One of the advantages of using a local tnsnames.ora file is that it is easy to create and edit entries. This is especially true when there are only a few entries to maintain and the file only needs to be distributed to a small number of Oracle client machines. The primary disadvantage of local naming is when there are a large number of client machines on the network, say 100 or even a 1000 clients, each required to have their own tnsnames.ora file. This problem gets compounded when frequent changes to the tnsnames.ora are required as a result of adding or moving database and the file has to be re-distributed to those clients.

A more efficient solution is to centralize the list of database names in a repository that every Oracle client can access. In the following article, I will demonstrate how to configure Oracle database naming in an LDAP directory. LDAP is for tnsnames.ora what DNS is for a local hosts file like /etc/hosts. Similar to how the local tnsnames.ora file works, when a client performs a lookup for a net server name in LDAP, it is given the appropriate connect descriptor information for the Oracle instance or service name.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/LDAP/LDAP_8.shtml

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/LDAP/LDAP_21.shtml

In the following guide, I will present the steps required to configure authentication for a Linux client through LDAP using Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) and Name Service Switch (NSS). The Linux client will be configured to access user information stored in an LDAP directory database such as username, UID number, GID number, home directory, login shell, and other user information that can be used to authenticate to the client system.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/LDAP/LDAP_Resources/OPENLDAP_Configure_System_to_Authenticate_Using_OpenLDAP_CentOS5.shtml

OpenLDAP Software is a free, open source implementation of the LDAP protocol developed by the OpenLDAP Project. Directory service is controlled by a stand-alone LDAP daemon (slapd) and the stand-alone LDAP update replication daemon (slurpd) when replication is configured. Propagating changes using replication falls outside the scope of this note and therefore will not include configuring the slurpd daemon.

The following guide presents the steps required to install and configure OpenLDAP Software on the CentOS 5 platform. This tutorial will also work for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Oracle Linux 5.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/LDAP/LDAP_Resources/OPENLDAP_Install_CentOS5.shtml

The secure external password store uses a client-side Oracle Wallet to store one or more user name/password combinations. The wallet is encrypted using the 3DES algorithm so the contents of the wallet are not readable. If the wallet is ever compromised, the database password for the user can be changed and a new wallet can be generated thus rendering the previous wallet unusable.

The following guide demonstrates how to configure and make use of an Oracle Secure External Password Store:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Security/SEC_15.shtml

CREATE USER username IDENTIFIED BY password;

This creates a database user, associated with a user schema, who can access the database and be authenticated by using a password with the CONNECT command as follows:

CONNECT username@database_service_name
Enter Password: password

The following guide provides an alternative to the username / password method by using OS Authentication. OS authentication allows Oracle to delegate control of user authentication for the database to the operating system. Although OS authentication has been widely used over the years, there are potential security risks to be aware of before implementing it in a production environment. In fact, when using Oracle Database 10g Release 2 or higher, a better and more secure approach uses a client-side Oracle Wallet which is a password store external to the database used to store Oracle login credentials.

OS authentication is a method which identifies users by the credentials supplied by the OS and then uses that information to allow authentication to the database without a password. These credentials can be the username and password supplied to the OS or digital certificates on the user's computer. A password is not required for a database connection because it is assumed the OS has already taken care of authenticating the user. One thing to keep in mind though is that database connections relying on OS authentication are only be as secure as the underlying OS.

This guide presents instructions on how to configure Oracle for OS authentication along with several examples on how to use it.

Oracle OS Authentication

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Security/SEC_13.shtml

The following guide demonstrates how to install and configure the Oracle Secure Backup Cloud Module for Amazon S3 to backup an Oracle database to the Cloud using the direct streaming method. This can be performed from an Amazon EC2 instance (off-premise) or from an Oracle database server running in your own data center (on-premise).

