Tag Archives: DOAG

Why I picked Postgres over Oracle, part III


This is the final episode of this short series of blog posts on some of my drivers for moving to Postgres from Oracle.
Please do read Part I and Part II of the series if you have not done so. It discussed the topics “History”, “More recently”, “The switch to Postgres”, “Realization”, “Pricing”, “Support” and “Extensibility”.

In summary:

  • Part one focused on “why not Oracle anymore, so much”
  • Part two discussed on the comparison between PostgreSQL and Oracle
  • Part three talks some more on what Postgres then actually is

Community

One of the more important things to be really, really aware of is that Postgres is “not just open source“. Postgres is “community open source“.

Now, why would that be important, you might wonder.

We all know what open source stands for. There are many advantages to an open source system, and in our case, an open open source database.
A number of arguments are in this blog post series. If you take this one step further though, and realize that Postgres is a community open source project, what are  extra advantages?

A community open source project is not limited, in any way, to any one specific group of developers (let’s call them a company). For example, let’s look at MongoDB. This is an open source database, but it is developed by MongoDB inc.
It is, in essence, controlled by MongoDB.

Postgres is developed by the Postgres Developer Community coached by the Postgres Core Team.
This makes Postgres incredibly open, independent and it enables its developers to truly focus on actual business problems that need to be solved. There is no ulterior drive to satisfy commercial goals or meet any non-essential requirements.

Development

A very important discriminator, that only became this clearly and apparent to me, after I dove into Postgres some more, is the development…

The actual development of the database core-software is done by this community, we’ve just identified.

“Well, yes…” you might say, this is what open source stands for. But the impact of this extends well beyond support, as I mentioned in part 2 of this series. The ability to be part of where Postgres goes, to have actual influence on the development, is awesome, especially for a database platform in the current “world in flux”.
Postgres users don’t necessarily have to wait until “some company” decides to put something on the road-map or develop it at their discretion. These company-decisions will mostly be driven by the most viable commercial opportunity, not necessarily the most urgent technical need.

The development of Postgres is more focused on “getting it right”.
One nice example is the Postgres query optimizer. The Postgres community hates bugs. When bugs start to get discussed, it results in many emails within the community, which stand for a lot of reading!
Many bugs are fixed very quickly, so that this email storm stops!
For optimizer bugs therefore, turn-around times (from reporting to having a production-fix) can be as low as 72 hours, so even for mechanisms as complex as a query optimizer.

Invitation

I would like to invite all of you in the Oracle community to take a look at the Postgres query optimizer and share your concerns, worries, bugs or praise with the Postgres community.
If you want to, you can share this with us at the https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-hackers/ email list. We are looking forward to your contributions!

Future

Oracle

I can only speak from what I see. What I see is that Oracle is becoming an on-line services company. I see them moving away from core technology like the database and accompanying functions. Oracle is more an more and moving to highly specialized applications aimed at very big companies.
Chat-bots, social media interactions, integrated services and more, delivered from a tightly integrated but also tightly locked set of Oracle owned and operated data-centers, or rather, the Oracle cloud.

Is this useful? Of course, there will be targeted customers of Oracle who will continue to find this all extremely useful, and it will be, to them.
It this for me? No, not really.

Postgresql

In the beginning, Linux was not something anyone wanted for anything serious. I mean, who wanted to run anything mission critical on anything else than Solaris, HP-UX, VMS, IBM? No-one…
And that was just a few years ago. Imagine!
Today in any old data-center, if you would eliminate the Linux based servers, you would not have much left.
This same thing is now also happening in, what I guess is the second wave of open source. More complex engines are being replaced by open source and the ever present relational database engine is one of those.

Why? Price, extensibility, flexibility, focus, you name it. We have seen it before and we will see it again.

EnterpriseDB

If you permit me just these few words.

I think EnterpriseDB is extremely important for PostgreSQL. We have been fighting on the forefront since the beginning, supporting PostgreSQL’s move to the Enterprise. EnterpriseDB has been and will continue to spend a large amount of our resources to PostgreSQL. We are a PostgreSQL support company. We just have been not very good at patting ourselves on the back…
As a company we are doing extremely well, simply because Postgres is rock solid in all facets and ready to take on the word, even the most daunting tasks – and beyond.
This will continue as Postgres will continue in this second wave of Open Source.

I thank you for your attention.
If you have addition questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.


Why I picked Postgres over Oracle, part II

Continuing this short series of blog posts on some of my drivers for moving to Postgres from Oracle.
Please do read Part I of the series if you have not done so. It discussed the topics “History”, “More recently” and “The switch to Postgres”.

