Automation for DBA – Ansible part 1

Database Management and Performance
| Sep 30, 2015
Hello,

In this post I would like to move forward with software provisioning and configuration. In my last post I covered a ways to build a "core VM" and now it's a time to add some software and configuration to it.

There is a couple of automation tools which can be used for that task like Puppet, Chef or Ansible to name a few. The latter one - Ansible - is my favorite, cause in (more...)

Automation for DBA – Vagrant part 2

Database Management and Performance
| Sep 20, 2015
Hello,

In the last post I presented steps to create Virtual Machine using Vagrant with Virtual Box. It is a native combination but there are other possibilities as well. This post will cover an integration of Vagrant tool with KVM hypervisor and AWS EC2 cloud.

In both cases, an additional plugins has to be installed:
-    vagrant-libvirt plugin for KVM - https://github.com/pradels/vagrant-libvirt
-    vagrant-aws plugin for EC2 - https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant-aws

If there is a (more...)

Automation for DBA – Vagrant part 1

Database Management and Performance
| Aug 19, 2015
Vagrant is an open source tool for building a virtual environment. It is based on text based configuration file and concept of prebuilt OS boxes.
One can find a lot of boxes on Atlas webpage (https://atlas.hashicorp.com/boxes/search), ready to download and use.  Although if there are any security concerns about using a OS from 3rd party webpage, I published a blog post about creating a new Vagrant box using Oracle Linux (more...)

Preparing a Oracle Linux for a Vagrant box

Database Management and Performance
| Aug 10, 2015
This post is an overview of an installation and configuration process of the Oracle Linux, which will be used as a machine “box” for Vagrant software using a Virtual Box platform.

Post itself is divided into two parts:
  1. Oracle Linux installation (points 1 to 12)
  2. Vagrant box configuration (points 13 to 16)

Part 1 – Oracle Linux installation
 
1. Create a new Virtual Machine - machine name will be used later to create Vagrant (more...)

How to avoid boring work

Database Management and Performance
| Jul 20, 2015
For a last couple of years when I was working as an IT consultant I learned that having robust and easy access to lab when I can learn or test solution is one of critical thing. My approach to build that was changing over a years and changes in a technology itself.

In the current times I believe that "building" a lab step by step is not a most efficient way I can use my (more...)

Data Guard and Oracle Restart, aka relink always !!!

Database Management and Performance
| Dec 22, 2014
During my early years with PC I love to play "Leisure Suit Larry" (especially part 1 to 3 which has running on CGA or Hercules graphics card). Author of this games, Al Lowe had a good sense of humor and every time you failed your mission or stuck in a place - there was an pop up on the screen "Al says: save early, save often". After today fight with Oracle I should remember a (more...)

AWR Warehouse

Database Management and Performance
| Aug 24, 2014
I just noticed last week that there is a new patch for Enterprise Manager and it is enabling AWR Warehouse feature. There is a note ID 1901202.1 which describe bundle patch for OEM 12c release 4.

Today I had a chance to install it in my lab and now I can start testing new OEM feature.
There is some documentation here and on Kellyn's blog.


It is not configured so first task is to (more...)

Crossplatform transportable tablespaces – part 2

Database Management and Performance
| Aug 24, 2014
It took some time since I wrote a first post about TTS migration but I finished that project literally hours before my summer break. Now after couple of days while I enjoyed thermal waters and good wine of Hungary it's time to write next post.

As I described in my previous post I had to migrate database from HP-UX into Linux and also upgrade it from 10g into 12c. This time it was only PoC (more...)

Beauty of command line – OEM 12c

Database Management and Performance
| Jul 26, 2014
Why all software should have a command line and automation plugin ? Answer is simple - if you have to repeat number of operation for different targets - scripts can help you save your precious time.

I really enjoy a fact that Oracle added a command line to Oracle Enterprise Manager line, and now you can script lot of boring tasks like adding new administrator to list of users who can access Named Credentials.

To add (more...)

Crossplatform transportable tablespaces – part 1

Database Management and Performance
| Jul 16, 2014
There is couple of way to do heterogeneous migration of Oracle databases but staring with 12c there is whole set of new RMAN commands to transport data across different platforms.
I was looking for a best method of move tablespaces from HP-UX to Linux and after some research I found this presentation by Martin Bach from Enkitec (you can watch it online here). Martin describing Oracle Perl script (MOS ID 1389592.1) which allows (more...)

