Tag: #ClubOracle

Oracle Midlands : Event #17 – Summary

Having spent the last two weeks at Oracle OpenWorld 2016, what’s the obvious thing to do within a couple of days of getting back? Go to Oracle Midlands to hear more about Oracle 12c Release 2 of course!

First up was Dominic Giles with “Oracle Database 12c Release 2: Whats new?… What’s improved?” I’ve been a big fan of SwingBench forever so the name Dominic Giles has been familiar to me for a long time. Up until recently I had never actually put a face to that name, but once I did I realised I’d seen him loads of times over the years. I was finally able to introduce myself properly at this years ACE Director Briefing and apologise for not doing so earlier. 🙂

Dominic’s session was a romp through some of the 12cR2 new features and enhancements. With allegedly 500+ new features in 12cR2, not all of which are documented yet, there was a bunch of stuff I hadn’t already heard of. Dominic is relaxed and super-confident in his presenting style. That combined with the huge list of new stuff knocked my internal 12cR2 hype-meter up a few notches. There is so much new stuff it is really daunting, but exciting too.

Note to self. Keep checking the v$version view on LiveSQL incase it mysteriously switches to 12cR2 at some point soon…

redstacktechNext up was Nigel Bayliss, the latest incarnation of “The Optimzer Lady”, with “The Optimizer in Oracle Database 12c Release 2: What You Need To Know”. I had the good fortune of being on a SQL performance panel with Nigel at this years Oracle OpenWorld, so this is the second time we’ve bumped into each other in a week, but on different sides of the planet. 🙂

As the name suggests, Nigel’s session was also about new features, but focussed on the optimizer. With finer grained control over the adaptive features and more conservative defaults in this regard, I think a move from 11gR2 to 12cR2 will be less of a mystery than the switch from 11gR2 to 12cR1 was for many people. 🙂 The session actually covered most of the 12cR1 optimizer features as part of the setup for what’s changed in 12cR2, which I thought worked really well. Nigel is also a confident speaker, with a laid back approach and midlands accent, which of course makes him a superior presenter! 🙂 Once again, my internal 12cR2 hype-meter got knocked up a few more notches!

Come on Oracle! Give me 12.2! 🙂

Big thanks to Dominic and Nigel for coming to speak to us. Thanks as always to Red Stack Tech for sponsoring the event, allowing it to remain free, and to Mike for organising it!

See you all again soon!

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Midlands : Event #15 – Summary

Last night was Oracle Midlands Event #15 with Joel Goodman and Martin Widlake.

First up was Joel with a session called, “Oracle Storage Fragmentation”, where he discussed the potential fragmentation issues possible in tablespaces, tables and indexes. If you’ve been a DBA for a long time it’s easy to think everyone knows this stuff, but I get asked questions about this stuff a lot! The session had a good mix of content, with something to keep everyone happy from beginner to old timers. Joel is like a walking encyclopedia of Oracle, so it’s always good to hear him present.

Next up was Martin with a session called, “Performance of PL/SQL functions called from SQL”, where he discussed the pros and cons of calling PL/SQL functions from SQL statements. I like Martin’s presentation style. He’s very self-deprecating and amusing. Of course I am biased because he’s part of the family. 🙂

redstacktechAfter the second session a few of us went across to a local pub and chatted for hours. The place was closing up when we left. It was quite a late one for a “school night”, and I was full of Diet Coke by the time I left, so sleep was not a great option. 🙂

Thanks to the guys for coming to speak to us and to everyone that came along to the sessions. Thanks to Mike for doing a great job in keeping Oracle Midlands going and to Red Stack Tech for their continued support.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Midlands : Event #14 – Summary

Last night was Oracle Midlands Even #14 with Lothar Flatz.

The session started with “Raiders of the Data Dictionary I: Indexing for the Workload” where Lothar discussed a project he worked on based around completely revamping the indexing of a system. I guess the best way I can describe it is to say it’s a more scientific approach to indexing, using the contents of the dictionary to provide information about columns and column groups used in queries to determine the indexes to create. In some ways the approach was quite extreme (throw everything away and start again), but I also admire the bravery of that approach!

