I recently had an opportunity to do a deeper dive into a performance issue related to the performance of a PIPELINED function. The results weren’t quite what I had expected, so I thought they may be of general interest. As with many performance issues, the issues encountered here are likely data- and database-specific. This was [...]

For those that didn’t bother to install the OS, Oracle or other DST patches (to handle the adjusted DST change schedule) last year and elected to just change the time on your servers by hand twice a year, get ready to do that again this weekend. Personally, I’d rather burn two whole regular work days [...]

A neat thing happened today on Twitter. While I admit that I don’t necessarily “get it” as fast as some of my “web 2.0″ friends do, I haven’t seen this happen too much on Twitter since I’ve been following it in the past several months. I’m sure it probably happens all the time to cool [...]

I generally don’t spend a lot of time surfing around Metalink. Normally, I get in, find the bug or patch or whatever thing I need, and get out. However, my current project involves a database upgrade for a very performance-sensitive application (they have an SLA that they actually have to honor–or honour for my UK [...]

Oracle 11g Database is now available on Windows. Get it while it’s hot :).

I’ve been doing a lot of testing with Oracle Database 11g lately and I’m a big fan of using oraenv to set the environment. For many releases, it seemed that Oracle had completely ignored oraenv and dbhome, but they’ve made some changes in 11g that aren’t quite so helpful it seems. I’ll probably file an [...]

I was just catching up on my reading and found an excellent post on Kirk McGowan’s blog discussing Oracle Clusterware’s fencing mechanisms. As Kirk details, there are many theories regarding the effectiveness and safety of Oracle’s fencing approach and he provides his usual no-nonsense responses to those theories.
Incase you are lost, a little background may [...]

Oracle Database 11g was officially launched today. As a beta tester for the product, I can say that this product has some very interesting new features that really make me want to recommend the upgrade to Oracle Database 11g.
Here are my thoughts on a few of the new features in Oracle Database 11g.

Database Replay (Real [...]

Today, July 11th, was the launch of Oracle Database 11g. From a technologist’s point of view, it’s a somewhat anticlimactic day since you can’t actually get your hands on the bits yet. However, there was some technical information posted on OTN and a nice overview presentation that was webcast online live from New York City.
I’ve [...]

I am spending more and more time lately reading the writings of others in the Oracle technology space. Many of those readings start by following a link posted on the Oracle-L list.
Today’s linkfest led me to a great Open Letter to Larry Ellison on AWR and ASH Licensing by Mark Brinsmead. I first had to [...]