.…
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In two hours I am honored to be the guest of the CSME Women’s Book Club event at Microsoft to discuss my book, “Crushing the IT Gender Bias.” In celebration of this, I want to discuss the importance of Women in Technology, (WIT) initiatives and the mistake many groups continue to make these days consolidating them into Diversity and Inclusion, (D&I) groups. A few years ago, when Women in Technology, (WIT) initiatives were the newest, coolest thing for business to be a part of, I was awarded an annual WIT award from the state’s tech organization. I was quite humbled…