ORACLE-BASE Blog Aggregator

Well, I make that about 4 weeks since I installed 11.1.0.7 on my laptop on, yes, Vista but the weeks have flown by and I’ve only had a very quick play with it.

It was released along with another few ports that I was surprised to see appear so quickly, specifically AIX. As I’m working at an AIX site at the moment, I’m used to the long wait for ‘Tier 2′ ports to appear. It’s usually about 6 months minimum. In a fit of wild speculation based on no solid information, I’d venture that the Linux port was ready long ago but was held back for Openworld as part of the Exadata announcement, which meant that the other porting teams caught up and were able to release soon after Openworld. As I said, wild speculation, but most of the Exadata blog posts I’ve seen in the past month seem to be similarly uninformed which is all the more surprising when there are plenty of white papers online. Frankly, you’d think if someone sets themself up as an industry analyst, they would take the time to read public information before they start spouting opinions. I suppose that’s probably why I’ll never make it as an industry analyst.

So what’s in 11g that would have given some of the Exadata game away if it had been released before Openworld? Here are a few little fun details.

Because of the OEM performance presentations and the course, one of the first things I do is take a look at DB Control for any new update (and I need to remember to respond to Noon’s post one day soon). At the bottom of the main Performance Page for the instance in the 11g screens is a tabbed section that includes an I/O tab which is one of the most noticeable improvements in 11g.

What may or may not be obvious from a small graphic is that the first of the I/O types listed in the key in the right hand side is ‘Smart Scan’, but I don’t expect I’ll be seeing that appearing in graphs on my laptop any time soon

While I was at it, I thought I’d see if there were any Exadata-related parameters or timed events.

SYS@TEST11> select name, value from v$parameter  2  where name like '%cell%';

NAME----------------------------------------VALUE--------------------------------------------------------------------------------cell_partition_large_extentsDEFAULTcell_offload_processingTRUEcell_offload_parameters

cell_offload_compactionADAPTIVEcell_offload_plan_displayAUTO

SYS@TEST11> select name, wait_class from v$event_name where name like '%cell%';

NAME                                     WAIT_CLASS---------------------------------------- --------------------cell smart table scan                    User I/Ocell smart index scan                    User I/Ocell statistics gather                   User I/Ocell smart incremental backup            System I/Ocell smart file creation                 User I/Ocell smart restore from backup           System I/Ocell single block physical read          User I/Ocell multiblock physical read            User I/OStreams miscellaneous event              Other

9 rows selected.

Just a bit of fun, but nowhere near as much fun as Real Time SQL Monitoring. Now *that’s* a feature worth upgrading for!

Unfortunately, the two day performance course I was due to be teaching in Belgium in a couple of weeks has been cancelled. It also means that I won’t be getting to see the DUDE as soon as I thought

Well, I’m very pleased to see that non-attendees can access the presentations now, using this approach. I had confirmation from someone at Oracle that they wouldn’t be accessible so either their information was wrong or there’s been a change of heart.

For example, here is Juan Loaiza’s Exadata presentation from Thursday.

I noticed via H.Tonguç Yılmaz’s blog that some of the presentation slides have started to appear.

1) Go to http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/login.jsp

2) Username/Password is cboracle/oraclec6 (Updated later - actually, maybe this doesn’t work for unregistered attendees yet)

3) Search for sessions

4) Click link in right hand column where the presentation exists

5) You might be prompted for the same username/password again

To those who have been badgering me about this for the best part of a week (they know who they are), it’s time for more information about this year’s Oracle ACE OOW gift.

It’s not right.

First of all, it’s sophisticated black. What was wrong with emergency flare red?

Second, it’s not even a fleece but a Stormtech waterproof! All of the chaps at work will have to revise their fleece jokes and they just won’t sound right any more. In fact, one or two of the cyclists were worryingly interested in it, but there ain’t no Oracle ACEs round there, so they’d have to get busy with a thread unpicker.

Third, have you seen how small that ACE symbol is? How on earth are snipers or stone-throwers supposed to aim at that?

I suppose I’ve only got myself to blame after taking the mickey out of last year’s fleece, but I’m starting to miss it now. I’m not sure the rest of Edinburgh will, though.

Still, this version is much more sober than the version that the true technorati, the ACE Directors, get. If you check out Mogens’ in this blog entry, you’ll see they have a dinky little crown on their ACE Symbol. *That’s* more like it! Much more embarassing!

As usual, I’m only kidding. Justin, Vikki, Emily and all those at OTN know what I’m like and I do appreciate all the organisation they put into everything. The OTN lounge and ACE dinner are two of the better features of OOW (although I hope the latter might be a bit more stand-up-and-mingle in future years).

Oh, and finally, the DUDE was showing disdain for the ACE program to Marco and I prior to the conference because of my red fleece. He’s a black-only guy. We tried to explain to him how cool the fleece that you are sent is so, just for the DUDE …

In your dreams, man!

P.S. My other half *hates* me making that gesture when I’m having my photo taken (that’s what it’s for - to discourage photograhpers) but she wasn’t there, so it was the ideal opportunity.