New Apex Blog

Read and monitor Oracle related blogs and news sources, all in one place.

There was a recent post on the Oracle -L list asking about using Grid Control to report on a particular databases cpu usage during a certain period of time. A number of answers came in showing the sql queries that would answer the question but I saw the question being ‘ how can we display the CPU usage in Grid’ or indeed how can we produce a customised metric report on any database in Grid
However for those who are interested in the recommended scripted methods then the the answers that were of most use in my view were from Karl Arao pointing to a script he has written and Rich Jesse produced the following code
SELECT mmd.* FROM sysman.mgmt$metric_daily mmd JOIN sysman.mgmt$target mt ON mmd.target_name = mt.target_name AND mmd.target_type = mt.target_type AND mmd.target_guid = mt.target_guid WHERE mmd.metric_column like '%cpu%' AND mt.target_name =B_NAME AND mt.target_type = 'oracle_database';
My method was to create a report that coud be used to report on any instance and this is howI did it.
On OEM select create report and give it a title, category and sub-category. This is how where it will be located in the reports tab. Select target type of ‘Database Instance’ and select a time period, in my case the last 24 hours.

Now add 2 new elements as I am going to produce a report with two metric graphs in. Edit the set parameters tab

Then ensure that the appropriate metrics are selected by choosing the target type ‘Database Instance’ but again inherit target. Select whichever metric you are interested in and then repeat the process for the second required graph.

Now all you need to do is to look at the preview, enter a SID and hey presto

Finally our end reports looks like this – all we need to do s run the report and select the instance name

I hope that has proved useful and demonstrated how easy it is to run a customised report which can be run against any desired instance
my_pkg.get_label(:P1_VALUE)REPLACE(:P1_EMAIL_LIST, ':', '<br>')It’s almost that time again, and Rittman Mead will once again be attending and presenting at Oracle’s Open World conference and exhibition, running in San Francisco from September 19th-23rd 2010.
Our team are running thirteen sessions over the week, covering such topics as OBIEE 11g, Fusion Middleware 11g, Oracle Data Integrator, Oracle Golden Gate, Oracle Database 11gR2 and Oracle Exadata. Here’s the run-down on our sessions, and who’s presenting:
We’ll also be at the various events, getting to as many sessions as possible and meeting up with our friends and customers within the industry. If you’re going to be there, stop by one of our sessions and say hello. We’ll also post the various presentations and papers on our website once the conference is over.
# tnsnames.ora Network Configuration File:I name all my sandbox databases "testing." Always have, probably always will. From the command line I issue:
c:\oracle\product\11.2.0\dbhome_1\network\admin\tnsnames.ora
# Generated by Oracle configuration tools.
ORACLR_CONNECTION_DATA =
(DESCRIPTION =
(ADDRESS_LIST =
(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = 127.0.0.1)(PORT = 1521))
)
(CONNECT_DATA =
(SERVICE_NAME = TESTING)
(SID = TESTING)
)
)
LISTENER=(Address=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=127.0.0.1)(PORT=1521))
SQLPLUS SYS/TESTING@TESTING AS SYSDBA(Yes, I know I don't need to specify the user/password@service_name).
I’m going to Oracle OpenWorld again this year, and I just finished building my schedule. Wow. This year there are so many sessions I want to attend in the same time slots that I won’t be able to see a fraction of what I want to. Guess I’ll have to skip the session on how to author blue-ray disks using Java in favor of a product roadmap session I need to attend. You see, I’ve started a new project and I have a whole laundry list of stuff I need to come up to speed on. I’m sure it’ll be an informative but exhausting week – it always is.
Gazing into my crystal ball, I’m expecting to hear more about the Fusion applications that were introduced at the end of the 2009 OOW. I think Oracle isn’t re-inventing all of the functionality in their mature ERP/CRM product lines like PeopleSoft, JDE, EBS, and Siebel. But all the same I’m expecting to see some products that are ready for launch and looking snazzy with the deep integration with BI and other apps that Oracle has invested so heavily in.