Oracle Database Backup to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) on Linux

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/AWS/AWS_Tips/Oracle_on_AWS/ORAAWS_15.shtml

With all of this flexibility and ease of use, there is one feature to be cognitive of. When an instance is stopped and then restarted, the Elastic IP no longer gets associated with the instance. When the instance is started again, the default action is to assign another dynamic IP address (and new hostname) to the public IP address instead of the previously associated Elastic IP address.

In the following guide, I present one approach that can be used to automatically associate an Elastic IP with an instance on startup using an EC2 startup script and user data. The example in this guide will be performed on an Amazon EBS-backed instance running CentOS 6. In addition to associating the Elastic IP address, I will also be setting the hostname.

Associate Elastic IP on Instance Startup - (Linux)

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/AWS/AWS_Tips/AWS_Management/AWS_14.shtml

The Amazon API Tools and the Amazon AMI Tools are packages of command-line scripts to the AWS web service used to manage and bundle instances. Although there are many other Developer Tools provided by Amazon and the AWS development community to help developers create and manage applications built on AWS, these two are the most commonly used to manage EC2 instances.

Install Amazon EC2 Tools (Linux)

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/AWS/AWS_Tips/AWS_Management/AWS_8.shtml

In the article described at the end of the newsletter, I will demonstrate how to create your own instance store-backed (a.k.a. S3-backed) and EBS-backed Amazon EC2 image of CentOS 6.2 (64-bit) with its own kernel. Creating your own AMI allows you to make the most of Amazon EC2 and provides better control over performance, security, and reproducibility. Your AMIs become the basic unit of deployment which allow you to rapidly boot new custom instances as you need them.

There are two methods to prepare your own custom Amazon EC2 instances for Linux/UNIX systems:

1. From an Existing AMI

   Involves launching an existing public AMI and modifying it according to your requirements.

2. Create a New AMI from Scratch on Your Own Machine (loopback method)

   Involves building a fresh installation either on a stand-alone machine or on an empty file system mounted by loopback.

Although preparing a new AMI from an existing one is often the easiest method, this guide will document the procedures to create a new AMI from scratch using a fresh OS install of CentOS 6.2 (64-bit) on an empty file system mounted by loopback.

Build a Custom Amazon EC2 Machine Image (CentOS 6.2)

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/AWS/AWS_Tips/AWS_Management/AWS_10.shtml

A rolling upgrade can be performed using either SQL Apply or the Transient Logical Standby method. The two rolling upgrade methods are fairly similar where the primary difference is the state of the standby database before and after completing the upgrade. Using the SQL Apply method, the upgrade starts with one node as a logical standby and concludes with one node continuing to be a logical standby while with the transient logical standby, one node will start as a physical standby, temporarily convert to a logical standby, and will revert back to a physical standby after the upgrade.

In the following guide, a rolling database migration using Data Guard SQL Apply will be deployed to migrate from Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.5) to Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3). This same guide can also be used to perform rolling database upgrades using Data Guard SQL Apply. For example, upgrading Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.1) to (11.2.0.3).

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Data_Guard/DG_60.shtml

Although the example in this guide demonstrates a rolling database migration, the word upgrade will be used interchangeably with migration.

The following guide is an extension to two of my articles: "Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 11g R2 on Linux - (RHEL 5)" and "Add a Node to an Existing Oracle RAC 11g R2 Cluster on Linux - (RHEL 5)".

Remove a Node from an Existing Oracle RAC 11g R2 Cluster on Linux - (RHEL 5)

The original articles that describe the existing Oracle RAC and adding a new node can be found at:

Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 11g R2 on Linux - (RHEL 5)

Add a Node to an Existing Oracle RAC 11g R2 Cluster on Linux - (RHEL 5)

Contained in this new article are the steps required to remove a single node from an existing three-node Oracle RAC 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3.0) environment on the CentOS 5 Linux platform. The node being removed is the third node I added in the second article. Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 5 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or Oracle Linux 5.