Next up was “Raiders of the Data Dictionary II: The Curse of the Buffer Cache” where Lothar discussed the problems associated with trying to keep large, frequently used tables in the buffer cache. Once again, some interesting points made and some things that will definitely influence my approach in future.

It was great to meet Lothar in person for the first time. After being in the game for 20+ years many subjects can start to feel a little repetitive, so it’s nice when someone comes along with a different spin on a subject. I certainly found myself asking a lot of questions of him and myself, which surely must be what this knowledge spreading thing is all about!

Thanks to Lothar for taking the time to come and speak to us and to everyone that came along to listen. Thanks to Mike for doing a great job in keeping Oracle Midlands going and to Red Stack Tech for their continued support.

See you at the next one! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Midlands : Event #12 – Summary

Tonight was Oracle Midlands Event #12 with Bryn Llewellyn  and Neil Chandler.

Bryn very kindly stepped in for Tom Freyer who unfortunately couldn’t make it. Bryn’s presentation was called Why use PL/SQL?, which was based on his whitepaper of the same name. I’ve written about a number of the topics he raised, including a piece on My Utopian Development Environment, but his talk and his whitepaper put forward a much more consistent and compelling argument. Definitely worth checking out if you are a PL/SQL expert or newbie!

Along the way, he used a little piece of syntax I have never noticed before, which has been available for the whole 20+ years I’ve been using PL/SQL. I’ll write about that in a post tomorrow if I get chance.

By the way, Bryn loves being called Brian, and he loves it when you say S.Q.L. and PL/S.Q.L. rather than Sequel and PL/Sequel. 🙂

redstacktechNext up was Neil with a session called “Why has my plan changed?”. I’ve written about many of the issues discussed in this session, but Neil crystallised a whole array of points really well, and used live demos which I always like to see. Regardless of how well you think you know the subject, I would be surprised if you don’t walk away with a few new things, which you can later pretend you always knew. 🙂

Both guys will be presenting these sessions at UKOUG Tech15 if you want to catch up with them!

Thanks to the guys for coming to speak to us. Thanks to Bryn’s mom, for living in the UK, giving him an excuse to come to UKOUG Tech15 early and therefore be available to step in at short notice. Thanks as always to Red Stack Tech for sponsoring the event, allowing it to remain free, and to Mike for organising it!

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Midlands : Event #11 – Summary

oracle-midlandsLast night was Oracle Midlands event #11 with Chris Antognini.

The lead up to this event was not the best for me. I had been on the verge of a headache all day. By 14:00 I gave up, went home and went to sleep for a couple of hours. It wasn’t great, but it was just enough to take the edge off, so when the time came, I felt sort-of OK to head out for the event. The drive started to convince me this wasn’t the best move, but once I got to the event and sat down I figured I was going to make it. 🙂

Chris did two talks at the event.

The first talk had lots of people’s heads nodding. It’s kind-of depressing, but we’ve all seen, and continue to see, these same things happening again and again. I, like others in the audience, am convinced it is because of the lack of emphasis on database technologies in development. Too many frameworks encourage a hands-off approach to the database, hiding it behind persistence layers that end up doing a mediocre job, at best. Anyway, enough of my rambling. This session should be mandatory viewing once a month for every developer that goes near a database! 🙂

redstacktechThe second session was pretty neat too. I must admit I’ve become addicted to the Enterprise Manager 12c performance pages, so a couple of the things Chris mentioned took me by surprise, including the use of some V$ views that I assumed were part of the Diagnostics and Tuning Pack, but aren’t. I’m purposely going to avoid mentioning them here because I would want to confirm the status before accidentally leading someone astray, but the idea was, query the V$ view and you are good. Query the DBA_HIST_* view and you’ve sourced the information from the AWR, so you need the D&T pack. This definitely *does not* apply to all V$ views, but it’s worth checking out if you don’t have D&T, or you are working with standard edition.

I think the evening went really well. Thanks to Chris for coming to speak to us and thanks to the Oracle ACE Program for getting him across. Thanks to Red Stack Tech for sponsoring the event, allowing this to remain free. Thanks to Mike for doing a great job of keeping these events rolling. Of course, thanks to everyone for turning up after the Bank Holiday weekend. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…