Realization

In the last months, discussing Postgres with my Oracle peers, playing with the software and the tooling, I actually quite quickly realized Postgres is a lot cooler, at least to me. Not so much of the overly complicated technology, but rather built to be super KISS. The elegance of simplicity and it still gets the job done.
Postgres handles a lot the more complex workloads than many (outsiders) might think. Some pretty serious mission-critical workloads are handled by Postgres today. Well, basically, it has been doing this for many, many years. This obviously is very little known, because who would want to spend good money on marketing  for Open Source Software, right? You just spent your time building the stuff, let somebody else take care of that.
Well… we at EnterpriseDB do just those things, …too!

And, please, make no mistake, Postgres is everywhere, from your fridge and video camera, through TV set-top boxes up to major on-line banking software. Many other places you would not expect a database to (be able to) run. Postgres is installed in places that never get touched again. Because of the stability and the low to no-touch administrative character of Postgres, it is ideally suited for these specific implementations. Structured on some of the oldest design principles around Postgres, it doesn’t have to be easy to create the database engine, as long as it “just works” in the end.
Many years ago, an Oracle sales director also included such an overview in his pitch. All the places Oracle touches everybody’s lives, every day. This is no different for Postgres, it is just not pitched anywhere, by anyone, as much.

I have the fortunate opportunity to work closely together with (for instance) Bruce Momjian (PostgreSQL core team founding member and EnterpriseDB colleague). I also had the opportunity to learn from him some of the core principles on which Postgres was designed and built. This is fundamentally different from many other software projects I know and I feel it truly answers some of the core-requirements of database projects out there today! There is no real overview of these principles, so that’s on my to-do list.

Working with PostgreSQL

Pricing

Postgres is open source… it is true open source. It is even a true community open source project, but more about that later in the next installment.

Open source software is free to use, it does not cost nothing!

But, wait! Open source does not mean for free! How…, why…, what do you mean??

Well… you need support, right!?
The community can and will help you, answer questions, solve some of your problems. But they will not come in to install, configure and run Postgres for you. You will need to select and integrate your specific selection out of the wealth of tools. You basically have a whole bunch of additional tasks to complete to get your Postgres platform sorted out.
Companies like EnterpriseDB can help you mitigate these tasks. This allows you to focus on the things you actually want to achieve, using Postgres

In comparison to traditional database vendors, the overall price of your solution will absolutely significantly reduce when using Postgres as your open source database engine.

Support

A significant difference between Oracle (for instance) and Open Source support services is interchangeability.
In the end, Oracle support can only be given by Oracle. They are the only ones that have access to the software sources and can look up (and hopefully fix) issues. In the support of Postgres, or any true community open source product, different companies can provide support. If you don’t like the company you work with… you switch. This drives these companies to be really good at delivering support! How is that for an eye opener.

Extensibility

One of the superb advantages of Postgres is its native extensibility. I mean, think about it for a moment… having a relational database platform with the strength of Postgres, the strength of Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server for that matter. Postgres gives you more options to integrate a wealth of data sources, data types, custom operators and many more other extensions than you will ever need! The integration into Postgres is so solid, these extensions function like any other function in the core of Postgres.
And, rest assured, chances that you will ever be faced with having to built this yourself are extremely slim. There are 30 to 40 thousand developers working with larger and smaller pieces of code of Postgres. Chances are that if you find yourself challenged, somebody else faced and solved that challenge before you. That solution will then be available for you to take and use, solve your challenge and move on. That is also open source for you.

This capability is what makes Postgres ultimately suited to fit the central role in any polyglot environment, we see being built today.
Maximizing the amount of information from data available in multiple data silos in an organization. This is a challenge we see more and more often today. Integrating traditional  applications as ERP, CRM, with data-warehousing results, again combined with Big-data analysis and event-data-capture aggregates. This generates additional decision-driving information out of the combination of these silos. Postgres, by design, is ultimately suited for this. It saves you for migrating YUGE amounts of data from one store to another, just to make good use of it.
The open source Dogma “Horses for courses” eliminates double investments, large data migrations or transformations, it just enables you to combine and learn from what you already have.

End of part II

A link to part three of this blog post will be placed here shortly.

Why I picked Postgres over Oracle, part I

As with many stories, if you have something to tell, it quickly takes up a lot of space. Therefore this will be a series of blog posts on Postgres and a bit of Oracle. It will be a short series, though…

