Bloggin Nolan-Davies

Adding a new node to an Oracle Cluster using a clone

2011-11-16T10:46:00.001Z

Oracle Build Using Pre-deployed Software

These are the steps to build out an additional node, in this case node 2, using software that has already been deployed on to an HP-UX host using a software depot.

Grid Infrastructure

ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3

Oracle Software Owner = grid

Oracle Document =http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/rac112/e16794/clonecluster.htm

grid@node2: /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3/clone/bin$

perlclone.pl ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3ORACLE_HOME_NAME=Ora11g_gridinfrahome1 ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle -O'"CLUSTER_NODES={node1,node2}"' -O '"LOCAL_NODE=node2"'CRS=TRUE SHOW_ROOTSH_CONFIRMATION=false INVENTORY_LOCATION=/u01/app/oraInventory

grid@node2: /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3/dbs$ scpnode1:/u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3/dbs/orapw* .

root@node2: /u01/app/oraInventory/orainstRoot.sh

cleardown /tmp on ALL nodes

grid@node1: /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3/oui/bin$./addNode.sh -silent -noCopy ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3"CLUSTER_NEW_NODES={node2}""CLUSTER_NEW_VIRTUAL_HOSTNAMES={node2-vip}""CLUSTER_NEW_VIPS={node2-vip}" CRS_ADDNODE=trueCRS_DHCP_ENABLED=false

grid@node2: /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3/crs/install$scp node1:$PWD/crsconfig_addparams .

grid@node2: /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3/crs/install$scp node1:$PWD/crsconfig_params .

grid@node2: /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3$ scp -rnode1:$PWD/gpnp .

If youfollowed the Oracle Documentation and not copied the root.sh into the softwaredeployed, then you will see that root.sh is all but empty?

In thiscase you will need to copy the root.sh from node 1

grid@node2: /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3$ scpnode1:$PWD/root.sh .

root@node2: cd /u01/app/grid/11.2.0.3

root@node2: ./root.sh

EM11g Agent

ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/agent11g

Oracle Software Owner = oracle

Oracle Document =http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11857_01/install.111/e16847/clone_agent_on_ccluster.htm

oracle@node2: cd/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/agent11g/oui/bin

oracle@node2: ./runInstaller –clone –forceCloneORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/agent11g ORACLE_HOME_NAME=agent11g OMS_HOST=omshost.local.internalOMS_PORT=4889 –noconfig –silent

root@node2: cd/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/agent11g

root@node2: ./root.sh

oracle@node2: $ORACLE_HOME/bin/agentca –f –c“node1,node2”

oracle@node2: $ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl secureagent

Oracle11gR2 Database

ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1

Oracle Software Owner = oracle

oracle@node2: cd /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/oui/bin

oracle@node2: ./runInstaller –silent -attachHomeORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraDb11gR2_home1

When I tried to update the cluster information, I received errors when it tried to update the other node.
So I update the node list on both hosts seperatley.

oracle@node1: .runInstaller - silent -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME==/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 "CLUSTER_NODES={node1,node2}"
oracle@node2: .runInstaller - silent -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME==/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 "CLUSTER_NODES={node1,node2}"

Oracle11gR1 Database

ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/db_1

Oracle Software Owner = oracle

oracle@node2: cd/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/db_1/oui/bin

oracle@node2: ./runInstaller –silent -attachHomeORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/db_1ORACLE_HOME_NAME=OraDb11gR1_home1

oracle@node1: .runInstaller - silent -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME==/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/db_1 "CLUSTER_NODES={node1,node2}"
oracle@node2: .runInstaller - silent -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME==/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1.0/db_1 "CLUSTER_NODES={node1,node2}"

If you are putting Oracle11gR1 database on 11gR2 Grid Infrastructure then don't forget to pin the nodes.

I've gone Mac

2011-07-22T16:39:00.001+01:00

Our home PC packed up recently and so I decided to finally take the plunge and make the move to Mac OS.

Partly prompted by all the hoo-ha around the new Lion OS I'm sure.

As I was aware of all of the new support for gestures in Lion I decided to swap the Magic Mouse for a Magic Trackpad and that I believe was a good idea.

My daughter complained that she needed Microsoft Word to do her homework, so I decided to go for the Microsoft Office for Mac which gave me Mac versions of Word, Excell and Powerpoint.

I was able to buy MS Office 11 for Mac and have it downloaded immediately, excellent service and the product has a Mac feel rather than the Office on a PC.

I was also told by the sales chap at the Apple Store where I bought the mac that Memory was an easy user upgrade which didn't require the box to be totally opened.
So I bought memory online for considerably less than the upgrade cost on a new Mac and I hope to install that this weekend.

Also using Oracle VirtualBox I have a virtual Windows7 host which I can package up and use when I need to run software that isn't available on the Mac. For example I have used it to deploy Oracle11g Express Edition which is currently in Beta.

Logical Standby on RAC - move the apply process

2011-05-26T12:16:00.001+01:00

Our Logical Standby Database has been RAC'd, thanks to the excellent "Convert to Cluster Database" wizard in Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control.

However the Log Apply processes are very heavy and the CPU on the host that the apply services were running on were maxing out the host.

Ideally I would have liked to have run the appliers on both nodes, but checking the documentation I found that they could only run on 1 instance :-(

The only thing I could do is move the applier to the other host in order that I could use the host that was overloaded for another job.

RAC Setup
node 1 = Primary Instance 1 --> node 2 Standby Instance 1
node 3 = Primary Instance 2 --> node 4 Standby Instance 2 (initial Apply Instance)

node1:/home/oracle>
node1:/home/oracle>dgmgrl
DGMGRL for HPUX: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production

Copyright (c) 2000, 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Welcome to DGMGRL, type "help" for information.
DGMGRL> show database "LOGINST"
not logged on
DGMGRL> connect /
Connected.
DGMGRL> show database "LOGINST"

Database - LOGINST

Role: LOGICAL STANDBY
Intended State: APPLY-ON
Transport Lag: (unknown)
Apply Lag: 22 hours 17 minutes 46 seconds
Instance(s):
LOGINST1
LOGINST2 (apply instance)

Database Status:
SUCCESS

DGMGRL> edit database "LOGINST" set state='APPLY-ON' with apply instance = "LOGINST1";
Succeeded.
DGMGRL> show database "LOGINST"

Database - LOGINST

Role: LOGICAL STANDBY
Intended State: APPLY-ON
Transport Lag: (unknown)
Apply Lag: 22 hours 18 minutes 49 seconds
Instance(s):
LOGINST1 (apply instance)
LOGINST2

Database Status:
SUCCESS

DGMGRL> show database "LOGINST"

Database - LOGINST

Role: LOGICAL STANDBY
Intended State: APPLY-ON
Transport Lag: (unknown)
Apply Lag: 22 hours 21 minutes 17 seconds
Instance(s):
LOGINST1 (apply instance)
LOGINST2

Database Status:
SUCCESS

DGMGRL>

It reduced the load on node 2, but of course this all went straight on to node 4...

Oracle Diag 100% Full

2011-03-28T12:02:00.001+01:00

For Oracle11g I have created a separate file system for the diag so that it doesn't affect any of the Oracle Homes.

This works well, but once several databases are added this space can get used up fast.

The example below has been anonymised and so only shows 1 database, but there are in fact several databases using this diag area.

This is HP-UX 11.31 so bdf is used instead of the usual df -k found on other flavours of unix.

What I do to clear out the diag is to reduce the number of days held in the diag directory for each database from the defaults .

Default Short Policy is 720 hours or 1 month

Default Long Policy is 8760 hours or 1 year

as these are development databases I'm going to reduce that.

The example shows a single instance 11.2.0.1 database on HP-UX 11.31

hphost2:/home/oracle# bdf

Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on

/dev/vgsoftware/lv_oracle

2097152 647286 1359309 32% /u01/app/oracle

/dev/vgsoftware/lv_product

47185920 30273789 15855164 66% /u01/app/oracle/product

/dev/vgsoftware/lv_grid

10485760 4327928 5773154 43% /u01/app/oracle/grid

/dev/vgsoftware/lv_diag

4194304 4187694 6610 100% /u01/app/oracle/diag

hphost2:/home/oracle# cd /u01/app/oracle/diag

hphost2:/u01/app/oracle/diag# ll

total 2

drwxrwxr-x 2 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 6 16:14 asm

drwxrwxr-x 3 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 7 11:37 clients

drwxrwxr-x 2 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 6 16:14 crs

drwxrwxr-x 3 oracle oinstall 96 Mar 28 10:47 diagtool

drwxr-xr-x 2 oracle oinstall 96 Sep 29 2010 lost+found

drwxrwxr-x 2 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 6 16:14 lsnrctl

drwxrwxr-x 2 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 6 16:14 netcman

drwxrwxr-x 2 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 6 16:14 ofm

drwxrwxr-x 7 oracle oinstall 1024 Jan 28 17:48 rdbms

drwxrwxr-x 3 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 7 11:19 tnslsnr

hphost2:/u01/app/oracle/diag# cd rdbms

hphost2:/u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms# ll

total 0

drwxr----- 3 oracle oinstall 96 Oct 12 14:28 projdb

hphost2:/u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms# bdf .

Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on

/dev/vgsoftware/lv_diag

4194304 4188032 6272 100% /u01/app/oracle/diag

hphost2:/u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms# adrci

ADRCI: Release 11.1.0.7.0 - Production on Mon Mar 28 11:16:21 2011

ADR base = "/u01/app/oracle"

adrci> show homes

ADR Homes:

diag/rdbms/projdb/PROJDB

diag/tnslsnr/hphost2/listener

adrci> set home diag/rdbms/projdb/PROJDB

adrci> show control

ADR Home = /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/projdb/PROJDB:

*************************************************************************

ADRID SHORTP_POLICY LONGP_POLICY LAST_MOD_TIME LAST_AUTOPRG_TIME LAST_MANUPRG_TIME ADRDIR_VERSION ADRSCHM_VERSION ADRSCHMV_SUMMARY ADRALERT_VERSION CREATE_TIME

-------------------- -------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- ----------------------------------------

111386505 720 8760 2010-12-29 11:19:18.261908 +00:00 2011-03-24 00:16:02.417448 +00:00 1 2 65 1 2010-12-29 11:19:18.261908 +00:00

1 rows fetched

adrci> set control (SHORTP_POLICY=360);

- reduce the short policy to 15 days

adrci> set control (LONGP_POLICY=720);

- reduce the long policy to 30 days

adrci> show control

ADR Home = /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/projdb/PROJDB:

*************************************************************************

ADRID SHORTP_POLICY LONGP_POLICY LAST_MOD_TIME LAST_AUTOPRG_TIME LAST_MANUPRG_TIME ADRDIR_VERSION ADRSCHM_VERSION ADRSCHMV_SUMMARY ADRALERT_VERSION CREATE_TIME

2442024323 360 720 2010-10-12 14:28:12.196497 +01:00 2011-03-21 00:05:10.634068 +00:00 1 2 65 1 2010-10-12 14:28:12.196497 +01:00

1 rows fetched

adrci> purge

- run a purge of the diag for this database using the new settings

adrci> exit

hphost2:/u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms# bdf .

Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on

/dev/vgsoftware/lv_diag

4194304 3787253 407051 90% /u01/app/oracle/diag

After the purge was run for this 1 database 10% of space was freed up.

Going Android

2011-03-18T20:55:00.001Z

I've replaced my damaged iPhone 3GS with a Google Nexus S from Samsung.

I wasn't expecting this to be an easy transition, in fact I was expecting to find that I would be missing a lot of apps and functions that I use everyday.

But I've found that I am very impressed with the speed and the apps that are available on the Android phone.

As a heavy Google Apps user I was also impressed at how fast it was to set up and get going... Minutes in fact!

No having to wait until I got to a computer so that I could activate on iTunes, and simple steps setting up calendar, email and around 60 services that I use on Google.

But I am going to reinstall everything again as I originally used my old Gmail account and now I want to set everything up again using my Google Apps account.

So here's a list of the apps that I put on in the last 24 hours so I can put them back on after the rebuild...

Skype
Twitter
TuneIn Radio
Sky News
FourSquare
Pulse
ES File Explorer
Facebook
BT Fon
GPS Status
My Tracks
Amazon Kindle
BBC iPlayer

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Newlands Ave,Esher,United Kingdom

Archiver Stuck - don't delete the archivelogs if using RMAN

2011-02-16T17:21:00.002Z

If you get the Archiver Stuck message it basically means that you've run out of space in the Recovery File Destination, not necessarily the actual file space.

You have the option of either increasing the allowed recovery area space or changing it to a location with loads more space.

This will get your database back on track and you can then investigate why you ran out of space.

In an RMAN managed environment this could point towards a failed backup or it may just be that the database is a lot busy than the norm and you'll need to take this volume into account.

People are still deleting archivelog files or moving them to somewhere else, but if you have more space then just redirect the archiver to write there temporarily.

Here's a quick note that I wrote for our support chap today...

logon to the database and check recovery locations

$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL> show parameter recovery
NAME TYPE VALUE
db_recovery_file_dest string /u03/oradata
db_recovery_file_dest_size big integer 20G
recovery_parallelism integer 0

Check if there is enough space in /u03/oradata (there's loads as this is the one that we grew by 350GB)

then

SQL> alter system set db_recovery_file_dest_size=40G;

basically double the size of the recovery area (Archivelog Destination)

Then you can run a backup to clear down the archivelogs

$ rman

RMAN> connect target /

RMAN> connect catalog rman/RMAN1@rman

RMAN> backup database;

"a successful database backup will mark the archivelogs redundant and so can be cleared down"

RMAN> backup archivelog all delete all input;

"this will delete the archivelogs once they are backed up"

If you get an error saying that archivelogs are missing, which will compromise recovery....

then you need to change the archivelog backup slightly.

RMAN> backup archivelog all skip inaccessible delete all input;

RMAN> exit

You could then return the recovery area size back to it's original or just leave it large so it doesn't bother you again for a while.

How to Tail the Oracle Alert Log with ADRCI

2011-01-31T17:16:00.000Z

One of the tools in the DBA's toolbox has always been to monitor the Oracle Alert Log to see what's happening.

Every release of Oracle has put more and more information in the Alert Log so it's always useful to be familiar with what's going on in there.

In Oracle11g the whole thing was revamped and instead of checking the default location of $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/log for an alert_SID.log we had to go to $ORACLE_BASE/diag/rdbms/dbname/sid/trace/alert_SID.log

I knew that diag was being used for trace files in xml format but as the log file I wanted to read was always in the trace directory I just had to remember to look there when dealing with Oracle11g Databases.

Then while reading one of Martin Bach's blogs I spotted his use of adrci and decided to find out more.

After reading the manual I discovered that instead of having to navigate to the trace directory to then tail the alert log all I had to do was set my environment to the correct one and then a simple command would kick of the log tailing operation.

adrci>

ADR base = "/u01/app/oracle"
adrci>

adrci> show homes
diag/rdbms/db1/DB1
diag/tnslsnr/host1/listener

adrci> set homes diag/rdbms/db1/DB1

adrci> show alert -tail -f

.... and then the log file is displayed from the XML version, but without the xml tags of course.

You can get the same thing by running the Unix tail command on the alert log that is in the trace directory.

The advantage of using adrci is that it works on Windows as well as Unix, so I can now tail the alert log for an Oracle Database that's installed on Windows as easily as I could on Unix.

Always nice to find another useful tool in Oracle, funny how I missed this one for so long!!

Building an Oracle Database for OEM Grid Control 11.1

2011-01-26T14:49:00.001Z

When you create an Oracle Database for OEM Grid Control 11.1 don't be like me and keep forgetting to set the correct parameters beforehand.

Save some time with these tips...

Install the partitioning option - it strongly recommends this in a pop up that won't go away!
Don't install DB Control - otherwise you have to run emca to remove it again during GC install.
set session_cached_cursors = 200
set log_buffer = 10485760
set processes = 500
UNDO tablespace should be least 200MB
Deselect the English(United Kingdom) Language, or this warning can be ignored later. (not an issue on Windows?)

Actually installing DB Console isn't an option in Typical install...
to remove it afterwards...

emca -deconfig dbcontrol db -repos drop
(you will then be prompted for the following)

Database SID:
Listener port number:
Password for SYS user:
Password for SYSDBA user:
Password for SYSMAN user:

If you do, like me, forget to set these don't worry as you will be prompted throughout the installation process.

Cryptographic Errors in Alert Log

2011-01-13T11:14:00.000Z

I was constantly getting cryptographic errors in my oracle database alert log!

NI cryptographic checksum mismatch error: 12599.

TNS-12599: TNS:cryptographic checksum mismatch

A quick browse of My Oracle Support revealed the problem being that my Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control (EM 11.1) when using an 11.2 Oracle Database as it's repository is apparently using a 10.2 thin client to connect to the database and that this uses an AES256 encryption algorithm.

The 11.2 repository database does not support AES encryption from JDBC and so we get the harmless, but totally annoying message in the targte databases alert log.

The workaround is to modify the targets sqlnet.ora file and put in the entry

SQLNET.ENCRYPTION_TYPES_SERVER=(3DES168)

Simply adding this line and I am assuming changing the encryption algorithm being used has stopped these errors appearing.

