Oracle database administration

Toad for Oracle: A consultant’s tale

We’ve been talking to you a lot recently about the new Toad for Oracle 10, including a sneak peak of the new version, a look at Toad 10’s best new features and a podcast on how to get the most out of the Oracle database tool.

In the podcast, Toad for Oracle product manager John Pocknell discusses many benefits of Toad for Oracle 10, such as its ability to greatly speed up routine tasks, how the tool appeals to a wide range of Oracle users and its capabilities compared to those of SQL Developer.

But what do the users think?

I recently spoke with John Weathington, President and CEO of Excellent Management Systems, about his experiences using Toad in his management consultancy. Weathington helps companies with a variety of management issues, such as the need to increase efficiencies and optimize organizational performance.

But Weathington is no stranger to Toad. He began using the database tool when it was free, well before it was acquired by Quest Software, Inc.  in 1998. He has seen Toad evolve from his time as an Oracle database consultant using the pre-Quest Toad to using Toad for Oracle 10 today in his management consultancy. He credits the tool for helping him “shine” at his job.

How? For one, Weathington, who mainly uses the Toad Development Suite, highlighted speed and efficiency as major benefits to using Toad as a consultant.  He discussed one project in which an organization was going through a major compliance effort and he had to mine its database. With Toad, he was able to profile the database and extract information very quickly, something that was critical to the success of the high pressure, multi-million dollar project.

In another situation, he had to perform a transformation load for a data warehouse. The load was taking approximately two hours to run and had to be performed somewhere between 50 to 100 times, Weathington said. But by using Toad’s SQL Optimizer, Weathington was able to cut the two hour load down to about two minutes.

Some of Weathington’s other favorite Toad features, including those in Toad for Oracle 10, are:

• Toad 10’s new ER Diagramming Tool: Weathington says he uses this tool almost every day and thinks the idea of taking an ER diagramming paradigm to explore your database is “very innovative.”
• Benchmark Factory: Being able to predict how your database will perform after scaling a small database to a 500-user production database is very important, Weathington said.
• Quest Code Tester: Weathington thinks this automated PL/SQL code testing tool is undervalued and overlooked in the market. Since the importance of testing in general is often overlooked, it’s an important tool to have, he said.

As far as cost is concerned Weathington said it doesn’t matter: what you’d pay for new developers is far more than what you would pay to make your existing ones two to three times more productive with Toad. Over the course of his career Weathington said he’s never had a reason to embrace another tool. But what about you? We would like to hear from you about your experiences using Toad or other database developer tools and how they have or haven’t helped you perform better at your job.

The best 11 things about Oracle database 11g R2

While analysts have noted that only about 10% to 15% of Oracle database users have upgraded to Release 1 of Oracle 11g, which was first shipped two years ago, Oracle OpenWorld attendees seemed very interested in learning about 11g Release 2.

In a packed session room at the end of the day on Tuesday, Oracle Architect Tom Kyte spoke to the crowd about 11 features he thinks are important in Oracle 11g R2.  He joked that while they weren’t being presented in any order, he did “save the best one for last.”

Here’s a quick look at Kyte’s top 11 things about 11g R2 — some you may have heard of already and others are probably new:

1) Do it yourself Parallelism: Kyte says that in 11g R2 there is a ‘do- it- yourself’ parallel package that performs processes that used to be done manually.  DBMS_PARALLEL_EXECUTE now automates the process of splitting up large tables using rowid or primary key ranges.

2) Analytics are the coolest thing to happen to SQL since the keyword SELECT: In Oracle 9i R2, Kyte introduced the STRAGG function, which helps perform string concatenation with user defined aggregates. But Kyte says 11g R2 makes this easier with the long-awaited LISTAGG analytic function.

3) EXECUTE on a directory: Directory objects can now be granted EXECUTE privileges in addition to READ and WRITE.  EXECUTE can be granted to run a PREPROCESSOR program on an OS file.