Don’t delete your flashback logs manually

Database Management and Performance
| Jul 1, 2014
What happen when someone will delete Oracle flashback logs ? You probably don't notice it until you will try to flashback database or bounce instance. 
There is no hope for flashback database without flashback files but there is still way to start your database again without recovery or data loss.

Here is a scenario:
[oracle@dev-6 alert]$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.4.0 Production on Tue Jul 1 09:34:18 2014

Copyright  (more...)

Top Linux processes and Oracle

Database Management and Performance
| Jun 26, 2014
Today due to application bug I had to check several time mapping between Linux PID processes and Oracle sessions. With small BASH script this is quite easy now
#!/bin/bash

# ps doesn't show real time CPU usage but average - skewed for long running processed
#TOP5=`ps xo pid --sort pcpu | tail -5 | xargs echo | sed -e 's/\s/,/g'`
TOP5=`top -b -d 1 -n 1 | head -12 | tail -5 | awk  (more...)

Rolling upgrads using logical standby database.

Database Management and Performance
| Jun 24, 2014
Couple of weeks ago there was a Twitter discussion started by Martin Bach (@MartinDBA) about cases for logical standby implementation. A rolling upgrade was mentioned by Tim Gorman (@timothyjgormanas) as one of potential recommendations for using this rare use product. I have been involved in such project in the past and I prepared an instruction and did quite large number of rolling upgrades from 11.1 into 11.2.

There are couple of my “gotchas”

Grid Infrastructure upgrade to 11.2.0.4 on AIX – always read log files

Database Management and Performance
| Apr 5, 2014
Oracle Restart 11.2.0.3 and same version of database has to be upgraded into 11.2.0.4. Looks like quite easy task but I hit some problems with it.

I had 31.9 GB free and OUI through error about disk space. Fair enough cause it also proposed a parameter to ignore it. Current version of GI (11.2.0.3) occupied around 25 GB so i though it will be OK (more...)

Automated Linux VM build on ESX

Database Management and Performance
| Mar 19, 2014

How to automatically install RedHat like (Red Hat, Cent OS, Oracle Enterprise Linux) Linux system on ESX or VirtualBox servers ? There are at least two methods. I have seen VM cloning in lot of places using ESX (VSphere Center) or VirtualBox functionality. Cloning is fine but it required some intervention after clone will be finished (like host rename or IP address change). What if we want to install different releases of systems - well it (more...)

OraSASH visualization

Database Management and Performance
| Oct 25, 2013

Hello,

I started working on that project 2 years ago and at that stage I created a JavaScript code to display real time graphs and parse JSON code. The backend providing JSON data from Oracle Database was based on PHP and I didn't like that solution as it required to (more...)

New release candidate of OraSASH

Database Management and Performance
| Oct 25, 2013
Hi,

 There is a new release candidate of OraSASH 2.4 available on github - https://github.com/pioro/orasash/tree/v2.4-rc2

 This version is providing much more views and it's easier to use your existing AWR queries against OraSASH. 

regards,
Marcin 

How to improve VMware performance on your PC

Database Management and Performance
| Jul 30, 2013
I found very interesting post here - VMware Performance Enhancing Tweaks (Over-the-Counter Solutions). I used it on my VMware Player and Workstation and when I disabled vmem file my laptop it stopped blinking HDD led for 5 - 10 min every time it wake up from sleep mode.

 regards,
Marcin

DataGuard – Far Sync – part 12 – Data Guard Broker

Database Management and Performance
| Jul 28, 2013
Oracle introduced Far Sync Data Guard configuration which I described briefly in this post. Now is time for part two and using Data Guard Broker to add Far Sync instance.
Assuming that you have basic Data Guard Broker configuration ready (as described in - How to quickly build standby database (more...)

How to quickly build standby database and setup DataGuard configuration using Oracle 12c

Database Management and Performance
| Jul 27, 2013
With every release of Oracle database there are new possibilities to build a required solution (ex. standby database) faster and with fewer steps. This is not official guide but rather a mix of Oracle 12c functionality used to build DataGuard configuration using RMAN and DataGuard Broker.

Assumptions: