Grid DBA

The latest release of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (12.1.0.2) is accompanied by a Database template pre-configured for the repository. I was quite pleased to see this addition, since installing Enterprise Manager required some upfront footwork in configuring the database to be used as the repository. Personally, I was a bit annoyed every time the installer complained about parameters that it needed changed on the repository database during installation  (though some we not mandatory during installation). As a pre-requisite to using the template you should have a software-only installation of a Oracle 11.2.0.3 RDBMS software. The installation instructions warn that the template is suitable for a Simple Install. However you may also use it as a basis of an Advanced Installation. You can read the rest of the instructions here . Note: The instructions in the documentation has a screenshot of a Oracle Database 12c DBCA instead of the 11.2.0.3 DBCA. I suspect this...

In theme with my Collaborate 12 presentation - Learning Oracle with Oracle VM VirtualBox , I've decided to put a quick post together on using VirtualBox to learn Oracle VM Server 3.1. A VM within a VM you say? Reminds me of Inception. But yes it works! I've been wanting to learn/play with Oracle VM Server for some time now. However, due to the bare metal requirements of the hypervisor I've been unable/unwilling to procure a dedicated machine for such a hobby.  Previous attempts at installing OVM Server on VirtualBox also failed and posts by other users on several forums have also confirmed similar problems. I must say big thank to my friend @ Yuri for providing me access to his OVM Server all the way in Australia to help expose me to the technology. However, not having physical access limits the learning experience.  Wim Coekaerts tweeted about Oracle VM Manager and Server 3.1 was now available as VirtualBox templates (appliances). Now this kind of stuff makes me fe...

IOUG Collaborate 12 has come and gone and here I am two months letter without an update. As the saying goes -  better late than never. This was my first time at Collaborate and presenting to a user group. It was a very personal and professionally gratifying experience. My quick tip session (30 minutes) about RAC/Clusterware Diagnostic Tools went very well for a rookie. I received some great feedback. However, the session proved to be too short to cover the scope of the content and I'm working on preparing an extended version for anyone interested. My second presentation on Learning Oracle with Oracle VM VirtualBox was not as I expected. Maybe it was because of the massive room that I presented in - less intimate and very intimidating. Nevertheless, it was an OK presentation and I had a couple of very engaged attendees who had many questions at the end of the session. Questions are good - in my opinion. In addition to the my sessions, I found some time to attend others. A few of t...

I've been lucky enough to have been accepted as a presenter at IOUG Collaborate 12 in Las Vegas, NV to be held April 22-26. I will be presenting the following sessions: High Availability Boot Camp: Looking at RAC, Clusterware/Grid Infrastructure Diagnostic Tools Learning Oracle with Oracle VM VirtualBox As RAC SIG US Events Chair I will also be organizing the RAC SIG Experts Panel and Birds of a Feather.  I'm excited and anxious for what will be my first public presentations. Hope the attendees will enjoy it. See you in Las Vegas!

HP has opened up beta testing of their public cloud service - HP Cloud Services for a couple of months now, and I was lucky enough to be selected as an early private beta tester. HP Cloud Services is built on the open source cloud platform OpenStack and provides the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model of cloud computing. This post will just highlight my experiences with HP Cloud Services so far from the point of view of an Oracle DBA. Setup There are a couple of ways to access the HP Cloud resources. First there is the web-based management console that allows you to do basic administration. Here you can view, create and modify your compute instances and object storage. It also allows you to view your account keys, security IDs and other pertinent information needed to access and control your resources. Then there is the Unix command line interface ( CLI ) which is my preferred method of accessing and using HP Cloud. In addition, you can use RESTful APIs to access HP Cloud Co...

Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control incorporates the use of plugins to extend its functionality for management of the complete cloud stack. Plugins are provided for databases, middleware, virtualization among others. For a few weeks I had been struggling to deploy Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c agents on IBM AIX 6.1 targets. This became a very lengthy cycle of patching, searching and tweeting in an attempt to get things going. I finally had the agent deployed on the hosts but no targets were being discovered. After coming across   MOS Note [ID 1388143.1]   I discovered that I needed to update and deploy the database plugin in order to discover the database targets. To deploy plugins go to Setup->Extensibility->Self Update From this screen you can see a list of plugins and their status. If there is an updated plugin available it will have a non-zero revision number in the Revision column and the status will be available. The Oracle Database plugin upda...