Let’s begin

History

 I have started with databases quite early on in my career. RMS by Datapoint… was it really a database? Well, at least sort of. It held data in a central storage, but it was a typical serial “database”. Interestingly enough, some of this stuff is maintained up to today (talk about longevity!)
After switching to a more novel system, we adopted DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) VAX, VMS and Micro VAX systems! Arguably still the best operating system around… In any case, it brought us the ability to run, the only valid alternative for a database around, Oracle. With a shining Oracle version 6.2 soon to be replaced by version 7.3.4. Okay, truth be told, at that time I wasn’t really that deep into databases, so much of the significance was added later. My primary focus was on getting the job done, serving the business in making people better. Still working with SQL and analyzing data soon became one of my hobbies.
From administering databases, I did a broad range of things, but always looping back to or staying connected to software and software development using databases.
Really, is there any other way, I mean, building software without using some kind of database?
At a good point in time, we were developing software using the super-trendy client-server concept. It served us well at the time and fitted the dogma of those days. No problems whatsoever. We were running our application on “fairly big boxes” for our customers (eg. single or double core HP D 3000 servers) licensed through 1 or 2 Oracle Database Standard Edition One licenses, and the client software was free anyway…
Some rain must fall
The first disconnect I experienced with licensed software was that time we needed to deploy Oracle Reports Server.
After porting our application successfully to some kind of pre-APEX framework, we needed to continue our printing facilities as before. The conclusion was to use Oracle Reports Server, which we could call to fulfill the exact same functionality as the original client-server printing agent (rwrbe60.exe, I’ll never forget) did. There was only no way we could do this, other than buying licenses for (I though it was) Oracle BI Publisher, something each of our clients had to do. This made printing more expensive than the entire database-setup, almost even the biggest part of the entire TCO of our product, which makes no sense at all.

More recently

This disconnect was the first one. Moving forward I noticed and felt more and more of a disconnect between Oracle and, what I like to call, core technology. Call me what you will, I feel that if you want to bring a database to the market and want to stay on top of your game, your focus needs to be at least seriously fixed on that database.

Instead we saw ever more focus for “non-core” technology. Oracle Fusion, Oracle Applications (okay, Oracle Apps had been there always), and as time progressed, the dilution became ever greater. I grew more and more in the belief that Oracle didn’t want to be that Database Company anymore (which proved to be true in the), but it was tough for me to believe. Here I was, having spent most of my active career focused on this technology, and now it was derailing (as it felt to me).

We saw those final things, with the elimination of Oracle Standard Edition One, basically forcing an entire contingent of their customers either out (too expensive) or up (invest in Oracle Standard Edition Two, and deal with more cost for less functionality). What appeared to be a good thing, ended up leaving a bad taste in the mouth.
And, of course… the Oracle Cloud, I am not even going to discuss that in this blog post, sorry.

The switch to Postgres

For me the switch was in two stages. First, there was this situation that I was looking for something to do… I had completed my challenge and, through a good friend, ran into the kind people of EnterpriseDB. A company I only had little knowledge of doing stuff for PostgreSQL (or Postgres if you like, please, no Postgré or things alike please, find more about the project here), a database I had not so much more knowledge of. But, their challenge was very interesting! Grow and show Postgres and the good things it brings to the market.

Before I knew it, I was studying Postgres and all the things that Postgres brings. Which was easy enough in the end, as the internal workings and structures of Postgres and Oracle do not differ that much. I decided to do a presentation on the differences between Postgres and Oracle in Riga. I was kindly accepted by the committee even when I told them, my original submission had changed!
A very good experience, even today, but with an unaccepted consequence. -> The second part of the switch was Oracle’s decision to cut me out of the Oracle ACE program.

It does free me up, somehow, to help database users across Europe, re-evaluate their Oracle buy-in and lock-in. Look at smarter and (much) more (cost)-effective ways to handle their database workloads. This finalized “the switch”, so to speak.
Meanwhile more and more people are realizing that there actually are valid alternatives to the Oracle database. After the adoption of the Oracle database as the only serious solution back in the early 1990’s, the world has changed, also for serious database applications!

End of Part I

Please follow this link to the second part of this blog post.

#DOAG2016, definitely a crazy week.

#DOAG2016, the largest Oracle Community gathering in Europe. Taking place in Nuremberg, at the Nuremberg Convention Center NCC, one of the more impressive places to hold such a conference, towering 4 stories high, with a big central atrium!!
It is a huge effort to get all of this together!

In this blog-post I want to highlight some of the crazy things I experienced this week… And… I did try to follow my own schedule, but I wasn’t overly successful.

Young talent

One of the things that was somehow quite clear this week, is that we have a lot of young talent out there, eager to learn and share experiences. It is not just the #NextGen “movement” of DOAG, of which Carolin Hagemann made me aware, but just young people on the conference itself.

Discussing “Young PL/SQL” at the unconference session made us all aware that our part of the IT trade is no very sexy and popular with the youngsters. This all despite what was mentioned above. In universities we train SQL, but we don’t train to create real-life business applications, leveraging the power of the one language that keeps SQL close to the data it feasts on, PL/SQL. But, more on that below (Thick Database Paradigm).
To promote PL/SQL, basically two ground requirements were defined:

  1. Create a free ‘PDB as a Service’ for schools;
  2. Inspire teachers to talk about data centric computing

By finding somebody to be regionally or globally owner of this quest, it should be possible to get young professionals as familiar using PL/SQL for creating performant and business-ready applications as they were familiar using Microsoft Excel to do their accounting “back in the days”

ACE program

“There is a disturbance in the force!”

