Oracle related rants (and lots of off-topic stuff)…
It looks like the new 11g downloads have been taken off OTN. The plot thickens… See here.
Update: They’re back again this morning!
I was reading the list of new downloads off the page to Laurent Schneider and Lutz Hartmann and the page looked fine. About 1 hour later I was talking to Andrew Clarke and I went to page and it had reverted to the previous options. I refreshed the page and everything. Andrew is my witness… 🙂
I guess it doesn’t matter now…
Currently listening to a talk by Wim Coekaerts on Oracle VM. Just a few points of interest:
Cheers
Tim…
I guess most people have now seen that Oracle 11g is now available for all of the “most popular” platforms. Yesterday we were told this would happen within the next couple of weeks, but I’m guessing it was already downloadable during this announcement. You gotta laugh… 🙂
Check out mix.oracle.com. I’m not sure totally what it is, but it looks like some sort of Oracle version of LinkedIn…
Let me start by saying Vikki Lira and Emily Yip are superstars! They are the people that organized just about everything for me this year. This has been the most painless and effort free trip I’ve ever been on, and it’s entirely down to their organizational skills. You deserver a very big thanks and a pay raise.
I got in to San Francisco about 21:10 local time on Saturday, which was 1 hour late, but the limo was waiting and I got to the hotel about 22:00 I guess. Unfortunately, I was so tired I couldn’t sleep, so I lay awake until about 01:00 the next day. Never mind.
Yesterday was the first day of work for me. I had the Oracle ACE Directors meetings all day. It was good getting to see everyone face to face. A time to meet some new people, and touch base for the first time since last year with others. After all the meetings, it was off to the Larry Ellison keynote speach, then off to the Oracle ACE dinner. It was a very long day for someone so tired, but fun too.
I won’t bore you with the details of the day, just list a few funny things:
I was with Lewis Cunningham waiting for a few of the guys to show up when I was sure the ground was shaking. He assured me it wasn’t, which was when I learnt that jeg lag can sometimes make you feel like there’s a minor earthquake going on. I guess it’s like getting your land legs again. Never happened to me before.
Doug Burns turned to me later in the evening and said, “martial arts films and jet lag…” I was expecting this to be the precursor to a good slagging off over the lack of Oracle content on my blog, but his biggest concern was I didn’t seem to be suffering as much as him in the jet lag stakes. Some of us hide it better than others. 🙂 I was a little disturbed by the lack of soft toys with Doug, but I noticed on his blog some have made the journey with him. I hope they coped with the jet lag better than he did.
Eddie Awad did a live podcast from the pub. I have no clue what I said, but I was tired and I’d had a drink, which I don’t usually do. That’s my excuse if I was talking gibberish. Of course, if it was truely insightful, then it’s all down to me. 🙂
I think I’ve got a full schedule of talks today, but I might have to ditch some of them. I went to bed as 00:00 and I woke up at 04:00. It’s now 07:00 and I’m starting to feel really tired again…
Cheers
Tim…
Put a couple of little pieces live yesterday:
Nothing too insightful, just getting to grips with this stuff…
Cheers
Tim…
I put an article about Flashback and LogMiner new stuff live the other day, but forgot to put a post here. Better late than never. I feel a bit cheap and dirty admitting this, but I’m starting to like the web based Enterprise Manager. 🙂
The new LogMiner interface is really easy to use, and the integration with Flashback Transaction is right on the money. I guess LogMiner isn’t the sexiest of features, and I’ve had very little cause to use it since I first tried it out in 8i, but at least now it’s a no-brainer in terms of ease of use.
On a separate note, I finished The Light Fantastic last night. It seemed marginally more serious than the first book, but was still very funny. The introduction of character Cohen was very cool. Had me in stitches. I adopted a Sean Connery accent (in my head) for most of his dialog. Off to the book shop on the way home to buy the next couple…
Cheers
Tim…
In addition to my reading exploits, I also had a trot through the SQL Performance Analyzer last night. It all looks pretty neat.
When I was using Database Replay I didn’t feel like the Enterprise Manager screens were easier to use than the PL/SQL APIs. They didn’t exactly feel like they added any value I guess. Part of that may have been because you still had to jump out to the command line to start the replay clients. Perhaps I was just being a bit fussy…
In contrast, I felt the SQL Performance Analyzer was a little bit easier to use through Enterprise Manager. That’s not to say the APIs are difficult, just that the Enterprise Manager screens add a little value. The basic running is the same, but the Enterprise Manager screen includes a couple of quick tests for optimizer version and parameter changes which are quite handy.
To be fare, the biggest difference in terms of ease of use is the creation and manipulation of the SQL tuning sets, which feels much simpler in Enterprise Manager, although some of functionality was present in 10g also, so I guess it’s a bit unfair to throw it into the mix. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
I logged in this morning and noticed I’d released my Database Replay article by accident last night. It wasn’t far off being finished, but it was in need of some “refinement”. Sorry to anyone who had the misfortune of reading the “beta” version. 🙂
At OpenWorld last year there was much talk of both Database Replay and SQL Replay, the latter being the capture and replay of just a specific SQL workload. I was quite surprised when I couldn’t see SQL Replay on the list of new features in 11g. It turns out is is there, but it has the new whiz-bang name of “SQL Performance Analyzer”. I guess this will be my next port of call.
Cheers
Tim…
I guess you would have to be in a coma to not notice that Oracle 11g is now out for Windows 32-bit.
To celebrate this release I’ve done an 11g RAC on Windows 2003 article, which is an update of my 10g RAC on Windows 2003 article. With both installations, if you get the networking stuff sorted, the installs are a breeze. Miss any steps out and you’re in for a world of hurt. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…