February Top 10 As the name implies, it's the Top 10 for this past month. Probably the biggest reason I am doing this is the EBS Install series has become a runaway success. I've never had something become so popular so quickly...which of course tells me I'm no good and John Piwowar is the best ever. :)

John deserves quite a bit of recognition so the more I can provide, the better.

Title	Pageviews	Unique Pageviews
EBS Install Guide - Part I	541	394
Learn Oracle Business Intelligency (OBIEE)	444	337
EBS Install Guide - Part 2	347	262
DBMS_CRYPTO: Example	339	295
APEX: Install 3.2.1 on 11gR2	263	225
EBS Install Guide - Part 3	253	202
OBIEE Posts	243	215
OBIEE: How to Migrate Your rpd	234	183
BULK COLLECT and FORALL	187	166

Labels: random

  ¶ 3/08/2010 01:35:00 PM   2 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume#16 EBS Challenge
John Piwowar wrote the first part of the EBS Installation Guide back in December, since then, it's become a runaway success. I hadn't realized how so until recently when I was looking at Google Analytics and it came it at number 19, for all time. Now it's up to 13 and with the addition of it to the front page, it should only go up faster.



I've never had a post that was this popular so I thought it fitting that John should get the recognition that he deserves. If you decide to take part and then write it up, let me know and I'll link you up to The EBS Challengepage. I think there are 4 people that have completed it so far. I'll even give you space here if you don't have your own blog.

Travel
Got the best color car ever this week.



OBI EE
For some reason my original, Learning Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE) post, has been near the top of the charts for multiple search phrases.So I did what any sane person would do, I updated it with some new information. Not really sure if it's new, but it's got more. If people are finding it, I might as well update it as often as possible.

Labels: ebs, jpiwowar, obiee, random

  ¶ 2/28/2010 10:06:00 PM   0 Comments Links to this post

  PARALLEL Rant? Let's say you have DEGREE set at the table and index level.

I ask you if this is appropriate, instead offering up using whatever tool accessing the data to provide the PARALLEL hint.

The DOP is set pretty low, given our current system.

But it's still set and can't be easily turned off.

I'm all for PARALLEL, but it's been beaten into my head that it should be used, specifically for batch operations. In other words, transforming or loading data.

With the DOP set at the table or index level, it is not (necessarily, see resource limits below) controllable. If you have 1 or 2 users issuing SELECT statements against the table, it's not a big deal. Let's say the DOP is set to 8. 8 processes are spun off for each user. That's 16 processes now running that SELECT statement. Now let's say you have 1000 users. You probably won't make it to 8000 processes...your machine will probably keel over and die...or worse, just sit there forever.

But we have to set DOP at the table/index level...our users don't know how to write SQL.

Fair enough...teach them how to write it.

That takes too much time.

How do you ever expect them to learn? It might be a good short term solution, but is it really a good long term solution? Teaching your users how to write better SQL would be in everyone's best interest.

1. Initially, you'll be swamped with "How do I?" type questions.
2. Then the questions will only trickle in.
3. You'll have much more savy business users who can now probably articulate their needs much better which will lead to
   1. Better design documents
   2. Better requirements
4. You can finally begin to push off more of this "reporting" type functionality out to the business (where it should be in my opinion).

OK, that might be a bit of a fantasy.

What about setting up resource profiles for the users?

I've never used them, but I was reading up on them tonight for this post.

What can you control with this feature?

• Limiting the User Session Level
• Limiting Database Call Levels
• Limiting CPU Time
• Limiting Logical Reads
• Limiting Other Resources
  • You can limit the number of concurrent sessions for each user
  • You can limit the idle time for a session.
  • You can limit the elapsed connect time for each session.
  • You can limit the amount of private System Global Area (SGA) space (used for private SQL areas) for a session

What's the point of all this? I'm not too sure. It's a rant I guess. I just got done reading Dom Brooks recent post and reminded me of this conversation...which I have all too often.

Labels: design, development, parallel, random

  ¶ 2/14/2010 10:12:00 PM   8 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #13 A brief respite for me...I get to work remotely this week.

Admittedly I have gotten into the habit, finally, of traveling, so it's a little strange to be home (never thought I would say that). There is no shortage of respect from me for those who travel all the time. It's a hard life.

OBIEE Performance
Our Usage Tracking reports are a tad slow and I've been looking into the logs trying to decipher them. Unlike the database which has a multitude of resources, OBIEE has hardly any. Christian did point me to this Mark Rittman article, which is good, but not great (not because the author is lacking...there just isn't that much to go on). rnm1978 suggested MOS, but I don't have access right now...besides, it seems to be having problems again anyway.

While I'm on the subject of performance and rnm1978, I should link up to this article which highlights 3 recent posts by Cary Millsap. All 3 are excellent reads and require your immediate attention.

Kate
The reason I am home this week is so that I can go to a Doctor's visit with Kate. We finally found a place where they might be able to help diagnose her. Most of her doctors have been more concerned with keeping her alive (healthy) and haven't worried too much about her developmental delays (still not talking...but she can sign "daddy"). Anyway, the place is called The Tridas Center and we're excited/nervous. Excited about finding her better help and nervous about the possibilities (more specifically, what a diagnosis would mean).

Labels: kate, obiee, random

  ¶ 2/08/2010 03:49:00 PM   8 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #12 Driving
The last 2 weeks I have been driving back and forth to Greenville, SC. Round trip at 1200 miles. I leave Sunday at noon and return on Thursday night at 10. Yesterday I couldn't keep my eyes open, despite 2 5 hour energy drinks and a bottle of Mountain Dew. Had to pull over for a nap.

Consulting
I have to say being a consultant is fun for a number of reasons.
1. I get to meet a lot of different people.
2. I get to experience different IT shops and how they work.
3. I don't necessarily have to prove myself every single time.
4. I get to eat out more often

It's also bad for a number of reasons.
1. Time away from family.
2. I get to eat out more often
3. I get to eat out more often

I definitely need to find a routine. Next week should allow me to begin that search as I will be the only one (from my company) there...temptation(s) (read: eating out) is reduced by 100%.

The hotel I originally stayed at had a stationary bike. The second one did not. I'm trying to get back into the first, but they're booked. My charm wasn't enough to convince them to open up a room...but they did say I could use their gym.

Work
I'm currently working with OBIEE metadata (rpd) and reporting (presentation services). Soon to be extending that to OBIA, the pre-built DW/BI solutions for EBS, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards.

It's difficult for me to stay out of the database though. I constantly want to push as much as I can into it.

The good thing is that I am getting serious exposure to the complete lifecycle of data. OLTP --> ETL --> DW --> Reporting

(Completely) Random
I continue to be amazed at the amount of help available out there...you just need to find it. My old friend Tom was helping me out earlier this week. Kellyn has offered to help me out with something else. Christian has promised to send me his NexusOne (ok, I have to send it to him after I receive it...maybe)

I love the 'tubes.

Labels: random

  ¶ 1/15/2010 09:33:00 AM   5 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #11 Work: Consulting
I just returned home from my first week consulting. I went to the northern part of Alabama and didn't have much of a connection (phone or data) most of the time.

From my perspective it was a rousing success. Now I just need to wait and see if the client approved of my work.

I chose to drive as it was semi-last minute (last Thursday I found out) and I haven't had a good road trip in years. I promise it wasn't a fear of flying.

On the way I picked up the guy I would be working with at the Atlanta airport. We had only (briefly) communicated through email and one "get up to speed" phone call. I think it's safe to say that we got along pretty well. After a couple of hours with the client the following day, they asked how long we had been working together and were absolutely shocked to learn that we had just met.

As to the work, I got to rekindle some of my OBIEE administration skills, specifically the rpd (or metadata). It was fun to get back into it as I had been prepping for this the past couple of weeks. By day 2 I was in a zone (adding physical tables, replacing logical table data sources, etc).

My colleague's expertise was in Answers, so I got to see some pretty cool stuff. I'm trying to talk him into blogging and offered him a guest slot to see if he likes it.

The clients were great and easy to work with...overall an A+.

Google Latitude
As I have a new blackberry (couldn't afford the droid yet), I managed to download my Google Contacts, GMail and most importantly, Google Maps...which ties in with Google Latitude.

I could see myself driving up I-75 and even better, I could expose my location to my wife and parents (I am an only child...the center of their universe :). I even tried to use it to find my phone which I had misplaced this afternoon (it had fallen under my seat) to no avail. Basically, I believe it uses the cell towers to approximate your location, the closest I saw it was within 800 meters.

Amusingly, as we're driving to Atlanta this afternoon and my father calls...WTF? he says. "I'm taking my colleague to the airport"

"Are you going back?"

"No, I'm headed home"

I had neglected to tell him that I would be there through Thursday...he of course thought the worse.

I have 2 pretty cool guest posts on the way. Mr. Meyers has one and Mr. Piwowar finally got to Part 3 of his EBS install guide. :) I'll post those next week so they don't get lost in the weekend down time.

Labels: obiee, random, work

  ¶ 12/18/2009 01:12:00 AM   5 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #10 First up, the plague has visited our household. All 4 of us have it to some degree or another. The funny/cool part though, Kate seems the least affected. With her breathing issues in the past, we've either shipped her off to the grandparents or shipped ourselves off to the grandparents...if it's me, I'm usually just shipped downstairs. She's a tough little one and likes to kick hardship/illness/death in the balls whenever she can.

On the job front, nothing remarkable to speak of. Mr. Cunningham...while not getting/giving me a job, at least posted some helpful resources. Rumor also has it that he's weighing in at a svelte 219. I tried to compete with him for awhile, but as is my habit, went the other way again.

I currently have feeds from Indeed, Twitter, and Dice in Google Reader. I love it when the job search companies provide RSS capabilities.

I definitely like being at home. I like being around my family more. I know I have to pay the bills, but if I can swing it, I'm shooting for something closer. Forty minutes each way isn't terribly bad, but it's an hour and a half I could be doing something with my family.

I have revived a couple of personal projects though, 1 is the basic testing tool that will generate PL/SQL stubs. I'm not completely convinced of it, but it's a fun exercise. 2, fine-grained dependencies. OK, I can look in %_DEPENDENCIES and see that there is a dependency on TABLE_A, but what kind? Is it read-only (SELECT) or is it doing something (UPDATE/INSERT/DELETE). 3, I just came up with this the other day for some reason. I was told that a certain website had 10,000 pages. WTF? I'd like to build a little app that will find all the links within that website...if only to confirm that ridiculously high number.

Labels: random

  ¶ 10/26/2009 12:52:00 AM   4 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #9 Who's worked with a female developer?

How to Scare-off Female Candidates (from Josh Perry)
At a company I once worked at, several of the developers would cycle into work each day. It was an exercise/eco-friendly thing, I guess. One of the more hard-core cyclists would often wear a full-body Lycra cycling suit for his ride... and would usually not bother changing out of it. He'd just hang out all day, wearing his spandex suit, and writing his code. Being a heavily male-dominated office (like most in the IT world), he could get away with this.

When it came to hiring a new developer, we found that rarest of gems: a qualified female candidate. Being female, she was pretty much guaranteed a job offer as soon as she sent in her résumé, but they brought her in for an interview just in case.

While she was in the interview, one of the interviewers casually joked, "so, how do you feel about working with men wearing full-body spandex suits?"

An uncomfortable silence ensued. They offered her the job. She declined.
The Daily WTF

Friends and I joke about this all the time. Working in IT, we tend to notice women, especially those in our profession, a lot more. Why? Because we're dorks/geeks/nerds?

I wish there were more women in our field. My team is currently made up of 4 women and 2 men. How cool is that? I even once worked with Doctor Colonel Irina Spalko...or was it Colonel Doctor? Eh...who cares?

OpenWorld
Just a little over 2 weeks away...I hope you're ready. With the announcement of Exadata 2 and 11gR2 in the past month; SQL Developer today...what will they unveil at OpenWorld? It has to be big right?

There are still ways to get a free pass if you are so inclined. A week ago, the Oracle OpenWorld blog announced that they were accepting Video entries:

We're starting a video challenge on the blog today where every entry will receive the same registration discount that was open during the Early Bird registration period.

Just make a 30-second video describing why you want to go to Oracle OpenWorld 2009.Use any camera you have close at hand—Webcam, cell phone, handheld. Give us your best, most creative, most innovative pitch, and post your video as a response to ours above on the Oracle Web Video YouTube channel before September 30.

OK, maybe it's not completely free...but it's better than paying full price.

SQL Developer: 2.1 Early Adopter 1
A new, early adopter release has been...umm...released.

Labels: random

  ¶ 9/24/2009 08:00:00 PM   4 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #8 Things I've Learned Recently

ALTER SESSION SET SMTP_OUT_SERVER = 'mailserver';

Our discussion centered around our (in)ability to send out large inline HTML emails externally (reports). SMTP_OUT_SERVER was set, but there was code setting the mail server (UTL_SMTP) which was just a tad confusing. I tried, and failed, 3 times to change the mail server only to, finally, realize that it was set at the database level.

Looking at the Reference manual for 10.2, I couldn't find mention of that parameter being modifiable either by ALTER SESSION or ALTER SYSTEM. Then one of my more DBA oriented colleagues looked into V$PARAMETER and found that it was modifiable at both SYSTEM and SESSION levels.

Ran the test and it worked. Nice.

IMPDP and REMAP_TABLESPACE
I asked for and received a database export (object only) from production so that I could test my upcoming migration script to make sure I had everything in order. The intent was to install it on my local sandbox and run it until I got it right (yeah for FLASHBACK DATABASE!).

Using imp initially, it failed. Here was my first opportunity to use Data Pump.

Ran the basic commands:

c:\temp>impdp cjustice/testing@testing dumpfile=prod.dmp full=y

I received back about 65,000 errors. Scanning through the output, I realized that I didn't have the same tablespaces as production.

I wonder if there is a way to remap the tablespace to USERS?

Documentation to the rescue. Utilities --> Data Pump Import --> REMAP_TABLESPACE

So I tried that, and it failed again.

Connected to: Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP and Data Mining options
ORA-39001: invalid argument value
ORA-39046: Metadata remap REMAP_TABLESPACE has already been specified.

So then I tried with commas separating the tablespaces, that didn't work. Then spaces. Nope. Finally, I turned to the oracle-l mailing list. I've been participating there for the last couple of months. Much of it is more DBA centric, but I do get to participate on occasion. There are very smart and capable people on there...plus a willingness to help.

So as not to embarass myself, I tried to ask the question in an intelligent way.

Within seconds of sending it, I began to get responses. Then a phone call. Then an IM.

As to my problem, I had reversed the order of the tablespaces. All I needed to do was switch them and I was off. Got everything loaded only to realize I didn't have all the necessary objects to compile.

Closer To Home
I talk about Kate a lot here and once in awhile Little Chet. He doesn't get nearly the ink that Kate does though.

On Wednesday Kris had a parent-teacher conference and he received glowing reviews from his teacher.



If you are interested, you can read the whole thing here.

Have a great weekend.

Labels: LC, random

  ¶ 9/18/2009 06:50:00 AM   4 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #7 Another Death of the RDBMS Article
I found another "Death of the RDBMS" article this week. This one is called, The End of a DBMS Era (Might be Upon Us), by Michael Stonebraker.

Moreover, the code line from all of the major vendors is quite elderly, in all cases dating from the 1980s. Hence, the major vendors sell software that is a quarter century old, and has been extended and morphed to meet today’s needs. In my opinion, these legacy systems are at the end of their useful life. They deserve to be sent to the "home for tired software."

I'm not quite sure why old code is necessarily bad. From the comments:

And of all the valid criticisms of a model or a technology, "elderly" and "tired" are worse than useless. Do we believe that technology builds on prior discoveries, or that new technology throws older discoveries away? By such a standard, we would stop teaching Boolean logic, Turing machines, and all the other things that predate us.

Also in the comments you learn that Mr. Stonebraker is the CTO of Vertica. Makes perfect sense...I guess. Would have been nice to see that up top though.

An Idea?
Since everyone's all abuzz about 11gR2, I think it's a good time to bring this up. Back in June, I was having problems debugging an INSERT statement. I kept getting, not enough values.

I came up with this:

INSERT INTO my_table
  ( id => seq.nexval,
    create_date => SYSDATE,
    update_date => SYSDATE,
    col1 => 'A',
    col2 => 'SOMETHING',
    col3 => 'SOMETHING',
    col4 => 'SOMETHING',
    col5 => 'SOMETHING',
    col6 => 'SOMETHING',
    col7 => 'SOMETHING',
    col8 => 'SOMETHING',
    col9 => 'SOMETHING',
    col10 => 'SOMETHING',
    col11 => 'SOMETHING',
    col12 => 'SOMETHING',
    col13 => 'SOMETHING',
    col14 => 'SOMETHING' );

Vote for it here on Oracle Mix. Maybe someone will take notice and implement it in 13h.

Oracle OpenWorld
Just one month from today the conference begins. Sadly, I won't be able to attend this year, but I doubt getting information, on a near real-time basis, will be difficult.

A reminder, I've been tagging anything and everything related to OpenWorld via Google Reader, you can see the public page here. A direct link to the feed can be found here.

Alex Gorbachev announced the details of the Oracle Blogger meetup. More details at the Oracle Community page. Rumor has it that Stanley, the ACE Director will be there.

Labels: random

  ¶ 9/10/2009 10:15:00 PM   4 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume #6 News
Of course the big news of the week is the latest release of the Oracle database, 11gR2. Everyone and their mother wrote about it, including yours truly. Seemed like a fun game to get a post out as quickly as possible.

Eddie Awad has compiled a pretty nice list of links to the "What's New" documentation section for the past 6 releases.

Sun + Oracle is faster

Oracle and Sun together are hard to match. Just ask IBM. Its fastest server now runs an impressive 6 million TPC-C transactions, but on October 14 at Oracle OpenWorld, we'll reveal the benchmark numbers that prove that even IBM DB2 running on IBM's fastest hardware can't match the speed and performance of Oracle Database on Sun systems. Check back on October 14 as we demonstrate Oracle's commitment to Sun hardware and Sun SPARC.

EU Investigates Oracle Bid for Sun
Two weeks ago the Department of Justice approved the Oracle/Sun deal. Now the EU has set a January 10, 2010 deadline for it's response delaying the acquisition further. I know both Oracle and Sun are international/global companies, but they are based in the US. How exactly does the EU have authority? A monopoly you say? Bollocks I say. There are plenty of choices out there. Oh well.

Coding
What is the deal with mixed-case PL/SQL? I have a pretty strong aversion towards it. PL/SQL is not Java, Ruby, .NET or any other programming language. Pick a case, any case, just don't mix them.

DBMS_PROFILER
Back in July I had a nice conversation with Cary Millsap over email. I had asked him to explain the difference between logging, debugging and instrumentation. He suggested checking out DBMS_PROFILER. I've been able to try it out recently (details/examples coming soon) and it's pretty freaking cool...and scary. I got to see the (many) steps that are taken while performing a specific task.

OpenWorld
Last week I announced I wasn't going, recanted and then this week recanted the recant. Fun huh?

Labels: 2009, dbms_profiler, oow, random

  ¶ 9/04/2009 12:03:00 AM   0 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume 5 Oracle OpenWorld
Earlier this week I threw in the towel in my attempt to go to OpenWorld. I applied for and received the Oracle blogger pass, but nothing else had fallen into place (flight, hotel, expenses).

Then Justin stepped in. Then Jake. Then Billy.

I've been absolutely overwhelmed at the support:



I can't really say it enough, but thank you.

oraclenerd T-Shirts in the Wild



Get yours today. I've even heard you can order your own colors!

Data Modeling
I began following @datachick recently. She is the first person, I've seen, who tweets almost exclusively about the art of data modeling. I keep trying to get her to do a guest post, but I've been unsuccessful.