More details in the Oracle Support Note 1150874.1

Oracle Grid Infrastructure install on HP-UX

2010-12-22T12:23:00.000Z

Just built an Oracle11g R2 Grid Infrastructure cluster on a couple of HP-UX nodes, so here are my notes.

As the docs recommend using an separate user to own the Grid Infrastructure I've gone along with that and created the grid user. Also created

So the file structure looks like this

ORACLE_BASE = /u01/app/oracle
GRID_HOME = /u01/app/grid

Oracle Inventory = /u01/app/oraInventory
(this had to be owned as grid user as installer crashed out with OUI-10182 after pressing finish on the installer when this directory was owned by oracle)

The Grid Infrastructure installer also runs checks using the bash shell, so this had to be installed on the HP-UX hosts. Then it was decided to make this the default shell for grid and oracle users.

The raw disks in HP-UX need to have permissions set on them for use by ASM. Ownership was set to grid:asmadmin and the permissions set to 660.

Logical Standby

2010-11-24T18:16:00.001Z

So here's the rub.

Logical standby databases need to have the Database Guard set to 'None' if you want to use them as fully functioning reporting databases.

If we just wanted a read only database then leaving the default on the Logical Standby of 'All' will not allow updates, changes, etc on your logical standby.

Changing it to standby will also not allow this, you must set it to 'None'

SQL> select guard_status from v$database;

GUARD_STATUS

--------------------

ALL

SQL> alter database guard none;

Database altered.

SQL> select guard_status from v$database;

GUARD_STATUS

--------------------

NONE

So if you want to create specific users, tables, indexes, partitions, anything on the logical standby you'd be told that you can't.

I've also noticed that the SGA required on the standby seems to be more than that on my primary? I'm sure that could be because both of mine are so small (500M).??

Another problem is that if you turn off the database guard you get an error in Grid Control

ORA-16793: logical standby database guard is off

I created the logical standby through the Grid Control so it began monitoring it as soon as it was created.

After performing a data guard reset through grid control the database guard was set back to ALL

So I have to try and change this configuration through the dataguard broker tomorrow....

Managing Logical Standby

2010-10-25T16:02:00.001+01:00

I've got 2 DataGuard standby databases.

The Physical Standby database is there for DR situations.

However the Logical Standby will be used as a Reporting Database.

On my website I've uploaded the Logical Standby xml for SQL Developer, this is version 1 and I hope to enhance this as my knowledge on Logical standby increases.

To be honest I have managed to avoid and recommend not using Logical Standby for years, but it's in the solution that I have inherited on my current site and until I can prove to them the benefits of Oracle GoldenGate this will be the method of replication that I will be getting to work.

Using Google Chrome with the Chromesplits extension to monitor DataGuard

I've been studying the manual as there's an immediate gotcha with Logical Standby, if you leave it as default your not allowed to make any changes to the database unless you are SYSDBA.

Managing Logical Standby Manual

10.2 Controlling User Access to Tables in a Logical Standby Database

The SQL ALTER DATABASE GUARD statement controls user access to tables in a logical standby database. The database guard is set to ALL by default on a logical standby database.
The ALTER DATABASE GUARD statement allows the following keywords:

ALL
Specify ALL to prevent all users, other than SYS, from making changes to any data in the logical standby database.
STANDBY
Specify STANDBY to prevent all users, other than SYS, from making DML and DDL changes to any table or sequence being maintained through SQL Apply.
NONE
Specify NONE if you want typical security for all data in the database.

My ideal Job

2010-10-19T14:50:00.000+01:00

Just in case there is an employer out there looking I thought I'd post what I'm ideally looking for in a job. (in no particular order).

Location: Kingston-upon-Thames, Surbiton or Esher (cycling distance from home)

Office: Modern, bright and spacious. With lockers for Motorcycling/Cycling kit and showers.

Desk: Large desk by a window with Herman Miller chair and lots of storage space.

Equipment: Powerful laptop with docking station and 2 large monitors.

Job: Deploying Oracle Infrastructures in the Cloud.
Capacity on demand model using Grid Control to provision.
Application Express Development.

Colleagues: A bunch of happy techie guru's.

Benefits: attend Oracle OpenWorld every year in San Francisco and Oracle User Group
at least one week of technical training per year.
healthy pension & private healthcare for my family.
bonus - performance related pay.

And until that dream job comes along I guess I'll stick to freelance work

My Dev & Test empire

2010-10-13T11:21:00.001+01:00

Well apologies but this blog went horribly wrong...

I'd typed up a nice little blog about increasing the number of Oracle Database and Middleware implementations that I've just done on my iPhone.

Then a phone call came through, I took the call, but when I returned to my blog updated screen on the iPhone it had lost everything!!

I had been hoping that it was just a display problem so hit the publish button anyway, but the blog was posted blank.

So it looks as if I wont be using that App again to post to this blog :-)

Top Ten Oracle Infrastructure Tips

2010-09-18T07:28:00.001+01:00

I find myself with sometime and the tools to knock out a quick blog while my son is playing soccer with his friends.

This is something that I have Bren thinking about this week as I have been looking after a very confusing Oracle infrastructure whilst the person that created it has been away.

So that makes the number 1 Oracle Infrastructure tip very important.

1. Documentation
High Level & Low Level Designs are very important for all infrastructures and having these for your Oracle Environment are essential.
On this point I must remember myself to bring those documents up to date for the test & dev environment that I have been working on recently.
But in addition to this it's useful to have a wiki & change/issues logs.
You may be the only DBA today, but what if you win the lottery tonight? Will you stay for a handover period or just jump in your Learjet and head for the Caribbean!

2. Grid Control
Oracle have delivered all the tools you need to look after the Oracle Infrastructure.
So why are some people so reluctant to learn and use this tool?
I guess I'm a visual person as I've always found it quicker to understand diagrams and charts rather than pouring over figures.
So I've found monitoring using the graphical dashboards gives me all the information I need in one quick glance.
The wizards used for managing the databases have also made tasks such as creating a DataGuard standby or loading a text file incredibly quickly and easily.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control has evolved over the years and the latest version incorporates the Fusion Middleware as well and is even deployed on Oracle WebLogic.

2. Archivelog
3. DataGuard
4. OID
5. Auditing
6. ASM
7. RMAN
8. Grid Infrastructure
9. RAC
10.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Hampton Ct Way,Esher,United Kingdom

New Challenge

2010-07-26T16:57:00.000+01:00

Just started a new contract which requires me to build Oracle11gR2 Databases and an Oracle Identity Management infrastructure.

Sounds familiar, except this time instead of being on Red Hat Linux it's on HP-UX.

My colleague, who is the HP Superdome Specialist on site, tells me that Oracle RAC on HP-UX will work alongside the ServiceGuard architecture for clustering, so it seems as if I have a lot to learn on this role :-)

Once I understand how this HP/Oracle clustering works I will update this blog, if for any reason just so I can do it again.

Appreciating Grid Control

2010-07-06T20:39:00.001+01:00

I'm currently reviewing the use of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10g at my current client.

Whilst I thought I would just be recommending an upgrade to OEM11g or even just to OEM10g release 5 (still on release 3 here) I'm actually finding that using the currently available features are worth the effort of using now.

I've used User Defined Metrics, monitoring templates and oem reports before. But when your at a client site that has remained oblivious to these tools then you really find them transforming the way they could work.

An upgrade to OEM10g Release 5 will give them an even better experience and I've yet to try out OEM11g even though I was waiting so impatiently when I was looking after my 11gR2 Grid Infrastructure.

Hopefully I will present my OEM review tomorrow and they will take my views onboard.

I'm also pushing hard for 11g Databases and Apex 4 to be introduced here :-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

24 hours with my iPad

2010-05-28T21:56:00.000+01:00

this has been an interesting time learning all about my iPad which arrived early yesterday.

First thing I've seen is that my iPhone apps work with an option to double the screen.

I've managed to find a couple of apps that support iPad directly rather than iPhone versions.

But I expect that given the scale of sales it won't be long before iPad becomes bigger than iPhone.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Adding 3rd node to Oracle11gR2 "Grid Plug & Play"

2010-02-12T09:46:00.001Z

adding node 3 to an existing 11.2.0.1.0 Oracle Grid Cluster

ON NODE 1 - This took minutes to run
=========
$ ./addNode.sh -silent CLUSTER_NEW_NODES={tdc2ora003} CLUSTER_NEW_PRIVATE_NODE_NAMES={tdc2ora003-priv} CLUSTER_NEW_VIRTUAL_HOSTNAMES={tdc2ora003-vip}
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB. Actual 1983 MB Passed
Oracle Universal Installer, Version 11.2.0.1.0 Production
Copyright (C) 1999, 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Performing tests to see whether nodes tdc2ora002,tdc2ora003 are available
............................................................... 100% Done.

