Tag: 12c

Oracle Database File System (DBFS) Enhancements in Oracle 12c

Oracle 12c includes a really neat feature I first mentioned after Oracle OpenWorld 2012. You can now access your DBFS file systems over HTTP/HTTPS, FTP or WebDAV. I’ve been having a play with it over the last couple of days, so I thought I would write it up here.

This should be quite a welcome addition for those people on platforms other than Linux, who don’t get to use FUSE.

As mentioned in the article, WebDAV support under Windows 7 broken. Even the Oracle manual has a screen shot from Windows XP. I can’t believe Windows 7 has been out all this time and Microsoft have not bothered to fix it…

Cheers

Tim…

 

Upgrading to Oracle Database 12c : First Steps…

I’ve taken my first tentative steps into upgrading to Oracle 12c.

This article is targeted at the type of information you are likely to need for the 12c OCP DBA exam. In reality, upgrades are too important to rely on a generic article like this. Every time I do a real upgrade I go back to the upgrade docs and work my way through them. That’s the only way to make sure you’ve not missed out an important step, specific to the features you are using.

My first impressions are:

  • The DBUA looks a little different, but not enough to scare you.
  • The manual upgrades are very different and will take a bit of getting used to.
  • I think the transport database option is quite interesting, restrictions permitting.

I don’t know how long it will be before I have to do a “real” upgrade to 12c. It probably won’t happen until 12cR2…

I’ve recently installed a clean 12c instance at work to hold a FMW repository, but that is for a throwaway test VM. If it were a real installation we would no doubt be using 11gR2.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle 12cR1 RAC Installation on Windows 2012 Using VirtualBox…

After having a play with Oracle 12c on Windows 8, I decided to give Windows Server 2012 a go. Here is the resulting virtual RAC installation.

As you would expect, much of the process is pretty similar to the 11gR2 RAC installation on Windows 2008.

Windows Server 2012 is a strange beast. The interface is quite similar to Windows 8, which seems strange for a server OS. I’m gradually coming to terms with the Windows 8, so I am not so repulsed any more. That’s not to say I think it is the correct thing for Microsoft to do, but the thought of supporting my family on it is not filling me with quite so much dread now.

I really should get round to upgrading my desktop to Fedora 19, but time has been short. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Implicit Statement Results and Extended Data Types in Oracle 12c…

Over the last couple of days I’ve put another couple of articles live. In this case they are both focused on easing migration from non-Oracle databases to Oracle.

It’s a little hard to get excited about either feature as I would not expect any straight Oracle shop to want to use them.

The implicit statement results will be a big bonus for SQL Server migration projects, and those trying to maintain similar APIs for Transact-SQL and PL/SQL, but I don’t see myself using this feature in preference to an explicit out parameter for my own code, for the reasons explained by Tom Kyte here.

My first impression of the 32K VARCHAR2 is I pretty much hate it. I’m very much of the opinion, if you need a CLOB, use a CLOB. I don’t like the lack of control of the LOB segment and I dislike loads of objects in my schema with system generated names. Of course, migration projects will want as little refactoring as possible, so it could be very useful there, which is after all the reason it was added.

I’m a little confused why the limit is 32K. It matches the PL/SQL VARCHAR2 now. It’s bigger than the maximum size of a VARCHAR2(n) in SQL Server,  but it is a lot smaller than the VARCHAR(MAX) from SQL Server. I’m thinking I may have missed the point? Maybe I’ll warm to them the next time I do a migration…

Of course, your opinion of any new feature depends very much on what you do on a day to day basis. I reserve the right to do a complete U-turn on this stuff if circumstances change. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Windows Blue (8.1) and Oracle Database 12c

Inspired by this article, I decided to download Windows Blue 8.1 and install it on VirtualBox. Once Classic Shell was installed it looked almost usable. 🙂

The Windows version of Oracle 12c is now available, so that seemed like the obvious thing to try next. That went really smoothly.