In the years that I've been reading blogs, I can't say I've found someone who writes consistently on the importance of design, specifically, data modeling. It's definitely an under appreciated skill.

Oracle In The News
Deadline for Early Bird registration ends today, so go get your Oracle OpenWorld pass now.

Larry Ellison is now making only $1 a year! I can't say I've ever had a problem with him making gobs of money, I like the gesture though. He's allowed me and many others to make a pretty good living and I'm certainly thankful for that.

Department of Justice greenlights the Oracle/Sun deal. Not real sure why they are involved, I suppose it has something to do with anti-trust.

Labels: 2009, oow, random

  ¶ 8/28/2009 01:00:00 AM   0 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things: Volume 4 It's been a dry week in the writing arena for me.

Not feeling the love from outside...a couple of promised guest posters are MIA. :)

No worries though, I can always find something to talk about.

Oracle OpenWorld (OOW)
I started tagging all OOW related posts and tweets using Google Reader. Cool thing I like about it is that I can share that information. If you want to see all that I see in relation to the event, check it out here.

As to my attendance...no one has come forward to pay for any of the following:
1. Plane Ticket
2. Hotel Room
3. One week's pay

Number 4 would be getting time off of work, which I'll asking for tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

11gR2
Oracle has done an incredible job keeping this release quiet. I read...a lot...and I've hardly seen a thing about it over the past 6 months. I fully expected it to be announced at OOW, but I've heard as early as September 1. According to this latest article, that is highly unlikely.

Baseball Data Model(ing)
One person. One person has signed up. I'm a little shocked. Either my "following" is mostly based outside of the US or I no one likes baseball anymore. WTF? Regardless of whether you know baseball, the exercise of building out a fairly complex data model should be fun? Shouldn't it?

Oracle won't (hasn't) offered up any licenses, but @hillbilytoad has. He's offered at least one. I might be able to talk him into more. @DataChick expressed mild interest. Of all the people I follow on twitter, she, by far, talks about modeling more than anyone else...something I've rarely seen.

Is modeling a lost art? (via Dom Brooks). I'm shocked at how little I see out there...perhaps I'm just not looking in the right places? If you know of good sites, please let me know.

Other News
The Department of Justice (I wish I had had the foresight to buy that domain) approved Oracle's acquisition of Sun today.

Miladin Modrakovic [ oraclue ] has an interesting piece on tracking DDL changes in 11g. Miladin was initially the "inspiration" behind PMDV. OK, maybe not inspiration...he told me to find some way to do it. Now he seems to have a much better way. Oh well. Good exercise none-the-less.

Labels: random

  ¶ 8/20/2009 08:32:00 PM   6 Comments Links to this post

  Random Things An old buddy of mine sent me this picture today. I have no credits unfortunately.

Tim Tebow, University of Florida quarterback, does the Heisman pose with a baby. WIN!

From oraclenerd

What else?

I promised Mr. Kuramoto ORACLENERD stickers quite some time ago...he sent me a few AppsLab stickers. Anyone else want one? Leave a comment if you do.

I can't promise it will be soon, but the more people that leave a comment the more pressure I'll be under to come through. That's a good thing.

Anyway, who in their right mind wouldn't want a sticker proclaiming their love of Oracle?

What else?

Need to work on my test harness, but it's kind of petered out.

What about some sort of database security/auditing/reporting tool that sits on top of the built in auditing? Preventing DDL operations in certain accounts...limiting logons to a certain time frame...capture changes for deployments. We're trying to cook something like that up right now. If only I could get my DBA to configure ApEx correctly.

What else?

That's all I can think of now. Brain hurts from too much debugging and unraveling of complex (read: unintuitive) cross database applications (OLTP --> OLAP).

Oh wait, if you haven't started reading the FAIL Blog, do so immediately. Hilarious. I'm seeing the WIN/FAIL thing everywhere now.

OK, now that's it.

Labels: random

  ¶ 2/05/2009 10:55:00 PM   6 Comments Links to this post