.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Node Addition Summary
Global Settings
Source: /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid
New Nodes
Space Requirements
New Nodes
tdc2ora003
/app/grid: Required 3.79GB : Available 8.98GB
Installed Products
Product Names
Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11.2.0.1.0
Sun JDK 1.5.0.17.0
Installer SDK Component 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle One-Off Patch Installer 11.2.0.0.2
Oracle Universal Installer 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Configuration Manager Deconfiguration 10.3.1.0.0
Enterprise Manager Common Core Files 10.2.0.4.2
Oracle DBCA Deconfiguration 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle RAC Deconfiguration 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Quality of Service Management (Server) 11.2.0.1.0
Installation Plugin Files 11.2.0.1.0
Universal Storage Manager Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Text Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Automatic Storage Management Assistant 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Database 11g Multimedia Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Multimedia Java Advanced Imaging 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Globalization Support 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Multimedia Locator RDBMS Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Core Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Bali Share 1.1.18.0.0
Oracle Database Deconfiguration 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Quality of Service Management (Client) 11.2.0.1.0
Expat libraries 2.0.1.0.1
Oracle Containers for Java 11.2.0.1.0
Perl Modules 5.10.0.0.1
Secure Socket Layer 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle JDBC/OCI Instant Client 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Multimedia Client Option 11.2.0.1.0
LDAP Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Character Set Migration Utility 11.2.0.1.0
Perl Interpreter 5.10.0.0.1
PL/SQL Embedded Gateway 11.2.0.1.0
OLAP SQL Scripts 11.2.0.1.0
Database SQL Scripts 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Extended Windowing Toolkit 3.4.47.0.0
SSL Required Support Files for InstantClient 11.2.0.1.0
SQL*Plus Files for Instant Client 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Net Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Database User Interface 2.2.13.0.0
RDBMS Required Support Files for Instant Client 11.2.0.1.0
Enterprise Manager Minimal Integration 11.2.0.1.0
XML Parser for Java 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Security Developer Tools 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Wallet Manager 11.2.0.1.0
Enterprise Manager plugin Common Files 11.2.0.1.0
Platform Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle JFC Extended Windowing Toolkit 4.2.36.0.0
RDBMS Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Ice Browser 5.2.3.6.0
Oracle Help For Java 4.2.9.0.0
Enterprise Manager Common Files 10.2.0.4.2
Deinstallation Tool 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Java Client 11.2.0.1.0
Cluster Verification Utility Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Notification Service (eONS) 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle LDAP administration 11.2.0.1.0
Cluster Verification Utility Common Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Clusterware RDBMS Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Locale Builder 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Globalization Support 11.2.0.1.0
Buildtools Common Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle RAC Required Support Files-HAS 11.2.0.1.0
SQL*Plus Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
XDK Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Agent Required Support Files 10.2.0.4.2
Parser Generator Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Precompiler Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Installation Common Files 11.2.0.1.0
Required Support Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle JDBC/THIN Interfaces 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Multimedia Locator 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Multimedia 11.2.0.1.0
HAS Common Files 11.2.0.1.0
Assistant Common Files 11.2.0.1.0
PL/SQL 11.2.0.1.0
HAS Files for DB 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Recovery Manager 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Database Utilities 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Notification Service 11.2.0.0.0
SQL*Plus 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Netca Client 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Net 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle JVM 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Internet Directory Client 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Net Listener 11.2.0.1.0
Cluster Ready Services Files 11.2.0.1.0
Oracle Database 11g 11.2.0.1.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Instantiating scripts for add node (Thursday, 11 February 2010 17:41:50 o'clock GMT)
. 1% Done.
Instantiation of add node scripts complete

Copying to remote nodes (Thursday, 11 February 2010 17:41:53 o'clock GMT)
............................................................................................... 96% Done.
Home copied to new nodes

Saving inventory on nodes (Thursday, 11 February 2010 17:43:23 o'clock GMT)
. 100% Done.
Save inventory complete
WARNING:
The following configuration scripts need to be executed as the "root" user in each cluster node.
/app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid/root.sh #On nodes tdc2ora003
To execute the configuration scripts:
1. Open a terminal window
2. Log in as "root"
3. Run the scripts in each cluster node

The Cluster Node Addition of /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid was successful.
Please check '/tmp/silentInstall.log' for more details.
$

ON THE NEW NODE run the root.sh - This took 10 minutes to run.

[root@tdc2ora003 grid]# ./root.sh
Running Oracle 11g root.sh script...

The following environment variables are set as:
ORACLE_OWNER= grid
ORACLE_HOME= /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid

Enter the full pathname of the local bin directory: [/usr/local/bin]:
The file "dbhome" already exists in /usr/local/bin. Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:
The file "oraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin. Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:
The file "coraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin. Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:

Creating /etc/oratab file...
Entries will be added to the /etc/oratab file as needed by
Database Configuration Assistant when a database is created
Finished running generic part of root.sh script.
Now product-specific root actions will be performed.
2010-02-11 17:47:28: Parsing the host name
2010-02-11 17:47:28: Checking for super user privileges
2010-02-11 17:47:28: User has super user privileges
Using configuration parameter file: /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid/crs/install/crsconfig_params
Creating trace directory
LOCAL ADD MODE
Creating OCR keys for user 'root', privgrp 'root'..
Operation successful.
Adding daemon to inittab
CRS-4123: Oracle High Availability Services has been started.
ohasd is starting
CRS-4402: The CSS daemon was started in exclusive mode but found an active CSS daemon on node tdc2ora001, number 1, and is terminating
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
An active cluster was found during exclusive startup, restarting to join the cluster
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.mdnsd' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.mdnsd' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.gipcd' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.gipcd' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.gpnpd' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.gpnpd' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.cssd' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.diskmon' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.diskmon' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.cssd' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.ctssd' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.ctssd' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.drivers.acfs' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.drivers.acfs' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.asm' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.asm' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.crsd' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.crsd' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.evmd' on 'tdc2ora003'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.evmd' on 'tdc2ora003' succeeded
clscfg: EXISTING configuration version 5 detected.
clscfg: version 5 is 11g Release 2.
Successfully accumulated necessary OCR keys.
Creating OCR keys for user 'root', privgrp 'root'..
Operation successful.

tdc2ora003 2010/02/11 17:51:29 /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid/cdata/tdc2ora003/backup_20100211_175129.olr
Preparing packages for installation...
cvuqdisk-1.0.7-1
Configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster ... succeeded
Updating inventory properties for clusterware
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB. Actual 1983 MB Passed
The inventory pointer is located at /etc/oraInst.loc
The inventory is located at /app/oraInventory
'UpdateNodeList' was successful.

Oracle Grid Infrastructure failing on 2nd node

2010-02-10T19:01:00.001Z

[root@tdc2ora002 ~]# /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid/root.sh
Running Oracle 11g root.sh script...

The following environment variables are set as:
ORACLE_OWNER= grid
ORACLE_HOME= /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid

Enter the full pathname of the local bin directory: [/usr/local/bin]:
The file "dbhome" already exists in /usr/local/bin. Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:
The file "oraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin. Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:
The file "coraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin. Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:

Creating /etc/oratab file...
Entries will be added to the /etc/oratab file as needed by
Database Configuration Assistant when a database is created
Finished running generic part of root.sh script.
Now product-specific root actions will be performed.
2010-02-10 18:58:00: Parsing the host name
2010-02-10 18:58:00: Checking for super user privileges
2010-02-10 18:58:00: User has super user privileges
Using configuration parameter file: /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid/crs/install/crsconfig_params
Creating trace directory
LOCAL ADD MODE
Creating OCR keys for user 'root', privgrp 'root'..
Operation successful.
Adding daemon to inittab
CRS-4123: Oracle High Availability Services has been started.
ohasd is starting
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.gipcd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.mdnsd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.gipcd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.mdnsd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.gpnpd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.gpnpd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.cssd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.diskmon' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.diskmon' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.cssd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2672: Attempting to start 'ora.ctssd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2676: Start of 'ora.ctssd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded

DiskGroup OCR_VOTING creation failed with the following message:
ORA-15018: diskgroup cannot be created
ORA-15072: command requires at least 2 regular failure groups, discovered only 0

Configuration of ASM failed, see logs for details
Did not succssfully configure and start ASM
CRS-2500: Cannot stop resource 'ora.crsd' as it is not running
CRS-4000: Command Stop failed, or completed with errors.
Command return code of 1 (256) from command: /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid/bin/crsctl stop resource ora.crsd -init
Stop of resource "ora.crsd -init" failed
Failed to stop CRSD
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.asm' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.asm' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.ctssd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.ctssd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.cssdmonitor' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.cssd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.cssd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.gpnpd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.gpnpd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.gipcd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.gipcd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.mdnsd' on 'tdc2ora002'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.mdnsd' on 'tdc2ora002' succeeded
Initial cluster configuration failed. See /app/grid/product/11.2.0/grid/cfgtoollogs/crsconfig/rootcrs_tdc2ora002.log for details
[root@tdc2ora002 ~]# oracleasm listdisks
OCR_VOTING1
OCR_VOTING2
OCR_VOTING3
[root@tdc2ora002 ~]#

I then let the install finish (with errors).

So Node1 has a succesful grid install (CRS & +ASM1 running ok)

So I fire up asmca on node1 and see if I can see a new ASM Diskgroup which I created on node2 (and scanned for on node1).

Oracle11g Grid Infrastructure

2010-02-09T23:46:00.000Z

Had some issues installing Oracle11gR2 Grid Infrastructure today.

I have 3 nodes, all Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4

Each one of these is an HP BL495 Blade Server.

My storage is EMC Symmetrix.

First issue was that the remote copy was doing nothing. Tracked this down to the fact that iptables was running on the remote nodes and was stopping the copy of files.

It was supposed to be off, but for some 'strange' reason was not!

Incidentaly the remote nodes pull the Grid Infrastructure Oracle Home - it's not pushed from node 1.

2nd issue was that the Oracle Installer would disappear half way through the root.sh running on the 1st node - this happened everytime until we used VNC to run the installer from the console rather than using an X window with Exceed.

Lastly, and unfortunatley still ongoing, the first node completes the root.sh - which installs the clusterware and asm.

But the remote nodes fail when they try to configure ASM.

We are using the default Multipath to map our storage and it doesn't seem to be configured to share ??

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Reclaiming lost ASM Disk

2010-01-08T11:36:00.003Z

I had a situation where I had dropped a DiskGroup in Oracle11g ASM including contents, but the disk had not released the device back to the OS so that I could reuse it.

I had dropped DATA1 which was /dev/sdb1 and DATA2 which was /dev/sdc1

But using oracleasm createdisk to resuse this disk was failing

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm createdisk DATA1 /dev/sdb1
Device "/dev/sdb1" is already labeled for ASM disk ""

Yet checking the disk using oracleasm querydisk confirmed that this disk was not in use.

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm querydisk /dev/sdb1
Device "/dev/sdb1" defines a device with no label

The solution I found was to clear the headers of the disk and then add it back into ASM.

So let's do it now for /dev/sdc1

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm listdisks
DATA1
DATA3
DATA4
DATA5
DATA6

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm createdisk DATA2 /dev/sdc1
Device "/dev/sdc1" is already labeled for ASM disk ""

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm querydisk /dev/sdc1
Device "/dev/sdc1" defines a device with no label

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc1 bs=1024 count=4
4+0 records in
4+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.008236 seconds, 497 kB/s

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm querydisk /dev/sdc1
Device "/dev/sdc1" is not marked as an ASM disk

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm createdisk DATA2 /dev/sdc1
Writing disk header: done
Instantiating disk: done

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]# oracleasm listdisks
DATA1
DATA2
DATA3
DATA4
DATA5
DATA6

[root@pdc2oas002 ~]#

Great, now I can use DATA1 and DATA2 again.

Reset Oracle ias_admin password

2009-07-21T14:55:00.001+01:00

If you do not know current ias_admin password or it has been forgotten then follow the process mentioned below.

1. Go to $ORACLE_HOME/bin.

2. Stop the EM control.

./emctl stop iasconsole

3. Go to $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/j2ee/config .
4. Take a backup of jazn-data.xml file.

5. Open jazn.dat.xml file in editor.

vi jazn-data.xml

6. Search for an entry like below.

ias_admin
{903}8QkQ/crno3lX0f3+67dj6WxW9KJMXaCu

7. Remove the entire line that contains the property from jazn-data.xml.
8. Now reset the password of ias_admin like below.

$ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl set password reset

9. Restart EM control as shown below.
$ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl start iasconsole

10. Restart your machine (Optional).

Sailing for Marie Curie

2008-02-18T08:31:00.001Z

Well I have sent off my deposit and been accepted on the Marie Curie Sailing Challenge on the 11th-14th July 2008.

Although I have raced offshore before, the last time was in the Fastnet Yacht race in 1999. So it's going to be a bit of a shock to find myself sitting on the side of a racing yacht again all day and night, apart from the frantic sail changes.

This time I am going to be sailing with family members David Coghlan and Gerard Nolan, for whom this will be their first experience of offshore yacht racing. So if it's horrible they will blame me.

I have a JustGiving fund raising page at http://www.justgiving.com/alannolandavies and hopefully some really generous people will donate lots of their money to the cause.

Goodbye Euro 2008

2007-11-22T14:38:00.000Z

Lucky Me!!

I was lucky enough last night to be in the stands at Wembley when England lost 3-2 to Croatia and failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 Tournament in Austria/Switzerland next year.

As none of the other Home Teams (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) managed to qualify for Euro 2008 I can only hope that they will create a UK 2008 so that we get to watch some football this summer.

DaylightMap

2007-11-16T08:37:00.000Z

DaylightMap

Wow I've always wanted one of those clocks/pictures on the wall which shows where the current daylight is on the planet.

Now I have one on my desktop thanks to Sterling Udell

Cloning an Oracle9i Database

2007-11-14T11:18:00.000Z

I have taken some screenshots of my progress as I cloned an Oracle9i Database (9.2.0.7) from one host to another.

The screenshots were placed in a Powerpoint presentation which I then uploaded to Google Docs and then published here http://docs.google.com/PresentationEditor?id=dfdhxn6d_139g669x9

follow the link above.

Pete Finnigan Oracle 11g Security presentation slides available

2007-11-13T08:31:00.001Z

I talked yesterday at the UKOUG DBMS SIG in Chesford Grange (Le Meridien Warwick) which is very close to Warwick. The conference was very good in my opinion with lots of interaction and good discussion. I also particularly liked Julian's

read more | digg story

Google Gadgets For Your Webpage

2007-11-09T10:26:00.000Z

Google Gadgets For Your Webpage

Wow this is fun, I have been adding Google Gadgets to my web pages as it makes them much more fun.

I need to look into how I develop my own gadgets.

this one is brilliant

Marie Curie Channel Yacht Race

2007-11-07T09:51:00.000Z

Cross channel sail to St Malo
Join us on July 11 - 14, 2008 for a four day adventure sailing across the Channel to the historic port of St Malo, via the Channel Islands.
a yacht at sea
Four yachts will cross the channel

With 12 adventurers per yacht, the event is open to novice sailors and to the more experienced.

Individuals, teams or groups of friends can apply to help raise much needed funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Highlights Include

* On board training on an Ocean going Farr 6
* Visit to the historic post of St Malo
* Chance to visit the Channel Islands
* Learn new skills to RYA standards

Package includes

* One free day of sail training
* All on board meals
* All nights accommodation on the yacht

The cost, including all on board meals, berths and training (as well as free training day prior to the event) is just £100 (with the entry condition that each participant raises a minimum of £1250 in sponsorship). Numbers are limited.

Gloworld Systems

2007-11-07T09:35:00.000Z

Gloworld Systems

had some time while waiting for an 833GB database to backup to revamp my website.

the 833GB backup to TSM took 4 hours 38 minutes and had to wait for a tape in the middle of it.

This was an Oracle9i database and we will be testing backup to encrypted and compressed TSM backups, before upgrading it to Oracle10g and doing some more testing there.

My First Oracle11g Database

2007-10-26T15:26:00.000+01:00

My first 11g database :-)

Oracle have released the Oracle11g Database on to Windows.

Interesting that the second platform available after Linux is for another box which fits the cheaper hardware profile.

The installer has changed colour, a much nicer blue than that old grey of the old universal installer.

Your_Database_Settings
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Production
PL/SQL Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Production
CORE 11.1.0.6.0 Production
TNS for 32-bit Windows: Version 11.1.0.6.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 11.1.0.6.0 - Production

5 rows selected

http://www.oracle.com/pls/db111/homepage

Chelsea Stadium Tour

2007-10-22T17:53:00.000+01:00

I highly recommend the Chelsea FC Stadium tour at Stamford Bridge.

Worth going just to see the difference in the Chelsea Teams dressing room with that which they give their opponents to change in.

I went along with my son for his friends birthday party and was very impressed. All of the children met the Chelsea Mascot, Stamford and received their own Chelsea Football from him.

Lost Apex Admin Password?

