New Year Greetings

Wish every one a very happy new year.

Happy New Year 2013 with G Style

Watch " Psy - Gangnam Style Official Music Video [HD] (강남스타일) M/V " on YouTube

12/12/12 12:12

Just a blog post for the remarkable time 

12/12/12 12:12

Oracle APEX Best Practices from Packt Publications

Many of my IT Colleagues and Managers come to me asking for a simple and easy solution to deploy an application quickly and the first tool that hints me is Oracle Apex. I started to use when it was called HTMLDB and it was a fun to learn it. 

I would like to recommend a book for all who are going to be using or already using Oracle Apex. This book is published by Packtpub and it is written by Oracle Apex Experts. The interesting part I liked in this book is using advanced SQL and PLSQL in Apex for developing real-world applications.

So here is a snapshot of what you are going to learn from this book

• Lesser known features of SQL and PL/SQL
• Incorporate printing capabilities
• Create secure applications
• Troubleshooting and Debugging
• Setting up your environment
• Best practices for building real life applications

You can view the sample chapters and prefaces of this title on PacktLib or download sample chapters in PDF format.

ORACLE and SAP will be my tools

In future I will be blogging about Oracle and SAP technologies in this same blog. Well I have been working on Oracle Technologies for over 10 years now and at my current project my customer will be migrating from Oracle to SAP. I am going to support Oracle to SAP migration and as well as implementation of SAP Business Objects and SAP HANA DB and also some Oracle BI environment.

It is now quite sometime and I am used to SAP technologies. 

I would say SAP BO is a killer but Oracle OBIEE has a lot more than it. I am not comparing both of them because according to market each have its own value.

SAP HANA DB is a starter whereas Oracle Database is the only King in the Market. With all its features it would take many years to catch up with Oracle. Hana is not a true RDB , for example it does not have foreign key relationship yet on its latest version but in future they will. Hana want applications to take care of most of the work. Interesting...

Catch up later and do watch for more from this blog. Thanks for reading all these years.

Where are my Virtual Machines

My customer runs all their operational servers at a data center. Recently at the DC we did a server consolidation and migrated most of the non production physical servers into virtual machines. The good thing we got lot of computing power and all the add-on from virtualization. 

Well Virtualization is a good topic and there are a lot to be discussed but I am going to write about what happened in the last week. 

Suddenly all the Virtual Machines were not accessible and my Production Database's ASM Disk were not found. A total blackout and the reason is an outage from a storage device. The data center had a massive HP EVA (Enterprise Virtual Array) in which my customers data resides. The technical reason was both the EVA Controllers failed and unfortunately the EVA Cluster configuration did not work.

Deep dive with PacktPub's ODI 11g Book

Do you want to take a deep dive with Oracle Data Integrator , then the answer is here from a PacktPub book

I have been working with Oracle Warehouse Builder component for a long time and have done an enterprise deployment for my client. It is a wonderful tool but Oracle has a new direction for its future data warehousing tool and that is ODI 11g. If you are in OWB 11g implementation project then this book would help you to quick start and take a deep dive into the functionality of the tool.

Oracle on its statement of direction for ODI  they have suggested "Invest now to develop in ODI",  which I feel it is worth investing on ODI for the future and it is the time to start.

This book is written by experienced authors and they have explained in detail. So what does this book covers ?

- Oracle Data Integrator architecture in detail

- Quick Install of ODI 

- Various data integration processing designing and scenario
- Ways to develop interfaces in order to exchange data
- Steps to maintain and administer ODI environment
- Handling different data sources and targets
- Best practice from expert authors.

Overall the book has a lot of audience from administrators , developers , architects to business analyst. I recommend reading through this book will give a clear understanding of Oracle Data Integrator.

Oracle 12c

Here is some news on the next release of Oracle Database. Read here
http://www.mis-asia.com/tech/applications/ellison-next-version-of-oracle-database-set-for-december-or-january-release/

dbms_stats.gather_system_stats errors to stop

Over the weekend I upgraded two databases to 11.2.0.3, Upgrade was successful.