For everybody not acquainted with the Oracle ACE Program by the Oracle Technology Network… You should be!! Please read up, as it is an incredible cool initiative.

The disturbance, you ask?
Well, to retain your “status”, Oracle expects you to do “stuff” and this “stuff” is then evaluated on a yearly basis. Basically the initiative, the disturbance, is to get some transparency in “the stuff”. And, as always, everybody wants change, but few actually are good at “change”. There are rimples and things that change, but in the end; everything will be fine, unless, obviously, when it will not be fine.

Talks

I was honored to (co)host to talks at #DOAG2016:

Bad Boys of Replication – Changing everything…
With Oracle ACED and good friend Björn Rost, about an intense migration project we did some time ago. We were even offered to host our talk in Tokio, the biggest hall at DOAG!

Saving lives at sea at an industrial scale using Oracle Cloud Technology
An insightful (at least I like to think so) talk with my colleague Oliver Limberg. The talk is about the rapid development of a global portal for the maritime logistics branch.

I had a blast, and I hope you did too!

Community spirit

Oracle User Group conferences are about sharing and are about fun. Mr. Martin Widlake wrote a good post about that.

Apart from all the “more formal” things that happened, there were quite a few extracurricular activities, mostly involving an Irish Pub or a restaurant.

This all may sound quite funny and exciting, and, yes, it is alto talk with your co-workers: “Oh, hey, you are going to have fun and party all week!” Of course it is not a drag and a bore, but it has very profound function!
Whenever you run into trouble, these are the exact same people that are not only able, but probably also inclined to help you out, as you would help them out, as friends do among each other. In the end, they, you, your boss and your clients benefit. This is not to be underestimated too much.

The extra, special bit, that DOAG offers are the so called “unconference sessions”.
Not scheduled, no slides, nothing official, just getting together and discussing subjects of interest. Our “Young PL/SQL” was one of these “unconference session”, which turned out to be a great (and valuable) success!

Meeting people

Just to name a few, heroes of long and of yet to come for #DOAG2016:

Dietmar Neugebauer
Frank Dernoncourt
Joel Kallman
Johannes Ahrends
Kamil Stawiarski
Laurent Leturgez
Maja Veselica
Marcel Hofstetter
Piet de Visser
Sabine Heimsath
Stefan Kinnen
Stew Ashton
Uwe Hesse
Zoran Pavlovic
And alle the ones I forget to mention here!!

Thick Database Paradigm

Noting new in IT…

Well, no.

The Thick Database Paradigm (opposed to the “No PL/SQL Paradigm”) is nothing new. We have actually all been doing this since the eighties. Program your business rules, your constraints, everything that makes sure that your data is all that you want it to be, close to that data.
There are so many reasons that speak in favor of this approach that it is nearly overwhelming and deserves at least a book in itself. But, let me make a small attempt to highlighting a few here:

  • spare yourself network bandwidth, by not sending data all over your network to be processed
  • safeguard your data inside the (Oracle) database, so it can be protected by all that has been invented to do so
  • Transact data where it lives and combine and aggregate it there, you will be amazed by the efficiency
  • Remind yourself why you used to think “business logic in middle teer” was a good idea

If you leave possibile religious believes aside, there is no other conclusion possible then that the reinvention of “Thick Database” is the (re)discovery of 2016, right from the time when IT still made sense.

Yes, there are cases where an “Enterprise Service Bus” makes sense, but, as with every technology withing IT, it has a very specific area where it actually adds value or even makes sense. At best, a lot less than all the places where it is used currently!
Not to get carried away in this joyful blog-post, I will leave this topic at this.

The end

I hope to see you at the next Oracle User Group conference, somewhere… Please watch for the asterisk at his page for the conferences that I will attend.

#doag2016 my picks and suggestions

As many conferences evolve over the years, the number of sessions on offer can easily be overwhelming. I have overheard many conference attendees wrestling with their choices for what to see and which sessions to attend.

For DOAG 2016 I have a short overview with my picks and with one or two tip-sessions. I hope this helps, though it is just my personal preference of course…

Please note that this post is based on the printed version of the conference planner and this may obviously be subject to change. Find the on-line version of the conference planner here!

Tuesday, November 15th
08:30
Goto-session
Connecting Oracle & Hadoop by Tanel Poder
Tip
Structuring an APEX Application by Alex Nuyten
Meet your match: Advanced Row Pattern Matching by Stew Ashton

11:00
Goto-session
How to identify the Right Workload for Database In-Memory by Andy Rivenes
Tip
Die Schlechten ins Kröpfchen – SQL analyse für DBAs by Martin Klier

12:00
Goto-session
Was die IT von der Luftfahrt lernen kann by Uwe Küchler
Tip
Using image copies for Oracle Database Backup by Ilmar Kerm
Using SQL Transaction Framework to rewrite Bad SQL on the fly by Kerry Osborne

13:00
Goto-session
Plötzlich Multitennant – was ändert sich für den DBA by Uwe Hesse
Tip
Oracle VM auf Exadata – Erfahrungen aus der Praxis by Christian Pfundtner
Einsatz von Maps in APEX by Denis Kubicek

14:00
Goto-session (TOP-tip)
–> Session got cancelled, but will be at UKOUG!
Patch you application with No Downtime (& No extra Costs!) by Oren Nakdimon
Tip
Hacking Oracle’s memory – About Internals & Troubleshooting by Stefan Koehler

15:00
Goto-session
XML in der Oracle DB by Wolfgang Nast
Tip
PL/SQL Performance – Best practices für Laufzeitoptimierung by Jan Gorkow

16:00
Goto-session
The Oracle Optimizer – Upgrading Without Pain by Nigel Bayliss
Tip
Erfahrung nach einem Jahr Fusion Middleware 12c by Jan-Peter Timmerman

17:00
Goto-session
Active Session History: Advanced Analytics by David Kurtz
Tip
MySQL for Oracle DBAs by Philipp Michaly
Deploying PL/SQL Applications, Building Rome in a Day by Alan Arentsen

Wednesday, November 16th.
08:00
Goto-session
Logical Replication in 12cR2 – What are the options now? by Vit Špinka
Tip
Function madness: Use and Abuse of PL/SQL Functions by Piet de Visser

09:00
Goto-session
Ensuring your Physical Standby is Usable by Michael Abbey
Tip
RMAN – From Beginner to Advanced by Marcin Przepiorowski

10:00
Goto-session
Oracle Secure Backup – eine Livedemo by Sven-Olaf Hilmer
Tip
Oracle Hacking Session by Kamil Stawiarski
Advanced Interactive Grids by Patrick Wolf

11:00
Goto-session
The Battle: Linux vs. Windows by Dierk Lenz, Johannes Ahrends and Martin Klier
Tip
Adaptive Features or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying… by Ludovico Caldara
Controlling Execution Plans – Workshop by Kerry Osborne

12:00
Goto-session
Application Express für den DBA? Geht das? by Joel Kallman
Tip
Und Sie bewegt sich doch by Lothar Flatz
APEX Desktop Apps – Interaktion mit dem Client System by Daniel Hochleitner

13:00
Goto-session
Hash Joins and Bloom Filters by Toon Koppelaars
Tip
Ansible für Oracle DBAs by Alexander Hofstetter

14:00
Goto-session
Delivering Continuous Availability for Database Services by Michael Timpanaro-Perrotta
Tip
Dbvisit – Oder doch lieber Data Guard by Andreas Kother
Chase the Optimizer Every Step of the Way by Mauro Pagano

15:00
Goto-session
Top 7 Plan Stability Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them by Neil Chandler
Tip
Advanced RAC Programming Features by Martin Bach
Weblogic 101 for DBA by Osama Mustafa

16:00
Goto-session
Bad Boys of Replication – Changing Everything by Björn Rost and yours truly

17:00
Goto-session
Oracle System Statistics by Paul Matuszyk
Tip
Compression – Technik und sinnvolle Umsetzung by Klaus Reimers
Node.js der Alleskönner by Kai Donato

Thursday, November 17th.
08:00
Goto-session
FAQ about Masking Sensitive Data in Oracle Database by Maja Veselica
Tip
Data Guard in Oracle 12.2 – Crash Course by Zoran Pavlovic

09:00
Goto-session
Mining the AWR v2: Trend Analysis by Maris Elsins
Tip
Regular Expressions: Say What? by Alex Nuyten

10:00
Goto-session
Databases Clone Using ACFS by David Hueber
Tip
R.I.P. Oracle Database by Markus Lohn

12:00
Goto-session
Writing Efficient SQL Statements by Joze Senegacnik
Tip
Validate User Input in APEX by Richard Martens

13:00
Goto-session
Backup und Recovery PoC auf der Recovery Appliance by Frank Schneede
Tip
Ready, Steady, GIT: Einführung eines Versionskontrollsystems by Carolin Hagemann

14:00
Goto-session
Warum sollte man die Multitennant Database Option Verwenden by Johannes Ahrends
Tip
Collections in PL/SQL by Frank Haney

15:00
Goto-session
Saving Lives at Sea – At an Industrial Scale Using Oracle Cloud Technology by Oliver Limberg and yours truly
Tip
Part 1: The NoPL/SQL and Thick Database Paradigms by Toon Koppelaars and Bryn Llewellyn

16:00
Goto-session
Part 2: The NoPL/SQL and Thick Database Paradigms by Bryn Llewellyn and Toon Koppelaars

And!!
Do not forget…
The first ever APEX Hack’a’thlon is going down on Friday the 18th of November at the DOAG Education day. If you are interested or just want more information, don’t hesitate to drop a line.