Speaking of BI, I’m looking forward to seeing the new release of OBIEE. BI apps just look cool, and their functionality makes things like PeopleSoft Matching functionality seem boring in comparison. I'm hoping to see support for a ton of data sources and the ability to publish interactive reports to latest generation mobile devices. Unfortunately I think I missed the BI boat at some point in my career, so bring on the 3-way match!
I had a very successful breakout session at VMworld this year, presenting to a total of around 200 people. The topic was:
Creating an Internal Oracle Database Cloud Using vSphere
I will now share much of the substance of my session here on this blog, for those of you who could not attend VMworld.
The first section (which will constitute this first post) was on the coming data explosion that will soon hit (indeed is already hitting) Oracle DBAs all over the industry.
Many of you are familiar with the Joe Tucci keynote from EMC World this spring. In that talk, Joe pointed out the recent IDC / Dataquest study, which points out the coming world wide data explosion which can be simply stated as follows:
Year Worldwide Data Set
2009 0.8 Zettabytes
2020 35 Zettabytes
Where a Zettabyte is 1024 Exabytes, an Exabyte is 1024 Petabytes and a Petabyte is 1024 Terabytes. A Zettabyte is therefore approximately 10 ^ 21 bytes.
That's a data explosion of 44x in approximately 10 years.
What Joe does not point out is the shift from unstructured data to structured data. Presently, 90% of worldwide data is unstructured. However, almost all of the sources of new data which are causing the explosion are structured. (These include social networking, blogging, Twitter, and all of the Web 2.0 content, plus sources like e-readers, PDAs, smart phones, medical / dental digital imaging, online security, smart energy metering and the like.) The result is this graphic showing the relationship between structured and unstructured data going into the future:
Undoubtedly much of this data will end up being owned by the so-called Database 2.0 vendors. Certainly, that will be true for the bulk of the social networking and Web 2.0 content, where those vendors have formed their roots. But this is not true for all of this data. Look again at the sources of data shown above. Is it likely that a medical or dental image (which may have critical consequences for actual patient care and confidentiality) will end up on a relatively untested and emerging Database 2.0 technology? I would regard that is very unlikely. It is much more likely that this data will end up in the known-to-be-reliable good enough technology in the Database 1.0 space we know as Oracle.
The same thing is true for smart metering. Again, the output of these meters will be used to calculate actual customer bills, not to mention determining the energy output for homes and businesses. Is the external cloud Database 2.0 environment ready to absorb this data? I doubt that. Folks like Progress Energy (my energy provider) are going to place that on Oracle, most likely.
Even making the incredibly depressing (for Oracle) prediction that Oracle's market share in the database market falls by 50% in the next 10 years, the result for Oracle can be calculated simply as follows:
44 x (9 / 2)
or about 200X. This means that the growth in Oracle data volume worldwide will increase by 200X in the next 10 years, by my conservative estimate.
!!!!!!
I compare this to the movie Princess Bride, one of my favorite films by Rob Reiner. In this film, as many of you know, the main character Wesley leaves his beloved Buttercup to find his fortune. Very soon, he is captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts who makes him his cabin boy. During his years of service, the Dread Pirate Roberts tells Wesley the same thing everday:
"Hello, Wesley. I'll probably kill you in the morning"
I maintain that this is what the impending data explosion means to Oracle DBAs. The day will come when Oracle DBAs live in the "Wesley State". Coming to work everyday, they will look at their screens and their Oracle database will grin back, saying to them, in effect:
"Hello, DBA. I'll probably kill you in the morning."
Those DBAs who survive this challenge will do so because they have absorbed a very different way of thinking about their Oracle database environments. That will require many changes, among them the willingness to scale their database infrastructure in a completely new and radical way.
More on this later. In up-coming blogs, I will explain how I think that change will come about, what choices the Oracle DBA has to meet this challenge, and so forth.
To end, many of you are coming to OOW this month. I will be there as well, and will be co-presenting on the subject of RMAN backup with my good friend and former manager, Bruce Clarke. Bruce was my second boss at NetApp, and is now with Data Domain. Please come by the EMC booth and say hello, and I will post the logistics of my talk on this blog.