The following guide is an extension to my article "Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 11g R2 on Linux - (RHEL 5.5)":

Add a Node to an Existing Oracle RAC 11g R2 Cluster on Linux - (RHEL 5.5)

The original article that describes the existing Oracle RAC can be found at:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Oracle11gRAC/CLUSTER_12.shtml

Contained in this new guide are the steps required to add a single node to an already running and configured two-node Oracle RAC 11g Release 2 for Linux x86_64 environment on the CentOS 5.5 for x86_64 platform. All shared disk storage for Oracle RAC is based on iSCSI using Openfiler release 2.3 x86_64 running on a separate node (known in this article as the Network Storage Server). Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 5 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or Oracle Linux 5.

Oracle ASM provides a virtualization layer between the database and storage so that multiple disks can be treated as a single disk group and disks can be dynamically added or removed while keeping databases online. The example database created in this guide will use Oracle ASM for all physical database file storage (data files, control files, online redo log files, Fast Recovery Area).

In previous releases, Oracle ASM was installed as part of the Oracle Database installation. With Oracle Database 11g Release 2, Oracle ASM is part of an Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation, either for a cluster, or for a standalone server. This guide demonstrates how to create a single instance (non-RAC) database using Oracle ASM and therefore will require Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server to be installed before the Oracle Database software.

Oracle Restart is another component of Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server that will be used in this guide.

Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2, the dbstart and dbshut scripts that were used to automate database startup and shutdown in previous Oracle versions are deprecated. Oracle now recommends to configure Oracle Database with the Oracle Restart feature to automatically restart the database, the listener, Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM), and other Oracle components after a hardware or software failure or when the database host computer restarts.

The full version of this article can be found at the following location.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Linux/LINUX_22.shtml

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Linux/LINUX_23.shtml

This guide will include instructions for installing and configuring the Linux operating system, installing the Oracle Database software, creating an example database, managing Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control, automatically starting and stopping the instance through reboots, and further enhancing the Oracle environment by installing custom DBA management scripts.

Powerful interfaces like the Unix/Linux bash shell offer auto-completion of the text you are typing (by pressing TAB), access to a history of previous commands (up/down arrows, or CTRL-P/CTRL-N), incremental search on the command history (CTRL-R), moving the cursor and modifying statements within the current line (left/right arrows), and persisting the command history in between invocations. Nearly all these tools use the GNU readline library to provide these capabilities.

While not all command-line tools use the GNU readline library (like Oracle's sqlplus and rman), the good news is that these limitations can be easily overcome by using the rlwrap tool written by Hans Lub.

The following paper presents examples of how to enhance some of Oracle's command-line utilities like SQL*Plus and RMAN with command history and auto-complete functionality on the Unix/Linux platform.

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/SQL_PLUS/SQLPLUS_8.shtml

• SQL Server Default Instance

  For a default SQL Server instance, use http://ServerName/DirectoryName where ServerName is the host name or DNS name for the machine and DirectoryName is the name of the virtual directory for either the Report Server (ReportServer) or Report Manager (Reports). For example:

  http://vmwindows1/ReportServer
  http://vmwindows1/Reports

• SQL Server Named Instance

  For a named SQL Server instance, use http://ServerName/DirectoryName$InstanceName where ServerName is the host name or DNS name for the machine, DirectoryName is the name of the virtual directory for either the Report Server (ReportServer) or Report Manager (Reports), and InstanceName is the SQL Server instance name. For example:

  http://vmwindows1/ReportServer$WebApps01
  http://vmwindows1/Reports$WebApps01

After providing valid credentials, you will most likely receive the following error message when trying to access either the Report Manager or Report Server for the first time:

    User '<domain&rt;\<UserAccount>' does not have required permissions.
    Verify that sufficient permissions have been granted and Windows
    User Account Control (UAC) restrictions have been addressed.

The following article provides a solution to this common permissions error you may receive while attempting to authenticate to the Report Server or Report Manager.

