RE: UTL_RAW and slowness

[Craig Munday]

Raj,

Just a couple of other comments:

1) Instead of flushing explicitly, have you tried setting the output buffer 
size on your connection so the UTL_TCP package will do the flushing for 
you?  That way you avoid the mod call.  Perhaps the default buffer size is 
too small and you are flushing more often than you think.

2) Also do you really need to use the write_text() call?  My understanding 
is that this will do character set conversion.  Perhaps write_raw will work 
better.  I'd probably look at all the conversions you are doing, perhaps 
you can eliminate some of them.

3) Java Stored Procedures might help but I think you should get be able to 
get the performance you need from the PLSQL code you have.  I only 
mentioned JSP because of your subject (UTL_RAW and slowness).

Regards,
Craig.
At 09:29 AM 26/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Profiling is on the cards for Monday  if I don't flush, sometimes the 
Cisco router doesn't send the information quickly enough. For a ticker 
tape that is running at 1220 bauds, if characters do not come at set 
intervals, it appears as if there has been a "network hiccup" ... and we 
like to avoid that.

BTW do you think Java would be a good idea? I am no good at java stored 
procs, but will try to hack it next week. This seems to be an better 
alternative than going for external procs (and then security gets involved 
due to concerns).

BTW in line with US Congress resolution I had initially set the connection 
be flushed every 1.6K characters , but soon realized that it was ummm 
... inefficient for our needs. Oh Well ...

But thanks  for pointing out the Java stored proc idea, I'll definitely 
try it out.
Raj

-Original Message-
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 10:39 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Raj,

When I was writing the PL/SQL implementation of Blowfish, I also wrote a
version as a Java Stored Procedure so I could compare the performance of
the two implementations.   For CPU intensive work (like encryption), the
Java Stored Procedure performed orders of magnitude better than the PL/SQL
version.  I was using 8.1.7 at the time.
I am wondering why you need to flush the TCP connection after 128 bytes?

Have you profiled your code using DBMS_PROFILER to see where the time it
being spent?
Cheers,
Craig.


**
This e-mail message is confidential, intended only for the named 
recipient(s) above and may contain information that is privileged, 
attorney work product or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If 
you have received this message in error, or are not the named 
recipient(s), please immediately notify corporate MIS at (860) 766-2000 
and delete this e-mail message from your computer, Thank you.
**5
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Jamadagni, Rajendra
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: UTL_RAW and slowness

[Craig Munday]

Raj,

When I was writing the PL/SQL implementation of Blowfish, I also wrote a 
version as a Java Stored Procedure so I could compare the performance of 
the two implementations.   For CPU intensive work (like encryption), the 
Java Stored Procedure performed orders of magnitude better than the PL/SQL 
version.  I was using 8.1.7 at the time.

I am wondering why you need to flush the TCP connection after 128 bytes?

Have you profiled your code using DBMS_PROFILER to see where the time it 
being spent?

Cheers,
Craig.
At 04:09 PM 23/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:

Raj,

I'll try to be tactful here, but that isn't encryption. It only looks like
encryption, and is in fact very easy to break.
Check out the article at 
http://www.cybcon.com/~jkstill/util/encryption/encryption.html

There are PL/SQL implementations of RC4 and Blowfish there. RC4 is a 
stream cipher
and Blowfish is a block cipher.  Either would suit your purpose.

Blowfish is there courtesy of Craig Munday.

RC4 is there courtesy of a leak at RSA, but it's in the public domain now, 
so that
doesn't matter anymore.

Also check Pete Finnigans site:  http://www.petefinnigan.com/

HTH

Jared



"Jamadagni, Rajendra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 10/23/2003 02:54 PM
 Please respond to ORACLE-L
To:Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc:
Subject:UTL_RAW and slowness

Hi all,

I am experimenting with a block of pl/sql code (wrote myself) that uses 
utl_raw to perform xor operation. (Note to Jared and Mladan, I can't use 
Perl on production boxes, so don't even go there).

I take a message, encrypt 1 character send it out on a wire using utl_tcp. 
After every 128 bytes, I flush the tcp connection. While this works fine 
and within our acceptable range for smallish messages (up to 20-25K in 
size), it nearly kills itself when working with larger messages (80k+).

Initially I could encrypt 128 characters (including conversion from/to 
utl_raw) in about 50ms. Bt this increase progressively. When I reach about 
98000 to 99000 range, it takes about 16 seconds to encrypt 128 characters.

I have logged tar with Oracle, but does anyone know if one could do a 
block encryption (can't use standard algorithms, this is custom) like 
encrypt 128 characters at a time instead of 1 ...

The skeleton code looks like this ...

msglen := LENGTH (msg_text);
nCharsSent := 0;
p('Encrypting data...');
FOR i IN 1 .. msglen
LOOP
 ntcpchar := ASCII (SUBSTR (msg_text, i, 1));
 r_chr:= utl_raw.cast_to_raw(CHR(ntcpchar));
 nenctcpchar := TO_NUMBER(utl_raw.bit_xor(r_chr,r_key),'');
 tcpmsglen := UTL_TCP.write_text (gv_tcp_conn, CHR(nenctcpchar), NULL);
  nCharsSent := nCharssent + 1;
 IF MOD(ncharssent,128) = 0 THEN
   p('Before Flush ...');
   UTL_TCP.FLUSH (gv_tcp_conn);
   p('Connection Flushed at ' || ncharssent);
 END IF;
 --
END LOOP; -- FOR i IN 1 .. msglen
where p is a procedure that dumps supplied text to a trace file with a 
timestamp that is up to 1 ms resolution. BTW this is a 9202 box. Also when 
it starts getting slow, using "nmon" I can see that this process is 
hogging a CUP at 99-100%. Of course this is a dev box, but my SA will not 
like this on a production box.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Raj
 

Rajendra dot Jamadagni at nospamespn dot com
All Views expressed in this email are strictly personal.
QOTD: Any clod can have facts, having an opinion is an art !


**
This e-mail message is confidential, intended only for the named 
recipient(s) above and may contain information that is privileged, 
attorney work product or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If 
you have received this message in error, or are not the named 
recipient(s), please immediately notify corporate MIS at (860) 766-2000 
and delete this e-mail message from your computer, Thank you.
**********5 



--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: max open cursors exceeded

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

Is your application written in Java using JDBC?  I've seen ORA-1000 mostly 
with Java applications because developer's tend to not close ResultSets 
explicitly.  Of course it can occur with other environments too.  Anyway, I 
have a tool that can help you find the cause of the ORA-1000 if you're 
using JDBC.

Cheers,
Craig.
At 08:39 AM 20/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Hi,
I'm trying to troubleshoot ora-1000 (max cursors exceeded) for an 
application. When I ran the following query on the SID(192),

select hash_value ,count(*)
from v$open_cursor
where sid=192
group by hash_Value
having count(*) >1;
HASH_VALUE   COUNT(*)
-- --
670480087  5
563605149  3
1016653255 10
2005317811  3
hash value: 1016653255 is a simple SQL statement- select sysdate from dual;

the results returned hash_values with counts as high as 10. I understand 
that even if cursors are closed, they are still cached in server memory 
and will still show up in v$open_cursor. I do not understand why there are 
duplicate sql statements in v$open_cursor for the SID. Does that mean that 
Oracle is not reusing the cursor for whatever reasons and thus opens new 
ones? If that is true, what could be the reasons that 'select sysdate from 
dual' could not be reused?

Thanks.

elain

_
Get 10MB of e-mail storage! Sign up for Hotmail Extra Storage.
http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: elain he
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Steps to convert a RAC to a single instance.

[Craig Munday]

Murali,

Could you give a bit more detail about why your application is not suitable 
for RAC?  It is disappointing about the database connections not failing 
over.  I can seems to remember Parallel Server had transparent session 
failover that I (and an Oracle consultant) could never get working either.

Cheers,
Craig.
At 09:04 AM 3/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:
I guess this means it is breakable 

-Original Message-
[mailto:Murali_Pavuloori/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 11:35 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Hello All:

We had purchased RAC to provide high availability of datawarehouse to our
customers. We later discovered that the way our application is designed,
and because database links are not failed over in the RAC environment, we
have decided to abondon RAC - atleast temporarily.
Could you please list all the steps required to convert RAC to a single
instance.
My understanding is that all we need to do is modify the initSID.ora to
comment out RAC specific parameters like
cluseter_database_instance
cluster_database
SID.instance_name
SID.instance_number
SID.thread
SID.remote_listener
What about the Oracle software? any changes required there?

Appreciate you help and suggestions in this matter.

Thanks,
Murali.
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author:
  INET: Murali_Pavuloori/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Tony Johnson
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: AW: Experiences setting OPEN_CURSORS for Java applications

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

I'm not sure about the Interceptor pattern.

Log4j is a great package and I make use of it within JDBC Expert.  I 
started using the new logging API in JDK 1.4 but found most developers were 
using Log4j so I changed.  Log4j seems like a much more mature package anyway.

I too think it would be a great tool to be used in the development 
cycle.  Ideally I would like every developer to have it installed while 
they complete their development in the hope that a number of defects can be 
eliminated early.

In reality though, I find that senior developers and data administrators 
see the most benefits.  Particularly database administrators, probably 
because they are the ones that are called upon to resolve the errors (such 
as ORA-1000) when they occur.

Let me know if you would like a copy, and I'll email it privately to you - 
its too big to send to the list.

Regards,
Craig Munday.
At 06:49 AM 1/10/2003 -0800, Stefan Jahnke wrote:
Hi

Just wondering: How did you implement the "transparancy" aspect ?
Interceptor pattern (as in CORBA) ?
Your tool seems to be a very good thing to use during dev-cycle to log
certain aspects you're interested in (maybe log4j might do the job ?).
Stefan

-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: Craig Munday [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 1. Oktober 2003 02:44
An: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Betreff: Re: Experiences setting OPEN_CURSORS for Java applications
Tanel,

I've implemented it as a JDBC driver that is installed as a layer between
your application and the vendor driver that you are using (eg. Oracle,
Postgress, SQL Server, etc.)
[Java application] - Layer 1
[JDBC Expert] - Layer 2
[Oracle Thin Driver] - Layer 3
 |
network
 |
[Oracle Server] - Layer 4
It does not parse Java source code and is not a code analyzer, however the
tool will intercept all calls that an application makes on the JDBC API,
analyze them and forward them onto the vendor driver.  In this way the tool
is transparent to the application and can be installed or removed without
modification to the application code.
I would not call it a traffic analyzer because to me that term implies that
it sits on a network and analyzes network traffic much like an Intrusion
Detection System might do.
Regards,
Craig Munday.




At 04:11 AM 30/09/2003 -0800, you wrote:
> > I've encountered this problem so often that I decided to write a tool
> > (called JDBC Expert) that would help us DBAs (and developers) detect
> > Statement and ResultSet "leaks" in Java applications.   I've found this
> > tool so useful and effective at finding resource leaks that I insist any
>in
> > house developed or third party Java applications are tested with it
before
> > we release them.
>
>Just interested, how have you implemented it? Is it a code or traffic
>analyzer?
>
>Tanel.
>
>
>--
>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
>--
>Author: Tanel Poder
>   INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
>San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
>-
>To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
>the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
>(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
>also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Stefan Jahnke
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Plea

Re: Experiences setting OPEN_CURSORS for Java applications

[Craig Munday]

Jp,

I've forwarded you a separate email with the tool included as an attached 
zip file.

In answer to your questions:

The JDK version is 1.4.1 and above.

I do not expect any problems with JBOSS 3.2.1 and higher although I would 
be interested in hearing about any problems should you come across some.

I've never used apache so I am not sure whether it will work or not.  I am 
definitely interested in helping you to get it working though.

Cheers,
Craig.