I ran dbms_stats.gather_system_stats to gather system statistics on both the database.
After two days I wanted to stop it.


On one database it errors

oracle@proddb[PRD1]$ sy

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Wed Apr 11 07:50:01 2012

Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved.


Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Automatic Storage Management, OLAP, Data Mining
and Real Application Testing options

SQL> execute dbms_stats.gather_system_stats('stop');
BEGIN dbms_stats.gather_system_stats('stop'); END;

*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01426: numeric overflow
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_STATS", line 27218
ORA-06512: at line 1


SQL> Disconnected from Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Automatic Storage Management, OLAP, Data Mining
and Real Application Testing options
oracle@proddb[PRD1]$


On the other database it went fine and stopped
oracle@proddb[OWB]$ sy

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Wed Apr 11 07:50:29 2012

Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved.


Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Automatic Storage Management, OLAP, Data Mining
and Real Application Testing options

SQL> execute dbms_stats.gather_system_stats('stop');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> Disconnected from Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Automatic Storage Management, OLAP, Data Mining
and Real Application Testing options
oracle@proddb[OWB]$






A lot of analysis was done with Oracle Support but in the end I found a simple workaround start and stop again worked;



SQL> execute dbms_stats.gather_system_stats('start');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> execute dbms_stats.gather_system_stats('stop');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL>


Oracle Support has filed a defect for this tool.

Exalytic vs Hana the big fight starts

It all started with the latest presentation that Oracle made on Exalytic and these two slides are responsible for it.

Post presentation the discussion started on the internet.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/254779/saps_sikka_fires_back_against_oracles_falsehoods_about_hana.html


It is good to see how Oracle and SAP are moving ahead.

SAP has a free trail platform that runs on HANA , take a look at it https://bi.ondemand.com , there are lots of limitation and also some performance issues but not sure that it is from Business Object or the underlying HANA database.

Oracle is yet to open the cloud platform which is said to run on Exadata and Exalogic , not sure if Exalytic is an offering in their cloud.

WebGate 11g Fails after OAM-OIM Integration

After reading through several documents finally got a setup up and running with OAM 11g and OIM 11g Integrated with WebGate 11g.

The following is the setup and this is certified as of April 2012 but this may change in future.


Oracle Internet Directory LDAP Store is OID version 11.1.1.5.0
Oracle Access Manager 11.1.1.5.0 + OAM Bundle Patch 02 ( 11.1.1.5.2 )
Oracle Identity Manager 11.1.1.5.0 + OIM Bundle Patch 02 ( 11.1.1.5.2 )
Oracle HTTP Server 11.1.1.5.0
Oracle Webgate 11.1.1.5.0 + Webgate Bundle Patch 02 (11.1.1.5.2)


I would suggest that any one who does the integration or installation to follow Oracle Documentation for the version you are working on because the integration steps keeps changing for every version. There are lots of good blogs and books out there in the market and internet but I would honestly tell some of them are outdated even though the steps are very good and presented in a better way than Oracle Documentation.


After following the complete integration as recommended by Oracle Documentation there is a recommended testing for the integrated environment. Some of the major integration testing are
1. User created in OIM should be propagated to the LDAP Store which is in my case OID
2. Webgate validatation
3. User end to end single sign on


The first point worked good in my case without any issues. The problem started with the second step and then the third. 


After reading through several notes and I came across one similar to my setup.
Note 1447494.1

As from OAM 11.1.1.5.2 (Bundle Patch 2) and OIM 11.1.1.5.2 (Bundle Patch 2), use of 11g WebGate is supported for integrated OAM and OIM environments. The settings would then be e.g.:
WEBGATE_TYPE: ohsWebgate11g
ACCESS_GATE_ID: Webgate_IDM


Note: additional, currently undocumented configuration will be required if 11g WebGate is used. It is recommended to register the 11g WebGate with auto-create policies unchecked and Preferred Host set to IAMSuiteAgent. Also resources the following resources will need to be added to the IAM Suite Application Domain because 11g WebGate implements Deny On Not Protected:
/oam -- excluded resource
/oam/.../* -- excluded resource
/oim/ -- Public Authentication Policy, Protected Authorization Policy




I tried to set the preferred host to IAMSuiteAgent and then also added the resources as described under the undocumented configuration.
Now the http://ohs:port is getting to the authentication page.