Permissions Error Accessing Reporting Services - (SQL Server 2008 R2)

Another popular scenario exists when a DML or DDL operation is performed on the primary database using the NOLOGGING or UNRECOVERABLE clause and the FORCE LOGGING database option is not enabled on the primary. If the FORCE LOGGING database option is not enabled, then Oracle will not log the entire operation in the redo log and thus, never send the modified data to the standby database for recovery. While this doesn't necessarily render the entire standby database as unusable, it does invalidate the standby for those tables affected and may require substantial DBA administrative activities to repair. Although you can specify the ALTER DATABASE FORCE LOGGING statement on the primary database to override the NOLOGGING clause and prevent this type of damage to occur in the future, this statement will not repair a standby database that has already been invalidated.

In each of the scenarios listed above, one solution would be to simply delete and formally re-create the physical standby database to enter it back into the Data Guard configuration. Depending on the size of the database, rebuilding the standby database could be an expensive operation as it would potentially involve a lot of time and resources making this a nonviable option.

The following guide presents a quick and efficient alternative to rebuilding a physical standby database in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 by using RMAN incremental backups to roll forward and resynchronize a physical standby database with the primary database. Using the RMAN BACKUP INCREMENTAL FROM SCN command, you can create an incremental backup on the primary database that starts at the standby database's current SCN, which can then be used to roll the standby database forward in time.

Using RMAN Incremental Backups to Roll Forward a Physical Standby Database (Oracle 10g)

This guide will provide step-by-step recovery procedures which cover the following three scenarios:

• Physical Standby Database Lags Far Behind the Primary Database
• Physical Standby Database Has Nologging Changes On a Subset of Datafiles
• Physical Standby Database Has Widespread Nologging Changes

The following article provides instructions for creating and configuring a logical standby database from a primary database using Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) operating in maximum performance protection mode:

Data Guard Configuration Example - (Oracle 10g, Logical Standby)

It should be noted that several different methods exist to create a logical standby database configuration and that this is just one of those ways. The methods outlined in this guide present a simple approach that should be easy to implement in most situations. In fact, if you break down the essential tasks required to build a logical standby database, you will see that it is essentially nothing more than creating an initial physical standby database, building a dictionary in the redo data for LogMiner, verifying supplemental logging is enabled on both the primary and standby, converting the physical standby database to a logical standby database, putting the logical standby database in managed recovery mode (SQL Apply), and starting remote archiving from the primary database (Redo Transport). Obviously there are a number of smaller steps I am leaving out which will all be discussed in more depth throughout this guide.

All configuration parameters related to the Oracle instance and networking will be discussed as well as how to place the standby database in Managed Recovery Mode.

There are two reasons why a DBA would want to remove a datafile from a tablespace:

• The DBA may have mistakenly added a file to a tablespace, or perhaps made the file much larger than intended and now want to remove it.

• The DBA may be involved in a recovery scenario and the database won't start because a datafile is missing.

Until Oracle Database 10g Release 2, Oracle did not provide an interface for dropping datafiles in the same way you would drop a schema object such as a table or a user. Prior to 10gr2, once the DBA created a datafile for a tablespace, the datafile could not be removed. This article discusses several workarounds to this limitation as well as the new DROP DATAFILE / TEMPFILE statement introduced with Oracle 10g R2.

In the following article, I will attempt to erase the confusion surrounding this ALTER DATABASE statement and how to successfully drop a datafile from a tablespace:

How to Drop a Datafile from a Tablespace

Activating the Standby Database - (Oracle 10g, Physical Standby)

It is assumed that a primary and one physical standby database is already configured in order to perform the role transition steps described in this guide. The examples used in this guide will make use of the Oracle Data Guard configuration described in the article:

Data Guard Configuration Example - (Oracle 10g, Physical Standby)

The following article provides instructions for creating and configuring a physical standby database from a primary database using Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) operating in maximum performance protection mode:

Data Guard Configuration Example - (Oracle 10g, Physical Standby)

It should be noted that several different methods exist to create a physical standby database configuration and that this is just one of those ways. The methods outlined in this guide present a simple approach that should be easy to implement in most situations. In fact, if you break down the essential tasks required to build a standby database, you will see that it is essentially nothing more than taking a backup of the primary database, creating a standby controlfile, transferring the files to the standby host, mounting the standby database, putting the standby database in managed recovery mode (Redo Apply), and starting remote archiving from the primary database (Redo Transport). Obviously there are a number of smaller steps I am leaving out which will all be discussed in more depth throughout this guide.

All configuration parameters related to the Oracle instance and networking will be discussed as well as how to place the standby database in Managed Recovery Mode.

The features included with Oracle ACFS allow users to create, mount, and manage ACFS using familiar Linux commands. Oracle ACFS provides support for snapshots and the ability to dynamically resize existing file system online using Oracle ASM Dynamic Volume Manager (ADVM).

Oracle ACFS leverages Oracle ASM functionality that enables:

• Oracle ACFS dynamic file system resizing
• Maximized performance through direct access to Oracle ASM disk group storage
• Balanced distribution of Oracle ACFS across Oracle ASM disk group storage for increased I/O parallelism
• Data reliability through Oracle ASM mirroring protection mechanisms

My recent article on using the Oracle ASM Cluster File System provides a hands on approach to creating and managing ACFS and ADVM on the Linux operating system using the following methods:

• ASM Configuration Assistant (ASMCA)
• Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM)
• Command Line / SQL / ASMCMD

A full discussion on the different Oracle ACFS components will also be presented as well as snapshots, file system recovery, and management techniques.

Using the Oracle ASM Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) on Linux

Unfortunately, for many shops, the price of the hardware required for a typical RAC configuration exceeds most training budgets. For those who want to become familiar with Oracle RAC 11g without a major cash outlay, the following guide provides a low-cost alternative to configuring an Oracle RAC 11g release 2 system using commercial off-the-shelf components and downloadable software at an estimated cost of US$2,800.

This guide provides detailed instructions on how to build a two-node Oracle RAC system using low cost hardware and freely available software. A network storage server will be built using Openfiler 2.3 (Final) and iSCSI technology which will be used for all shared storage requirements. Powered by rPath Linux, Openfiler is a free browser-based network storage management utility that delivers file-based Network Attached Storage (NAS) and block-based Storage Area Networking (SAN) in a single framework. Openfiler supports CIFS, NFS, HTTP/DAV, FTP, however, I will only be making use of its iSCSI capabilities to implement an inexpensive SAN for the shared storage component required by Oracle RAC 11g.

The new article can be found at:

Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 11g R2 on Linux - (RHEL 5.5)

The following note provides several methods used to flush the Oracle data buffer cache depending on the release of Oracle.

Flushing the Oracle Data Buffer Cache During Performance Testing

The DBI is a database access module for the Perl programming language. It defines a set of methods, variables, and conventions that provide a consistent database interface, independent of the actual database being used.

The following article describes how to access Microsoft SQL Server 2008 from a Linux server using the Perl DBD::Sybase driver module (this is the Sybase driver for the Perl DBI) combined with FreeTDS. FreeTDS is a set of libraries for Unix and Linux that allows your programs to natively talk to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Sybase databases.

The full article can be found at:

Connect to SQL Server 2008 from Linux using Perl DBI

The following sample databases are available as part of the AdventureWorks Community Sample Databases for SQL Server 2008 R2:

• AdventureWorks OLTP 2008R2
• AdventureWorks Data Warehouse 2008R2
• AdventureWorks LT 2008R2

Starting with SQL Server 2005, the sample databases are not installed by default due to security concerns. Users are now required to download and manually install the sample databases after successfully setting up SQL Server.

The following article presents the steps required to download and install all sample database found in the AdventureWorks Community Sample Databases package for SQL Server 2008 R2.

The full article can be found at:

Install AdventureWorks Sample Databases - (SQL Server 2008 R2)

In order to establish a connection to a secure URL from an Oracle database server, the following tasks will need to be performed:

• Capture all required certificates from the SSL site
• Create an Oracle Wallet that is accessible on the database server
• Import the required certificate(s) of the SSL site into the Oracle Wallet
• Use the UTL_HTTP.SET_WALLET PL/SQL procedure before attempting to access the secure URL

The full article can be found at:

Using UTL_HTTP and an Oracle Wallet to Establish a Secure URL Connection (SSL)

Researching this problem yielded a bug with the OCFS2 kernel driver (1.4.2-1) that was apparently leaving deleted files in the orphan directory (the //orphan_dir name space in OCFS2) after being deleted from the disk.

When an object (file and/or directory) is deleted from an OCFS2 cluster file system, the file system unlinks the object entry from the existing directory and links it as an entry against that cluster node's orphan directory (the //orphan_dir name space in OCFS2). When the object is eventually no longer used across the cluster, the file system frees it's inode including all disk space associated with it.

It was determined that orphan files on the OCFS2 cluster file system were responsible for the significant difference between the df and du commands. OCFS2 was leaving some deleted files in the orphan directory (the //orphan_dir name space in OCFS2) after being deleted.

The following article highlights the steps involved in troubleshooting disk space usage on an OCFS2 cluster file system and how to resolve the discrepancy between the df and du commands.

Differences in df and du on Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2) and Orphan Files

In addition, the OCFS2 Tools and Console will be upgraded from version 1.4.3-1 to version 1.4.4-1.

For the purpose of this article, a single OCFS2 file system is configured on a two node Oracle RAC 10g environment to support a shared file system required by Oracle Clusterware (the Oracle cluster registry file and the voting disk).

The full article can be found at:

Upgrading OCFS2 - 1.4

An issue can arise when multiple Oracle RAC clusters with the same CRS cluster name are registered as targets in EM Grid Control. While not causing a problem with the cluster itself, it does cause EM Grid Control to think both clusters are the same.

The following article will explain the steps used to change the EM cluster target name(s) in Grid Control from their default name of "crs" to avoid conflict with other cluster targets. In this article, a new EM cluster target name will be created in EM Grid Control for two Oracle RAC database environments that were registered in EM Grid Control with the same EM cluster target name.

Resolve Duplicate CRS Cluster Name in EM Grid Control - (Grid Control 10g)

Well, consider a scenario where you add a node to the cluster and before the next backup (before 4 hours) you find the OCR has been corrupted. You may have forgotten to create a logical export of the OCR before adding the new node or worse yet, the logical export you took is also corrupt. In either case, you are left with a corrupt OCR and no recent backup. Talk about a bad day! Another possible scenario could be a shell script that wrongly deletes all available backups. Talk about an even worse day.

In the event the OCR is corrupt on one node and all options to recover it have failed, one safe way to re-create the OCR (and consequently the voting disk) is to reinstall the Oracle Clusterware software. In order to accomplish this, a complete outage is required for the entire cluster throughout the duration of the re-install. The Oracle Clusterware software will need to be fully removed, the OCR and voting disks reformatted, all virtual IP addresses (VIPs) de-installed, and a complete reinstall of the Oracle Clusterware software will need to be performed. It should also be noted that any patches that were applied to the original clusterware install will need to be re-applied. As you can see, having a backup of the OCR and voting disk can dramatically simplify the recovery of your system!

A second and much more efficient method used to re-create the OCR (and consequently the voting disk as well) is to re-run the root.sh script from the primary node in the cluster. This is described in Doc ID: 399482.1 on the My Oracle Support web site. The procedures actually call for running the rootdelete.sh and rootdeinstall.sh on all nodes in the cluster before running root.sh. In my opinion, this method is quicker and much less intrusive than reinstalling Oracle Clusterware and the one described in the following article:

Recover Corrupt/Missing Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) with No Backup - (Oracle 10g)

The Oracle Clusterware requires two critical clusterware components: a voting disk to record node membership information and the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) to record cluster configuration information. Both components play an extremely important role in the overall health and availability of the cluster.