At 04:21 AM 30/09/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Craig,

CM>I can send you a copy if you are interested -
CM>you will have to forward me your JDK version and details about any app
CM>server that you are using.
I would , sure , be very much interested in having a copy of that tool.
developers here use diff. versions of JDK & apache/tomcat/jboss ...
is it JDK version/app. server specific ?
can JDBC Expert for JDK 1.4.1_03/jboss 3.2.1 used for
JDK 1.4.1_03/apache 2.0.4 ??
Regards,
Jp.


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Prem Khanna J
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: Experiences setting OPEN_CURSORS for Java applications

[Craig Munday]

Tanel,

I've implemented it as a JDBC driver that is installed as a layer between 
your application and the vendor driver that you are using (eg. Oracle, 
Postgress, SQL Server, etc.)

[Java application] - Layer 1
[JDBC Expert] - Layer 2
[Oracle Thin Driver] - Layer 3
|
network
|
[Oracle Server] - Layer 4
It does not parse Java source code and is not a code analyzer, however the 
tool will intercept all calls that an application makes on the JDBC API, 
analyze them and forward them onto the vendor driver.  In this way the tool 
is transparent to the application and can be installed or removed without 
modification to the application code.

I would not call it a traffic analyzer because to me that term implies that 
it sits on a network and analyzes network traffic much like an Intrusion 
Detection System might do.

Regards,
Craig Munday.




At 04:11 AM 30/09/2003 -0800, you wrote:
> I've encountered this problem so often that I decided to write a tool
> (called JDBC Expert) that would help us DBAs (and developers) detect
> Statement and ResultSet "leaks" in Java applications.   I've found this
> tool so useful and effective at finding resource leaks that I insist any
in
> house developed or third party Java applications are tested with it before
> we release them.
Just interested, how have you implemented it? Is it a code or traffic
analyzer?
Tanel.

--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Tanel Poder
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: Experiences setting OPEN_CURSORS for Java applications

[Craig Munday]

Hi there,

I've supported a number of systems implemented in Java running on Oracle 
and on nearly all of the projects the developers have asked me to increase 
the number of open_cursors.  In most of the cases I have found that the 
developers were not using the JDBC API efficiently.  The main problem being 
that Statement and ResultSet objects where never explicitly closed.  If the 
developer does not close these objects explicitly, the garbage collector in 
the Java Virtual Machine will eventually close them.  However the problem 
is that sometimes the garbage collector does not do this soon enough and 
you exhaust the number of open cursors you have allocated.  Even the most 
diligent developer's sometimes make subtle mistakes like reassigning 
ResultSet variables and hence losing the reference to the original 
ResultSet, as I found out in JBoss4.0 DR2.

I've encountered this problem so often that I decided to write a tool 
(called JDBC Expert) that would help us DBAs (and developers) detect 
Statement and ResultSet "leaks" in Java applications.   I've found this 
tool so useful and effective at finding resource leaks that I insist any in 
house developed or third party Java applications are tested with it before 
we release them.

JDBC Expert installs like any other JDBC driver and does not generally 
require modifications to your application. The tool analyses how your 
application is using the JDBC API and reports various types of problems 
(such as resource leaks).  I can send you a copy if you are interested - 
you will have to forward me your JDK version and details about any app 
server that you are using.

Regards,
Craig Munday.


At 08:34 AM 26/09/2003 -0800, you wrote:

I would just like to know what are your experiences setting OPEN_CURSORS
for Java applications / middle-tier application servers ?
We're rolling out a bunch of applications on WebMethods, Tivoli Identity 
Manager,
Plumtree, Documentum etc --- all non-Oracle clients accessing the database
through JDBC connections.

The WebMethods consultant wanted me to set OPEN_CURSORS to 500.
Plumtree also requries OPEN_CURSORS to 250 or so.
Hemant K Chitale
Oracle 9i Database Administrator Certified Professional
My personal web site is :  http://hkchital.tripod.com
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Hemant K Chitale
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: Suggestion reg. encryption ??

[Craig Munday]

Pete,

Which paper of Aarons are you referring to?  Is the paper entitled 
"Encryption of data at rest"?

Regards,
Craig Munday.


At 05:29 AM 29/09/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Hi Jp

On the specific issue of encryption your main concern will be hiding the
encryption key from any prying eyes. There is a couple of links to
papers on my site about encryption in Oracle http://www.petefinnigan.com
/orasec.htm especially the link to Aarons paper which discusses the key
hiding issue. I also wrote a paper for iDefense.com earlier this year
about encrypting data in Oracle databases. It was slightly high level as
it was aimed at what the possibilities and tools available are. It is
not in the public domain so i cannot send out copies but if you email
them you might be able to get a copy from them.
hope this helps a bit

kind regards

Pete
--
Pete Finnigan
email:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web site: http://www.petefinnigan.com - Oracle security audit specialists
Book:Oracle security step-by-step Guide - see http://store.sans.org for 
details.

--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Pete Finnigan
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: Suggestion reg. encryption ??

[Craig Munday]

too.
3) I heard that IBM make a crypto board that is quite cheap.  I have
never used it so I cannot comment on it.

Anyway I hoped this helped.  I'm happy to provide further
information if you need it.
Regards,
Craig Munday.


    


At 10:34 PM 28/09/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Hi List,
Application
desc:
  Something similar (not
exactly) to a payment gateway ; java/oracle 9iR2 will 
be
used to develop it; need to store credit card numbers (encrypted) in the

database
; SSL will be used for secure transactions;
Suggestion needed
  :   this
being the case, credit card number encryption can be done with
either
java or oracle (dbms_obfuscation_toolkit) ; the developers came to
me
for a suggestion; and i'm here in front of u seeking the same;

1.Security
being the priority , which would be the way to go & why ?
2.How
is it normally done ?
TIA.
Jp.

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Prem Khanna J
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051
http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California    --
Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You
may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: What is a large database?

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

Do you really think the standard of database administrators in Australia is
low?  What is it that you are expecting?

Cheers,
Craig.


-Original Message-
Sent: Friday, 12 September 2003 8:59 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


you should send them over to Australia.  At least they'd be
better than the standard of "dba" we get here...
Cheers
Nuno Souto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Original Message - 


> In Estonian language, the word "administrator" also means receptionist.
> Guess how many former hotel receptionists or whatever security desk
> operators I've had to turn down in past when they've looked for DBA job.
Oh,
> yes, some of them had over 20 years administrator experience in large
> organizations, also lots of experience with 24x7 operations etc ;)
> 

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Nuno Souto
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: OFA and Shared Storage

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

I've tended to have performance problems with RAID-5 (slow write 
times).  Does SAN make this any better, ie. with large disk caches etc?

With SAN, do the redo logs still hit the spindles when a commit is issued 
(for example)?  I seem to recall that the EMC Symmetrix considers the write 
to be done when the write request is in its cache and not necessarily on 
the disk.

Cheers,
Craig.


At 10:54 AM 22/09/2003 -0800, Mladen Gogala wrote:
Files are kept safe simply by RAID-5 mechanism. RAID-5 protects against any
single disk failure (double disk failure can wipe it all out) and that is
precisely
why Mogens is such a zealous proponent of RAID-5 systems.
--
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA


> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 2:05 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: OFA and Shared Storage
>
>
> I read some posts on here with shared storage such as SAN and
> Network Appliances its no longer necessary to multiplex
> datafiles on different disks, since the storage array handles
> that for you.
>
> How do you ensure that control files and redo log files are
> kept safely apart so that no one disk failure in the shared
> storage can take them all out?
>
> According to the OFA(well the abbreviated version I have in
> front of me) 4-5 disks is optimal for multiplexing. Does this
> no longer apply with shared storage? How do you ensure
> database available with shared storage? if your not
> multiplexing datafiles?
>
> I may have read some peoples posts incorrectly. Im just
> digging into backup and recovery.
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> --
> Author: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>   INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
> -
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru')
> and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB
> ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed
> from).  You may also send the HELP command for other
> information (like subscribing).
>


Note:
This message is for the named person's use only.  It may contain 
confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information.  No 
confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission.  If 
you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all 
copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify 
the sender.  You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, 
distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the 
intended recipient. Wang Trading LLC and any of its subsidiaries each 
reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks.
Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, 
except where the message states otherwise and the sender is authorized to 
state them to be the views of any such entity.

--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Mladen Gogala
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: wrapping packages

[Craig Munday]

Jared,

That is also my understanding of what wrap does - after all if the wrapped
PL/SQL code is encrypted why do string literals appear within the wrapped
output.  And where do you specify the encryption key - you don't because
wrap does not encrypt.

I'm not surprised that people think the wrap command encrypts the code
seeing as authors likes Couchman and Marisetti use this language within "OCP
Oracle9i Database Fundamentals I Exam Guide" page 96 and it is also stated
in the PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference.

Cheers,
Craig.




-Original Message-
Sent: Monday, 22 September 2003 2:15 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


IIRC, 'wrap' does not actually encrypt the code.

Rather, it simply does a precompile on it and 
then stores the pcode in the database.

Jared

On Sat, 2003-09-20 at 14:29, Peter Gram wrote:
> Hi Pete
> 
> I must point out that there must be a  unwrap, since the Oracle database 
> can run the wrapped pl/sql code :-)
> 
> It is based on trust in Oracle cooperation / development.
> 
> Some times it would make since to write the code in c/c++ since it 
> harder to revers.
> 
> Pete Finnigan wrote:
> 
> >Hi
> >
> >Very true, but if there was the wrap process wouldn't be much use as
> >anyone could un wrap your code. But you are right the main reason to be
> >cautious is to not delete your source code locally.
> >
> >kind regards
> >
> >Pete
> >
> >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, bhabani s pradhan
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >  
> >
> >>one caution:
> >>
> >>there is no unwrap cmd/exe
> >>
> >>Regards
> >>
> >>
> >
> >  
> >
> 
> -- 
> Peter Gram, Miracle A/S
> Phone : +45 2527 7107, Fax : +45 4466 8856, Home +45 3874 5696
> mail  : [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://MiracleAS.dk
> 
> Upcoming events:
> DatabaseForum 2003, Lalandia 2-4 October
> Visit   http://miracleas.dk/events/DBF2003/invitation.html
> 
> Miracle Master Class with Tom Kyte, 12-14 January 2004
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> -- 
> Author: Peter Gram
>   INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
> -
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Jared Still
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: RMAN in NOCATALOG mode?

[Craig Munday]

All,

I also backup the control file as the last step within the backup and use 
the PL/SQL procedure within the documentation to restore the control file 
manually if needed - I think 9i has this in RMAN now.

I found this was necessary if you wanted to get the last change from your 
backup and the recovery catalog was not available for some reason.  Also 
meant that I didn't have the extra work of restoring our recovery catalog 
during Disaster Recovery.

What is everyone's opinion on using the recovery catalog?  I still have one 
configured because it records a lot more history (which I needed at one 
point), but is it really necessary?

Cheers,
Craig.


At 09:39 AM 18/09/2003 -0800, Mercadante, Thomas F wrote:
me too.  learned this from testing Rman back in 8.1.6.  plus, you need this
control file to recover from to get as late (most recent) timestamp as
possible for recovery purposes.
-Original Message-
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 11:45 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
I always backup the controlfile as a separate statement AFTER the back
is done so hopefully the backup i just completed is in there :)
joe

Denham Eva wrote:

>Hello
>
>Wondering about this. If backing up the database with RMAN in NOCATALOG
>mode.
>When would be the best time to do backup of the controlfile? Before backup
/
>after backup /before and after backup.
>Does this aid your recovery from a crash? What advantage would it have?
>
>Many Thanks
>Regards
>Denham Eva
>Oracle DBA
>Linux like TeePee... No Windows, No Gates and Apache inside!
>
>
>
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Joe Testa
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: AW: RMAN Backup to tape or disk (SAN) ???

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

If I remember correctly MMLs like Veritas and/or Legato let you rebuild the 
indexes if you have the tape in hand - It can be slow but I thought it 
could be done.

Regard,
Craig.


At 09:46 AM 8/05/2003 -0800, Stephen Lee wrote:

One consideration with MML if this is a case of a tornado wiped out the data
center: The MML is dependent on its media index(es); which (if I
understanding the operation of the MML correctly) is dependent on the sys
admins being able to restore the non-Oracle part of the box.  So, in a case
of it hit the fan so hard the blades broke off (either that or a root user
was experimenting with rm -rf * ("Where did it go?!")), it seems to me that
you have a dependency on the reliability of your sys admins.
I thought I would toss that in just in case you were feeling an
uncontrollable urge to go breathe down somebody's neck.
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Stephen Lee
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: Oracle's use of Indexes

[Craig Munday]

Craig,

Just out of interest, what type of application is running on the 
database?  I was just wondering why you were not using the plan stability 
features in 8i on your production database.

Regards,
Craig Munday.
At 05:45 AM 2/06/2003 -0800, Craig Healey wrote:
OK, I'm confused. Maybe it's Monday morning and my brain's not working.
We have a production schema and a test schema on the same Oracle 8.1.7
instance, running on Windows. They both have a customer table, with 3
million and 2 million records respectively. They both have the same
indexes, and both have been analyzed today. Production used an index and
took 40ms. Test didn't and took 20s. I played around, analyzing,
dropping and creating indexes etc. Now neither of them use the index,
both taking around 20s.
I can add a hint, which works, but I want to know what changed.
TIA

Craig Healey

**

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended 
solely
for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed and may 
contain
confidential and/or privileged material.  Any review, retransmission, 
dissemination
or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this 
information by
persons or entities other than the intended recipient is 
prohibited.  Statements
and opinions expressed in this e-mail may not represent those of the company.

If you have received this email in error please notify 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by 
MIMEsweeper
for the presence of computer viruses (www.mimesweeper.com)

***

--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Healey
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: tunning an index built

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

How many CPUs do you have on your machine?  I assume not 32 - perhaps 
reducing the degree of parallelism might help (less is sometimes more).

How much memory do you have on your machine?  I suggest fixing your virtual 
memory paging problem first - do this by resizing areas like the buffer 
cache and sort_area_size (did you set sort_area_size in the init.ora? 
remember that every dedicated server will allocate the sort_area_size in 
the PGA - perhaps this might have something to do with the virtual memory 
paging).

Also, if on the off chance that you know the rows are already sorted within 
the table - that is, you have just completed a load or something similar, 
you could use the NOSORT option to avoid Oracle doing the sort and using 
the temporary segment.  The documentation says that an error will be thrown 
if the tables are not sorted on the indexed column.  I haven't tried this 
myself but would be interested in hearing any feedback if you can take 
advantage of it.

Also if you change your sort_area_size you also need to ensure that your 
extent sizes in your temporary segments are a multiple of the 
sort_area_size you specified.

Have you allocated enough space for your index prior to doing the build?

Regards,
Craig.
At 01:29 PM 8/07/2003 -0800, Gurelei wrote:
Hi.

I'm trying to tune an index build. The table currently
has about 65mil rows and I'm building a unique index,
which takes about 55min to finish. The table size is
about 3.4G, index is about the same size. I have tried
different degrees of parallelism (up to 32), nologging
is set in the create index script as well as on the
tablespace. I noticed a lot of i/o waits during the
buid and a lot of paging to and from filesystem, the
paging area however appears to be unused. when I do
lsps -a, it only shows 1% usage. What should be my
next move? What should I look at? i have increased
db_cache to 800M, sort area to 50M
thanks

Gene

__
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Gurelei
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: RE: Oracle Press OCP exam guide frustrations

[Craig Munday]

Does anyone other than Oracle truely believe that a course is necessary if
you can pass the exam?



-Original Message-
Sent: Wednesday, 17 September 2003 8:50 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



One may as well get used to putting forth some extra expenditure when
getting certified now.

The publisher, Coriolis, went under.

And now Oracle is requiring that you complete at least one of their prep
courses (irrespective of whether you believe you need it or not) in
order to become OCP-certified for 9i.


-Original Message-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 11:00 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

they are not outstanding. they are ok? They are also expensive. I have
found the Coriolis books to be better than the Osborne books in quality.
They dont have 9i ones. you can get the 8.0/8i ones for $9/each at
maryland-merchant.com

Im using those myself, then the docs. I didnt like the osborne books. 
> 
> From: "Rajesh Dayal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 2003/09/16 Tue AM 10:09:24 EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: RE: Oracle Press OCP exam guide frustrations
> 
> Try out self study materials from http://www.selftestsoftware.com they
are simply outstanding.
> I have always found them helpful for all my exams. But at same time I
never totally rely on them,
> I first complete my ground work with standard syllabus (available on
Oracle OCP site) and Oracle 
> Documentation then only I Open them ;-).
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Rajesh Dayal
> Senior Oracle DBA (OCP 8,8i,9i)
> International Information Technology Company LLC
> 
> 
>  -Original Message-
> Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 2:14 PM
> To:   Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject:  Fwd: Oracle Press OCP exam guide frustrations
> 
> All,
> 
> I just purchased a Oracle9i Fundamentals I exam guide published by
Oracle 
> Press and am very disappointed with the quality of the publication.
There 
> seems to be quite a few mistakes, misleading sentences and typos (not
in 
> the Errata) which is very frustrating.
> 
> Also, there is a question in the "Managing Tablespaces and Datafiles" 
> chapter that replies on the order of the multiple-choices, however the
quiz 
> software randomises the choices so the question no longer makes sense
- and 
> is impossible to answer as presented.
> 
> For those that have completed the OCP exam, is this what I am to
expect?
> 
> Does anyone know of any other resources I might be able to use?  How
are 
> the OCP exam guides published by Sybex?
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Regards,
> Craig.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> -- 
> Author: Craig Munday
>   INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
> -
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
> 
> -- 
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> -- 
> Author: Rajesh Dayal
>   INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
> -
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
> 

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

-- 
Please see the official ORACL

Oracle Press OCP exam guide frustrations

[Craig Munday]

All,

I just purchased a Oracle9i Fundamentals I exam guide published by Oracle 
Press and am very disappointed with the quality of the publication.  There 
seems to be quite a few mistakes, misleading sentences and typos (not in 
the Errata) which is very frustrating.

Also, there is a question in the "Managing Tablespaces and Datafiles" 
chapter that replies on the order of the multiple-choices, however the quiz 
software randomises the choices so the question no longer makes sense - and 
is impossible to answer as presented.

For those that have completed the OCP exam, is this what I am to expect?

Does anyone know of any other resources I might be able to use?  How are 
the OCP exam guides published by Sybex?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Craig.


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: 9iAS vs. Weblogic and Websphere

[Craig Munday]

Hi,
One thing that you will note about 9iAS is that it has a HUGE install
footprint when compared to Weblogic and JBoss.  Weblogic and JBoss
are relatively simple to get going, ie. less configuration.
Cheers,
Craig.

At 07:54 PM 22/07/2003 -0800, Ryan wrote:
I havent dug into 9iAS yet, but I
want to learn atleast one of the major web
servers. It appears that WebLogic and Websphere dominate the market. It
also
appears that 9iAS is tedious and has a poor design relative to these
other
two.
What do you think? How different are the webservers? If I pick up one,
does
it translate?
Also, what functionality does 9iAS add that Apache does not have in and
of
itself? I was able to run 9i Forms with just apache and OC4J?
Ryan
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Ryan
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051
http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California    --
Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You
may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Oracle JMS

[Craig Munday]

Oracle JMS as you put it is actually Oracle Advance Queuing with an
implementation of the Java Messaging Service built on top of it.  If you are
going to use message queues from Java, I would suggest reading up on JMS
first and then go through a number of examples/tutorials.

For the tutorials there are a number of reference implementations that you
could use in place of Oracle. SUN probably has one, BEA Weblogic and JBoss
application servers definitely have one - I find them a little easier to use
and take up a heap less space than an Oracle install.

After you are conformable with the concepts of queuing and JMS I'd then look
at Oracle's implementation using Advance Queuing if you still want to use
it.

Cheers,
Craig.

 



-Original Message-
Sent: Saturday, 14 June 2003 5:05 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Hi All,

I am an Oracle DBA/Developer.I want to start setting up and using Oracle
JMS.How do I get started.
I have a database Oracle EE 8.1.7.4.Do I have to install anything,how to
configure for oracle jms?
Any available documents that gives a tutorial on this .I have checked
metalink and didn't find
anything good.

Thanks
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Basavaraja, Ravindra
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Re: Anyone from Australia

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

I'm from Australia.  What would you like to know?

Cheers,
Craig.
At 05:44 AM 18/06/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Sorry for the Off-Topic post.

Anyone from australia please contact me personally, I need some information.

Regards
Naveen
DISCLAIMER:
This message (including attachment if any) is confidential and may be 
privileged. Before opening attachments please check them for viruses and 
defects. MindTree Consulting Private Limited (MindTree) will not be 
responsible for any viruses or defects or any forwarded attachments 
emanating either from within MindTree or outside. If you have received 
this message by mistake please notify the sender by return e-mail and 
delete this message from your system. Any unauthorized use or 
dissemination of this message in whole or in part is strictly prohibited. 
Please note that e-mails are susceptible to change and MindTree shall not 
be liable for any improper, untimely or incomplete transmission.


--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
--
Author: Craig Munday
 INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: applying transactions

[Craig Munday]

T spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
> 
> 
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: David Turner
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Configuring Oracle with RAID and OFA

[Craig Munday]

Rachel,

I guess it is much simplier in may situation because I do not have the
challenges of working for a "very large company".

Good luck!! :-)

Cheers,
Craig.


-Original Message-
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2003 9:59 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Craig,

I envy you your company. When you work for a very large company, which
tries to save money via economy of scale, when you are not part of the
production group but can only make suggestions, you don't get to make
the decisions. It's not like I haven't tried to influence the
decisions, but you need to have power or a position of authority from
which to fight. I have no desire in the economy that exists in the US
right now to say "do it my way or I'll quit". I'd rather repeat and
document my recommendations and then be able to say "you'll need to
change it to this as I told you before" (I'm not above saying I told
you so)

Can you tell me exactly how you ensure you are part of the purchasing
decisions? I'd love to find some new ways to be heard.