4) Recursive subquery factoring: This is a new ANSI SQL statement that can be used as a replacement for CONNECT BY and is easier to understand, Kyte said, “unless you have been using CONNECT by for 22 years, in that case it’s confusing.”

5) Improved Time Travel: The usability of the flashback data archive, which can be found in previous versions of the Oracle database, is greatly enhanced in 11g R2, accommodating complex DDL changes such as table splits.

6) You’ve got mail: When a new file arrives in the system, a feature called file watchers creates an event that includes complex metadata about the incoming file. After a file watcher is created, you can create event-based jobs or schedules that reference it.   

7) Deferred segment creation: When creating a table, this new 11g R2 feature allows you to put off the initial extent allocation until the first row is put into a segment. Deferred segment creation is useful for many third party apps that often create thousands of tables but only end up using 100 of them.

8.) Flash Cache: The flash cache works not only on Oracle databases, but on Enterprise Linux, Sparc Solaris or Solaris s86. It’s a transparent extension of the database buffer cache that uses solid state disk technology, allowing you to choose how buffers for a schema object are cached.  Flash allows you to use fewer drives, enabling I/O throughput and completing large jobs faster.

9) Parallel Improved: A data warehouse with over 1,000 users can easily become overwhelmed as processes continue to pile on. In 11g R2, the DBA can set up the maximum number of parallel operations that can be happening at any time. When that number is reached, the processes go into a queue until the resources become available to perform them, giving all processes better response times.

10 and 11) Edition-based redefinition: “This thing is so cool, it’s both (number 10 and 11),” Kyte said about the “killer feature” of 11g R2 that comes built into the database.  Edition-based redefinition allows you to upgrade an application while it’s in use, making data changes safely by writing only to new columns and tables not being used in an old edition.

At another OpenWorld session this week, which focused on best practices for Oracle backup and recovery, Oracle’s Timothy Chien acknowledged that what everyone was really waiting for was to learn about the new features in 11g R2.  When talking about the new database version, Chien highlighted RMAN features such as improved automatic block repair, which allows corrupt clocks on the primary database to be automatically repaired from the physical standby database, as they are detected. Chien also discussed how in 11g R2, there is an Advanced Compression Option which offers multiple RMAN backup compression levels (high, medium and low) and you can choose your compression levels and backup throughput.

What do you think is the best new feature in Oracle 11g R2?

Toad for Oracle 10 leapfrogs Oracle SQL Developer

Which developer tool do you prefer: Toad, Oracle SQL Developer or PL/SQL Developer?

The last time we asked you to cast your vote for one of these three candidates, a clear winner did not emerge: some liked Toad because of its speed, some preferred SQL Developer because of its price and others didn’t see much difference between the three.

But users may now have many new reasons to choose Toad.

In what Quest VP Larry Humphries calls “one of Quest’s biggest and most exciting releases of Toad for Oracle in ten years,” Quest software announced that it expects to release Toad for Oracle 10 this October.  According to Quest’s press release, many of the features in the upcoming version were inspired by suggestions from users in the Toad community.

So, what can you expect in Toad for Oracle 10?

Quest has announced Toad enhancements in development, administration, platform and education. Some specific new features include editing enhancements, a schema ER diagram reporting window and greater manageability and automation abilities.

In his blog post “Sneak Peak at Toad v10,” Quest solution architect Jeff Smith takes an even closer look at three of the new features, namely full Unicode support, new data grids and the new ER diagrammer. Smith says one of the most noticeable changes for users will be the data grids, which has a new interface and the ability to auto-group by specific columns.

The good news is users don’t have to wait until this fall to get their hands on the new version. Quest is offering a Toad for Oracle beta program so users can get hands-on experience with the tool and offer feedback before it’s released.

If you’re an Oracle SQL Developer or PL/SQL Developer user, will these enhancements make you reconsider Toad? When you’re purchasing an editing and debugging tool, which is more important to you - price or functionality? And if you’ve already joined this beta program, let us know what you think of it so far?