Windows81-Oracle12c

I’m bored with Windows now, so I’m off back to Linux. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Database 12c : Reality Check for Readers…

I shouldn’t really need to write this post, but recent events seem to indicate it is necessary…

Oracle Database 12c is new! The people out there writing articles can be broken down into three basic groups:

  1. Those people who have been using the beta product for over a year and really pushing it hard.
  2. Those people who have dabbled a little with the beta product, giving them enough knowledge to write some articles.
  3. Those people, like me, who got their first sniff of 12c when it was released a couple of weeks ago and are now on a steep learning curve.

Regardless of which group people belong to, we all got the final production release at about the same time. It is quite common for features to be pulled from the beta product and for minor API changes to take place, so even those on the beta program might have some re-learning to do.

So why write this post?

Well, I get the distinct impression, based on the questions I’m being asked, that people feel I’m in some way able to help them with 12c issues. I am categorically not a 12c guru! After two weeks of using the product I can safely say I know bugger all about it. Yes I’ve installed it a few times. Yes I’m trying to learn about it, but asking me for advice at this time is a bit like the blind leading the blind.

That’s not to say I’m not willing to try, but people have to be realistic. If you ask me about pluggable databases today my answer is going to be, “I dunno!”. Even after I release an article on it, I will have a fairly sketchy understanding of it until the wider implications of it start to sink in. Suffice to say, if you can’t find a 12c article on a subject on my website, it probably means I’ve not looked at it yet. 🙂

Over the coming months I will be writing a lot about 12c. I will make a lot of mistakes. I will go back and extend or rewrite articles as my knowledge improves. If you find mistakes, which you will, please tell me and I’ll endeavour to correct them. This is very much a learning process for me. It’s about my own personal development. If you find the articles that get produced during this process useful, that’s great. If you don’t, I’m sorry, but this is not about you!

OK. Back to learning new stuff… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Cloud Control 12c Release 3 Installation (EM12cR3)…

With all the excitement about Oracle Database 12c being released, you may have missed the release of Cloud Control 12c Release 3. It’s available for download from OTN. All the usual ports are available. This is the version you are going to need if you want to monitor 12c databases in your organisation.

I did a quick run through the Cloud Control 12c Release 3 installation yesterday on both OL5 and OL6. As I suspected, there is pretty much no change in the installation process compared to the previous release.

I haven’t tried an upgrade yet, so I don’t know how easy that is. Perhaps someone else can comment? 🙂

Note. Oracle Database 12c is not a supported repository database version, so you are still going to need Oracle 11g for this installation.

Cheers

Tim…

Top-N Queries and the Multithreaded Model in Oracle 12c…

A couple of new 12c articles have rolled off the press. Both of them small, but interesting to me.

These resulted in amendments to a couple of old articles.

I wonder how many people will start using the multithreaded model and still try and kill sessions on the operating system using the UNIX/Linux process ID? 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

WITH Clause Enhancements in Oracle 12c…

After doing a number of 12c installations, I decided it was time to write something new. I figured I’d pick something easy to start off with, so here is the first thing off the press.

Over the last year I’ve heard a few speakers talk about these enhancements, but I got myself into a right pickle while I was working through this. If you caught the first draft of this article you would see I made a complete mess of it and jumped to all the wrong conclusions. Having worked through it again with fresh eyes, it all became clear. Of course, if you didn’t see the first draft, then ignore what I said. The article has always been perfect. 🙂

I think I will carry on doing some of the simple stuff to build my confidence before I can tackle something big, like pluggable databases. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Update: Note to self. Searching the 11gR2 docs for “PRAGMA UDF” is unlikely to result in you finding this 12c feature. Who’da thunk it? Thanks to Tom Kyte for pointing me to the correct doc reference. I’ve altered the searches on my homepage to default to the 12c docs, so hopefully I won’t be such a Muppet next time. 🙂

Oracle Database 12c Virtual RAC Installation on Oracle Linux 6

I finally got my server problems sorted out yesterday, so I was able to do a 12c virtual RAC installation. You can see what I did here:

The setup is pretty much the same as the 11gR2 setup. So there’s no real drama at all.

With the basic installation articles out of the way I can start having a play with the functionality.

I’ve now got 12c running under VirtualBox on my server (Oracle Linux), desktop (Fedora 18), laptop (OS X) and desktop at work (Windows 7). If I can just get it running on my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…