Saturday, October 27, 2007

Default Profile Changes in 11g.. Upgrade issue and Make A Wish...

A possible upgrade issue when you upgrade to Oracle Database 11g will be a change to the default profile setting for password_life_time. This parameter used to default to unlimited. In Oracle Database 11g it now defaults to a value of 180. The implication is that after your 11g upgrade, passwords will start expiring. You will want to be prepared for that and either change this default setting or prepare to deal with it's implications.

You will note the addition of the Make a Wish Foundation to my blog. Next to my church, this is my favorite charity. I hope you will join me in supporting the Make A Wish Foundation. I think they do fantastic things for children who are are going through very tough experiences.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A change from 10g to 11g... a short blog entry...

It's been so busy of late and the blog has suffered.... I thought I'd throw in a quick 11g related change...

EDIT: To avoid confusion, when I say OEM in the context of this post, I'm talking about Oracle Database Control, NOT Grid Control. I have NOT checked if the following is true for Oracle Grid Control. - Thanks!! RF

If you are using OEM in 10g, you will notice a slight change when you move to 11g. If your URL in 10g is something like this:

http://mymachine.com:5501/em

you will see that it changes to:

https://mymachine.com:5501/em

Note that Oracle Database 11g has changed to using secured HTML pages with OEM. So, after installing and upgrading to 11g, you will need to change any bookmarks to using https instead of http.

More on 11g soon...!!!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

It's done!!

Well, I just finished up the 11g New Features title, it's done and on it's way to the printer! If everything works out right, we will have books for OpenWorld!! Woot!

I'll be at OpenWorld next month. Oracle Press is doing an author meet and greet. I'll be there on the 14th of Nov (thats Wednesday). I don't know who else will be there (they will have a number of authors at these meet and greets) but I hope if you have a moment you will stop by and just say hi!

It's a little late tonight and I'm beat, but I wanted to let you all know the book is done. I'll be speaking in Omaha next week on 11g, my first presentation on the subject!

I'll have another Oracle Database 11g New Feature for you sometime very soon, stay tuned!!

Friday, October 05, 2007

Oracle 11g - Snapshot Database

Oracle Database 11g...
What's in your server?

Greetings fellow DBA types. Here is another Oracle Database 11g New Feature, one in particular that I think is quite exciting, Snapshot Databases...

We take you into the bowels of a IT Shop where a conversation is just beginning...

(by the way, I love developers.... I really do. I'm just having fun with you if you are one!)

Developer: Hey DBA! We need to add an index!

DBA: Woops... the test database is being used for testing and I can't change anything now, so we can't test this new index.

Developer: Well, production is in a bad way, users are complaining and your job is on the line, we need to add this index. Do it or I call the boss, and you know he will tell you to do it, because everyone listens to developers and no one listens to DBA's. Of course, if the index does not work, they will blame you, not me!

DBA: Wait! I have an idea! We are using 11g, and our test database has a standby database! We can use Oracle's Snapshot Database!

Developer (stupid look on his face): What?? What is that??

DBA: A great new feature. I can make changes to our standby database like adding your index... we can test the changes, even changing data and the like. Then, just like magic, I flash the thing back and restart the capture process just like nothing happened.

Developer (still not quite understanding, but feinting that he does): WOW! What an amazing feature!

DBA: Yes, and now Oracle gives us easy commands to do this! I simply put the standby database in snapshot mode:

alter database convert to snapshot standby;

Then we add your index, and we test away. Once we are done I can revert the database back to a physical standby database:

alter database convert to physical standby;

and thats it, it's now a standby database again with all the changes, including the new index, rolled back and the redo being applied again from the main database!

Developer (lost, blank look... truly he does not understand): AMAZING! You DBA's have it made.

DBA: Yep!!

Yes, Oracle Snapshot Standby .... Coming in Oracle Database 11g. What's in your Server?

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

11g - OEM Secure Mode

As I was finishing off my writing on the Oracle Database 11g New Features book I came across this little gem that does not seem well documented. It appears that when you create the OEM repository now with emca, it creates it in what is called "secure mode". This means that there is an encryption key file created that is associated with the repositories encrypted data. Also during an upgrade Oracle will encrypt the existing repository for you. Oracle is so helpful!

The key file is called emkey.ora. It is located in the following directories:
  • For single instance databases:

    ORACLE_HOME/_/emkey.ora
  • For Oracle RAC databases:

    ORACLE_HOME/_/emkey.ora
Needless to say, this adds one more file to your backup strategy. Hopefully you already have OS level backups of $ORACLE_HOME occurring now, so you would be covered. Of course, the other option is to just drop and re-create your OEM repository after restoring your database, if the emkey.ora file was lost too.

However, this does not seem well documented, and I can't find anywhere that seems to describe what "secure mode" actually is.

Oracle Database 11g New Features is coming soon!! We are in the final stage before it goes to the printer (it's called page proofs). The book should be out in time for OOW!

End of line...... (for now)
 
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