Can Oracle be a contender in the virtualization wars?

Oracle has always been known as a fierce competitor, but when it comes to one area — virtualization — the software giant has stayed somewhat out of the limelight.

Is that about to change?

Oracle is reportedly in talks to acquire Virtual Iron, the fifth-largest server virtualization vendor,, and if they close the deal, the answer may very well be yes.

Still, even if the deal is made, Oracle may have a way to go before becoming a competitive force in the virtualization market. Currently, the software vendor lags other vendors in VM-friendly licensing and support policies, according to analysts. Experts also say the fact that Oracle software is only compatible on its own virtualization platform, Oracle VM, rather than the more widely supported VMware platform, puts it at a big disadvantage.

In the last round of “virtualization wars,” which took place this summer, Oracle wasn’t even considered a contender among Microsoft, VMware and Citrix. Now, Red Hat is in the mix, and analysts think that Oracle will be too with the purchase of Virtual Iron.

This isn’t Oracle’s only recent effort in the virtualization space. According to IT Business Edge blogger Arthur Cole, virtual management is becoming a problem as more and more shops become virtualized. A recent study from the IDC also found that as larger scale virtualization deployments become more common, there’s growing demand for sophisticated management software tools. And Oracle’s new Oracle VM Management Pack, released last week, provides Oracle VM users with new management capabilities, including automated deployment, built-in configuration management and policy based management.

Oracle also says that the Oracle VM Management Pack, which is part of the latest Oracle Enterprise Manager release, is affordable– “a major step forward in helping our customers drive down the cost of managing applications in virtual environments,” said Richard Sarwal, Oracle senior vice president Product Development.

But is Oracle doing enough to become a major virtualization player?

This is yet to be known, but it may be a challenge if Oracle continues to refuse supporting third-party virtualization software. According to the SearchServerVirtualization article, “Oracle would most likely buy Virtual Iron to beef up management tools for its virtualization technology, Oracle VM” — which, experts agree, “is not up to VMware standards.” And according to analyst Gordon Haff, [Virtual Iron] might be the fifth largest virtualization player, but that’s like being a fourth-string quarterback.”

What has your experience been with virtualization technology? What would you like to see Oracle do? Are you satisfied with Oracle VM, or would you like them to support VMware? What are the greatest obstacles you’ve had with using virtualization technology in your environment?

Many still holding off on Oracle database CPUs

Remember a month or so ago, when we asked whether Oracle’s critical patch updates (CPU) were all that critical?

The answer from many (outside of Oracle) was no. In fact, many DBAs considered it too much trouble. Responses ranged from “security ‘experts’ drumming up business through paranoia” to questions about when 11g will be hotpatchable as promised. Some even said, “we believe these patches ARE critical.”

Well, according to a release of the latest survey of the Independent Oracle Users Group (downloadable as a .pdf), many others are holding off on those patches. Now, the survey was co-sponsored by Oracle and we tend to take results from vendor-sponsored studies with a grain of salt, but it does offer some interesting insights. Of the 150 survey respondents, only 26% said CPUs were applied systematically across the entire environment when they’re released by Oracle. Another 19% reported that their organizations do not have any specific requirements for the application of vendor supplied security patches. In fact, 36% require some sort of justification for security patches and favor a risk analysis over a cost/benefit analysis.

The results came as little surprise to Pete Finnigan and he addressed them over on his Oracle security weblog.

He writes:

I always say two things. 1) CPU’s are only part of the problem of securing an Oracle database - that is to be secure you cannot just apply a CPU, you must do all of the other work to secure the database, configuration, privileges, access, audit…. much, much more and 2) at the end of the day; taking out all of the issues, you can either apply a CPU or not, its simple. Well its simple to say but in practice, psycologically, reallity[sic], its often hard to do for lots of reasons, mostly availability, performance, downtime, stability.

