Oracle related rants (and lots of off-topic stuff)…
In today’s video we’ll demonstrate the analytic functions window clause, introduced in Oracle database 21c.
The video is based on the following article.
You might also find these useful.
The star of today’s video is Peter Scott, who took time out of his life of luxury in France to say “.com” for this video. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
Virtualbox 6.1.30 has been released.
The downloads and changelog are in the usual places.
I’ve installed it on Windows 11 and macOS Big Sur hosts with no dramas. Some time in the next 24 hours I’ll upload updated versions of my Oracle Linux 7 and Oracle Linux 8 vagrant boxes.
Cheers
Tim…
In today’s video we demonstrate gradual database password rollover time, introduced in Oracle database 21c, and backported to 19c.
The video is based on this article.
This is a small, but really useful quality of life feature!
The stars of today’s video are the offspring of Jeff Smith. It was cold, dark and miserable when I recorded the video, and this is one of my favourite clips, so I included it to bring a touch a summer! 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
In today’s video we’ll use Oracle Data Pump 21c to export to, and import from, a cloud object store.
The video is based on this article.
You might find the following articles useful as part of the setup.
The star of today’s video is Markus Michalewicz, the Vice President of Product Management; Database High Availability, Scalability, MAA & Cloud Migration at Oracle. That’s a bit of a mouthful. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
Unless you live under a rock, you’ll have seen APEX 21.2 was released yesterday. Being the worlds worst APEX developer, I’m not going to speak about the new release, as I’ll just embarrass myself, but I did want to give a heads-up of what I’ve been doing since the release.
A number of my Vagrant database builds include APEX. Those that do have been updated to use APEX 21.2. You can find them here.
They had already been updated to use the latest versions of Java, Tomcat, ORDS and SQLcl where appropriate, so the APEX upgrade was a small change.
You can read my beginner’s guide to Vagrant here.
I have some ORDS containers that include the APEX images, so those image builds have been updated to use the APEX 21.2 images now. You can find them here.
As with the Vagrant builds, these had already been updated to use the latest versions of Java, Tomcat, ORDS and SQLcl where appropriate.
You can read my Docker/Container articles here.
It’s taken a long time for us to roll out APEX 21.1 at work. Most of that delay is because of competing priorities. We’ve been pushing the Oracle 19c database upgrades hard, and it’s not left much space to focus on APEX. The last of our production systems will be upgraded to APEX 21.1 next week, so I’m not sure how eager people will be when I start pushing 21.2. 🙂 I’ll try, but it might have to wait until next quarter’s security patching. We’ll see.
Despite that, APEX 21.1 is now dead to me. Long live APEX 21.2. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
If you follow me on Twitter, you will have seen me retweeting the last three episodes of The Spoken Nerd podcast by Connor McDonald, because it’s a three part series with me. 🙂
If you’ve got some spare time, you might want to listen to us chatting about a variety of subjects including the Oracle community, how we got started in content creation, YouTube and our attitude to Oracle 21c.
You can get the podcast on a variety of platforms. Just search for “The Spoken Nerd”. Here are links to Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Cheers
Tim…
In today’s video we’ll demonstrate the functionality of the DBMS_CLOUD package, with specific reference to external tables based on objects in a cloud object store.
The video is based on a section in this article.
You may find these useful.
The star of today’s video is Alex Zaballa, who has got to be one of the most certified people I’ve ever met. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
In today’s video we’ll demonstrate the functionality of the DBMS_CLOUD package, with specific reference to objects in a cloud object store and files on the database server file system.
The video is based on part of this article.
You might find these useful also.
The star of today’s video is Roel Hartman, who used to do APEX, but now just runs marathons I think… 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
For my entry in the Joel Kallman Day (#JoelKallmanDay) I thought I would run through my history of using Oracle Application Express (APEX).
I was aware of Web DB, but I never used it. I have this vague memory of taking a look at it, but that was all.
I remember Tom Kyte mentioning Flows and later Project Marvel, and being a Tom Kyte fanboy it sparked my interest. At that point the tool felt kind-of awkward to use, and since I had no pressing need for it, it got relegated to an idle curiosity for me. I would have a play, then ignore it for months. I kept my eye on it during the HTML DB and early APEX days, but it was still not something I used regularly. Typically what would happen is I would need to do something, I would “re-learn” APEX to do it, finish that task, then forget about it for months. The next time I needed APEX, it would often be a new version, so I would “re-learn” it again…
In 2009 I went to ODTUG in Monterey, and there was an APEX symposium as part of the conference, so I made it my mission to pick APEX sessions as much as possible. It was good to connect with some of the folks in the APEX community. Even back then it was one of the most dynamic Oracle communities. I knew a few of the folks already through meeting at other conferences, but it was fun to immerse myself in APEX for a while.
After that conference I slipped back into the habit of re-learn it, forget it, relearn it. I was constantly aware of it, and able to do relatively simple developments, but I never focused on it long enough to get good. Remember, my job didn’t involve that type of development, so it was hard to spend too much time on it.
Since joining my current company in 2012 I’ve used APEX a lot more. It started off with me writing little PL/SQL utilities for people and giving them a front end using APEX. Things like reports on interface staging tables, screens to manage database users and some simple CRUD apps. At that point APEX was kind-of underground in the company. There was only really me using it. As time went on I kept pushing it and gradually it started to pick up some momentum. We now have a few people that do APEX development as part of their role. At this point I’m relegated to managing the infrastructure behind it, and problem solving when people hit an issue. I’ve seen and heard so much over the years that it’s often easier for me to solve certain problems. Also, I know a lot of good people who can help. 🙂
I have this joke that I’ve got more than 15 years “experience” of APEX, but I’m the worlds worst APEX developer. Despite that, I know enough to know APEX is probably the most productive way to develop applications against an Oracle database. The “Low Code” nature of it is great for people with less experience of database development, but it’s also a great way to make skilled developers super productive!
I’ve written a small number of articles about APEX over the years, as well as some surrounding technologues.
So there you have it. My life as the worlds worst APEX developer on the planet. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
Since 2016 we’ve had an Oracle community day where we push out content on the same day to try and get a bit of a community buzz. The name has changed over the years, but after speaking to some folks at Oracle I decided to rename it permanently to the “Joel Kallman Day”. Joel was big on community, and it seems like a fitting tribute to him.
The date is Monday October 11th. That’s a week from today!
Here is the way it works.
Like previous years, it would be really nice if we could get a bunch of first-timers involved, but it’s also an opportunity to see existing folks blog for the first time in ages!
The following day I write a summary post that includes links to all the posts that were pushed out through the day. You can see examples here.
Whatever you want to write about. Here are some suggestions that might help you.
It’s not limited to these. You can literally write about anything Oracle-related. The posts can be short, which makes it easy for new people to get involved. If you do want to write about something technical, that’s fine. You can also write a simple overview post and link to more detailed posts on a subject if you like. In the previous years the posts I enjoyed the most were those that showed the human side of things, but that’s just me. Do whatever you like.
So you have a week to get something ready!
Cheers
Tim…