Also, a big thanks to Steve Tout with VMware, who co-presented with me at VMworld and provided my customer case study. Steve is responsible for all identities which exist on VMware.com and VMworld.com. Please see his blog as well. It contains much of the content he presented at VMworld.



Better Information With Master Data Management
In our last blog, we showed how every single answer produced by the BI tools on the Data Warehouse star schema was wrong.
What is the average revenue per customer? $47.50
Who is the most valuable customer? Mary Smith
How much did the most valuable customer spend? $50
Who is the number one retailer? Old Navy
What is the maximum revenue for any supplier? $50.00
The answers were wrong because the analytical side of the business is not designed to deal with the following transactional realities:
· Mary Smith married Mr. Evans and changed her name to Mary Evans after she bought the sweater from Old Navy. She is, in fact, the same person who bought the similar sweater from Banana Republic the next day.
· Old Navy and Banana Republic are both subsidiaries of The Gap.
· AI Corp is an alias for Acme, Inc. They are in fact the same supplier.
· VN-Sweater and RF-Sweater are two ids for the same actual item.
Oracle's MDM solution is designed to understand these facts, accurately reflect this reality, and provide the correct dimension information to the Data Warehouse.
We will now itemize the key MDM capabilities supporting BI. We will then rebuild the star schema and re-execute the queries to get the right answers.
In any MDM solution, the data model, or schema, is the foundation upon which all subsequent MDM application functionality is built. As an applications vendor, Oracle had to create technologies that cleansed the master data within our own applications. We used the proven application data models themselves to build applications to master the applications' own data. We then extended these capabilities to the enterprise to run with or without other Oracle applications.
The Oracle model is tailored to map to the way organizations actually do business. The Oracle MDM data models are unique in that they are an OLTP schema that represents a superset of every way master data has been defined by all attached applications. It has the flexibility to accommodate organization and industry specific extensions. It holds all necessary hierarchical information, all attributes needed for duplicate identification, removal and prevention, as well as cross-reference information for all attached operational systems.
In our example, the MDM schema holds customer data in both business-to-business (Old Navy, Banana Republic) and business-to-consumer (Mary Smith, Mary Evans) formats. In addition, it holds the master supplier data (Acme, Inc, AI Corp) and retail product data (VN-Sweater, RF-Sweater). The names and all needed attributes are maintained.
In order to deal with real time changes to master data, such a the marriage of Mary Smith to Mr. Evans, Oracle's MDM solution includes a real time Business Event System. Any change to master data attributes triggers a business event that in turn invokes a workflow process. The workflow process builds appropriate XML payload packages and executes the configured steps for the particular data change.
In our example, the introduction of Mary Evans triggered a 'New Customer' event. This kicked off a workflow to populate Mary's record with all available information. For example, it may have requested address validation from a postal address verification vendor to insure that all addresses are mailable. Standardized addresses also aid in duplicate identification. The workflow may have requested data augmentation for credit ratings, or obtained an AbiliTec ID from Acxiom to assist with duplicate identification. This is done in real time.
Person Duplicate Identification
Oracle's MDM solution for customer data is the Customer Hub. It comes with a variety of mechanisms for finding duplicate customer records. A primary technique is to configure a rules engine to find potential matches using a large number of customer attributes. In our example, Old Navy has entered Mary Smith as a customer. Her universal ID is established. The Customer Hub manages Old Navy as a source system and records Mary Smith's ID in that system. Mary Evans is similarly managed. This is the base for the MDM cross-reference.
MDM utilizes all available attributes to determine if these are duplicates. Typical match rules will examine addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses etc. Additionally, 3rd party data such as an AbiliTec ID from Acxiom may be used. In our example, the system fines that Mary Smith and Mary Evans are indeed duplicates in spite of the different name and address.
Company Duplicate Identification
Company duplicate identification uses the same general rules engines as the Person duplicate identification. The key difference is that the number and type of attributes available for a company are different. For example, companies can have a DUNs number provided by D&B. In our example, a search on AI Corp produces a match with Acme Inc. Alias information was used by out-of-the-box duplicate identification rules.
Duplicate Elimination & Cross-reference
Once the Customer Hub identifies Mary Smith and Mary Evans as duplicates, it eliminates the duplicates by merging the multiple records into one. The cross reference is maintained. Where before the merge, there were two customer records each pointing back to one source system, we now have one customer record pointing back to two source systems.
