Tag: Oracle

DBMS_XA…

A few weeks ago someone asked me some general questions about the XA/Open interface in Oracle. Oracle has been XA compliant since Oracle 7, but I kinda excused myself from the conversation as that was just about all I knew about it. During that exchange I was reminded that Oracle Database 11gR1 included the DBMS_XA package to allow PL/SQL to make calls to the XA interface. That made me put DBMS_XA on my to-do list.

Fast forward several weeks and I’ve finally had a look at it. You can see an example of it being used here.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of any situations I’ve encountered that lend themselves to this, but it’s always good to know a little about these things just in case. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Consuming Web Services using PL/SQL…

I have a couple of soultions for consuming web services using PL/SQL.

The problem has always been that every so often the web services referenced by these articles disappear, so I have to modify the articles to use a different web service. Well, I got sick of people pulling the plug on their web services, so I created one of my own that just adds two numbers together. The articles now reference that web service, so it should be a little more stable.

In the process of doing the alterations to the articles I had a lot of trouble with UTL_DBWS. I’m not at all convinced by this solution. On the surface it seems OK, and it certainly seemed to be OK in 10gR2, but it seems very flaky in 11gR2. The old 9i method seems a lot more stable, and you have complete control as you are doing everything yourself.

Of course the real problem with web services and PL/SQL is people look at their WSDL file and then mail me asking what the hell they do with it. I think I’m going to start suggesting they pass it to the Java guys and handle it in the middle tier. Problem solved. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

PL/SQL Masterclass Croatia – Day 2

I wrote this post in Munich airport, but forgot to post it, hence the big gap…

After finishing teaching on the first day I got a taxi into town to have a look round for a couple of hours.

Since arriving in Zagreb I had been getting some serious déjà vu. First, I had some currency in my wallet that I didn’t get and I’ve never been to Croatia before. Second, the hotel seemed too familiar. I mean spookily familiar. Walking round Zagreb continued the theme because I kept feeling like I recognized places. It is similar to Tallinn, Estonia in parts, so I guess that may have been part of it. What with the days teaching and the events of the evening I was completely knackered by bedtime.

Day two went well. I think one demo screwed up, but that was my fault because I dropped some objects in the schema, forgetting that editioning was switched on for that schema and the objects were still present in another edition. Once I realized this I quickly cleaned up and the demo worked fine. Everything else seemed cool.

When it was all over I spent some time chatting and was given a summary of the feedback forms, which looked really good. I was confident I had plenty of time before my flight, but when I checked the times I noticed I’d been looking at the arrival times in Munich, not my departure time from Zagreb. Panic!!!!!

I arrived at the airport as boarding was closing. Fortunately, Zagreb airport is quite small, so they phoned through and I was allowed to get on the plane. In the panic I forgot to get a receipt from the taxi driver, but faced with a choice of losing a few pounds or missing a flight I know which one I would pick. 🙂

The flight back home was pretty low key. I had a 3 hour stop at Munich whre I wrote this post, then promptly forgot to publish it. 🙂

So another Oracle University gig under the belt. Thanks to everyone who came to the sessions and helped in the organization.

Cheers

Tim…

Touchdown in Zagreb, Croatia…

When I left Birmingham and it was a warm and sunny. I arrived in Zagreb, Croatia and it is wet. The taxi driver apologized for the weather, but I told him this feels more like home than home does. 🙂

The flight went OK. I had a 4 hour stop in Frankfurt, but I used this new fangled interweb thing to keep me occupied. It’s fun, but I can’t see it catching on.

The second leg of the trip had a bit of turbulence on take-off and landing, but apart from a few quick flashbacks to trans-atlantic nightmares, I was fine. I had a little phone drama once I landed, centered around the fact I couldn’t find it. Once I got to the hotel I emptied my rucksack and found it hiding in a side pocket. Pesky bags with their handy side pockets…

The taxi driver gave the the heads-up on a few bits of the local lingo. I’ve added enough words to my vocabulary to make myself look completely stupid tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning I start a 2-day PL/SQL class for Oracle University. It should be easy to get to as it’s in the same hotel I’m staying in. The only thing I’ve got do before the class is sleep and iron 2 shirts. The ironing is praying heavily on my mind. I should have stipulated “crumpled appearance” in the contract.

Cheers

Tim…

Using NFS with ASM…

Combining NFS with ASM has come up in several conversations I’ve had recently, both online and real world. Since I no longer believe in coincidence I figured it was a message that I should take a look at it.

Anyone who has ever faked ASM disks using “dd” will recognize the approach. It works OK, and solves one of my issue with VirtualBox not supporting shared disks.

Please, please, please don’t think I’m recommending this. I’m not. NFS works just fine on it’s own. It’s just useful for me as a some time Mac user because VirtualBox and VMware Fusion don’t do shared disks, so RAC with ASM is a pain on them.

Bulgarian Oracle User Group (BGOUG)…

I’m back home from the BGOUG event now, having had a great time in Bulgaria. It was really cool to hook up with everyone again. I’m not great with names, but I usually remember a face and there were lots of familair faces.

Dimitri Gielis and Patrick Wolf did some great presentations on APEX. I didn’t see many others as many of them were in Bulgarian. My presentations were back-to-back on the second day. I was almost expecting the room to be empty because it was the morning after the appreciation party and people did some serious partying. As it was I got a really good turn out and the presentations seemed to go down well. I’ve already had some follow up emails about it, which is nice.

It’s interesting to note that in these times of user groups struggling to get good conference attendance and struggling to get enough sponsorship to run events, the numbers were up at BGOUG this year and the event was done without the usual sponsorship and stands you see at other conferences. In addition to learning something, the social element of the conference is so good I think people would come back even if there were no speakers. 🙂

I may be back in Bulgaria later in the year to teach a class for Oracle University. I certainly hope I will be at future BGOUG events.

I’d like to send a big thank you to everyone at the BGOUG event for making me feel so welcome and also to the Oracle ACE program for getting me to Bulgaria. Even a Volcano can’t stop the ACE program. 🙂

Наздраве

Tim…

BGOUG… I’m here…

I made it to Sofia, Bulgaria, without so much as a thin layer of volcanic ash on me.

I got to the airport and my flight was not listed on the departures board, even though it was on the airport and Lufthansa website. I asked at the desk and they said everything was fine. What’s more, all but one of yesterdays flights went out OK too. That seemed a little odd to me since they were all marked as canceled on both websites when I checked.

I really don’t understand what was going on there, but none of it matters now as I’m here. I came with extra clothes in case I’m not allowed to leave of course. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…