#DBADev (Ops), who knows what is going on…

I have been considering writing this article for quite some time now.
APEX Connect 2016 in Germany’s capital Berlin and the DOAG Database days have finally persuaded me to talk more about #DBADev, let me explain why…

Whenever in the stone age…

During my career as DBA, I was always working closely together with Oracle Forms & Reports developers. In retrospect, the cooperation in that time was remarkable.
These Forms & Reports developers had always been used to working on a host-based platform.

For those of you who actually remember Oracle Forms & Reports and wonder…
Was there ever Forms & Reports host based?
Yes there was, but it is creepily long ago!!

Because of the nature of Forms & Reports, there always was a lot of consideration about where to place application code. This especially became true when PL/SQL was introduced and the migration to Oracle Forms & Reports 6.5 came about.
This brought the transition to client/server based computing and introduced physical distance between the database and the “front-end”.
Front-end between quotation marks, as in today’s world we don’t actually know “front-end” anymore in this same qualification. The “Frond-end” was always more elegantly and fittingly described as a “fat-client”, because of the sheer size of the software and utilities that were required on the end-users workstation.

The physical separation and distance between the presentation entity and the data manipulation engine required and inspired a lot of thought and debate on where the bulk of data processing had to be done.
You can imagine the impact of having a specific data manipulation done inside an Oracle Form that lived on a desktop on the other end of the network. Especially when the required data set is large. Having 1,000 records being fetched, where 2 where manipulated and then send back in bulk, repeated 100 times, 4 times a minute on a 10 Mbps network. OK, clear, that needs to be done smarter.
The solution: work with small data sets and do database side manipulation to limit client/server communication. And actually, that worked quite well!!

All good and fine… But how does this tie in to #DBADev? This already sounds so harmonious. And how could APEX Connect 2016 have inspired this article?

Well… Let’s see

Later on, I found that this cooperation appeared to be not so normal.
If you step out of the world of client-server computing and move on to “todays world”, that started more or less in the nineties with web based computing – or cloud-computing “avant la lettre“ or “my stuff on your computer” or however you describe it – you find a world that consists of “strange things”.
I find these things “strange things” because I believe they are suboptimal, and luckily I find myself not alone in this corner.
Suboptimal in a way that data manipulation solutions (lets call them applications for now) should be considered to be database agnostic. This independence dictates that you use the database as just a data store or even more accurately, as a persistency store. Blane Carter 2 minute TechTip

In another scenario these applications are designed and build by developers who are very good at creating intuitive and sharp looking user interfaces. Unfortunately often with a lesser developed understanding of the mechanics involved in dishing up and serving data to this newly established middle tier.

With the continuing professionalization of IT over the past 20 years, we have seen the creation of a wide variety of disciplines. These range from those who think about IT (architects, managers, designers) to those who build IT (programmers, engineers) to those who run IT (system administrators, operators) and the majority of these disciplines today are self-contained groups of professionals and specialists who excel at their own game. Basically that is good as the profession is wide and complex enough to support this.
The problem is that there is no longer anyone who has the whole picture.

Bring it on / together!

apex-logoAPEX Connect 2016, to me personally, was the first time I really saw #DBADev in practice. With the following two examples I want to illustrate my inspiration.

The first talk of this genre was @alexnuijten with his confessions, and subsequent smart tips and best practices in “Structuring an APEX application”.
As a pure database developer like Alex, you are automatically more prone to thinking about “DBA-stuff”. A lot of these best practices, although they are very database centric, like using a view for each application screen, are obviously primarily there to help the developer. And, don’t get me wrong, that is a very good thing! Alex inspires to try and combine the best of both worlds, which helps getting the most out of your application, your database, and therewith frankly, out of your total investment.

The second example was the information-packed presentation by Dietmar Aust @daust_de, called “Oracle APEX Scripting – die Kommandozeile ist Dein Freund“ (the command line is your friend).
Much more than “just about developing”, this presentation bridged gaps in more than one way. Perhaps it is even #DBADevOps if you think about it.

The recent DOAG Database days held a few additional surprises with the presence of @cczarski and @nielsdb. A very will pitched presentation by Bruno Cirone really sparked the growing interest in the topic!!

It is funny how an idea that was initiated some 18 months ago, conceived together with Sabine Heimsath @flederbine has grown and evolved out of natural demand. For me, this is one other aspect of the industry, where APEX is setting new frontiers.
With a growing awareness and more people recognizing the gap, the deficits it is bringing and the benefits cooperation brings, I have good hopes.

APEX is not only the technology that enables you to create web-based apps super quickly, it is also the technology that brings developers and DBA’s truly closer to each other, ensuring a maximum bang for the buck when it comes to utilizing your database infrastructure investments!
I am not saying we are there, but this is definitely a first step in the right direction!

The importance of meetup.com

The Oracle community convenes at the various events, SIG-meetings and gatherings that are organized by the national Oracle User Group organizations. This is, for my reckoning, one if the most important parts of the power of the Oracle user community.