Rachel
--- Craig Munday <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Rachel,
> 
> There seems to be something inherently wrong with a DBA not getting
> to
> determine the layout of their disks.
> 
> I too have experienced this problem in the past and have found that
> it is
> difficult to achieve change once large sums on money have already
> been
> committed.  These days I ensure that I am involved in the purchasing
> decision from the out set - its easier to get what I want that way.
> 
> I use this technique with developers as well.  If I am lucky enough
> to see
> the beginning of a development project, I ensure that I set standards
> for
> database development when the developers are setting other coding
> standards
> for themself.  It helps developers understand what I expect of them
> and also
> gets their buy-in.  I've found that developers like standards more
> than me
> trying to tell them what is wrong with their code after they have
> puts
> months of work. - developers tend to get emotionally attached to what
> they
> create :-)  It is also a little unfair to impose standards
> retrospectively
> which threaten their deadlines.
> 
> I'm sure other DBAs have experienced the similar things, and I'd be
> interested in how they have tried to solve their problems.
> 
> Cheers,
> Craig.
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> Sent: Friday, 28 March 2003 1:54 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> 
> 
> Dennis,
> 
> Sometimes you don't have the option to decide if you are using a
> single
> RAID set or not. At my last job I was told "hey, we have 375GB of
> space
> for you -- and it's RAID-5". I was not asked if I wanted it
> configured
> that way, I was not listened to when I protested. So the alternatives
> I
> faced were a) run my database on RAID-5 and do the best I can or b)
> quit because I refused to run a database on RAID-5
> 
> Option b seemed a little extreme.   You really can't make
> pronouncements like "you shouldn't run a production database on a
> single RAID set" because sometimes you have to.
> 
> Oh yeah -- the database ran fine, we had no performance problems and
> we
> DID have good backups.
> 
> Rachel
> 
> --- DENNIS WILLIAMS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Dwayne
> >So you have a single RAID set, or 5 separate devices? You might
> > have a
> > test database on a single RAID set, but you shouldn't do that in
> > production.
> > First, multiple control files on separate devices. Redo should
> write
> > to a
> > non-RAID device since it continuously writes. Past that it depends
> on
> > how
> > much performance this system requires.
> >Gaja and Kirti explain this nicely in Oracle Performance Tuning
> > 101.
> > 
> > Dennis Williams
> > DBA, 40%OCP, 100% DBA
> > Lifetouch, Inc.
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> > 
> > -Original Message-
> > Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2003 6:59 AM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > 
> > 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I am configuring a system for use with Oracle and am confused on
> the
> > concepts 
> > of RAID and OFA, specifically how they work together.
> > 
> > I inherited a system that is a RAID 5 utilizing 5 disks.  Oracle8i
> > (8.1.7)
> > is 
> > currently running on it.  The database is setup on one disk (data
> > files, 
> > control files, redo logs, etc.).
> > 
> > I understand that striping spreads the info out across all the
> disks.
> >  That 
>

RE: Configuring Oracle with RAID and OFA

[Craig Munday]

Is there a large cache on the SAN - perhaps it was memory that was written
to and not disk?  Did you consider not striping the redo on the internal
disk?

Cheers,
Craig.


-Original Message-
Sent: Friday, 28 March 2003 11:44 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Stephane Paquette wrote:
> Same here, the SAN (Hitachi) is configured raid 5 (with 128K strippes i
> think) and it's good for everything : Oracle, Sql Server, Novell, Windows,
> AIX and maybe the mainframes if they live long enough.
> 
> So I would not be wellcomed if I asked how about putting those redo logs
on
> raid 0+1 ?
> 
> 
> Stephane
> 


The funny thing is, we just got a Hitachi san raid 5 and I decided to 
put the redo logs on 5 striped internal disk on the host(sun V880) 
because I didn't want them on the raid 5 disk on the sam do to the heavy 
writes. Well, those internal disks were a huge bottleneck during some 
load tests for our datawarehouse(they are fibre channel on the new sun 
fire v880's), so we moved them to the SAN and it tripled the 
performance. Go figure.


-Brian

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Brian Haas
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Configuring Oracle with RAID and OFA

[Craig Munday]

ornia-- Mailing list and web hosting services
> -
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
> 


__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Rachel Carmichael
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: encryption - peoplesoft 8 - oracle ??

[Craig Munday]

Title: storing credit card numbers in a database



How 
will you protect the encryption key?
 
There 
is one thing that most people seem to miss about the DBMS_OBFUSCATION_TOOLKIT 
and that is, it DOES NOT provide key management.
 
Having 
access to the encryption and decryption routines is only half the story.  
What use is encrypting credit card numbers when you cannot securely store the 
key used in the encryption.
 
Off 
the top of my head any key management solution should have at a 
minimum:
- no 
one person should know the complete key - key needs to be separated into 
components
- the 
key should not exist in the clear outside of a HSM (Hardware Security 
Module)
 
Cheers,
Craig.
 

  -Original Message-From: 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Tuesday, 25 
  February 2003 2:34 AMTo: Multiple recipients of list 
  ORACLE-LSubject: encryption - peoplesoft 8 - oracle 
  ??
  Has 
  anyone used data encryption/decryption with peoplesoft8 HR application with 
  oracle backend? Any hints will be appreciated..
   
  Thanks 
  Mohammed 
  Ahsanuddin Oracle DBA -Original 
  Message-From: Nick Wagner 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 4:28 
  PMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: RE: 
  storing credit card numbers in a database
  
it 
would be safer to encrypt the credit card number at the application level, 
and insert that string into the database, because anyone with a decent 
sniffer would be able to pick it out of the SQL*Net code. Whether or 
not they even have access to the database. 
 
-Original Message-From: Richard Ji 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Friday, February 21, 
2003 12:40 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list 
ORACLE-LSubject: RE: storing credit card numbers in a 
database
Besides the DBMS_OBFUSCATION_TOOLKIT, 
Application Security Inc also has a product to 
encrypt data in the database.  Check out their web site 
www.appsecinc.com.

  -Original Message-From: 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Friday, 
  February 21, 2003 3:25 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list 
  ORACLE-LSubject: RE: storing credit card numbers in a 
  database
  We have been looking at a similar requirement..so far it seems if 
  you want to use oracle's encryption (DBMS_OBFUSCATION_TOOLKIT)  tool 
  kit encryption has to be done in code and passed to the database and vice 
  versa.
   
  There is a product called secure.data for oracle database from 
  protegrity which claims to be application transparent..I have not worked 
  with that but it is an option.
   
  Thanks 
  Mohammed 
  Ahsanuddin Oracle DBA -Original Message-From: Chris Stephens 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Friday, February 21, 
  2003 2:06 PMTo: Multiple recipients of list 
  ORACLE-LSubject: storing credit card numbers in a 
  database
  
I've been asked to find out a way to encrypt credit card 
numbers and store that encrypted string in the database.  ...any 
oracle functions or functionality to do this? or would we have to 
encrypt the numbers in the application and then pass that string to the 
database?
We don't want anyone to be able to get to the numbers 
even if they have access to the table in which it is stored. 
Thanks for any input chris 

RE: Top 10 DBA Do's and Don'ts anyone - Here is my list, comments

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

#8 - Don't Be a Normalization Bigot

I would have written the above as "Don't denormalise without good reason."

To me denormalisation means that you must have a normalised design to begin
with, in order to "de-normalise" it.

I've seen a lot of designs where the designers have denormalised a set of
tables to improve a perceived performance problem in one part of an
application only to find out later that it adversely effected the
performance of another part.  The designers didn't even understand what the
normalised design should be!  I tend to find that starting with a normalised
design is much more robust way to go.

Cheers,
Craig.





-Original Message-
Sent: Monday, 24 February 2003 9:24 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
comments


Here is the list of top 10 do's and don't that I came up with.

#1 - Do Maintain your Expertise
#2 - Do Use the DBMS_STATS Package to Collect Statistics
#3 - Do Use Bind Variables
#4 - Do Put your Production Database in ARCHIVELOG Mode
#5 - Do Use Locally Managed Tablespaces
#6 - Do Monitor Your Database
#7 - Do Practice Recoveries
#8 - Do Get Involved with User Groups and Other Resources
#9 - Do Establish Standards and Change Control Processes
#10 - Do Think Ahead

Bonus! - Do tune to Reduce Logical IO's Not Physical IO's.
(With regards to Cary!)

Oracle Database Top 10 Don'ts
#1 - Don't Waste Time Re-Organizing Your Databases
#2 - Don't Use .Log or Other Common Extensions For Your Database File Names
#3 - Don't Leave Your Database Open To Attack
#4 - Don't Decide Against Hot Backups
#5 - Don't Use ASSM
#6 - Don't Forget the 80/20 Rule
#7 - Don't Stack Views
#8 - Don't Be a Normalization Bigot
#9 - Don't Forget to Document Everything
#10 - Do Not Use Products You are Not Licensed For.

Bonus!! - Do Not Assume A Good or Bad Hit Ratio Means Anything

Ok, anyone wanna comment?


Robert G. Freeman
Technical Management Consultant
TUSC - The Oracle Experts www.tusc.com
904.708.5076 Cell (It's everywhere that I am!)
Author of several books you can find on Amazon.com!

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Freeman Robert - IL
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: RMAN: I don't trust it

[Craig Munday]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Mark Richard
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Question about RMAN and recovery scenario.

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

We are using Oracle 8i and have successfully recovered the control file from
the a backup piece.  Like you, we have been testing this for disaster
recovery purposes and it works well.  There is one tip that I can suggest
though.

In the Oracle manuals all the suggested scripts seem to following these
steps:

backup database including control file
archive the current log file
backup all archive log files.

In a disaster scenario when you are relying on your last backup and may not
have access to the most recent redo information or backup catalogue, the
above backup steps would only allow you to recovery up to the point of the
control file backup - the archive redo logs are essentially useless.  The
simple tip is to ensure that the control file backup is performed after the
archive log backup - that is make it the LAST backup to be done.  This way
you will be storing ALL information about the latest archive logs and their
most recent backups.

You know that the last backup piece contains the control file so you can use
this to manually recover it.  Once you have the control file is it a simple
matter to use RMAN to recover the rest of the backup from the control file
in the normal way.

There is a stored procedure in the Backup and Recovery/RMAN manuals  for
Oracle 8i.  In Oracle 9i this is better supported.  Let me know if you
cannot find it and I'll send it along.

Cheers,
Craig.




-Original Message-
Sent: Tuesday, 11 February 2003 4:34 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Alex
   Someone may reply with better information, but we have been doing
disaster recoveries with RMAN, using just the control file. In our case, we
are just trying to recover the level 0 backup, but I can't see a reason you
couldn't incorporate the level 1 backup as well. If you are just getting
started, I would recommend that you purchase Robert Freeman's book Oracle9i
RMAN Backup & Recovery. If you are on Oracle8i, Robert provides plenty of
details to allow you to use his book against Oracle8i. 
   I don't see a problem doing what you are proposing. I have just been
recovering the Level 0 backup, but going forward to the level 1 should not
be a problem. Some people report that in Oracle8i they have been able to
extract the control file from the backup, but I gave up and just back it up
separately after the RMAN backup. You also need any archive logs created
during the RMAN backup.

Dennis Williams
DBA, 40%OCP
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 


-Original Message-
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 9:14 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Hello Folks,

I am just working with recovery scenarios and have question about
rman.
Consider following situation:
1. Use recovery manager without catalog only control file.
2. Have level 0 database backup + level 1 backup.

If we lost all datafiles except datafiles from SYSTEM it is not a
problem to recover database. Also if RMAN uses catalog it works good.

But in scenario if we lost all datafiles (including all files from
SYSTEN tablespace) how to recover database?

Thank you for your help.
-- 
Best regards,
Alex  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

__
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Alex Andriyashchenko
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-

RE: RAC on linux

[Craig Munday]

Joe,

I would be very interested in hearing how you go with this.  Could you
feedback any information you get on RAC/linux back to the list please.
Thanks greatly.

Cheers,
Craig.


-Original Message-
Sent: Monday, 3 February 2003 10:24 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Hello everyone, i've been quiet recently, for those of you who know what 
I've been up to class has been great, emergency medicine is really kewl.

Now to the oracle stuff,

We're having new requirements by multiple clients to ask about RAC(not 
necessarily on linux), so a couple of us thought, we'd try to implement 
it on a few linux servers, as an experiment to see how its done, etc.

I'd really not purchase RH advanced Server 2.1 and just try it on rh 
8.0, is this even possible?, I've got like no experience on the 
clustering side of operating systems.

I've searched the OTN, oracle and RH sites to not much luck.

Anyone tried this on non RH AS 2.1 and just used regular RH 8.0 and if 
so are you willing to share the good/bad and otherwise of your luck with it?

If there is something I missed in the docs on what I need to do to make 
it happen, point me that way and I'll be glad to read up on it.

thanks, joe


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Joe Testa
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: a PL/SQL design question.

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: a PL/SQL design question.



Just 
so you know, you should be able to manually "acknowledge" the enqueue of the 
message on the queue which will make it available to the 
consumer before the transaction containing the insert is 
commited.
 
 

  -Original Message-From: Jeremy Pulcifer 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Tuesday, 10 December 2002 
  10:09 AMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: 
  RE: a PL/SQL design question.
  An easy way to do this is using DBMS_JOB. That way you can get 
  asynchronous execution, and it isn't tied to the transaction.
  This is clipped from a fix I just did for a customer. It ain't 
  complete, but hopefully you can follow the logic: 
      v_variables_in_table INTEGER; 
      v_job_num 
  INTEGER;     v_job_started INTEGER; 
  BEGIN     
  BEGIN     
      SELECT job_num INTO 
  v_job_num     
      
      FROM 
  job_number_storage     
      
      WHERE job_name = 
  ''; 
      
      SELECT 1 INTO 
  v_job_started     
      
      FROM user_jobs 
      
      
      WHERE 
  job=v_job_num;     EXCEPTION     
      WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND 
  THEN     
      
      v_job_started := 
  0;     END; 
      IF v_job_started = 
  1 THEN     
      DBMS_JOB.REMOVE(v_job_num); 
      END IF; 
      DELETE FROM 
  job_number_storage     
      WHERE job_name = 
  ''; 
      -- start the 
  job     -- 
  insert into jdp_temp values ('starting job here',sysdate); 
      DBMS_JOB.SUBMIT(v_job_num,';',sysdate,'sysdate+1'); 
      INSERT INTO 
  job_number_storage (job_num,job_name) 
      
      VALUES 
  (v_job_num,''); 
      COMMIT; 

  END; / 
  > -Original Message- > 
  From: Craig Munday [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
  > Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 2:09 PM > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L > Subject: RE: a PL/SQL design question. > > > 
  Hi, > > The other option 
  that you have is to use Advance Queuing.  > 
  You can insert > the row and a message on a queue 
  within the same transaction.  Your > procedure 
  will be a consumer of the messages in the queue. > 
  > If the transaction that does the insert is rolled 
  back then > the message is > never placed on the queue and your procedure is never 
  > executed.  The dequeue > of the message is also transactional so if your procedure 
  > fails the message > 
  will be left on the queue and redelivered.  You need to handle the 
  > redelivery case is a sensible manner - that is, you do 
  not > want the message > 
  to be redelivered continually if it is going to fail all the time. 
  > > Cheers, > Craig. > > 
  > -Original Message- > Sent: Friday, 29 November 2002 5:04 AM > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L > > > Andrey 
  Bronfin wrote: > > Dear gurus! > > I'm looking for a solution to the following problem: 
  > > I need a way to run a certain stored procedure as 
  soon as a > record is > 
  > inserted into a certain table. > > A 
  trigger is not feasible for this, since I do not want the > execution of > the > > procedure to be a part of the transaction that inserts a 
  > row into the > 
  table. > > I want the insertion to be visible to 
  all the users (i.e. > committed) as 
  > soon > > as the insertion 
  is done, and then, as a separate > transaction of 
  its own, > to > > run 
  the stored procedure. > > Suggestions , please 
  ? > > Thanks a lot ! > > > Keyword 
  = AUTONOMOUS TRANSACTION > > -- > Regards, > > Stephane Faroult > Oriole Software > -- > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com > -- > Author: Stephane Faroult 
  >   INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Fat City Network 
  Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com > San Diego, California    -- 
  Mailing list and web hosting services > 
  - 
  > To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an 
  E-Mail message > to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note 
  EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in > the message 
  BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L > 
  (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You 
  may > also send the HELP command for other 
  information (like subscribing). > -- 
  > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com 
  > -- > Author: Craig 
  Munday >   INET: 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com 
  > San Diego, 
  California    -- Mailing list a

RE: a PL/SQL design question.

[Craig Munday]

Hi,

The other option that you have is to use Advance Queuing.  You can insert
the row and a message on a queue within the same transaction.  Your
procedure will be a consumer of the messages in the queue.

If the transaction that does the insert is rolled back then the message is
never placed on the queue and your procedure is never executed.  The dequeue
of the message is also transactional so if your procedure fails the message
will be left on the queue and redelivered.  You need to handle the
redelivery case is a sensible manner - that is, you do not want the message
to be redelivered continually if it is going to fail all the time.

Cheers,
Craig.


-Original Message-
Sent: Friday, 29 November 2002 5:04 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Andrey Bronfin wrote:
> Dear gurus!
> I'm looking for a solution to the following problem:
> I need a way to run a certain stored procedure as soon as a record is
> inserted into a certain table.
> A trigger is not feasible for this, since I do not want the execution of
the
> procedure to be a part of the transaction that inserts a row into the
table.
> I want the insertion to be visible to all the users (i.e. committed) as
soon
> as the insertion is done, and then, as a separate transaction of its own,
to
> run the stored procedure.
> Suggestions , please ?
> Thanks a lot !


Keyword = AUTONOMOUS TRANSACTION

-- 
Regards,

Stephane Faroult
Oriole Software
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Stephane Faroult
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Craig Munday
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services-- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California-- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Data Purging - Approaches

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Data Purging - Approaches





...and when the archiving takes place, make sure that the simplest file format is chosen to store the data.  A file format that can be read with a text editor is probably a good choice - in ten years time, at least someone will be able to browse the file.

   


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, 16 October 2002 3:30 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: Data Purging - Approaches



I'm not a proponent of purging data.


Unless of course, you expect to never see it again.


That word 'archive' rolls of the tongues of managers
and consultants pretty easily, but what's behind it?


There are a few gotchas with purging and archiving.


Let's assume you have some 3 year old data that 
you need to see again, and it has been purged.


Here are some of the possible problems:


*  Your backup tapes are corrupted
*  Your new backup hardware can't read the old tapes
*  Your software no longer understands the format that
    the data is in.
* You have the correct software, but it won't work on the
   current version of OS on your hardware.
* The data format/software/whatever is not well documented
*  The employees that understood the data 3 years ago
   have been laid off.
* ... lots more stuff


Read Bryon Bergeron's "Dark Ages II: When the Digital Data Die"
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-0130661074-0


Perhaps much better than archiving the data, is to stick with the
idea of moving it to another database, and using lots of cheap
disk storage (NAS) or a heirarchical file system to store it.


The point being that if it's online somewhere, it will be maintained.


Don't purge it till Finance, HR, the IRS and any other stakeholder
says it's ok.  Only then purge it and archive it to offline tape with the
knowledge that you may never see that data again.


Jared








[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 10/15/2002 05:38 AM
 Please respond to ORACLE-L


 
    To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
    cc: 
    Subject:    Data Purging - Approaches




Dear List, 


We need to remove data from our database everyday, so we are plannning to 
have a scheduled process for this. But the case is that we cannot simply 
remove the data. This data has to be made available at a later time if 
required. So this is the process that we have designed. 
1.  The background process would first insert all the required data 
from the main database to another database. 
2.  Now if this successfull, it would be deleted from the main 
database. 
3.  The selection criteria on which the data to be purged is found is 
a business requirement. It is based on some date, but we cannot partition 
the data based on the date, otherwise we could have done with paritioning 
and dropping the partition could have been easily done. 
4.  The data in the second database would be archived in a normal 
sequence 
5.  If any user request for the data already purged, the data would be 
read from the second database and shown to him. 



Now the issue, the data that has to be moved or deleted in such a way 
would mount to more that 10 GB of data, so is this method a good solution. 
Can anybody suggest a better approach for doing this. 



We are using Oracle 9i database, Weblogic Application server and Java 
client. We have list partitioned our database. 


Any other data purging techniques would be greatly appreciated. 


Regards 
Prem Chandran N 



-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: 
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California    -- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Stupid Bind Variable question

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Stupid Bind Variable question





Hi,


I suggest the following:


- If a literal is always going to be the same value than it is marginal whether you use a bind variable for this.


- I'm not sure why you are using the to_char to_date functions?  You should be able to create a bind variable of type date - hence you shouldn't need to worry about the format.

Cheers,
Craig.



-Original Message-
From: Alan Davey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, 21 September 2002 1:29 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Stupid Bind Variable question



In any given SQL statement, do I need (or should I :^) ) create a bind variable for every literal value even if it is one of the following cases:

1)  substring in a substr function 
2)  date/time format mask used in to_char or to_date function
3)  comparison value in a decode/case statement (not in the where clause)


I've seen it mentioned to use bind variables when comparing a column to a literal in the where clause, but nothing specific about the above scenarios.  Basically what I am asking is, do all literals need to be made bind variables?

Thanks.
-- 


Alan Davey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]






-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Alan Davey
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California    -- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: count(*)

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: count(*)  





Hi


Depending on how the transactions are defined I do not think that you will be able to achieve the throughput as the single row will be a point of serialisation.

Cheers,
Craig.



-Original Message-
From: Naveen Nahata [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, 21 September 2002 12:04 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: count(*) 



What about having a separate table with a single column and a single row to
store only the count, and increment and decrement it using a row trigger on
Insert and deletes?


that way select count(*) will be very fast, the only ovehead will of the
trigger, which i think should be offset by the performance gained by the
select.


Regards
naveen


-Original Message-
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 6:24 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



Rishi,


Do records get deleted from this table?  If not, you could simply add an
additional column that gets populated by a sequence, add an index on that
column, and select max() from that column.  Even better, simply query
'select sequence_name,last_number from user_sequences' to get the last value
used.  You may need to check whether sequence caching makes a difference
with this query.


Otherwise, Dennis gave some good advice.


Hope this helps.


Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional



-Original Message-
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 5:04 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L




Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 2:48 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'



Rishi - I've encountered this as well. I think the problem is the fact that
you are pounding millions of rows into the table. When you ask for a count,
Oracle won't give you an approximate answer, but insists on giving you a
precise answer as of the moment you hit return. You are right, your query
can actually slow performance. No, to my knowledge Oracle doesn't maintain a
record of the number of rows in the table, my guess being that could become
a performance bottleneck.
   My recommendation would be to ask very precisely what is to be achieved
with the count. As you noticed, the count will lag reality by quite awhile.
Perhaps the application could maintain the count. I have quite a few batch
programs that will display a running counter. If only an approximate count
is needed, there may be an alternate method, like looking at how many
segments are used and calculating. Just some thoughts.


Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  



-Original Message-
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 1:28 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



Hi Gurus,


In one of our insert intensive application we are inserting around 3-4
million rows / hour. Also this app needs to do a count(*) of the tables
every 10 minutes for verifying some application based logic. This is really
killing us and it takes a lot of time. 


Can you please guide me to a direction ( built in functions or something
similar). 


Actually this app is being ported from Informix. Informix can somehow keep a
trak of the count(*) of a  table in its header somewhere.


And yes I have tries count(1) , count(indexed_column) etc.



Thanks In Advance.


R.h
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: 
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California    -- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California    -- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California    -- Mailing list and web hosting services
-
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling 

RE: count(*)

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: count(*)



Hi,
 
I've 
read so many suggestions for making this count(*) quicker but we are all 
assuming that it is needed and has a purpose in the first place - which may or 
may not be the case.  Obviously the quickest way to do the count(*) is to 
NOT do it in the first place.
 
I'd 
still like to know the purpose of the count(*) and what verification it is 
performing?  And also, why are there so many rows being inserted into the 
table.
 
Cheers,Craig.
 

  -Original Message-From: Craig Munday 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Friday, 20 September 2002 
  10:53 AMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: 
  RE: count(*)
  Hi, 
  I am not sure if I have a solution for you, but I have a 
  number of questions: 
  1) just for my interest, what type of application would need 
  to insert 3-4 million records per hour? 
  2) Why does the application need to do the select 
  count(*)?  What verification is being performed? 
  3) Perhaps the design of the application could change so the 
  number of records is reduced? 
  Cheers, Craig.   
  

RE: count(*)

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: count(*)





Hi,


I am not sure if I have a solution for you, but I have a number of questions:


1) just for my interest, what type of application would need to insert 3-4 million records per hour?


2) Why does the application need to do the select count(*)?  What verification is being performed?