The following article provides a detailed look at how to administer the OCR and voting disk using illustrative examples and instructions on how to create a robust backup and recovery strategy. It is intended for DBAs, System Administrators, and Support Engineers tasked with supporting an Oracle RAC 10g environment. The examples described in this guide were tested with Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4) on the Linux x86 platform.

OCR File and Voting Disk Administration by Example - (Oracle 10g)

What if, however, the table contains a LOB column that contains significant unused space? Starting with Oracle 10g R2, Oracle provides a solution that allows users to reclaim LOB space (LOB data and LOB index) and that is the topic of the following recently published article:

Reclaiming Unused LOB Space in Oracle

For an in-depth working example that describes the Fast Connection Failover (FCF) mechanism, please consult the following JDBC Java application:

Using FAN with SQL*Plus in Oracle 11g

I recently published an extension to my article "Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 5.3 / iSCSI)". Contained in this new article are the steps required to add a single node to an already running and configured two-node Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 environment on the CentOS 32-bit (x86) platform. Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 5.3 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Update 3.

The new article can be accessed using the following link:

Add a Node to an Existing Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 Cluster on Linux - (CentOS 5.3 / iSCSI)

As with its predecessor, this article provides detailed instructions on how to build a two-node Oracle RAC system using low cost hardware and freely available software. A network storage server will be built using Openfiler 2.3 (Final) and iSCSI technology which will be used for all shared storage requirements. Powered by rPath Linux, Openfiler is a free browser-based network storage management utility that delivers file-based Network Attached Storage (NAS) and block-based Storage Area Networking (SAN) in a single framework. Openfiler supports CIFS, NFS, HTTP/DAV, FTP, however, I will only be making use of its iSCSI capabilities to implement an inexpensive SAN for the shared storage component required by Oracle RAC 10g.

The newly updated Oracle RAC 10g / iSCSI article can be found at:

Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 5.3 / iSCSI)

This guide assumes you have a working Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 5 environment in place and running.

The new guide can be found at:

Installing Grid Control Management Agent (10.2.0.5)

This class is useful in demonstrating how to fetch integers, floating-point numbers, strings, and dates from a result set and furthermore, how to manipulate and print the data from the database. The example class also demonstrates how to calculate the run time of queries and DML calls (in milliseconds), format dates, and basic exception handling.

The class concludes by dropping the test table and then logging off from the database.

This new Java class can be accessed from the "Java Programming Examples" page which includes many other example Java classes.

From the left topics menu, select "Programming -> Java" and then from the "Java Programming Examples" page, scroll down to "JDBC -> JDBC Example".

You can also use the following URL to access the new Java class directly:

JdbcExample.java

In an attempt to put all of the pieces together to successfully install and configure the latest release of Grid Control (10.2.0.5), I published a step-by-step instruction guide. This guide will walk the reader through setting up the Linux O/S, performing pre-requisite tasks, downloading the required software, installing and patching Grid Control, configuring the newly installed Grid Control environment, and finally how to verify the Grid Control components are working properly.

The configuration will consist of the following components:

• Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 5 - (10.2.0.5)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 - (CentOS 5.3)
• Using an Existing 11g Database for the Management Repository

The newly published article can be found at:

Installing Grid Control (10.2.0.5) on RHEL 5 with 11g Database Repository

The updated article can be found at:

Installing Oracle Database 11g Release 1 on Linux - (RHEL 5)

Oracle Secure Backup provides the ability to perform automatic tape drive cleaning as well as the option to manually clean a tape drive. The following article provides a brief overview of the tape cleaning functionality built into OSB.

Cleaning a Tape Drive using Oracle Secure Backup

Expect more article in the near future on the topic of Oracle Secure Backup. Namely installation and configuration steps in OSB as well as implementing RMAN backup and recovery strategies using the SBT interface of OSB.

To gain a better understanding of how an Oracle database server can make use of an iSCSI target for storage, I put together a brief introduction on how to install and configure an iSCSI Target and an iSCSI Initiator on the Solaris platform.

The iSCSI Initiator software is a built-in package included with the Solaris 10 Operating System. This article will also include instructions on how to configure an iSCSI Target using Openfiler.