Certainly, database security remains a critical topic for organizations. According to a new database security report from Forrester Research (available free with registration), database attacks are at an all-time high. My colleague Shayna Garlick sat down for a podcast with Forrester’s Noel Yuhanna to discuss the results of his research. While Yuhanna asserts that Oracle has the most comprehensive database security, he also advises companies look to independent security providers. After all, most organizations are not Oracle only, they run heterogeneous shops.

So, while Oracle certainly seems to be paying attention to database security, it seems not everyone is listening. What does Oracle need to do to convince you to apply CPUs? Release them more often? Less often? Or are you content to parse through the relevant information to determine for yourself what’s “critical” and what can wait? Are your internal corporate processes adequate for the job?

Should Oracle negotiate its nonnegotiable maintenance fee?

Oracle software purchases carry with them a host of options and choices for buyers — cloud computing and SaaS, choosing between multiple applications that serve the same purpose, and a never-ending list of updates and upgrades. 

There is, however, one thing that never changes.

That is Oracle’s 22% annual maintenance fee, a nonnegotiable fee that Oracle president Charles Phillips describes the company as being “sticklers” on in this Information Week article.

But is it time for Oracle to rethink its policy?

That’s what some experts are thinking, especially as the economy continues to fall and more organizations are trying to save money and  turning to third-party support.  One such expert is Information Week’s Bob Evans, who wrote an “open letter” to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison explaining why Oracle needs to change its ways. 

Evans made some interesting points in his plea to Ellison. First, he says that even if Oracle doesn’t change the fee structure, it should at least change its name, since Oracle has admitted that the fees are actually used for product development rather than maintenance. 

He also asks Ellison to move away from his traditional, rigid maintenance fee system in these changing times — because if not, it will hurt Oracle in the future:

“The longer you dig in and tell CIOs that you’re not interested in the wicked expense challenges they’re facing, the longer they’re going to remember that when the current recessionary climate fades and new alternatives gain strength,” Evans writes.

At such a high price, how does Oracle maintenance even rate among its customers? One user quoted in the Information Week article, the CIO of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco, complains of poor and slow service from Oracle’s global support center. But just a couple of months ago, Oracle support received high marks in a UK Oracle Users Group survey.

Oracle isn’t the only company with high maintenance fees. SAP recently announced that it will increase the fees for SAP Basic Support customers — who currently pay 17% of net licensing fees – to 22% by 2012, right in line with Oracle. But according to Forrester analyst Ray Wang, with SAP you’ll actually be getting more when paying more, unlike its competitors.

Are you getting what you pay for from Oracle maintenance fees?

SOA in ‘09: Dead, alive or in search of new meaning?

January 1, 2009 could be considered a big day in the Oracle world — a fresh start, new year and the chance to start practicing your Oracle New Year’s resolutions, whether they be to focus on cloud computing, open source projects or virtualization.

But according to the Burton Group’s Anne Thomas Manes, there’s one thing you should keep off your resolution list this year. In fact, if you ask Manes, she has a whole new take on what Jan.1 marks:

The demise of SOA (service-oriented architecture).

In her recent blog post, “SOA is Dead, Long Live Services,” Manes writes that a recent downfall of SOA is a result of it being “wiped out by the catastrophic impact of the economic recession.”

But is there any truth to this?

While some of Manes’ readers agree with her, many others are skeptical. One commenter writes:

“It’s my feeling that a hurting economy will actually drive MORE adoption of SOA principles across an enterprise, not less… if your budget has been slashed (or will be slashed)… then I suggest that you MUST consider moving, albeit in a measured approach, towards knocking down the vertical application stovepipes and towards an SOA approach.”

Last spring — well before the start of the economic recession – SearchOracle.com surveyed nearly 500 readers about the priorities and challenges in their organizations. One of the questions asked about the readers’ SOA plans for 2008. An overwhelming majority (68%) said they either didn’t have or didn’t know their 2008 SOA plans, with the rest citing plans to implement SOA within the next three years.