During these events, local Oracle stars are joined by the travelling Rock Stars of the Oracle Tech community, together they share knowledge and experience to teach and learn about the tricks of the trace. As said many times before, by people much greater than me, this is truly a unique and powerful way to nurture and grow the combined knowledge about Oracle products and the best ways to use them. My favorite quote remains that of Monty Laitiolais: “This truly is a celebration of Tech!” where he obviously was referring to the yearly KScope happening, but which easily translates to many of the Oracle events around the globe.

Since quite a while now, the phenomenon meetup.com has emerged. It is an on-line place where people can initiate meet ups of like-minded people. Either being a small initiative with just a few people in a cafe up to bigger, or perhaps more commercially colored, happenings. Whatever the subject or idea, from travel to innovation and from hobby to profession, you can find a meet up to suit your needs.

Even though the richness and the broadness of the activities of the Oracle User Group organizations worldwide, recently I have seen more and more activities of Oracle aficionados on Meetup.com.
As far as I recall, the ever-vibrant APEX community started organizing these kinds of events under the flag of APEX-meet ups, using this platform. Gathering to share best practices and share experiences about APEX and all the various bit and pieces that adhere to this technology.
If you would look at the following list you would conclude that it even has quite a big list of meetups there… The adoption of meetup.com by the Oracle community is growing rapidly.

Is this a bad thing for the ‘regular’ Oracle user community?

I think not.

From my experiences participating in both “regular” Oracle user group events as well as in Oracle-related meet ups, I think they have a complimentary function.
The traditional user group events are usually more “speaker – audience” oriented, which is a very good format for educating and teaching. A format that is indispensable because it enables a larger group of people to gain knowledge and understanding quickly and effectively.
The meetups have a, let’s call it, more informal character, one where the interchange of information and knowledge is more of a group event. And, let’s face it, the social aspect of meetups is also a little more on the foreground, which in itself is a good thing too.
The need for this kind of contact already was there in the form of SIG’s. During the traditional events, with the emerging of the round-table phenomenon, this has been even more obvious.

Conclusive I would like to state: Let’s embrace meet ups. Go find or organize a meet up – preferably about our much-loved Oracle technology – in your neighborhood. Find and inspire people, share, learn and laugh! It is worth your time, I can tell from experience.

Share your passion

What I have encountered over the past few years, as I got  more and more involved in the Oracle User Community, is the passion to share.
As I have stated in previous posts, it is unbelievable how many smart people are willing to invest private time AND money to travel the world and to share knowledge and experience they have accumulated over the years.

Typically, the annual Oracle User Group events are the place to be to learn from these people. And most often many will submit abstracts of their stories to be elected to be part of these events.

Only, to be able to submit these abstracts, you need to know:
– when these events are
and
– when the so-called CFP (Call for Papers)
is open.

As all Oracle User Groups tend to be independent, this information is hard to come by if you’re not part of the in-crowd, which if, of course, a pity!!
My goal is to collect this data and make it centrally (well, as central as this website is, then) available to whomever is searching for it.

I have made a start.

It’s a small start yet, so:

  • If there are errors, correct me!
  • If information is missing, tell me!

Hope this helps!!

My Oracle 2014, what a blast…

Twenty-fourteen… What a year!

As the year draws to a close, I just wanted to take a few minutes to look back at the passed crazy 12 months… Crazy from a personal as well as a professional point of view!

ougfIn June things took off for the Oracle stuff with a visit to OUGF14. My second real talk after starting to speak in UKOUG-Tech13. Plus the bonus, the first ever Round Table on Oracle Standard Edition, together with my friend Philippe Fierens and the support of Ann Sjökvist. Always imagined, never experienced, the way technology binds people. For all the events happening in Haltia, Finland, please read this post.
OUFG14 was also where I met Gurcan Orhan for the first time. My partner in (hard) rockin’ Oracle stuff!! Together with my international peers, we have quite a team and this makes me super proud.

I owe an apology to the Scotts! I should have been in Linlithgow presenting. I was honored to be selected to travel to the beautiful city of Edinburgh in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, but there were to many things going on, so I had to cancel. I am so sorry!!Scotland

The next stop on the agenda was Oracle Open World. But before I could pack my bags, up and leave, there was A LOT of work to be done at VIR e-Care Solutions coordinating and rolling out a brand new Oracle infrastructure to all of their clients.
And not alone that, there was a trip to Hamburg for Dbvisit with a presentation at the DOAG Data Replication SIG meeting, organized by Johannes Ahrends. Of course, also Björn Rost was present, plus a number of the other representatives of the data replication scene in Germany.

