Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

MySQL Disaster Recovery…

Within a couple of weeks of doing our disaster recovery testing we’ve had a number of disasters, one of which was our Bugzilla server. The recovery was pretty sweet. The database engine (mySQL) was loaded as part of the Linux install and recovering the database was done with one command:

mysql -u root –password=”myPassword” bugs < backup.sql

What to do?

I’m really struggling to think of something to write about today. Every time I start to think of an idea I play another game and it’s gone…

I’ve got the first of 4 Christmas parties starting tonight. It would have been 5 only 2 clash. I have a horrible feeling that December will disappear with little in the way of productivity…

Cheers

Tim…

Back to work…

First day back and I got woken up by a support call.

Once that was fixed I tried my website and found it was freaking out, giving “PHP has encountered an Access Violation at 0289A2DF” errors. I’ve called my ISP, but for the mean time, if you need a page just refresh it multiple times until it appears.

Good to be back?

Cheers

Tim…

Update: A reboot of the application server sorted my website problem. You gotta love reboots 🙂

Kickstart and Holiday…

The disaster recovery week showed me how truely boring it is to install lots of Linux boxes in one go. As a result I’ve spent a little time looking at automated installations using Kickstart over the last few days. It’s pretty simple, and makes multiple installations a real no-brainer. I’m sure the next disaster recovery tests will be a little less time consuming because of this. I must download the DVDs so that I don’t even have to change CDs 🙂

I’m off on holiday for a week. Most of the time I’ll be in Edinburgh (Scotland) on a Yoga course, but I will be around from time to time. If I’m not back in a week it means I’m tied in a knot somewhere 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Back to normal life, for a few days…

I’m back in the office today, recovering from the disaster recovery week 🙂

One of my friends phoned today and asked me to cover his yoga classes tonight, so I’ll have to give Karate a miss. Shame, but a friend in need etc.

I hope he feels better by the weekend. We’re both going to a Yoga course in Edinburgh on Friday and I don’t want him sneezing on me during the flight 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Disaster Recovery Testing Update…

So far it’s been a very long and very tiring week. Lots of standing up in very cold server rooms.

The disaster recovery testing has highlighted quite a few interesting points about our kit and our backup and recovery approach. I think this session will stand us in good stead for the second round of testing in a few weeks. By then I’m sure we will have ironed out some of the creases 🙂

One more day to go, then home…

Cheers

Tim…

Disaster Recovery Testing and stuff…

I’m off to HP for the rest of the week to help test our disaster recovery strategy, so I guess things will be a little quiet here for a few days.

OEM Grid Control Update:
So far things look pretty good. The agents still use a stack of memory, just under 1 Gig resident for the Grid Agent and IAS Console together on a Release 1 AS 10g server. Personally I think this is more than a little excessive, but the CPU load isn’t too bad at all, not like the previous version…

I knocked up a quick example of DBMS_PIPE in answer to a question on my forum. Personally, I use AQ for all my messaging these days, but each to their own 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

DBMS_ASSERT and stuff…

I saw a post about the DBMS_ASSERT package on Pete Finnigan’s Oracle security weblog and I couldn’t find any documentation about it, so I thought I’d have a little play and write something about it:

DBMS_ASSERT – Sanitize User Input to Help Prevent SQL Injection

I’m not sure I’ll find a use for it, but it’s always good to know what new bits have been added 🙂

This made me laugh: Counterfeiters send jammed printer for repair

Cheers

Tim…