Economy aside, it seems that SOA — or at least its meaning — is in a state of uncertainty. Manes goes on to say that the “great failed experiment” is “survived by its offspring: mashups, BPM, SaaS, Cloud Computing, and all other architectural approaches that depend on ‘services.’”

What do others think? Here are some more notable theories:

• Dhananjay Nene, in his post SOA ain’t dead but it certainly is transforming, disagrees with Manes’ idea that rearchitecture is required for successful SOA. The software engineer says that SOA has “never been healthier” and is just going through a transformation that includes less enterprise control, vendor-driven hype and top down approaches.

• Blogger Sebastian Stein says that now is the time to focus on trying a more business-driven SOA strategy, in which “services do not have to be implemented by technology at all.” Andy Mulholland predicts  the “resurgence of SOA, used more as Services Oriented Business Architecture” in 2009.

• Many just see this controversy as confusion or disagreement about what the term “SOA” actually means. Jack Vaughan of SearchSOA.com points out that Manes essentially said that “services are good; it’s just SOA that as a term is bad,” but that point seemed to be lost. Vaughan goes on to say: “There is a lot in a word, and SOA is not a bad one. It’s everyone’s job to build good apps and good integrations. If you feel like discarding SOA as a buzz word, go for it - no need to ‘kill’ it.”

And it sounds like Oracle is doing something right when it comes to SOA technology — whether built or bought, Oracle technology  was just positioned as a leader in three new Gartner Magic Quadrants, including Application Infrastructure for SOA Composite Application Projects and New Systematic SOA Application Projects.

What do you think of the term “SOA”? What are your SOA plans for 2009? Even if you aren’t planning for an SOA anytime soon, are you considering it in the long term? Is your organization taking any baby steps by buying products that are SOA-enabled or running any pilots? Or do you think that SOA is dead — or was never “alive” at all? Let us know what you think.

Are Oracle’s Critical Patch Updates really that critical?

You most likely saw some of Tuesday’s pressing headlines about Oracle’s latest Critical Patch Update, such as “Oracle planning Patch Tuesday whopper” and “Oracle plans massive update for Tuesday.”

But just how massive — and critical — are these patches, really?

It’s a question that’s been asked before but certainly deserves to be asked again, especially as Oracle continues to grow, acquire more companies and products, and in turn, find more security vulnerabilities

This Critical Patch Update has 41 security fixes. These include fixes for vulnerabilities in products ranging from Oracle 9i to Oracle 11g, including the former BEA WebLogic Server and Portal, Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Application Server and JD Edwards Tools. Oracle also recently had a problem with its Cluster Ready Services, spurred by a change in the world’s time standard to adjust for the slowing of the earth’s rotation.

This “Patch Tuesday whopper,” however, seems relatively modest compared to previous patches, such as the 101 fixes in October 2006, and definitely equivalent to recent updates like the 36 fixes just three months ago.

With all these patches also comes the question: Should you apply them?

According to Oracle, yes. In its prerelease announcement to customers this month, “Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply fixes as soon as possible.”

But many DBAs and Oracle experts think differently. When we asked the question last year to see just how much DBAs really care about Oracle’s latest Critical Patch Update, many responses were consistent with a survey that found two-thirds of Oracle users never install the critical patches.

One concern is that while these patches are meant to fix problems, they can also cause some of their own. Oracle expert Don Burleson addressed this just a couple of months ago, when an Oracle user asked him for advice on when and how to apply Oracle Critical Patch Updates.

Burleson’s advice?

“You DON’T have to apply patches, and sometimes patches can CAUSE unplanned issues.  The best practices are always to conduct a full stress in a TEST environment before applying the patches in production… I wait for major releases and re-install at-once, and I only look at patches to fix specific issues.”

What’s your approach with Oracle’s patch updates? Are they worth the time and effort? Have your experiences with these patches changed at all in the last year, or are they still the bane of your existence?   

What’s your New Year’s Oracle resolution?

Cloud computing, OBIEE, Oracle certifications, security, middleware or open source projects….on what should you focus your Oracle-related efforts in 2009?

