Tag: 19.4

Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) 19.4 : A quick life update…

Almost 2 weeks ago I wrote about the release of Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS), SQLcl, SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler 19.4.

I spent the holidays playing around with ORDS quite a bit, so I came back to work today and pushed it out across all Dev and Test installations.

As I’ve mentioned before, at work we run ORDS on Tomcat inside Docker containers. The build we use is very similar to this one I put on GitHub, but with some extra work-related bits added.

What did I have to do for this update?

Two things:

  • Build a new version of our ORDS Docker image with version 19.4 of the ORDS and SQLcl software.
  • Remove all the containers based on this image and fire up new containers.

How long did it take to deploy this to all Dev and Test instances?

The build of the new Docker image took about 5 minutes. It’s mostly just unzipping the software. This can be done before we touch any running containers, so there is no downtime associated with this.

The removal and creation of all the containers took about 5 minutes as well. Each container is created in a second, but the first run with a new version of ORDS has to do the ORDS upgrade in the database, which takes a few minutes sometimes. If there were no ORDS upgrade, the containers start really quickly.

So effectively, in 5 minutes we replaced all the “kit” and ran the ORDS upgrade across everything. I could have done production in that same 5 minute span too, but I’m not allowed to yet. 🙂

Why am I talking about this?

It’s just another example of why containers make more sense than conventional app servers for this type of stuff.

To throw away kit and rebuild it from scratch takes an eternity here. I can do the equivalent with containers in seconds.

Once I’ve tested a new image and proved it works, I can roll that same image out across everything with no worries. If it works against one database, it will work against all the others. That’s the great thing about standardising the approach you take!

And another thing!

I’ve enabled SQL Developer Web on every Dev/Test installation too. Now all I’ve got to do is wait for the right opportunity to use it to save the day when someone is waiting for a firewall change, and act all casual like it’s no big thing! 🙂

So in summary

Containers good! ORDS good!

If you are interested in playing with Docker, you can find more information here.

If you want to learn about ORDS, you can find more information here.

Cheers

Tim…

ORDS, SQLcl, SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler 19.4 Released

If you follow me, Jeff or Kris on Twitter, you will already know ORDS, SQLcl, SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler version 19.4 have all been released. They became available for download late Friday US time, and I got a DM about it yesterday morning, so fresh from spending 2 days running Data Guard builds, I moved on to running builds of some of this stuff.

Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS)

It was a long day, but this is what I did.

  • Updated all Docker ORDS builds : here
  • Updated all Vagrant database builds that include ORDS: here

As you might expect, the config changes were minimal, but the time spent waiting for all those builds to complete was hellish.

The new version of ORDS has an additional prompt during the installation. You get this question.

Enter a number to select a feature to enable [1] SQL Developer Web [2] REST Enabled SQL [3] None [1]:1

The documentation hasn’t been released yet, so I had to run a manual installation to spot the new parameter which was necessary to make the ORDS builds silent. If you want SQL Developer Web, you have to enable REST Enabled SQL also, which requires these in your parameter file.

restEnabledSql.active=true
feature.sdw=true

You’ll recognise the first if you’ve used REST Enabled SQL before. The second is the new one.

I spent some of the time waiting for builds knocking up a quick run through the SQL Developer Web feature, which you can see here.

If you’ve used Autonomous Data Warehouse (ADW) or Autonomous Transaction Processing (ATP) on Oracle Cloud, you will already know what SQL Developer Web is. I put out the post and told Jeff to take a look. Next thing Kris put it on Twitter. I was going to wait for the docs to arrive before mentioning it in public. It did give me some quick feedback, so I was able to update it on the fly as I was playing with the tool. Kind-of “live blogging” I guess. 🙂

SQL Developer Web is a neat alternative to poking holes in your database firewall for client connections. It’s not going to satisfy hardcore developers, but I think this is going to be great for some users. The administrator functionality is interesting, and it will be interesting to see how this develops over time.

SQLcl

All my ORDS builds include SQLcl, so the latest version is on everything listed above. I also run this on my desktop. It’s my main client for connecting to the database because I’m a command line kid. Nothing scary happened on my desktop or on my Vagrant and Docker builds.

SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler

This is now on my desktop. I spend most of my time in SQLcl, but if I need an IDE, this is the one I use.

It’s a couple of weeks until I get back to work, so it’s going to be a while before I get to use ORDS 19.4 in production, and I’ll no doubt forget to update my SQLcl and SQL Developer installations on my work PC, then be horror struck when I notice a few weeks down the line. 🙂

Happy upgrading!

Cheers

Tim…