Oracle Open World was not the high-point of 2014, which was somewhat surprising, actually… I cannot really put my finger on it, because the days were packed with good stuff, unexpected encounters and many more goodies… But somehow, the second time around, and with a lot more OUG-experience, it didn’t crack up to be event Numero Uno of 2014! I can safely say, looking back, that national Oracle User Group events are more interesting. You get to have more quality time with the people you just get to meet a few times a year.
Still, with all the content and with everything that happened… And especially the lunch with Martin NStretchedLimoash in the sun at the CCM as well as the unparalleled drive by Stretched Limo to Treasure Island, hosted by Portrix (Henning and Björn) with Yuri Velikanov, Ilmar Kerm and others. I am not complaining!!

Coming back from America there was a huge surprise and honor for me.

ACEAssociateNominated by my peers, Oracle Corp. saw it fit to award my efforts for the Oracle Community with the Oracle ACE Associate recognition. I had never thought or expected this to be a possibility for me, so this was a complete surprise which started a chain of events, ending at the end of this post.

The final event for 2014 was the DOAG Jahreskonferenz in Nuremberg. I guess the biggest event in Europe and the biggest even for me by means of contributions. I had my “Pre-APEX” talk, there was the second edition of the Standard Edition Round Table, co-hosted by Philippe and chaired by Johannes Ahrends!! What a shock 😉 There was the Data Replication forum and Dbvisit #RepAttack!
DOAG also, and again, brought a sheer endless list of new and re-encounters with Oracle Hero’s. My good friend Peter Raganitsch was also there…

At the end of the year, you would think that you would be “home free”, right?

Well 2014 had a last trick up it’s sleeve! The year ended with me saying goodbye at VIR e-Care Solutions BV. After 16 years we had to decide to break up. It’s like tearing off a band-aid. You do it quick and it hurts less, but still…

So, I am a free man!

With this last development, set in the light of everything I had the chance of doing this year, it has been a great deal to handle. The first visit to Oracle Open World, back in 2010 has started a chain of events that has invoked some quite unforeseen twists and turns. It all looks and feels like it has been worth it, but it has indeed taken it’s toll.
Currently I am enjoying some well deserved but also much needed time off with my wife and family and I will start thinking about new ventures in a bit.
Please take a look here and here for some more information!!

Rest assured, there are some new ideas and they are EXCITING!!!
One of them being that  I will be speaking at #OUGN15, better known as the boat conference, with a brand new talk.
But hey, we’re looking back here and I wouldn’t want to spoil too much of the surprise.

Stay tuned…

#RepAttack, it’s all about learning

Everything we do in our daily life is about learning. Especially in IT we are used to continuously learning. Digging through documentation, figuring out how this or that piece of software should work. Downloading, installing, configuring, trying, tweaking, tuning…
Dbvisit Standby

For Dbvisit, it all started with Dbvisit Standby. Logical data replication, but, logical data replication is not so hard in the end. To get it running stable, to make it do exactly what you want it to do, is an oversee-able task. With it’s wizard driven installer and the clear task of having two exactly the same databases and a little bit of time, you’ll have this process of shipping archived log files, nailed. Getting it stable and reliable is built in, so not much worry there.

Logical data replication on the other hand, is a whole different ballgame!
For a long time logical data replication was just for bigger companies with intricate information needs. And it is a little more challenging than physical data replication. There are database, schema or table considerations, what and what not to replicate to where, making sure you get it stable and reliable in your environment. Checking and following up on changes and doing all kinds of work to make sure you get the best our of your setup.

Nevertheless, Logical data replication will help you in doing:

  • “Zero downtime database migrations”
  • “Report offloading”
  • “Schema consolidation”
  • “Real-time business intelligence” operations

And because these things are about you…

You deserve a “flying headstart”

with Dbvisit Replicate!

Dbvisit_Replicate_HR croppedTo be able to bring you this, we looked at the heroes from the Oracle Technology Network for inspiration. This special group of gurus called the RACAttack Ninja’s have been involved in educating and supporting any and all with a setup of Oracle’s Real Application Cluster technology on your laptop.

Inspired by this example, Dbvisit created #RepAttack! A techno-opportunity that will be traveling the world with it’s inaugural session nowhere less than at Oracle Open World 2014.

#RepAttack is a great opportunity to network with your peers who are just as curious as you are, and to access a fantastic team of warriors who will work with you one-on-one to ensure you are up and running quickly and leaping over any hurdles effortlessly. The session will include a deep dive into core concepts to make sure you return to your organization with an in-depth understanding of how both replication and virtualization really work. Take the time to attend and be that “go-to” person when questions around these concepts come up at work.

Keep an eye out as new details will emerge over the coming days and weeks!
Make sure you checkout Twitter hashtag #RepAttack or just submit your e-mail address below!

#RepAttack sessions by her warriors have been confirmed to be at:
Oracle Open World 2014 in San Francisco, USA
Deutsche Oracl-Anwendergruppe (DOAG) Jahreskonferenz 2014 in Nürnberg, Germany

And remember!
#RepAttack is about YOU!

Watch this following video of one of my personal heroes Ronald Rood playing with Logical Data Replication in Dbvisit Replicate: