Month: August 2014

Oracle Midlands : Event #5

Just a quick reminder that Oracle Midlands Event #5 is just around the corner (Tuesday 16 September).

  • Boost Performance by Clustering Data – Martin Widlake
  • Data Virtualisation and Instant Cloning – Ron Ekins (Delphix)

Martin is always good value, so I’m looking forward to that session. I’ve seen a couple of talks on the Delphix stuff and it is seriously cool! I think this session will open a few people’s eyes… 🙂

Big thanks to the Red Gate Software folks for sponsoring the event, allowing it to remain free

You can get more details here. I’ve already registered. See you there!

Cheers

Tim…

 

To PDB or not to PDB : The final decision

After yesterday’s to PDB or not to PDB post, I decided the answer was “to PDB”. Here’s what I did…

  • Installed the Oracle 12c (12.1.0.2) software. There is an installation article here, but all I had to do was a software-only installation because the OS already met all the prerequisites because of the existing 11.2.0.3 installation.
  • Upgrade the existing 11.2.0.3 instance. See here. I could have stopped at this point, but as I said I decided “to PDB”. 🙂
  • Created an empty CDB instance on the box using “dbca”.
  • Created a new PDB as a remote clone of the non-CDB instance, as described here.
  • Turned off the non-CDB instance.

Job done. So far it’s looking good. I’m going to do some messing about tomorrow to make sure it registers with Cloud Control properly and the backup schedule is sorted. Then I’ll give it to the folks to test their apps against.

Thoughts:

  • I flippin’ love the remote cloning of non-CDBs. I’ve played with it while writing the article about it, but seeing it happen on a real database was really exciting.
  • I think we all realise that this is version 1.1 of the multitenant architecture. The question is, is version 1.1 good enough at this point? The testing will determine that, not my excitement levels.
  • The testing will be based on our use of the DB. We are a small operation with quite simple needs. If we choose to go this route it will be because it is right for us. Depending on your usage, your experience may be different.
  • If things don’t work out with this POC, we will try with the non-CDB instance.

So it was kind-of exciting, fun and scary all rolled into one… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

To PDB or not to PDB

I’m about to start a Proof of Concept (POC) for a 12c upgrade of one of our databases. The production database in question is running on Oracle Linux inside a VMware virtual machine, so the starting point I’ve been given for the POC is a clone of the whole VM…

Probably the biggest decision I’ve got to make is “to PDB or not to PDB” *. I mentioned it on Twitter earlier and got some conflicting opinions. I guess the pros and cons of the PDB approach go something like this in my head.

Pros:

  • The multitenant architecture is the future of Oracle. Depending on which rumours you believe, it’s possible that 12.2 will no longer allow the pre-12c style instances. Putting it off is delaying the inevitable.
  • As long as you only use a single PDB, there is no extra cost.
  • The multitenant architecture has some neat features related to cloning, especially remote clones. That potentially makes provisioning new environments pretty quick.
  • Even with a single PDB per CDB, there are potential advantages regarding patching and upgrades. Caveats apply as always.
  • I’m going to upgrade to a pre-12c style instance first anyway, so I will have a natural fallback position ready to go if I need it.
  • It would be good to invest the time up front to convert stuff now, rather than wait a few years to clean up the mess of CRON jobs and connections using SIDs, rather than services. This choice would force our hand.
  • If some of the technologies we are using are not going to “play well” with the multitenant architecture, I would rather know now than later.

Cons:

  • Using a PDB is definitely going to break a number of things for us, especially CRON jobs that run scripts using OS authentication. See here.
  • Once the decision has been made to “switch the multitenant architecture on”, it would be really easy for someone to create an extra PDB and incur additional licensing costs. As far as I’m aware, there is nothing to restrict the number of PDBs to 1, to prevent an uninitiated DBA from copying a script from the net and creating more. If someone knows an undocumented parameter for this I would be interested in knowing it. Note, “_max_pdbs” isn’t the answer here! 🙂
  • I’m going to upgrade to a pre-12c style instance first, so why add on the extra effort of cloning that to a PDB?
  • Why make life hard for yourself? You can use 12.1 as a half-way house and make the final step later.