2007-10-17T14:05:00.000+01:00

The normal access to htmldb is via the URL http://host:7777/pls/htmldb

When you need to login to the service account you can go to http://host:7777/pls/htmldb/htmldb_admin
(Or alternatively set the workspace to INTERNAL instead of whatever workspace you normally use in http://host:7777/pls/htmldb )

Should you forget the password to the admin account you can follow the instructions in the Metalink Note Note:304815.1
last updated 7-Aug-2007

Below is the example for htmldb 2.0 version:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SQL> conn / as sysdba;
Connected.
SQL> alter user FLOWS_020000 identified by adm1nistrator;
User altered.
SQL> conn FLOWS_020000/adm1nistrator;
Connected.
SQL> begin
wwv_flow_api.set_security_group_id(p_security_group_id=>10);
wwv_flow_fnd_user_api.create_fnd_user(
p_user_name => 'admin2',
p_email_address => ‘ocm@gloworld.co.uk',
p_web_password => 'admin2') ;
end;
/
SQL> commit;
SQL> alter user FLOWS_020000 account lock;

Oracle Application Express

2007-10-15T09:08:00.000+01:00

Currently using Application Express 2.0 at my current client. So today I will be upgrading the Dev environment to use Apex 3.0

Oracle Whitepapers

2007-10-12T16:21:00.000+01:00

Oracle Whitepapers

Oracle have made all of their white papers available on one URL

Government licenses for computer professionals?

2007-10-11T16:04:00.000+01:00

Government licenses for computer professionals?

Don seems to have a bee in his bonnet about "dodgy" DBA's

This is where the Oracle Certified Masters exam could come into it's own.

But Oracle don't promote it as much as they do their ACE's on OTN.

It cost me a lot of money to gain the OCM as I had to attend compulsory advanced courses as well as the practicum itself.

Unfortunatley most clients think the OCM is just another grace of the much abused OCP and don't believe that it demonstrates an expert level of skill.

For most contract roles I still have to do technical interviews (frequently with people who have no knowledge themselves and are reading off a prepared Q&A sheet) and even worse written or gui based tests.

Web Browser Google Chat Client

2007-10-11T09:29:00.000+01:00

Here's a useful gadget.

http://www.google.com/talk/

This launches a google chat client in a browser, so no software install required.

And as it's new'ish it hasn't been blocked yet like Meebo.

Black Rat

2007-10-09T17:26:00.000+01:00

So this is where you can get the Black Rat bits from.

I bought some items on Ebay - for a lot more than this place charges.

RSS Feed

2007-10-09T12:55:00.000+01:00

As I go through another phase of actually using my blog, I needed to remind myself of the RSS feed URL for this blog.

http://nolan-davies.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I'm finding it veryuseful in MS Outlook 2007 as the blogs can be searched in the search folders, making it quick to spot a blog with certain key words.

Thanks,
Alan...

Gallery

2007-10-09T12:41:00.000+01:00

Photo's from our recent trip to Rome are now online

Gallery

:: Uranium One - Uranium mining and exploration ::

2007-10-08T14:59:00.000+01:00

:: Uranium One - Uranium mining and exploration ::

We have invested in this company, it did very well last month :-)

Oracle Certified Master Profile - Alan Nolan-Davies

2007-10-03T15:38:00.000+01:00

Oracle Certified Master Profile - Alan Nolan-Davies

Alan Nolan-Davies
Oracle Certified Master

20 Years Oracle Database Experience

RYA Yachtmaster as well :-)

BBC NEWS | Business | Northern Rock rebounds from low

2007-10-02T14:27:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | Business | Northern Rock rebounds from low

From £12.52 a share in February to £1.12 today

They can only go up? Our Investment Club is taking a gamble on it rising...

DBA-Village

2007-10-02T10:48:00.000+01:00

DBA-Village

Category	Backup Recovery
Published by	Alan Nolan-Davies
Date	Sep 27, 2001
Score

Useful when your Hot Standby is out of synch and the scheduled backup on Production has cleared out the archived log files.

RMAN> run {allocate channel orabackup type disk;
2> restore archivelog from logseq=274 until logseq=280 thread=1;
3> release channel orabackup;
4> }

an oldie, but always useful

of course it's only a one liner since Oracle9i

LinkedIn: Alan Nolan-Davies

2007-10-01T12:48:00.000+01:00

LinkedIn: Alan Nolan-Davies

TrustedReviews - Sony VAIO VGN-TZ11MN

2007-09-28T15:03:00.000+01:00

TrustedReviews - Sony VAIO VGN-TZ11MN

I need to buy a small laptop to carry in my bag with long battery life and loads of power.

but I can't find out if this one has a PCMIA slot for my 3G Data Card?

Back to ING Direct

2007-09-24T13:55:00.000+01:00

After 3 years on other contracts, today I have returned to ING Direct in Reading.

Great to see so many familiar faces in the office.

New Workstation

2007-02-14T13:54:00.000Z

I have just bought an old HP XW6000 workstation from Aria.

With 2 Xeon processors I am going to follow Vincent Chans article on installing Oracle RAC 10g on Enterprise Linux Using VMWare Server.

So far I've got it out of the box and plugged it in.

To find that Windows XP hasn't been activated and the COA on the sticker is not accepted.

I've printed out Vincent's article and will follow it through step by step and blog my findings as I go along.

This won't give me that elusive commercial experience of RAC, but it does continue my learning.

January CPU Released

2007-01-17T10:26:00.000Z

So I'm writing some scripts to query the EM10g OMS repository database to see which of our databases need to be patched.

SELECT patch, installation_time, host, home_location, platform
from mgmt$applied_patches patch, mgmt$em_homes_platform home, mgmt$target tgt
where home.HOME_ID = patch.CONTAINER_GUIDand patch.target_guid = tgt.target_guid

Running this query as a dba user originally generated a trace in user_dump_dest containing
ORA-20204: User does not exist:

So I am having to run it as sysman.

What I want to add to this SQL is the description of the patch (Jan07CPU, Apr07CPU, etc) and then create it as a report in EM10g.

This can then be used to track our outstanding patches.

Thanks,
Alan...

Trace Assistant

2006-09-28T10:34:00.000+01:00

I used Trace Assistant to format the trace from the Oracle Listener, thought the Action comment was amusing.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Error found. Error Stack follows:
id:0
Operation code:78
NS Error 1:12612
NS Error 2:0
NT Generic Error:0
Protocol Error:0
OS Error:0
NS & NT Errors Translation
00000, 00000, "Not An Error"
// *Cause: Everything is working as it should.
// *Action: Dont worry: Be happy.
/
00000, 00000 "Not An Error"
// *Cause: Everything is working as it should.
// *Action: Dont worry: Be happy.
/
00000, 00000 "Not An Error"
// *Cause: Everything is working as it should.
// *Action: Dont worry: Be happy.
/
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
at java.util.Hashtable.rehash(Compiled Code)
at java.util.Hashtable.put(Compiled Code)
at oracle.net.trcasst.Jtrcasst.getAllConnections(Compiled Code)
at oracle.net.trcasst.Jtrcasst.getConnectionState(Compiled Code)
at oracle.net.trcasst.Jtrcasst.decodeTrace(Compiled Code)
at oracle.net.trcasst.Jtrcasst.main(Jtrcasst.java)

This is the output you see when you run the trace assistant against a generated trace file.

$ trcasst -odt -e0 -s -la listener.trc

You must set the trace level to support (Level 16) to use trcasst

Jupiter Images

2006-09-21T10:22:00.000+01:00

Fantastic images are available from Jupiter Images

You have to subscribe to download them, fortunatley for me my current client has an unlimited account.

The link is to my lightbox, a selection of my favourite pictures that Jupiter have.

Screen

2006-09-21T10:06:00.000+01:00

In a telnet/ssh session type

luffv1:plmon08> screen

That will start a screen session, and it will look like a normal session
From inside a screen session you will need to start logging, so all out put it pushed to a file

CTRL-a H (so a control a, then capital H)

You will get a message at the bottom saying Appending to Logfile 'Filename of log.X'
Then telnet/connect to the console of LOMOBO, and do your stuff.

CTRL-a d (so control a, then a d)
This will detach you from the screen but leave it running with all output being logged in your file above

This will get you to reattach to any open screen you have running
luffv1:plmon08> screen -r
There are several suitable screens on:
29939.pts-2.plmon08 (Detached)
29950.pts-2.plmon08 (Detached)
16.pts-2.plmon08 (Detached)
Type "screen [-d] -r [pid.]tty.host" to resume one of them.

Choose one that you want and reattach as below.
luffv1:plmon08> screen -r 29939.pts-2.plmon08

CTRL d (so control then d)
This will log you out of your screen session, which means all your logging will stop... so unless you want to stop your screen session don't do this, until you have finished with it.

Write to the Alert Log

2006-09-19T08:52:00.000+01:00

This is a very handy sql which allows you to put an entry in the alert log.

Useful for documention and for alert log scanners.

execute sys.dbms_system.ksdwrt(2,to_char(sysdate) ' any old message you like');

Oracle Database Critical Patch Updates

2006-08-15T13:00:00.000+01:00

Database CPU Patches Available

Oracle Database 8.1.7.4

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	5225788	5225788	5236412 Patch 27
*April 2006*	5045247	5045247	5057601 Patch 26
*January 2006*	4751906	4751906	4751570 Patch 25
*October 2005*	4560405	4560405	4554818 Patch 23
*July 2005*	4392446	4392446	4437058 Patch 21
*April 2005*	4193312	4193312	4180163 Patch 19
*January 2005*	4002909	4002909	4107521 CPU1

Oracle Database 9.2.0.5

NB: CPU’s No Longer Available from January 2006

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*January 2006*	No Longer Patched	No Longer Patched	No Longer Patched
*October 2005*	4560421	4560421	4741388 Patch 10
*July 2005*	4392256	4392256	4387563 Patch 9
*April 2005*	4193299	4193299	4195791 Patch 8
*January 2005*	4003006	4003006	4104374 Patch 7

Oracle Database 9.2.0.6

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	5225793	5225793	5239794 Patch 15
*April 2006*	5049051	5049051	5059614 Patch 14
*January 2006*	4751921	4751921	4751261 Patch 13
*October 2005*	4567846	4567846	4579093 Patch 11
*July 2005*	4392392	4392392	4487801 Patch 9
*April 2005*	4193295	4193295	4287598 Patch 5
*January 2005*	4017526	4017526	4065410 Patch 1

Oracle Database 9.2.0.7

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	5225794	5225794	5250980 Patch 12
*April 2006*	5049060	5049060	5188596 Patch 10
*January 2006*	4751923	4751923	5025840 Patch 7
*October 2005*	4567854	4567854	4579590 Patch 2
*July 2005*	4547566	4547566	4547566
*April 2005*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available

Oracle Database 9.2.0.8

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available

Oracle Database 10.1.0.3

NB: CPU’s No Longer Available from April 2006

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*April 2006*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available
*January 2006*	No Patch Available	4751926	4741077 Patch 11
*October 2005*	No Patch Available	4567863	4567518 Patch 10
*July 2005*	4392409	4392409	4389012 Patch 9
*April 2005*	4193286	4383782	4287588 Patch 8
*January 2005*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available

Oracle Database 10.1.0.4

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	No Patch Available	5225796	5239736 Patch 14
*April 2006*	No Patch Available	5049067	5059200 Patch 13
*January 2006*	No Patch Available	4751928	4925998 Patch 10
*October 2005*	No Patch Available	4567866	4579182 Patch 6
*July 2005*	4392423	4392423	4440706 Patch 3
*April 2005*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available

Oracle Database 10.1.0.5

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	No Patch Available	5225797	5251148 Patch 5
*April 2006*	No Patch Available	5049074	5057606 Patch 2
*January 2006*	No Patch Available	4751932	4882231 Patch 1
*October 2005*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available

Oracle Database 10.2.0.1

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	No Patch Available	5225798	5239698 Patch 7
*April 2006*	No Patch Available	5049080	5059238 Patch 6
*January 2006*	No Patch Available	4751931	4751539 Patch 3
*October 2005*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available

Oracle Database 10.2.0.2

*CPU Release*	*32-bit Solaris*	*64-bit Solaris*	*32-bit Windows*
	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch #	Oracle Patch#
*July 2006*	No Patch Available	5225799	5251025 Patch 4
* Mandatory Patch *	No Patch Available	5117016	No Patch Available
*April 2006*	No Patch Available	5079037	5140461 Patch 1
*January 2006*	No Patch Available	No Patch Available	No Patch Available

SOX DBA - dba_profile

2006-08-10T11:44:00.000+01:00

The Oracle Database records password change dates and can be shown by querying the SYS.USER$ table, the column PTIME contains the timestamp of the last password change.

SQL> select name, ptime from sys.user$;

To check password controls you can query the DBA_PROFILES and DBA_USERS tables.

SQL> select a.username, a.profile, b.resource_name, b.limit
from dba_users a, dba_profiles b
where b.resource_type = 'PASSWORD'
and a.profile = b.profile;

This will retrieve password controls set for each user

PULINB SOX_PW_PROFILE PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME 90
PULINB SOX_PW_PROFILE PASSWORD_REUSE_MAX 6
PULINB SOX_PW_PROFILE PASSWORD_VERIFY_FUNCTION DEFAULT
PULINB SOX_PW_PROFILE PASSWORD_REUSE_TIME DEFAULT
PULINB SOX_PW_PROFILE PASSWORD_LOCK_TIME 9999
PULINB SOX_PW_PROFILE PASSWORD_GRACE_TIME 10
PULINB SOX_PW_PROFILE FAILED_LOGIN_ATTEMPTS 3

The above Oracle Profile is for an Application, I would propose a DBA_PROFILE for DBA accounts.

SQL> CREATE PROFILE "DBA_PROFILE" LIMIT
PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME 90
FAILED_LOGIN_ATTEMPTS 5;

And then assign every DBA account (not SYS) to this profile;

SQL> ALTER USER username PROFILE DBA_PROFILE;

Copy data between Oracle Databases

2006-08-02T13:47:00.000+01:00

The copy command in sql plus is one of my old favourites.

As a way of moving data between Oracle Databases it was unrivalled until Data Pump came along.

But as Data Pump requires a bit of perperation I'll still use the copy command for a quick fix.



SQL> set arraysize 100
SQL> set copycommit 10

SQL> copy from schema1/password1@dbname1 to schema2/password2@dbname2 -
> append tpcm_rep using select * from tpcm_rep;

Array fetch/bind size is 100. (arraysize is 100)
Will commit after every 10 array binds. (copycommit is 10)
Maximum long size is 80. (long is 80)
145159 rows selected from schema1@dbname1.
145159 rows inserted into TPCM_REP.
145159 rows committed into TPCM_REP at schema2@dbname2.

check the syntax by typing copy at the sql prompt.



SQL> copy
usage: COPY FROM  TO    { () } USING 
   : database string, e.g., scott/tiger@d:chicago-mktg
  : ONE of the keywords: APPEND, CREATE, INSERT or REPLACE
: name of the destination table
 : a comma-separated list of destination column aliases
  : any valid SQL SELECT statement
A missing FROM or TO clause uses the current SQL*Plus connection.
SQL>



Always found this very useful.

Help EM10g to discover Oracle Installations

2006-07-18T17:40:00.000+01:00

When you install the Oracle EM10g agent you sometimes discover in the console that the only installation of Oracle Software that EM10g knows about is it's own.

There is a very quick fix to this and only requires adding the appropriate entries in the file OUIinventories.add

This file is in the home of the EM10g Agent in sysman/config

By default it is just full of documentation on how to add other Oracle Inventory information.

But to add them all you have to do is find the location of all of your oraInst.loc files, every install should have created one of these at the top of the installed software.

for example, by appending these to the end of my OUIinventories.add file and then performing a refresh on the console I was able to discover all of the existing database software installations on my host.

inventory: /u01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7.4/oraInst.loc
inventory: /u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.0.5/oraInst.loc
inventory: /u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.0.6/oraInst.loc
inventory: /u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.0.7/oraInst.loc
inventory: /u01/app/oracle/product/10.1.0.5/oraInst.loc
inventory: /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0.1/oraInst.loc

My blog is unwell

2006-07-18T17:26:00.000+01:00

I created my own blog, running a linux application, on my own site.

However this has all stopped working recently, and it's looking like my hosting company decided to upgrade their hosting service and lost everything I'd installed.

So my gallery has also suffered.

But due to the amount of Spam generated by spam bots, I'm not sure I'm going to bother trying to get it sorted and will instead go back to using this blog and my Mambo powered websites www.gloworld.co.uk and www.nolan-davies.com

Thanks,
Alan...

Own Blog Host

2006-01-17T23:27:00.000Z

http://gloworld.co.uk/pLog/index.php?blogId=2

I'm moving my blog onto my own website, in order that I may manage it more to my liking.

Oracle Database Desupport Dates

2006-01-17T18:21:00.000Z

Oracle Database Desupport Dates

Oracle Database 10.2.0.x ECS=31-Jul-2010 ES=31-Jul-2013 EMS=31-Jul-2012
Oracle Database 10.1.0.x ECS=01-FEB-2009 ES=01-FEB-2012 EMS=01-FEB-2011
Oracle Database 9.2.0.x ECS=01-JUL-2007 ES=01-JUL-2010 EMS=01-JUL-2009
Oracle Database 8.1.7.x ECS=31-DEC-2004 ES=31-DEC-2007 EMS=31-DEC-2006
Oracle Database 7.3.4.x ECS=31-DEC-2000 ES=31-DEC-2003 EMS=31-DEC-2002

ECS stands for Error Correction Support, up to this date bugfixes will be created.
ES stands for Extended Support, up to this date Oracle Support will assist.
EMS stands for Extended Maintenance Support, only available to those who have paid for it.

Project Raptor

2006-01-16T18:04:00.000Z

Project Raptor is Oracle's new free gui based browser and pl/sql development tool.