3) Perhaps the design of the application could change so the number of records is reduced?


Cheers,
Craig.
  


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, 20 September 2002 9:53 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: count(*)




Paula et al:


It could work if the analyze is done after the load using DBMS_STATS. Then
the num_rows would be accurate.  With the monitoring turned on , analyzing
would be done on the
table if more than a certain percentage had changed.  It is not an elegant
solution.  A more pratical one , if you're using SQL Loader, is to use a
counter variable. If not using SQL Loader, then a synthetic key backed with
a trigger and sequence, could suffice.  It could give you the accurate
count after a load by checking the NEXTVAL.sequence_name or
CURRENTVAL.sequence_name.  The method could be put in a procedure to
improve efficiency.


Just a thought.


RWB

RE: recording SQLPlus activity

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: recording SQLPlus activity  





Ray,


The integration problems you seem to be having sounds like the problem is more with the cowboys...errrdevelopers :-)  Or with the processes and procedures in your development group.

I would have thought that with a hundred or so developers it would be more chaotic sharing the same schema.  How will you stop developers interferring with each others work?  I'd be surprised if this schema ever becomes stable.  That is, how will developers know whether the tables/data/code they see in the schema is suppose to be apart of the system, or just apart of something another developer is "trying out"?  How will you stop developers writing code that isn't suppose to be there.

I think having a shared integration area/schema is essential, so long as there are procedures around what gets released to this area.

I believe that you are going to have problems if you let everyone share the same development schema.  Having said that, I would be interested to hear how it turns out for you. 

Cheers,
Craig.
  


-Original Message-
From: Ray Gordon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, 26 June 2002 5:24 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: recording SQLPlus activity 



Dennis,
I dont want to create separate working environments for each of the users.  
We have had cases where developers compile programs in their programs and 
which do not work in the real environment, and several other issues.


Ideally, I would like to have everyone work in the same environment, but 
with controls.


Ray




From : DENNIS WILLIAMS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To : Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject : RE: recording SQLPlus activity
Date : Mon, 24 Jun 2002 17:43:18 -0800



Ray - A couple of things come to mind. First, does each developer have their
own Oracle login? If not, you probably will not be able to tell who did what
anyway.
 What version of Oracle?
 I would consider running the database in ARCHIVELOG mode. Not a bad
idea in a heavy development environment because people are making important
changes and a lot of changes, so while recoverability might not be quite as
important as a full production environment, it is important. A big failure
could affect a lot of people. You can also perform point-in-time recoveries.
If you have archive logs and a recent version of Oracle (8i, I believe), you
can use LogMiner to extract what they are doing / did. It also works against
the online redo logs, so when somebody really bollixes everything up, you
can read the online logs to find the culprit quickly.
 Another source of information that stores less history is to dump the
V$SQLTEXT table. This is also useful to see what queries people are running
against the database. In the long run, you want to make sure they creating
good queries. You can run STATSPACK, capture the SQL each hour, and it also
lists the SQL ordered by resource usage, so you can spot the bad queries
before they migrate to production.
 Yet another consideration is to turn auditing on. You can probably just
turn on a couple of auditing options and get what you need without storing
every minute detail.
Hope these are enough sources of information for you.
Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



-Original Message-
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 7:53 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



I have just been moved to a group with several hundred developers, and to
say the least the environment is chaotic.


Without putting limits on my developers (such as via READONLY user, etc.),
is there some way that every command that a developer executes using SQLPlus


gets recorded (by userid and time)?


Ray







_
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Ray Gordon
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: recording SQLPlus activity

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: recording SQLPlus activity





Ray,


I'll explain how I have tended to work with both C++/Java/PLSQL development groups of 10-50 people.


1) every developer has their own schema in which they can do whatever they want.  Typically each has their own build environment as well and a complete version of the application's schema (which they have checked out of source code control).

2) The development group has their own integration schema.  This schema is typically owned by the person responsible for integrating the various components that each developer is working on, or by some senior member of the group.  The software (and schema) released to this area is typically the product of a nightly build.  That is, developers unit tested and checked in their code.

3) The testing group has their own schema and formal build of the software that is to be tested.  Developers typically have very little access (or no access) to this environment.

In terms of examining the SQL that the developers are generating, I am only interested the SQL that is being generated by applications that have been built from code checked into source code control.

That is, I will typically trace the SQL from either the test environment or the development group's integration environment.  I do not see it necessary to check every piece of SQL that developers are currently working on.  Once the code is checked in however I see that the developer considers this code to be somewhat finalised.

In terms of backing up the development database, I find that a nightly export and complete cold backups work best - you can recover a single user from the previous nights export.  Generally the previous night is ok because the changes that developers make should be scripted and checked into source code control - hence they should be able to rebuild what they have done with little trouble.

Hope this helps.


Cheers,
Craig.











-Original Message-
From: Ray Gordon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, 26 June 2002 4:24 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: recording SQLPlus activity



Craig,
This relates to SQLPLUS.  A majority of our developers use sqlplus.


There are 2 choices:
(a) separate environments for each developer using GRANTS, etc.
(b) one single application owner account, where all the developers work.


Now, (b) is several hundred times more efficient, and I am looking for input 
on how to make (b) work for me, not (a).


What I would like, ideally speaking:
1. Users log into SQLPlus into the same account. They get tagged.  All 
actions are recorded, especially DDL.  Who, When, What SQL,
2. No direct SQLPlus access, i.e. not without being tagged.
3. Restrictions: Only specific users (identified by tags) are to be allowed 
alter/drop table, etc.


Thus, everyone works in the same area, but I'm watching and controlling.



1. PUPBLD does not cut it since its not at the object level
2. Redo logs:  One problem is that if everyone is working in the same user, 
we cant tell "who".
3. Audit:  what audit can I turn on?


thanks.


Ray






From : "Craig Munday" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To : Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject : RE: recording SQLPlus activity
Date :  Mon, 24 Jun 2002 18:08:20 -0800



Ray,


Why would you want to record every SQL statement that your developers issue? 
  Are they just using SQL*Plus or some other language?


Cheers,
Craig.




-Original Message-
Sent: Tuesday, 25 June 2002 10:53 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L




I have just been moved to a group with several hundred developers, and to
say the least the environment is chaotic.


Without putting limits on my developers (such as via READONLY user, etc.),
is there some way that every command that a developer executes using SQLPlus
gets recorded (by userid and time)?


Ray






_
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Ray Gordon
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: recording SQLPlus activity

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: recording SQLPlus activity





Ray,


Why would you want to record every SQL statement that your developers issue?  Are they just using SQL*Plus or some other language?

Cheers,
Craig.



-Original Message-
From: Ray Gordon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, 25 June 2002 10:53 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: recording SQLPlus activity



I have just been moved to a group with several hundred developers, and to 
say the least the environment is chaotic.


Without putting limits on my developers (such as via READONLY user, etc.), 
is there some way that every command that a developer executes using SQLPlus 
gets recorded (by userid and time)?


Ray






_
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Ray Gordon
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Cost vs Rule

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Cost vs Rule





Bill,


If you really want to use CBO I would have thought that the plan stability features of Oracle would be sufficient to squash any argument about predictability.  I have not used these myself, but they seem to have been included because of the need to guarantee predictable performance.

Just my two centsI find the CBO much more complex than the RBO and I find myself wondering whether dealing with the complexity is actually worth the effort when the RBO provides sufficient performance for the applications I've worked on.  I tend to take the simple is best approach.

Cheers,
Craig.








-Original Message-
From: Magaliff, Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, 14 March 2002 2:08 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: Cost vs Rule



yes, everything analyzed.


sr tech arch has decided he wants to use RBO due to predictability in
production.  not much I can do at this point, unless I can really come up
with convincing stats


-Original Message-
Sent: Wed, March 13, 2002 6:34 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



Well, since hints are implemented within comments, I would assume that other
databases would simply ignore them. If anyone has direct experience, that
would be interesting. Being completely database-agnostic may play against
tuning.
    Just a thought. I suppose you analyzed all tables when you were
testing CBO?
Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



-Original Message-
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 2:00 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



not much - desire is to keep sql ANSI compliant due to cross-platform issues
(want to be able to run the app on multiple db's)


-Original Message-
Sent: Thu, March 07, 2002 2:44 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



How much have you played with Oracle Hints???


-Joe


--- "Magaliff, Bill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I work in a dev shop - most of the sql is canned and pretty basic. 
> We've
> been running CBO in all of our dev environments, but we have a few
> long txns
> that just take forever.  At the request of some savvy developers, I
> turned
> on RBO, and it brought down execution times dramatically.
> 
> I've been analyzing affected tables often (we do a lot of bulk
> load/unload
> for testing), and have played with partitioning and clustering,
> particularly
> on one table that's just a dog.  CBO will always do a FTS where RBO
> uses the
> PK to retrieve data.
> 
> Where to go next?  I've been unable to alter the costs dramatically
> enough
> to make any real difference in execution time.
> 
> thx
> 
> -- 
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> -- 
> Author: Magaliff, Bill
>   INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing
> Lists
>

> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like
subscribing).



__
Do You Yahoo!?
Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email!
http://mail.yahoo.com/
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Joe Raube
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Magaliff, Bill
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California  

How to deregister OEM 2.2 jobs and events when agent is not available?

[Craig Munday]

Title: How to deregister OEM 2.2 jobs and events when agent is not available?





All,


Does anyone know how to deregister Enterprise Manager jobs and events when the Intelligent Agent is not available.  I have looked on metalink and was not able to find anything of relevance.

The platform is Solaris 8, Oracle 8.1.7 Server.


Thanks,
Craig.

RE: ORA-01000: maximum open cursors exceeded

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: ORA-01000: maximum open cursors exceeded





Sam,


That sounds like a huge number of cursors, does the Java application really have 7500 cursors open at any one time?  I too have found that some Java applications have required a large number of open cursors but this is only because the Java developers had forgotten to close Statement and ResultSet objects.  Once I got them to close these, I was able to set the limit to some smaller value.

Had I left the max_open_cursors parameter set to some large value we might not have found this defect as soon as we did.

Cheers,
Craig.



-Original Message-
From: Sam Roberts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, 9 February 2002 1:43 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: ORA-01000: maximum open cursors exceeded



no performance impact whatsoever .


I have various Java applications that require huge number of cursors and i
have limit set to 7500 without any issues


Sam



- Original Message -
To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 5:03 PM



We had this error show up the other day. I am wondering if there is a
performance limit on how big you should set your OPEN_CURSORS parameter in
the SID.init file?  Mine currently is set at 300.  Are there any guidelines
on this setting?  Just wondering.


Thanks,


Dave
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: Farnsworth, Dave
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Sam Roberts
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: RMAN Incremental backups.

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: RMAN Incremental backups.





Can someone explain why incremental backups are only valid in archivelog mode?  I don't think this is correct and the manual states that consistent incremental backups are possible.  I took the quote below from the Oracle 8i Recovery Manager Users Guide and Reference Chapter 5.

"You can make consistent or inconsistent incremental backups of the database or individual tablespaces or datafiles."


I think the confusion has come between incremental backups, and inconsistent backups.  The two concepts are quite different and are in fact orthogonal.  That is, I can have incremental backups which are consistent or inconsistent, and similarly I can have full backups which are consistent or inconsistent.  In fact a full backup is nothing more than an incremental level 0 backup.

I see no reason why I cannot restore a set of consistent incremental backups without the need for recovery and the archived redo logs.  That is, if I take the last consistent level 0 backup and apply all of the appropriate consistent incremental backups I am left with a consistent database that does not need recovery and can be opened.  This makes sense because each incremental backup has a copy of the blocks that have changed since the last incremental backup (ignoring levels for simplicity) and these blocks are consistent as at the time that database was shutdown even though not all blocks are included in the backup.