Another key capability of the Customer Hub is its ability to manage the survival of customer attributes in the face of multiple sourcing systems and customer record merges. The MDM Customer Hub maintains the source system priority rankings for each attribute. While all records remain in the MDM data store, only the 'blended' single version of the truth record is seen by applications and viewers.
Oracle's MDM solution for product data is the Product Hub with Oracle Product Data Quality (PDQ) for product data standardization. This standardization enables rapid and parameterized searching and accurate duplicate identification. In our example, Old Navy uses the string: VN PO 50 Blue W 24W 36B 22A. Banana Republic's sweater is identified by: B Wool V Neck Pllver S:36. These records are loaded into the Product Hub schema through PDQ's Data Lens. Attributes such as style, color, and size are populated as well as catalog codes. An English description is generated as well as other appropriate languages as needed. In our example, we see that both products are V-Neck Pullover blue wool sweaters and that they actually have the same ID code. They are in fact the same product and now the MDM system recognizes them as such.
Hierarchy information is critical for proper aggregation and roll-ups. Oracle's Customer Hub maintains any number of simultaneous hierarchies used by the operational applications. These include Dunn & Bradstreet hierarchies with out-of-the-box connectivity to D&B for both batch and real time information access. In our example, D&B provides the hierarchy information for Old Navy and Banana Republic. It turns out that they are both subsidiaries of The Gap.
MDM has identified the customer duplicates; maintained the cross reference back to the sourcing systems across a merge; developed the single golden customer record utilizing survivorship rules; found the two products to be identical; learned that the two retailers belong to one corporate hierarchy; and found through good duplicate identification techniques that Acme, Inc. and AI Corp are in fact two names for the same vendor. If we deliver this updated cross reference and dimension data to the data warehouse, we get the following star schema.
Re-running the same query now get the correct answers:
What is the average revenue per customer? $95
Who is the most valuable customer? Mary Evans
How much did the most valuable customer spend? $95
Who is the number one retailer? The Gap
What is the Max revenue for any supplier? $95
We see that better information has been provided through Master Data Management. MDM fixed the data quality problem at its source and delivered quality dimensions to the analytics. No other technology on the market is designed to accomplish this essential task.
There are three legs to a complete Business Intelligence solution: 1) the Data Warehouse for holding the operational history; 2) the Enterprise Master Data Management solution for insuring that quality data under those operational applications and hierarchies are supplied to the Data Warehouse; and 3) the BI applications themselves that utilize the DW and MDM data to get clean authoritative information to everyone in the organization that needs it. Without MDM, the solution falls over. Poor decisions based on inaccurate data drive less than optimal performance. Compliance becomes difficult and risks increase.
Oracle MDM provides clean consolidated accurate master data seamlessly propagated throughout the enterprise. This data reflects the actual operations of the organization. It insures that this is the data the BI tools use. It is the glue between the operational and analytical sides of the business. Oracle MDM enables organizations to get a single view of the enterprise for the first time since the application landscape fragmented back in the 1970s. This can save companies millions of dollars a year, dramatically increase operating efficiencies, improve customer loyalty and support sound corporate governance[1].
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After spending some time on discussing some of the new parallel features (like AutoDOP and Statement Queuing) it is about time to put these features in a larger context. That context is managing diverse workloads with varying degrees of parallelism for various actions on the data.
A lot can be said about setting up workload management, so expect this to be one of the posts in a series on this topic. As it is the first post, let's start from the beginning, with understanding workloads and a framework of setting up such a management infrastructure.
Workload management - the understanding and management of a set of diverse workloads on a system - is really an ecosystem with many participants. It is ever-changing and therefore is one of these things in life that will always be in motion. As the workload changes, or the environment in which the workload runs, adjustments will be required to ensure everything runs smoothly.
At a high level, the cycle of continuous improvements begins with the definition of a workload plan. That definition should be based on a clear understanding of the actual workloads running on this system (more later on some of the required questions). That will be tested when the workloads are running on the system, and your main task is to monitor and adjust the workload. Adjusting - if all goes well and your plan is reasonable - is mostly required in the beginning when fine tuning of the plan is done.
