Archive for August, 2007

Password Device Fun

Friday, August 31st, 2007

Each Oracle database (or ASM instance) can have a password file associated with it to allow users to connect as a privileged user (SYSDBA) through the listener. Even when connecting from the same host running the instance, you will not be able to make a SYSDBA connection through the listener, if a password file [...]

Great Art != Great Databases

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

A great piece of art has many characteristics, including uniqueness. Great works created of ceramic tiles have many different shapes and colors with pieces fitting together perfectly, as per required by the design. Some tiles may be cut into odd shapes while others are positioned on an angle or placed inside other sections. [...]

Back on the Train

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

When you consider land travel there are two basic paradigms: rail travel vs. automotive travel. One can be used to describe a solid database provisioning methodology while the other is suited to long relaxing (and unique) trips.
Rails
A train sitting at the first station on a line has exactly one possible direction - towards the [...]

Time to Automate

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

At this point we’re all on the same page that automation is essential for properly managing the database layer.  Many factors play into this, including the number of steps involved with performing the activities at hand, the number of inputs involved, and the difficulty of verifying that any particular activity is [...]

PRKO-2016 Errors in CRS Clusters

Friday, August 10th, 2007

Oracle CRS clusters contain OCR elements for each entity in the cluster including databases, database instances and listeners. By default, the first listener on each node is called “LISTENER_<hostname>” but the user has the opportunity to change this name during provisioning of the listener. Any value except for that default value results [...]

Signal to Noise

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

Picture an endless stream of numbers and letters spewing into logfiles constantly. You’re not going to get anything out of those logs and when something blows up, that’s when you’ll notice there’s something wrong.
When you’re writing a tool, send extraneous results to a trace file rather then the screen or to the primary log [...]

How Big is Your Monitor?

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

Can you see two windows at the same time? Four? Sometimes it matters - especially when you are working with clusters it can be quite difficult to follow a process that spans multiple servers in real-time. Looking back over a set of alert logs makes it possible to tell the story of what [...]

Adapt or Delay

Monday, August 6th, 2007

Every technology project to be undertaken should be viewed in the context of existing functionality. For instance, if the goal is to create an enterprise-wide definition of a “Gold Build” for Oracle 10.2.0.3, you would obviously be wise to change the 5% that needs to be changed from the 10.2.0.1 “Gold Build”. Indeed [...]

How Your Job Changes with GridApp Clarity

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

Your job, no matter how you interact with the database, changes with GridApp Clarity. You can absorb Clarity with whatever rapidity makes sense in your organization, and since there is such a breadth of functionality, it makes sense to use it to solve current problems now while thinking future to what issues can be [...]

Constant Progress, No Quagmires

Thursday, August 2nd, 2007

I am frequently involved with customers who are struggling incredibly hard with a project they are trying to complete. Once part of the project stalls, there are two options - try harder to move forward or try to find a way around the obstacle. Customers push their vendors to fix the issue at [...]