So now with the additional undocumented steps my Webgate11g validation passed.

But still I could not get the User authenticated and perform a complete end-to-end SSO. I will make a short write up on the same on the up coming post.

Good luck then with the ConFusion Middleware.

ORACLE bug still alive

Four-year old critical Oracle bug still alive - News - iTnews Mobile Edition

Sachin Tendulkar makes 100th International Century

Sachin Tendulkar makes 100th International Century in his Cricket Career.

TIME Magazine's quote on Sachin Tendulkar 

"When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, 

Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.

When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to "open" the Nehruvian economy.

It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had a Sachin Tendulkar and we never will."

Tendulkar is the greatest gift to the world of cricket.

DBUA or Manual Upgrade ???

DataBase Upgrade Assistant or Manual Upgrade ???  If this question was asked to me a year or two back , I would have opted to use manual upgrade of oracle databases. DBUA in the past from my experiences had many bugs and issues. 
Once such experiences was DBUA helped me to upgrade on the Test and Development databases. On the production upgrade day it pulled my legs , I have to use the manual approach which I did not plan for.


Did Oracle make the DBUA better ? I think so yes. I used DBUA to upgrade three databases to 11gR2 and all went fine. Also I have made sure that all the pre-upgrade tasks are completely met so that the upgrade is not disturbed because of incorrect setting of some kernel settings or some missed operating system patches. Applying the PSU or CPU to the new Oracle Home also addresses some of the issues.


What has to be done when DBUA fails to do the upgrade ?
Well there are lots of reasons for the failure , but DBUA would stop the upgrade and then give back the option to continue with the upgrade manually after fixing the issue. There are other options that may help you to use DBUA again and rather spending time doing the manual upgrade. One such is to create a restore point prior to the upgrade and incase if DBUA fails in between , then you can restore the database to the flashback restore point and then apply the fix , retry DBUA.

Oracle Database PSU 11.2.0.3.1

Are you applying CPU 11.2.0.3 then consider applying PSU 11.2.0.3.1 as it contains the latest CPU and all the one-off fixes that makes you in sync with Oracle Support. I always make a practice of applying the latest PSU when upgrading database to the next release.

Patch Set Updates (PSUs) are proactive cumulative patches containing recommended bug fixes that are released on a regular and predictable schedule. PSUs are on the same quarterly schedule as the Critical Patch Updates (CPU), specifically the Tuesday closest to the 17th of January, April, July, and October.

The PSUs serve as a new baseline version for reporting issues to Oracle.

There are two latest PSU available
Patch 13343438 DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.1 (INCLUDES CPU JAN2012)
Patch 13348650 GRID INFRASTRUCTURE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.1 (INCLUDES DB PSU 11.2.0.3.1)

If you are having the Grid Infrastructure home and other database home you can consider applying Patch 13348650 which includes PSU for both the GI and DB Home.

I applied on the Upgraded ASM Home (GI Home) as root user

cat root.sh 
export ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/asm11.2
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch:$PATH
export PATCHTOP=/dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2/patchset
opatch auto $PATCHTOP -oh $ORACLE_HOME -ocmrf $ORACLE_HOME/asmocm.rsp

oracle@devdb[+ASM]$ sudo /home/oracle/root.sh
Last successful login:       Tue Feb  7 14:48:15 UTC 2012 
Last authentication failure: Tue Feb  7 13:22:14 UTC 2012 
Executing /usr/bin/perl /oracle/product/asm11.2/OPatch/crs/patch112.pl -patchdir /dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2 -patchn patchset -oh /oracle/product/asm11.2 -ocmrf /oracle/product/asm11.2/asmocm.rsp -paramfile /oracle/product/asm11.2/crs/install/crsconfig_params
opatch auto log file location is /oracle/product/asm11.2/OPatch/crs/../../cfgtoollogs/opatchauto2012-02-07_15-51-25.log
Detected Oracle Restart install
Using configuration parameter file: /oracle/product/asm11.2/crs/install/crsconfig_params
Successfully unlock /oracle/product/asm11.2
patch /dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2/patchset/13348650  apply successful for home  /oracle/product/asm11.2
patch /dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2/patchset/13343438  apply successful for home  /oracle/product/asm11.2
CRS-4123: Oracle High Availability Services has been started.
oracle@devdb[+ASM]$


The procedure can be used to apply the PSU on the DB Homes as well.




oracle@devdb[+ASM]$ $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/opatch lsinventory|grep "Patch Set Update"
Patch Description:  "Database Patch Set Update : 11.2.0.3.1 (13343438)"
Patch Description:  "Grid Infrastructure Patch Set Update : 11.2.0.3.1 (13348650)"
oracle@devdb[+ASM]$

ASM 11g Release 2 and HP Disk Owner Patch

It is always fun with ASM. When upgrading from 11gR1 to 11gR2 ASM might not work properly in discovering the disks. There are some relevant bugs reported with the disk discovery issue when upgrading to 11.2.0.2

The fix is to apply PHCO_41479 which is the latest patch. In my case the server had a much lower version yet the same diskowner patch PHCO_40381.

11.2.0.3 did not have any issue when upgrade and discovering the asm disk with PHCO_40381.
Saved a big downtime in getting the September 2011 HPUX Bundle Patch

It is Database Upgrade Time !!!

With Database 11.1.0.7 Premier Support ending on August 2012 , I have signed up with my existing customer for Database Upgrade to 11.2.0.3. There are two productive environment with each having a test and development environment. Both the environment uses Oracle Warehouse Builder and Fusion Middleware BI Platforms. In total there are going to be 18 database upgrade on HPUX and SUSE platform.

Looks interesting but a lot of planning ahead.

Have started most of the necessary pre-work. I started my career with 10g Release 1 and have done a lots of upgrade. Now here with 11.2.0.3 I believe life is going to be easier with the upgrade process.

I will write about interesting facts that I come across the database upgrade. It is a two months project and I hope will be sharing my experience with the upgrade.

Very large customers with many interconnected Oracle Databases may need to follow the CPU Patch

Came across an article from InfoWorld http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/fundamental-oracle-flaw-revealed-184163-0 If you are supporting very large customers with many interconnected Oracle Databases then there is a possibility of getting a strange bug with SCN. Was wondering if this has ever happened at any customer base or just at the InfoWorld

Good Bye 2011 and Welcome 2012

I wish every one a Happy New Year 2012.

2011 for me was great. It was fun and a thrilling year. I was busy with my one year old son and could not blog much. He kept me busy and took away all my spare time which I used to learn and blog.

Yet with the left over time I was able to master Fusion Middleware 11g Technologies.

Otherwise I saw the big event from Oracle "Open World 2011".
Oracle was very bold in introducing the Exadata , Exalogic and Exalytics hardware.
Oracle got a foot into Cloud Computing and Social Networking.

Oracle and Competitors that kept me very busy. It also gave me a better understanding of what the future is going to be.
- Netezza TwinFin started a lots of discussion explaining and comparing their product with Exadata.
- EMC Greenplum doing the same as Netezza (but more of from storage)
- To join them Teradata gave their explanation for their Exadata Replacement at a Japanese Customer Place.
- Salesforce.com vs Oracle Cloud (everybody who followed Open World will know it better).

Some new products which excited me are Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and Weblogic 12c.

Wish that I have more time to start blogging this year.