Once the system stabilizes and all small exceptions to the plan are corrected your main task is to monitor. This whole cycle will repeat itself upon changes to the workloads or to the system. It is crucial that major changes are planned for and not just resolved in an adjustment.
To start creating effective workload management solutions it is crucial to understand the phases in above shown picture.
To understand the workload for your given system you will need to gather information on the following main points:
Who is doing the work? - Which users are running workloads, which applications are running workloads?
What types of work are done on the system? - Are these workloads batch, ad-hoc, resource intensive (which resources) and are these mixed or separated in some form?
When are certain types being done? - Are there different workloads during different times of the day, are there different priorities during different time windows?
Where are performance problem areas? - Are there any specific issues in today's workload, why are these problems there, what is being done to fix these?
What are the priorities, and do they change during a time window? - Which of the various workloads are most important and when?
Are there priority conflicts? - And if so, who is going to make sure the right decisions are made on the real priorities?
Understanding the workload is a crucial phase! If your understanding is incorrect, your plans are incorrect and you will see issues popping up during the initial running of the workload. Poorly understood workloads might even drive you back to square zero and cause a lot of issues when a system (like an operational DW) is mission critical.
Now that you know (in detail) the characteristics of your workload you can start to document it all and then implement this plan. It is recommended to document the details and reasoning for the decisions (as with all systems). Out of the documented plan you would create (already in Oracle speak, more later on the products):
Create the required Resource Plans:
For example: Nighttime vs. daytime, online vs. offline
Create the resource groups:
Map to users, application context or other characteristics
Map based on estimated execution time
Etc
Set the overall priorities:
Which resource group gets most resources (per plan/window) for IO, CPU, Parallel Processing
Cap max utilizations that these sessions can use on the system
Etc
Create thresholds:
Estimated execution times to determine in which group to run
Reject sessions if too much time, CPU or IO is required (both estimated and actual)
Downgrade (or upgrade) based on resources used
Set queuing thresholds for parallel statements
Etc
Create throttles:
Limit the number of active sessions
Limit degrees of parallelism
Limit the maximum CPU, IO that can be allocated
Etc
The above is just a small number of the things to consider when putting your plan into action and is mostly focused on Database Resource Manager and IO Resource Manager (IORM is Exadata only!). Also consider working with Services and Server Pools and when you running several databases on a system consider instance caging.
Last but not least you will put the plan into action and now monitor your workloads. As the system runs you will adjust the implemented settings. Those adjustments come at various levels:
System Levels:
Memory allocations
Queuing Thresholds
Maximum Parallel Processes running
Server Pools
Etc
Resource Management Settings:
Increase or Decrease throttles and thresholds
Change the queuing guidelines
CPU and IO levels
Etc
All of these adjustments should be minor tweaks... if there are major changes required, you should consider going back to drawing board and understand what the issues with your plan are.
In this case we are focusing on the database environment and we are leveraging components that are part of RAC (Services and Server Pools), Database and IO Resource Manager and Enterprise Manager to monitor the workloads. To study your workload you will be looking at AWR for example.
The next post will cover these products and how they all relate. Hopefully I get that one done rather sooner than later...
Esta curta demo apresenta as características principais do Oracle VM e os benefícios para os utilizadores. Em cerca de 4 minutos, percorre a estratégia da Oracle com o Oracle VM, dá uma visão rápida de algumas das suas características principais, e explica o foco da Oracle em ajudar os utilizadores a conseguir obter maiores benefícios da virtualização para além da simples consolidação de servidores.
Vejam as demos e apreciem.Esta demo apresenta uma visão geral sobre os Oracle VM Templates e o Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder.
Tuxedo product management Sr. Director Deepak Goel blogs about the general availability of Tuxedo 11gR1 PS1 release (version 11.1.1.2.0). According to Deepak, this release introduces several cusomer-driven enhancements and features for mainframe application rehosting. He highlights the features/enhancements included in this release. He also notes that these new capabilities will be discussed and demonstrated at Oracle OpenWorld (OOW), San Francisco week of September 19th. If you are coming to OOW, please plan to attend one or more of the Tuxedo sessions and also stop by our demo pod, W-190, in Moscone West.