I have just used it on a Windows and Solaris box without any Oracle clients on and this tool creates the connectino for you, once you've told it the server name, listener port and service name/SID to use.

It also comes with a number of useful reports, so this could be a handy tool to get you started on a new customer site.

OEm10gR2 Report on Excessive Public Execute Privileges

2006-01-13T18:25:00.000Z

This screenshot shows the drilldown on the previously posted screenshot of the Policy Violation Details for the policy Excessive Public Execute Privilges.

As the Voyager Worm exploits these it is very handy that Oracle10g Enterprise Manager will monitor them.

But if Oracle knows this is a security threat then why do they grant these permissions by default?

OEm10gR2 Security Monitoring

2006-01-13T15:49:00.000Z

There is a lot of talk on the Voyager Worm running around the Oracle Blogs.

The problem is when you have 363 databases to manage, how do you quickly know which of those databases could be vulnerable.

By using OEM10gR2 to monitor your databases it will tell you at a glance just how many databases have given execute privileges on utl_file to public.

The great thing is it does it out of the box, all you have to do is start the agent on the host.

On this post is a screenshot of the what OEM has found on my newly added database.

Summer in Portugal

2006-01-13T14:50:00.000Z

As I sit here in London in the midst of winter, thoughts turn to sunshine and beaches.

So like many others we have now booked our Summer holidays, a nice beachfront villa on the Algarve in Portugal.

I wanted to find a villa on the Algarve with Broadband, but it doesn't seem to be that common in the rental market.

The plan was to tell my clients that I would be working from my home office, Portugal is in the same timezone as London so they probably wouldn't notice the fact that I would keep slipping off for a dip in the pool.

But alas I will just have to take 2 weeks holiday, "6 weeks working from home" may be possible next year?

Now I get to spend the rest of the winter and spring in anticipation, but at least I won't be working.

2006-01-11T14:27:00.000Z

Oracle Blogs in my RSS Newsfeed

http://www.petefinnigan.com/weblog/entries/petefinnigan.rdf
http://www.frappr.com/?a=rss&gname=oraclebloggers
http://feeds.feedburner.com/radioFreeTooting
http://feeds.feedburner.com/NiallsOraclePages
http://www.orablogs.com/orablogs/rss.xsql
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlogginNolan-davies
http://www.orablogs.com/otn/index.rdf

2006-01-09T13:14:00.000Z

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Release 2

I have been a big fan of OEM since it first came out.

It's made managing a large number of databases and hosts much easier.

With OEM Grid Control in 10g it became the basis of a whole new Oracle Management and Monitoring system.

I am now challenged with introducing this technology across my current clients Global Oracle Estate.

This will give them a standardized management environment which they will need as they are expecting more databases to be rolled out this year, with of course no corresponding growth in the number of DBA's available to manage them.

One of my favourite features of the new Release 2 of OEM10g Grid Control is the ability to group targets (databases, hosts, web services, etc) together and present them as a system.

A dashboard can then be launched to monitor these targets in one place without noise from the rest of the estate.

2006-01-09T11:48:00.000Z

I think that blogging is becoming more and more useful as a work tool.

My problem is that at the moment I am just taking advantage of my gmail service to send emails to myself on useful info and tips I find whilst engineering Oracle solutions.

What I will try to do in future is to blog them so that other people may be able to learn from what I have done or even post a comment and tell me where I've got it all wrong.

So I've signed up to FeedBurner so that I can read my own blog in Thunderbird.

2006-01-04T19:33:00.000Z

My Old Honda Deauville

2006-01-04T19:31:00.000Z

St.Mary's Lighthouse, Whitley Bay

2006-01-04T19:30:00.000Z

My Dad's old Yacht, Shazam

2006-01-04T19:28:00.000Z

Aha!

2005-10-30T20:08:00.000Z

2005-10-30T20:05:00.000Z

Stonehenge

2005-10-26T10:03:00.000+01:00

Oracle Critical Patch Update - October 2005

Database Patches Required

*Database*	*Patch Id*
*8.1.7.4*	4560405
*9.2.0.5*	4560421
*9.2.0.6*	4567846
*9.2.0.7*	4567854
*10.1.0.3*	4567863
*10.1.0.4*	4567866
*10.2.0.1*	No patch required

The links go to Oracle Corporations Support Portal Metalink.Oracle.Com for which you will need a login and password.

2005-09-15T18:02:00.000+01:00

London Eye

photo taken by my wife on her Sony K750i Mobile Phone

Sent by MMS to my Orange SPV C500 Phone and then copied to my PC at work using Microsoft Activesync.

2005-08-31T21:52:00.000+01:00

Wallaby

2005-08-31T21:51:00.000+01:00

Giraffe

2005-08-31T21:50:00.001+01:00

Elephant

2005-08-31T21:50:00.000+01:00

We went to Woburn Safari Park in Buckinghamshire over the weekend

2005-08-24T23:19:00.000+01:00

Cheers

2005-08-24T23:17:00.000+01:00

Oh dear I dropped the dinghy outboard over the side into 7 metres of water

2005-08-24T23:15:00.000+01:00

Krka Waterfalls

2005-08-24T23:14:00.000+01:00

Sail Croatia

2005-08-24T12:12:00.000+01:00

Holiday Time

It's been a while since I posted to my blog.

I spent the first couple of weeks of August sailing in Croatia with my family.

Unfortunatley we ended up sailing in the Bura, a local storm which laid the boat down on it's side.

2005-06-30T18:17:00.000+01:00

Oracle Client connectivity to Oracle Databases

Forwardly, but not backwardly compatible!

You can use the Oracle8i client to connect to Oracle 7, Oracle8i, Oracle9i and Oracle10g Databases.

You can use the Oracle9i client to connect to Oracle8i, Oracle9i and Oracle10g Databases.

The Oracle9i client will not allow connections to databases 7.3.4 and below
ERROR:ORA-24439: Connections to Oracle7 server are no longer supported

You can use the Oracle10g client to connect to Oracle8i(8.1.7.4+), Oracle9i and Oracle10g Databases.

The Oracle10g client will not allow connections to databases of less than version 8.1.7.4
ERROR:ORA-03134: Connections to this server version are no longer supported.

2005-06-15T16:22:00.000+01:00

Oracle Database Desupport Dates

Oracle Database 10.1.0.x ECS=01-FEB-2009 ES=01-FEB-2012 EMS=01-FEB-2011
Oracle Database 9.2.0.x ECS=01-JUL-2007 ES=01-JUL-2010 EMS=01-JUL-2009
Oracle Database 8.1.7.x ECS=31-DEC-2004 ES=31-DEC-2007 EMS=31-DEC-2006
Oracle Database 7.3.4.x ECS=31-DEC-2000 ES=31-DEC-2003 EMS=31-DEC-2002

ECS stands for Error Correction Support, up to this date bugfixes will be created.
ES stands for Extended Support, up to this date Oracle Support will assist.
EMS stands for Extended Maintenance Support, only available to those who have paid for it.

2005-05-24T00:43:00.000+01:00

Free Anti-Virus protection

Grisoft Freeweb: Get AVG for your home PC virus protection

2005-05-24T00:36:00.000+01:00

the espace is now out of warranty and so of course falling to pieces...

Mazda5 | Car Previews - Premiere | Auto Express

2005-04-17T20:41:00.000+01:00

Check out Leopards results in the Spring Series

2005-04-15T22:15:00.000+01:00

uh oh we got a mouse in the house

HSD : Pest Control

2005-04-12T22:30:00.000+01:00

Age of Empires now Rome Total War

read the web pages below for a fascinating insight into the ancient world

Celts Barbarians, page 2

2005-04-10T17:28:00.000+01:00

picture of the box after last years family of blue tits had left

2005-04-10T17:27:00.000+01:00

Last years bird box is already being used by bluetits again.

2005-03-30T00:02:00.000+01:00

Thomas the Tank Engine at Bolton Abbey and Embsay Railway in the Yorkshire Dales

2005-03-29T23:59:00.000+01:00

Our Home over Easter, an Ace Roma Motorhome

2005-03-23T19:26:00.000Z

Motorhome Hire Specialists - No. 1 in Britain - MotorHolme.co.uk

2005-03-23T19:25:00.000Z

were hiring a motorhome through

Motorholme.co.uk and are going on a little tour of the east coast of britain at Easter.

Sycamore Lakes - Fishing, Holiday accommodation and touring caravan site at Burgh le Marsh near Skegness in Lincolnshire

2005-03-09T23:34:00.000Z

I'm looking to get an incar dd player with 2 screens for our trip up north

http://www.halfords.com/opd_product_details.asp?id=20367&type=0&cat=338

http://www.in-car-entertainment.co.uk/centurion_propp70dvd.asp

2005-03-09T22:55:00.000Z

We've had a thin scattering of snow