It’s a question that many Oracle customers are asking now, as a new year often means time for a new or revised Oracle strategy. SearchOracle.com recently talked to some Oracle industry analysts for tips on crafting such a plan, and the experts’ suggestions included putting security, automation and middleware decisions at the top of your New Year’s resolutions list.    

These lists have already begun showing up in the blogosphere. So, what are some Oracle gurus resolving to do in 2009?

Database developer Chet Justice has four resolutions for the new year: Go the entire year without losing his job, become proficient in OBIEE, build a PL/SQL test harness and contribute something tangible to the Oracle community.

Dan McGhan, however, has different goals, which include becoming an Oracle 11g Database Administrator Certified Associate and completing a new open source project after a previously failed attempt. 

Michael Sheehan of XML journal thinks this is an important year to focus on cloud computing. He offers his own suggestions, including taking some time to both understand what it is and research different cloud computing providers.

Your Oracle New Year’s resolutions obviously depend on your own job and experiences. However, whether or not you accomplish your resolutions also depends on what Oracle accomplishes this year.

For example, Senior Analyst Chris Wolf came up with a New Year’s resolution not for himself, but for Oracle. Wolf thinks 2009 is the time for the software vendor to “publicly define official support and offer virtual CPU-based licensing for all prominent x86 virtualization environments.”

We’ll be posting a story later this week on what some other users have outlined as their goals for 2009. What do you think Oracle should resolve to do in 2009? What are your own Oracle-related resolutions for the new year and how do you plan to accomplish them?

Larry Ellison speaks 2008

If there’s one thing that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is known for, it’s his willingness to share what’s on his mind.

The last time we looked at some of Ellison’s most quotable moments, we found he was candid on everything from business to parenting to being filthy rich.  And since 2008 was such an eventful year for Oracle, one can only imagine what the always entertaining Ellison had to say about the unveiling of Exadata,  Oracle’s leap into cloud computing and the rest of the software giant’s 2008 happenings. Here’s a look back at some memorable Ellison quotes from the past 12 months:

-”The customer will be de-installing Salesforce and replacing it with Oracle Sales on Demand, so we’re very excited about that.” -Ellison shows his confidence on a new cloud computing deal that he thinks will put Oracle on top of Salesforce.com.

-”This holds a lot of songs. It’s 1,400 times larger than Apple’s largest iPod.” -Ellison jokes about the size of Oracle’s new Database Machine at Oracle OpenWorld.

-”I don’t understand what we’ll do differently in light of cloud computing, other than change the wording on some of our ads.” -Ellison on the new cloud computing “fad.”

-”They are copying us. Others would be foolish not to try.” -Ellison on why Microsoft and other software companies are turning to acquisitions as a growth strategy.

-”We loaned them half a machine each instead of a whole machine because we’re really cheap.” -Ellison on the beta versions of the Exadata machines that Oracle offered early to some customers.

-”It’s crazy to say you will only grow through innovation. It’s bizarre that there’s a stigma to buying something rather than building it yourself.” -Ellison on why he sees nothing wrong with hostile takeovers.

-”The computer industry is the only industry that’s more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. I remember I was reading W — the fashion magazine — and I found out that orange is the new pink… We’ll make cloud computing announcements because if orange is the new pink, we’ll make orange blouses. I’m not going to fight this thing.”  -Ellison continues to deride cloud computing (and admits he reads women’s fashion magazines?)

-”We’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?” -Just one more of the many notable excerpts from Ellison’s anti-cloud computing rant.

There’s also one that couldn’t make the list, as there was no direct quote, but certainly deserves a mention. Last March, Ellison “bagged a $3 million tax break after arguing that his flamboyant Japanese-style estate in Woodside is functionally obsolete.” For Ellison to argue that he and his 23-acre, 8,000-square-foot estate deserves a tax break more than San Mateo schools need funds — and win — there must have been some pretty good quotes in there, right? 

Let’s see if he can outdo himself in 2009.