Great, now even if you invest a fortune in extremely esoteric quantum crypto equipment to guard your data transmissions....you're still vulnerable. So far the system used by the ancients--training a trustworthy courier to keep secrets and sending him to the place the data is needed--seems to still be the best technique available: Hardware hackers defeat quantum crypto • The Register
BPEL
Over at the Online Apps DBA blog there is a handy posting on Troubleshooting BPEL worklist integration with Oracle Single Sign-on.
OWB
The Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) Weblog has a recommendation for those upgrading to OWB 11.2.0.1: Recommended OWB Patch before Repository Upgrade or Migration: 9802120
Blog of Note: Rittman Mead Consulting
You'll find a lot of postings here linked from the Rittman Mead Consulting blog. It's one of the best out there, with consistently high quality technical content. A couple of samples over the last week or two:
Oracle BI EE 11g – Authentication & Authorization – Weblogic Security
and
Oracle BI EE 11g – New BI Server Functions
Hyperion
Speaking of great blogs, In 2 Hyperion has a posting on Long Live The Essbase Add-In!
EPM
New EPM Documentation Portal Available on Oracle.com
The EPM Documentation Portal provides a single entry point to locate documentation, training and other useful information that assists with the implementation process and enhances a customer’s experience with our products.
The tool is available on oracle.com from this link: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/index.html.
· On the right hand side of the page, click on Technical Information
· then Enterprise Performance Management Documentation Portal
which takes you to this page: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/technical-information-147174.html
Burnout
Over at Lifehacker, always one of my favorite general technology and office life blogs, is an article on the addictive nature of technology and how to keep it from consuming your life:
Why Technology Is So Addictive, and How You Can Avoid Tech Burnout
WiFi
Wifi has become an increasingly important part of day to day life. Windows' wifi builtin is crude at best. Several of these programs look interesting, but I haven't tried them yet, so I can't give you a review. I plan to get the one that measures signal strength of Wi-Fi servers in your home area, though, since it would be nice to know that you are on a channel not getting interference from a neighbor:
6 useful Wi-Fi tools for Windows - Computerworld
These days, customers expect quality customer service. Those who have worked in customer service know how hard it is.
Consistent, quality customer service is even a bigger challenge for companies with multiple business units or divisions. In many cases, each division has its own processes and systems. Besides the overhead costs of maintaining and supporting multiple systems, there is no way to implement best practices across the company.
Air System Components Inc. (ASC) is a market-leading supplier of heating, air conditioning, and ventilation system components for commercial applications. ASC sells its products under multiple brands that operate as independent companies, including Titus, Krueger, Tuttle & Bailey and PennBarry.
In the video below, you can hear how ASC has standardized its customer service processes across many brands using Oracle CRM On Demand. They have seen many benefits such as reducing resolution time and balanced work loads. Oh, and they were live in 4 weeks!
Click here to read more about the ASC story and here to learn more about Oracle CRM On Demand.
As can happen, in reading about women and diversity I manage to find good tips for everyone.
The topic today is the difference between a mentor and a sponsor
To net it out:
A mentor will help you become a better you, a sponsor will help you get ahead.
I first got a clue about this was reading an excellent post From Lynn Harris where she nets this exact point out.
A sponsor is more than a mentor. Sponsors make introductions to the right people, facilitate career moves and guide you through the unwritten rules of organizational life.
Today I noticed another juicy article in HBR entitled Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women
All mentoring is not created equal, we discovered. There is a special kind of relationship—called sponsorship—in which the mentor goes beyond giving feedback and advice and uses his or her influence with senior executives to advocate for the mentee. Our interviews and surveys alike suggest that high-potential women are over-mentored and under-sponsored relative to their male peers—and that they are not advancing in their organizations. Furthermore, without sponsorship, women not only are less likely than men to be appointed to top roles but may also be more reluctant to go for them.
I don’t know about you, but I’m personally using this information to redefine what kind of help I’m getting for my own career goals.
______________
The Cornell Bear is intended to make Amy laugh.