On the other hand, if the incremental backups were inconsistent (i.e., the database was open while the backup was being taken) I would have to perform some recovery (that is, apply the redo logs to bring the database up to date).  Or if I am missing an incremental backup, I would have to also apply redo logs. 

All comments welcome.


Cheers,
Craig.


  


-Original Message-
From: Mercadante, Thomas F [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, 7 February 2002 5:18 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: RMAN Incremental backups.



Prasad,


Incremental backups are only valid if your database is in ARCHIVELOG mode.
Think about it - to be able to recover using incremental backups, you *Need*
the archivelog files to apply changes.  These are not being created when you
are running in NOARCHIVELOG mode.


Secondly, flipping between ARCHIVELOG and NOARCHIVELOG to perform Rman
backups is a *total* waste of time.  Again, you will not be able to use the
backups to restore your database (except for the MOUNT/cold backups).


Your choices are: 
Run in NOARCHIVELOG mode, and perform MOUNT/Rman or cold database backups.
Run in ARCHIVELOG mode and perform Rman/database open backups.


or use older-style non-Rman backup methods.


I would not be flipping a production database back and forth between
ARCHIVELOG/NOARCHIVELOG mode just to use Rman.  Makes no sense.


Hope this helps.


Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional



-Original Message-
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 11:58 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L







Hi All,


I am new to RMAN. I am reading RMAN documentation and doing some testing on
our development box.


I have couple of questions.


1. Our database is in NOARCHIVE LOG mode and I would like to do Incremental
backups.
 Since db is in noarchive log mode, I put the database in mount state
and did the base level
 and incremental backups. Looks like it worked fine.


 In one of the training documentation, it says 'Because the database is
in noarchive log mode, the incrementals are
 not applicable,  so use the full backup option'.


 It is contrary to what I did. Am I missing something here. please
clarify me. Are the backups valid?



2. Since the database is in noarchive log mode, db is in mount state during
full/incremental backup.
 I want to keep the database open if possible and would like to know if
the following procedure works to
    keep the database open during the backup.


   1. Shutdown the db before backup.
   2. Bring back the db in ARCHIVE LOG mode.
   3. Perform full/incremental backups (including archive log files) while
the database is open.
   4. Shutdown the db after backup is done.
   5. Bring back the db in NOARCHIVE LOG mode.


   I am not sure whether it makes sense or not. Please pass your
suggestions.


Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Best regards,
Prasad




-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: 
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP comma

RE: Limiting RMAN backup size

[Craig Munday]

TIA,
 
I 
suggest reading the section of the manual on Back Sets.  I've included the 
link below for you.
 
Cheers,Craig.
 
http://technet.oracle.com/docs/products/oracle8i/doc_library/817_doc/server.817/a76990/rmanconc.htm#443835

  -Original Message-From: Sona 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Thursday, 7 February 2002 11:43 
  AMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: 
  Limiting RMAN backup size
  HiI am doing RMAN incremental level 0 backup 
  .The database size is about 150GB out of which used would be about 100GB.I 
  don't have a single volume with 100GB of space.So I need to distribute the 
  backup across several disks.
   
  Also I need to limit the backup size in each of 
  the volumes depending on how much space is available in those volumes.For 
  e.g if i want to limit/disk1 to 40GB/disk2 to 10GB/disk3 to 
  10GB/disk4 to 10GbHow would i do this in RMAN?
   
  TIA
   

RE: formatting in SQLPLUS

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: formatting in SQLPLUS





Or try.


set pagesize xxx


where xxx is the number of lines per page.




-Original Message-
From: Dennis M. Heisler [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, 4 February 2002 12:25 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: formatting in SQLPLUS



set linesize = xxx
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Dennis M. Heisler
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

Temporal or Time-Oriented Databases (was auditing tables)

[Craig Munday]

Title: Temporal or Time-Oriented Databases (was auditing tables)





The thread on auditing tables and the mention of temporal or time-oriented databases prompted me to ask about a design problem that has recurred on different projects for me.  Seeing as this problem has occurred multiple times I figured that other people have probably encountered the same and have different solutions.  I'm hoping this email might spark some discussion/debate on the merits of this and other solutions.

Essentially the problem is looking up historical data about an entity in a reliable and performant manner.  For example, paging (via the web) through a set of transactions that have occurred on an account.  Or finding the value of an account at a particular point in time, in order to reconcile the account.  I'm assuming that any solution would support the system running 24/7 because that has been a requirement of most of the projects I've worked on.

A number of designs that I have seen have used a time field as the key to selecting subsets of the transactions for generation of web pages or for the identification of a particular transaction.  I've found that relying on time for this purpose has the following consequences:

1) It is possible that more than one transaction will occur within the same second and therefore make it difficult or impossible to order the transactions correctly (assuming no other suitable key exists).  This is applicable to the discussion on auditing tables too.

2) Find the next or previous batch of n rows is difficult because you have no idea of the selection criteria to use.  Typically the from and to dates are set to encompass ALL the data and only the first n rows are fetched from a result set that contains more than data than necessary.  I don't think this is necessarily a major problem so long as no sorting is involved to evaluate the result set.

I've found that a more general solution is to have two relations, one to represent the entity itself and the other to represent the history of changes to the entity.  For example,

create Entity
(
    myKey number(38),  -- primary key
    lastVersionNumber number(38),
    attribute1    number(38),  -- non-version dependent data
}


create EntityHistory
{
    myKey  number(38),  -- primary key
    versionNumber  number(38),  -- primary key
    startTime  date,
    endTime    date
    attribute2 number(38), -- version dependent data
    attribute3 number(38)  -- version dependent data
}


The key to the EntityHistory table contains the key of Entity plus a version number that is allocated from Entity.lastVersionNumber.  StartTime and EndTime denote when the change was in effect and both are needed to perform a time based search effectively.  This design as the following consequences:

1) The versionNumber provides a definitive order of the EntityHistory records for each Entity (identified by myKey).


2) The application has to lock Entity.lastVersionNumber to log a change to the Entity.  This does not appear to add any additional serialisation to the application because the applications I have seen would have locked the row anyway.  For example, if Entity contained the current account balance, the application would have to lock the row in order to update the balance.

3) EntityHistory.versionNumber can be used to find the next n changes to Entity.  Similarly, finding the first, last or previous n changes to Entity is just as straight forward.  In this case only the data that is needed is returned within the result set.

4) The startTime and endTime can be used to find changes to an Entity based on time.


5) Data that is not version dependent can be stored in Entity so that it is not repeated unnecessarily. 


6) Other relations that are related to a particular version of Entity as it existed sometime in the past have a solid key to refer to in EntityHistory, rather than relying on the time based attributes.

Any and all comments welcome.


Cheers,
Craig.







-Original Message-
From: Thomas B. Cox [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, 30 January 2002 7:11 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: AW: auditing tables




Now you're getting into the realm of Temporal or Time-
Oriented Databases.  


Suppose you want to know what change Fred made on 
Tuesday.  With your design, the audit row only
shows what the old value was, not what the new
value is.  To find that, you have to find either
the current production row, OR the next-most-recent
change for that row in the audit table.


Finding the next-most-recent row in an audit 
table is not a lot of fun, and can be a bit of
a performance pig.


And suppose the next change is a deletion.  A typical
way to track that is to record only the PK value
of the deleted row.  If you do that, then you've
lost the 'new' value that Fred put in.


So, if you regularly report on old-and-new values
from the audit t

RTFM questions (formally RE: PL/SQL)

[Craig Munday]

Title: RTFM questions (formally RE: PL/SQL)





The problem is that if you always ask the group for help, you never learn where the information is within the manuals or other reference documentation and the group also gets cluttered with trivia.

I agree with you that the list is here to help people and I personally do not mind the odd naive question from a new DBA, but it is the "...can't be bothered to look up the manual.." attitude that is most frustrating.  When you ask the format of a command (for example) to the list, you are potentionally asking 1000's of people the same question who will all have to spend the time to filter these questions - we are all busy people and I personally do not want to use my time in this way.  I'm sure you can see that this is a much more expensive option than asking the person next to you.

   
Cheers,
Craig.




-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, 29 January 2002 2:55 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: PL/SQL



Why do you bother being on this List: The list is here to help fellow
DBA'S. Have you never said to one of your collegues , what is the format of
this command, or how can I do that, when you simply cant be bothered to
look it up in the manual (either your busy or just down right lazy):
Sometimes this list is useful for just that. So why dont u lighten up dude.



-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: 
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Limits on referential integrity

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Limits on referential integrity





Jared and Dennis,


In the J2EE world I've found that developers can have a little trouble with RI because in some cases it is not the developer that is performing the DML operations - the J2EE container does this for them when using Container Managed Persistence (CMP).  Some CMP implementations do not understand RI yet, and this is especially true when multiple containers are used in the middle tier - that is, there is no/little coordination between the containers to issue the DML in the correct order.

Cheers,
Craig.



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, 22 January 2002 9:16 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: Limits on referential integrity



I would be you lunch that what they are implementing in their
code is not actually RI.  They may be implementing code to 
ensure things get inserted in the right order, and that child rows
have a parent.


This is a very weak form of RI.  Oracle is very good at implementing
RI, and it is not dependent on an application.  RI in the database
is the route to choose unless there is some good reason not to.


RI in the database will prevent orphaned data created through 
updates, deletes or even ( gasp! ) bugs in the app.


Programmers tend to dislike RI in the database because it
forces them to maintain data integrity in a transaction.  This is
not a bad thing, it just forces them to have a good understanding
of their transactions.


Point out to them that it is less code to write as well. :)


Jared








DENNIS WILLIAMS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
01/21/02 01:35 PM
Please respond to ORACLE-L


 
    To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
    cc: 
    Subject:    Limits on referential integrity



How much referential integrity should be implemented in Oracle? We are
starting a large new Java project. Our current applications keep their
referential integrity inside their own dictionary, so I haven't had to 
deal
much with referential integrity recently. Can there be too much of a good
thing? What guidelines do you tend to use? At this point the developers 
are
designing the data model so they are busily linking all the little boxes. 
My
attitude at this point is "implement what you've got and if there are
performance problems we'll deal with them when they arise". Can anyone 
give
me a better motto? 
Thanks.
Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).




-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: 
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Server mode

[Craig Munday]

Bunyamin,
 
Are 
the clients connected directly to the database or do they connect through some 
type of application server like JBoss or Web Logic?  If they are connecting 
to an application server then you can get away with a lot less connections 
and use dedicated servers.  The theory goes that not all users will be 
doing work all the time so you are able to share a single database connection 
between multiple clients.  
 
Cheers,
Craig.
 

  -Original Message-From: Bunyamin K. Karadeniz 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Sunday, 20 January 2002 
  12:55 AMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: 
  Server mode
  My first question is , I need a database 
  where 1000 clients will work .Which is better ? 
  Dedicated Server Mode or Shared Server Mode 
  ?
  RAM : 8 GB 
  CPU : 8 * 1000 MHZ
  WIN 2K
   
  My second question is , I can not select more 
  then 600 mb of RAM to be the buffer cache . How can I solve this?
   
  Thank you .
  Bunyamin 
   

RE: DBA Experiences with Oracle and RAID 0+1

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: DBA Experiences with Oracle and RAID 0+1





If I remember correctly, I do not think that chapter covers RAID.  There is a good white paper on implementing RAID for Oracle at http://www.quest.com/whitepapers/Raid1.pdf

Cheers,
Craig.


-Original Message-
From: Ken Janusz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, 15 January 2002 8:30 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: DBA Experiences with Oracle and RAID 0+1



Jon:


I would suggest "Oracle8i DBA Handbook" by Loney & Theriault.  Chapter 4
deals with the physical database layouts.  It starts with the ideal layout
on 22 disks and goes down to about 7 disks.  It's very good.


Ken Janusz, CPIM 
Database Conversion Lead 
Sufficient Systems, Inc. 
Minneapolis, MN
 


 -Original Message-
Sent:   Monday, January 14, 2002 2:40 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject:    DBA Experiences with Oracle and RAID 0+1


We are in the process of setting up a SAN using RAID 0+1 for our database.
In our current environment, we are able to separate our tables, indexes,
rollback segments, and archive logs on different disks.  On the SAN we would
have six 73 gig disks on RAID 0+1 for a total of about 210 Gig of usable
space (3 disks worth of space). 


Some white papers that I have read suggest attempting to separate the data,
indexes, and rollback segments on separate RAID volumes, and others simply
suggest that the performance boost of striping will supercede the separation
of these items.


Can anyone offer any comments or suggestions?


Jon Behnke
Applications Development Manager
Industrial Electric Wire & Cable
Phone (262) 957-1147  Fax (262) 957-1647 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Jon Behnke
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Ken Janusz
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Criteria for handoff from development

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Criteria for handoff from development





Dennis,


I would be very careful with RAID 5 if your system is going to be very write intensive.  There is a very good white paper on implementing RAID for Oracle on the www.quest.com site.  Here is the link for your reference http://www.quest.com/whitepapers/Raid1.pdf

Cheers,
Craig.



-Original Message-
From: DENNIS WILLIAMS [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, 5 January 2002 10:30 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: Criteria for handoff from development



John - Thanks for bringing up these critical issues:


1. Tools - This is our first Java adventure, so everyone is nervous. Please
point out any Java pitfalls that have bitten you.
2. Hot-spot tables - Good issue, will keep it in mind. We are just creating
the logical model today.
3. Storage and Tablespace layouts - That would be me. Some input into
hardware decisions. On Compaq Tru64 our sys admins have had good luck with
RAID5, so will probably insist on that on Sun Solaris. 
4. Availability - 24X7. We are looking at RMAN. Too early to think about
size, but not terribly large. Maybe 100-gig. tops. Well within the limits of


5. Data transfer not a big issue yet. They have toyed with the idea of
replication, and I tried my politically-savvy best to discourage them (as
politically-savvy as Dilbert).


Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



-Original Message-
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 4:55 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



Dennis,


In addition to the points mentioned by Tom, I would also ask the following
questions:


* What tools/clients will be used to populate the data and extract it for
reporting? Depending on the tool, your 'performance' will vary... I wouldn't
want an MSAccess/ODBC type query running against a 1mil row table that is
joined to another 2mil table.. The DBA invariably gets blamed at the end for
*any* performance problem!
* What is the concurrency requirements and are they being met? In other
words, are hot-spot tables present and if so, how can this be mitigated?
Note: Increase in no.of.users = decrease in concurrency!
* Who's gonna decide the STORAGE parameters and Tablespace layout? Would you
have inputs in the Hardware side of things?
* What are the availability requirements? How is the backup going to being
done? How big would the database grow to?
* What is the data transfer requirements between this database and the rest
of the databases in the organization? What are the mechanisms to achieve
that? (i.e. replication has a significant overhead not only on the network,
but also in Admin time!)


In short - take a look at all the Production issues that come up in this
list and apply the relevant ones.


John Kanagaraj
Oracle Applications DBA
DBSoft Inc
(W): 408-970-7002


Fear is the darkroom where Evil develops your negatives. 
Wanna break free of fear? Click on 'http://www.needhim.org'


** The opinions and statements above are entirely my own and not those of my
employer or clients **



> -Original Message-
> From: Mercadante, Thomas F [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 12:50 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: Criteria for handoff from development
> 
> 
> Dennis,
> 
> First of all, I would tell your manager that 90% of tuning is 
> in writing
> good queries no matter what the data model looks like.
> 
> Unfortunately, you receiving a data model and expecting to 
> perform miracles
> is pretty naive of the organization.  This is a classic 
> example of how NOT
> to do things.
> 
> Saying that, I would look closely at the model and check for 
> the following:
> 
> Look closely for normalization problems.  If you see 
> repeating fields in a
> table, reject it and tell them to change it.
> 
> Look for column-naming standards.  If they do not have them, 
> make some up
> and enforce them.  Some common naming standards would use a suffix to
> indicate the type of data the column is holding.  Things like 
> _DATE _NBR
> _FNAME _LNAME _ID and _CODE would indicate date, number, 
> standard length
> first and last name, Id type columns indicating it is a primary key
> (possibly) an integer value, and a Code column indicating 
> that this is a
> foreign key to another table.  This is s important for 
> report-writing
> people on the back-end of the project.  They can implicitly 
> see that the
> column has a certain value by the name.
> 
> Ask how they determined primary key values for all tables.  
> Specifically,
> how do they KNOW that the values will be unique.  Question 
> everything you
> see.  This is probably the biggest area of concern that I would have.
> Non-db designers will always make a mistake here.  I 
> developed a db once
> that used the soc-sec as the pk.  WRONG!  The db was at a 
> college.  Want to
> know how many parents use their personal soc-sec on the 
> application for the
> child?  :(
> 
> Look for obvious foreign

RE: Criteria for handoff from development

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Criteria for handoff from development





Hi,


Just a word of warning about enforcing foreign key relationships.  Depending on the Java technology that you use, you might find it impossible to implement foreign keys.  For example, some EJB application servers do not understand relationships between entity beans and will insert the data in the wrong order.

Cheers,
Craig.



-Original Message-
From: Mercadante, Thomas F [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, 5 January 2002 7:50 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: Criteria for handoff from development



Dennis,


First of all, I would tell your manager that 90% of tuning is in writing
good queries no matter what the data model looks like.


Unfortunately, you receiving a data model and expecting to perform miracles
is pretty naive of the organization.  This is a classic example of how NOT
to do things.


Saying that, I would look closely at the model and check for the following:


Look closely for normalization problems.  If you see repeating fields in a
table, reject it and tell them to change it.


Look for column-naming standards.  If they do not have them, make some up
and enforce them.  Some common naming standards would use a suffix to
indicate the type of data the column is holding.  Things like _DATE _NBR
_FNAME _LNAME _ID and _CODE would indicate date, number, standard length
first and last name, Id type columns indicating it is a primary key
(possibly) an integer value, and a Code column indicating that this is a
foreign key to another table.  This is s important for report-writing
people on the back-end of the project.  They can implicitly see that the
column has a certain value by the name.


Ask how they determined primary key values for all tables.  Specifically,
how do they KNOW that the values will be unique.  Question everything you
see.  This is probably the biggest area of concern that I would have.
Non-db designers will always make a mistake here.  I developed a db once
that used the soc-sec as the pk.  WRONG!  The db was at a college.  Want to
know how many parents use their personal soc-sec on the application for the
child?  :(


Look for obvious foreign key relationships and enforce them.  Develop a
standard where the related columns in database tables (like FK columns) have
the same name in both tables (like soc_sec_number is named the same in all
tables).


This is not an easy thing to do.  You should have been involved in the
meetings from the very get-go.  Hopefully, this is not a 300-table design
that will take you very long to review.


Hope these help!


Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional



-Original Message-
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 2:45 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L



Can anyone provide some criteria of what you look for when a data model is
handed off from production? We are starting a large development project and
I lobbied management to hire a data architect. As they have talked to these
people, they are getting statements such as "and then the DBA will check out
the data model to make sure there won't be any performance problems". I am
concerned about what will be expected of me and wondered how other DBAs
handle this situation. What do you look for in a model in terms of making
sure the performance will be good? I said that I could look at the queries
that would be run to see how many tables would need to be joined to retrieve
the data, but the manager replied that a good DBA wouldn't need to see the
queries, should just be able to look at the model. Up until this point, our
client-server design tools have tended to protect the developers from doing
dumb stuff, but now in the Java world some of those safeguards.


Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or th

RE: Criteria for handoff from development

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Criteria for handoff from development





Dennis,


Just a couple of more points that I've found useful in the past:


1) Start looking at the CORE software requirements (assuming requirements or use cases are being developed) so you can get a good understanding of what the system is to do.  I said CORE because there is typically a small subset of requirements that have a lot of influence on the design.  I typically use this to help understand why the design is the why it is and what will be the hot-spots within the design.

2) Start evaluating the design early (during development) - do not wait until the end of development.  I find developers are much more amendable to changing a design when the coding has not been completed.  It is also much cheaper for the organisation.

3) Write a standards or design guidelines document before you start and try to get buy-in from the developers/data architect.  This will help with producing a consistent design and one that meets your standards.  It will also help clarify your own evaluation criteria and allow your criteria to be communicated to the design/development teams so they have an early warning on what is and is not acceptable.

This document could also contain some form of data dictionary, for example all money values shall be defined as number(38,6) and will always be associated with a currency column.  Or all countries will be stored as ISO Country Codes.  

I've also written a relational design patterns document which our developers find useful because it gives them the answers to common design problems.

4) Get a strong justification for any de-normalisations that are made.  I've found that developers will de-normalise a design from PERCEIVED performance problems.  I said perceived because typically there hasn't been any testing to verify that it will be a problem.

Anyway, I hope this helps.  Good luck.


Cheers,
Craig.




-Original Message-
From: DENNIS WILLIAMS [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, 5 January 2002 6:45 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Criteria for handoff from development



Can anyone provide some criteria of what you look for when a data model is
handed off from production? We are starting a large development project and
I lobbied management to hire a data architect. As they have talked to these
people, they are getting statements such as "and then the DBA will check out
the data model to make sure there won't be any performance problems". I am
concerned about what will be expected of me and wondered how other DBAs
handle this situation. What do you look for in a model in terms of making
sure the performance will be good? I said that I could look at the queries
that would be run to see how many tables would need to be joined to retrieve
the data, but the manager replied that a good DBA wouldn't need to see the
queries, should just be able to look at the model. Up until this point, our
client-server design tools have tended to protect the developers from doing
dumb stuff, but now in the Java world some of those safeguards.


Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California    -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists

To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).

RE: Encryption - Question about the key

[Craig Munday]

Title: RE: Encryption - Question about the key





Jared + Ragendra,


One option that you might have is to use a Host Security Module HSM such as those from Thales or Eracomm (cheaper PC based card ~$2000AUD).  Essentially this is a piece of cryptographic hardware connected to your host that performs cryptographic functions and key management.

In terms of key management (which is what you were asking about), the keys reside within the memory of the HSM and can be loaded in component form.  Meaning that a key is split between a number of people so no one person knows all of the key.  The memory is typically non-volatile so you don't have to load the keys each time you re-boot.  And most HSMs have a motion detector that will clear the keys from memory if the unit is moved.

When performing encryption functions the keys never leave the HSM.  An application calls a crypto function with the data that it wants to encrypt (for example) and the NAME of the key to use.  The HSM performs the encryption and returns the encrypted data.  Thus, the keys are never stored in the clear within the application's memory.

Now, I'm not too sure how you will get this integrated with Oracle.  Typically it is the application that interfaces with the HSM.  Who knows you might find a product - I'd be interested in hearing about it if you do.

Cheers,
Craig.
  




-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, 19 December 2001 6:56 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: Encryption - Question about the key




Welcome to the security conundrum.


When it comes right down to it, there has to be someone
you can trust to have the keys to the kingdom.


Create a separate Oracle account with a single table
with one row in it;  your key.  Create a package containing
a function that can use the key to encrypt/decrypt data.


Grant 'execute ' on the package to the application account
or users that are trusted to use it.


Users can decrypt and encrypt data only by the interface
you provide.  Since they don't have the key, the data
cannot be decrypted outside of the database, and false
encrypted data cannot be inserted into the database
without going through your interface.


This gives you the opportunity to examine any data
inserted into encrypted columns if you like in the event
that you could identify obviously false data.


I'm not a security expert, this is just where I would start
with really sensitive data, and then try to find ways to
break the security.


When it comes down to it though, you still have to know
who you can trust.


Jared