It has been some time...

...since I last posted here... It has been a busy time. Hopefully I will get back to blogging shortly.
Just be a little more patient...

Oracle Contest: Are You The Smartest 2010 - WINNER!!!

In the past half year Oracle BeNeLux organized a contest, called Are You The Smartest. This is a contest for Oracle Partners, and covered 7 evening sessions.
The idea behind this contest is to get Oracle Partner consultants up to speed with new products and strategies on the technology level. Seven evenings packed with information on the following topics:

 

• Oracle Technology Overview
• Layering your Enterprise Security
• Database 11g r2 New Features
• Enterprise 2.0 and moreLarge Databases, Partitioning, Exadata, OWB-ODI, Golden GateOracle
• Enterprise Manager from OS to Application
• Application Grid 11g with WLS, Coherence, Tuxedo, JRockit, RealTime, ...

 

Every topic was followed by an exam, to be taken right before the next session.
These were no easy exams, I can tell you. 20 questions in half an hour. Half of the questions were taken directly from the session content, the other half from other documentation and information on the web. Scoring is quite particular: every correct answer is a point, every wrong answer is a negative... So in theory, a negative score can be achieved... Hence, study was necessary.

 

My company (Inter Access B.V.) subscribed with approximately 25 consultants, so we were a "big" partner. One of us was to be rewarded the grand prize: An All-inclusive trip to San Francisco and Las Vegas, including a visit to Oracle Headquarters in Redwood Shores.

 

Three weeks ago, I received the good news: I am one of the winners of the grand prize! Yesterday evening I was awarded the prize, and next week I will be flying to San Francisco for the trip.

 

For a complete coverage of the trip, please visit http://ayts2010.blogspot.com/. Stay Tuned!

ACFS: NOT for Database Files!

ASM Cluster File System was introduced with Grid Infrastructure along with Oracle 11g Release 2. To be honest, I assumed this file system layer was also provided to store database files, a kind of improvement, because ASM, being a black box to many, 'hided' these database files from sight on the Operating System. Which - on the other side - was kind of neat, because chances were lowered these files to be accidentally removed by non-knowledgable users.

It is technically possible to store your database files on ACFS, no question about that. I already deployed a number of test databases on ACFS. However, the Oracle 11g Release 2 Storage Administrator's Guide, Chapter 5 states:

• Oracle ASM is the preferred storage manager for all database files. It has been specifically designed and optimized to provide the best performance for database file types.

• Oracle ACFS is the preferred file manager for non-database files. It is optimized for general purpose files.

• Oracle ACFS does not support any file that can be directly stored in Oracle ASM.

  Not supported means Oracle Support Services will not take calls and development will not fix bugs associated with storing unsupported file types in Oracle ACFS.

Especially that last sentence says it all: If you run into trouble with your database stored on ACFS, you will not be assisted by Oracle Support.

Here is the list of file types that are NOT supported to be stored on ACFS:

Control files

Data files

Redo log files

Archive log files

Temporary files

Data file backup pieces

Data file incremental backup pieces

Archive log backup piece

Data file copy

Persistent initialization parameter file (SPFILE)

Flashback logs

Change tracking file

Data Pump dumpset

Automatically generated control file backup

Cross-platform transportable data files

Flash file

Oracle ASM Persistent initialization parameter file (SPFILE)

backup

Oracle Cluster Registry file

Be aware of this when you are designing your Grid Infrastructure!

UKOUG RAC & HA SIG Meeting Agenda Available

On February 10 I will present at the UKOUG RAC & HA SIG meeting at Oracle in Reading.
The agenda has been published and will contain the following interesting sessions:

10:00
Welcome and Introduction

10:15
Support Roundup - Phil Davies, Oracle

10:35
Recovery of very Large Database in shortest time possible - Arnoud Roth, Inter Access

11:45
ASM Split Brain - Problem Description - Pavel Rabel, DSP Managed Services

12:15
Application Consolidation Experiences on a 3-node RAC Cluster - Martin Bach, Markit Group Ltd.

14:00
Using RAC and Grid for Database Consolidation - Panel Discussion

14:45
Rolling Database Upgrade, a Real World Experience - Thomas Ramanauskas, ekc

15:15
Oracle RAC on Cisco UCS hardware, boxes to blades by brunch - Dev Nayak, DSP Managed Services and Carl Bradshaw, Cisco

16:00
Stretched RAC Cluster with 11gR2, David Burnham, Ioko365

16:30
Close


Looks to be a promising day!
I am really looking forward being there.