I don’t think there is really a right or wrong answer in this debate. I could probably put forward a convincing argument in favour of either option. I’m leaning on the side of the “to PDB” choice. If this proves to be a no-go, then I’ll start a POC of a pre-12c style instance… 🙂

Despite my leaning for the PDB choice, I am interested to know what others think, especially those that have done something a bit more extensive than running this stuff on their laptop. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

* I forgot to mention previously, we will almost definitely be going with a single PDB per CDB (the free option) initially. So this is not a “consolidate using multitenant” issue from the outset.

F5 Load Balancer Training Course : Day 3

After the previous day’s “networky” stuff, day 3 was back to some stuff that was more relevant to me. Amongst other things, I got a quick primer on IPv6, which was pretty useful and we looks at iApps and iRules. It looks like I will be writing lots of iRules using TCL to replace the functionality of our Apache reverse proxies. Fun, fun, fun… 🙂

We finished at about 15:00, so I hit the road and managed to do the M25 and M40 in a reasonable time. It wasn’t good, but it could have been a lot worse.

The challenge now is to get to work on Monday and try to start putting some of this stuff into practice before I forget everything. 🙂

Thanks to all the folks at F5 for a good course. Thanks also to the other folks on the course for putting up with my noob questions. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

F5 Load Balancer Training Course : Day 2

Day 2 was a lot more “networky”, so it was pretty tough. I got through all the labs and stuff worked, but if I’m honest I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing. 🙂 Added to that, I won’t have privilege to do most of the stuff we covered when I’m on the real kit, so I’m pretty much going to forget it all in a few days. 🙁

Once again, it’s testament to the course that a complete networking gumby like me was able to survive the day.

Day 3 has got some sections that are more relevant to me. I’ve been swimming, so now it’s Monster, Diet Coke and Coffee for breakfast, check out of the hotel, then head off to start day 3.

Cheers

Tim…

PS. I went to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes last night.

Today I will mostly be saying, “DBA not kill DBA!”, and, “DBA not trust human!”

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Today’s film was Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

I really enjoyed the first film and this is a continuation of that story, set 10 years later.

The pacing on this film was pretty similar to the last one. If you are one of the people that found that too slow, you will have a similar experience this time. If, like me, you would prefer to watch the apes doing ape-stuff, rather than than seeing them going ape-shit, then this will work for you. There are action scenes, but a lot of it is movie time is them just ionteracting with each other and humans. It feels very “real” to me…

Cheers

Tim…

PS. My mom recently saw the previous film on TV and asked how many chimps they used for the main character when they were filming… She figured it was like Lassie, where they used about 12 dogs, each trained for different scenes in the film… I had to explain it was CGI, which goes to show the quality of this stuff…

 

F5 Load Balancer Training Course : Day 1

As I suspected, I’m the only person on the course that doesn’t know what a network is. 🙂 If I had not been tinkering with the reverse proxies over the last year I would have been pretty much lost.

The course itself is well structured and the teacher is good. The fact I’ve not flounced out in a huff is testament to that. 🙂 The pattern will be quite familiar to anyone who has been on a hands-on course before. Discuss a topic with slides, then do a hands-on lab that works through that stuff.

It takes a while to get into the swing of things and I’ve proved to myself I am incapable of reading other people’s instructions, so it’s a good job I usually write my own. Now I’m starting to get used to the interface and command line, I’m hoping today will be a bit easier.

From a brief discussion, what I need from the load balancers seems *drastically* different to most of the other people in the room. I think this is going to be quite a long and arduous road when I start having to apply some of this to real situations. I sense a lot of external consultancy… 🙂

It is interesting coming from a different background to the others in the room and seeing how we approach things from different angles, and with different emphasis. I’ll write a blog post about this when I’ve finished the course, because it’s been something that has been brewing in my mind for a while…

As you will probably already know, I followed the day with a visit to see Guardians of the Galaxy.

I’ve been swimming this morning and now I have to log on to work to fix some stuff before starting day 2 of the course.

Cheers

Tim…

Guardians of the Galaxy

I’ve just got back from seeing Guardians of the Galaxy.

Take note Sci-Fi movie makers! This is your competition! This is what you need to aim to outdo!

It’s very cool. It looks great. You quickly start to give a crap about the characters. It doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Favourite Character: Groot. I challenge anyone to come out of the film and not want to say, “I am Groot”, in response to any situation. 🙂

I didn’t really fancy it when I saw the trailers. A couple of people were talking about how good the reviews were, so I thought I would give it a go. I’m glad I did. It’s excellent!

Cheers

Tim…