The article can be found at:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Unix/Solaris/SOLARIS_ConnectingToAniSCSITargetWithOpen-iSCSIInitiatorUsingSolaris.shtml

To gain a better understanding of how an Oracle database server can make use of an iSCSI target for storage, I put together a brief introduction on how to install and configure an iSCSI Target and an iSCSI Initiator (Open-iSCSI) on the Linux platform.

The Linux Open-iSCSI Initiator is a built-in package included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or later. This article will also include instructions on how to configure an iSCSI Target using Openfiler.

The article can be found at:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Unix/Linux/LINUX_ConnectingToAniSCSITargetWithOpen-iSCSIInitiatorUsingLinux.shtml

Within the next several weeks, I will also publish this same article for configuring the iSCSI Initiator on the Solaris platform.

Over the years, I have published a vast array of Oracle DBA scripts that can be used to manage many aspects of the database including space management, performance, backups, security, and session management. Once the scripts have been put in place, they can be easily run from within SQL*Plus while logged in as a DBA user.

The following article provides a new approach to SQL scripting that allows the Oracle DBA to collect a wide array of metrics and statistics using a single script. This "Snapshot Database" script will contain a collection of useful queries that run as a whole and produce an eye-catching HTML report. The report will contain critical database information including installed options, storage, performance data, and security.

The featured "Snapshot Database" article is available at:

http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Database_Administration/DBA_50.shtml

Currently, I have three separate Snapshot Database scripts available for each major Oracle release (8i, 9i, and 10g). The release for Oracle Database 11g will be released soon.

I recently published an extension to two of my articles:

"Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 4.5 / iSCSI)"

and

"Adding a Node to an Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 Cluster on Linux - (CentOS 4.5 / iSCSI)".

Contained in this new article are the steps required to remove a single node from an already running and configured three-node Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 environment on the CentOS 32-bit (x86) platform. The node being removed is the third node I added in the second article. Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 4.5 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 5.

I recently published an extension to my article "Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (CentOS 4.5 / iSCSI)". Contained in this new article are the steps required to add a single node to an already running and configured two-node Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 environment on the CentOS 32-bit (x86) platform. Although this article was written and tested on CentOS 4.5 Linux, it should work unchanged with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 5.

[oracle@linux1 ~]$ lsnrctl status LISTENER_LINUX1 | grep ASM
Service "+ASM" has 1 instance(s).
  Instance "+ASM1", status BLOCKED, has 1 handler(s) for this service...
Service "+ASM_XPT" has 1 instance(s).
  Instance "+ASM1", status BLOCKED, has 1 handler(s) for this service...

This limitation puts restrictions on scripts and other client tools that want to monitor and manage an ASM instance from a different node. Getting around this restriction, however, is an easy task that involves manually creating a service name for the ASM instance.

This article presents the steps required to access an ASM instance through the TNS listener from a client desktop. The database used in this article is a two-node Oracle RAC 10g clustered database where in fact there will two ASM instances (one ASM instance for each Oracle instance in the cluster). The database version is Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.3.0) running on CentOS 4.5 (or RHEL 4.5).

Included in the article are detailed instructions for installing and configuring the Linux operating system to host the Oracle Database 11g Release 1 software and database. I also incorporated many tips that go beyond just simply installing the software to help newcomers to Oracle Database 11g better manage their database environment.

Included in the article are detailed instructions for installing and configuring the Linux operating system to host the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 software and database. I also incorporated many tips that go beyond just simply installing the software to help newcomers to Oracle Database 10g better manage their database environment.

(For educational purposes only!)

(For educational purposes only!)

SwingBench consists of a load generator, a coordinator and a cluster \ overview. The software enables a load to be generated and the transactions/response times to be charted.

This course book presents - in a succinct and practical fashion - an introduction to more than 120 new features introduced with Oracle Database 10g.

Release 1 and Release 2 features are covered.

(For educational purposes only!)

(For educational purposes only!)