Fuad Arshad's Blog » oracle

Interesting Observation regarding ASH in 10GR2

fuadar — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:16:28 +0000

I was looking thru some reports on a time period when we has Database Contention . I noticed something really Odd in the ASH reports

I have one index that was the top DB Object w.r.t to Db sequential file read. I wanted to move that index to a different tablespace anyway so i rebuilt the table. What i noticed on the ASH report was very interesting

Prior to my Index Rebuild the ASH report

Top DB Objects

With respect to Application, Cluster, User I/O and buffer busy waits only.

Object ID	% Activity	Event	% Event	Object Name (Type)	Tablespace
135617	13.76	db file sequential read	13.71	INDEX1 (INDEX)	X_BPGEN_50M
378375	1.20	enq: TX – row lock contention	1.06	TABLE1 (TABLE)	D_PAT_AL1
86047	1.16	db file sequential read	1.16	TABLE2	D_PAT1

Top DB Files

With respect to Cluster and User I/O events only.

File ID	% Activity	Event	% Event	File Name	Tablespace
124	11.70	db file sequential read	11.54	+DATA02/xyz/datafile/x_bpgen_50m.691.727601609	X_BPGEN_50M
146	2.39	db file sequential read	2.18	+DATA02/xyz/datafile/x_bpgen_50m.550.727596551	X_BPGEN_50M

After the Index Rebuild the ASH Report for the same time period

Top DB Objects

With respect to Application, Cluster, User I/O and buffer busy waits only.

Object ID	% Activity	Event	% Event	Object Name (Type)	Tablespace
135617	13.76	db file sequential read	13.71	INDEX1 (INDEX)	X_MISC_AL
378375	1.20	enq: TX – row lock contention	1.06	TABlE1 (TABLE)	D_PAT_AL1
86047	1.16	db file sequential read	1.16	TABl2	D_PAT1

Top DB Files

With respect to Cluster and User I/O events only.

File ID	% Activity	Event	% Event	File Name	Tablespace
124	11.70	db file sequential read	11.54	+DATA02/xyzdatafile/x_bpgen_50m.691.727601609	X_BPGEN_50M
146	2.39	db file sequential read	2.18	+DATA02/xyzd/datafile/x_bpgen_50m.550.727596551	X_BPGEN_50M

While the Top DB Files remains the same the top DB Objects now has a different table space not because the table space was that at the time of the problem but because it seems oracle is performing a real time query to determine what the current table space this. this can be confusing and misleading since the top db files and the top db objects now no longer match.
Anyone seen this or have any explanation of why Oracle would be doing this.

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Bloggers Meetup 2010

fuadar — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:30:53 +0000

The 2010 Oracle Openworld Blogger Meetup has been announced. Details are here. it was loads of fun last time . Here’s my shirt from last year. Do you still have yours ?.

From The Pythian Blog

When: Wed, 22-Sep-2010, 5:30pm

Where: Lower Dining Room, Jillian’s Billiards @ Metreon, 101 Fourth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.

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Oracle openworld 2010 preparations underway

fuadar — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:03:25 +0000

So Oracle Openworld starts sep 19-23 But the preparation are already underway with the Schedule Builder going Live Yesterday.

The Official HashTag for Openworld 2010 is #oow2010 and @oracleopenworld can¬† be followed to get all the updates.

George Woods has started his yearly Tweeters Attending Blogpost here and i’m not many more resources will popup as OpenWorld Nears.

This Year Oracle OPenworld is expected to¬† be be massive with Java One Also added to the mix.

I am going to be Down in SFO this year and hoping to meet people as well as learn new stuff.

More updates and my schedule as i finish it up .

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Oracle Installer Bug on IBM POWER7 Hardware

fuadar — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:39:35 +0000

Oracle 11.1.0.6 and 11.1.0.7 are impacted with this weird java core dumping bug. This seems to a POWER7 related issues.
MOS Doc id 1065579.1 OUI crash observed with IBM JDK/JRE 1.5 SR4 on AIX when running on the new POWER7 based hardware
details the bug and provide the patch to download and use to resolve this issue.

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Oracle Dataguard broker & CFC Part 2

fuadar — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:28:41 +0000

In an earlier post i mentioned how Oracle Dataguard Broker does not support a cold failover cluster like HACMP. Well turns out Broker can be used on a Cold Failover Cluster.
There are a few simple steps that needs to be followed to make the data broker be able to function.

On the primary

 alter system set local_listener=;

This will ensure that the database knows about the listener that is running on a virtual host name.

After this step is completed Follow the steps in Metalink Doc # 808783.1
I’m listing the steps below

ALTER SYSTEM SET DG_BROKER_START=FALSE;
 SQL> show parameter dg_broker_config_file
--- remove files that are displayed on the primary and the start broker on both the primary and the standby
SQL>ALTER SYSTEM SET DG_BROKER_START=TRUE;

After this connect to Dataguard Manager

DGMGRL>CREATE CONFIGURATION 'DGCONF' AS PRIMARY DATABASE IS 'PROD' CONNECT IDENTIFIER IS PROD;
DGMGRL> ADD DATABASE 'STDBY' AS CONNECT IDENTIFIER IS STDBY MAINTAINED AS PHYSICAL; --or LOGICAL
DGMGRL> ENABLE CONFIGURATION;
-- validate
DGMGRL> SHOW CONFIGURATION;
--Success means all is good

The above commands are from the Metalink Doc above and work perfectly for a CFC . We are now able to failover our clusters and have Dataguard broker work for us to manage our configurations.

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Oracle ASM (Automatic Storage Management) 11.1 with a 10Gr2 database

fuadar — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:37:25 +0000

The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on converting on of my Databases to ASM. As databases grow adding more disk breaks performance if file systems are being used at many levels and to control performance Oracle released ASM which would provide RAW disk performance with dynamic re-balancing. This was precisely one of my use cases. So After performing my due diligence (dev testing) and so forth. I spent the last 3 weeks slowly converting the database to ASM. There were 2 reasons for the slow conversion. one i didnt have the diskto be able to convert it all at once and the second was gettin enough downtime to perform the conversion was a challenge.
Everything went really well till week 3 when the conversion completed . I asked my Sysadmins to give me the last chunk of disk to add to my disk group and executed a power 1 re balance. All went well for 5 days until i got a call from our support informing me of ORA-600[kffmUnlock_3] followed by an instance crash. Instance crash is always something to be worried about but oracle over the years is resilient enough for such issues. The database came up only to crash again in 9 minutes. Why 9 minutes because that was the total time that the re balance operation had left.
Oracle does have a note here that explains the whole situation . There is a apatch but i opted to shutdown the database and allowed te rebal;ance to finish. Since this was the last set of disks for now I’m guessing i will not hit this issues and plan to test the patch and have it in production before then. TIll then i hope all is well for this database.

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Goodbye 2009 and the end of the decade.

fuadar — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:58:26 +0000

The decade that started with the Y2K is finally ending this week. it has been an interesting decade for me with my move from Pakistan to the US in 2001. This decade has brought towards a lot of technological advances including Blogging, tweeting, Qiking/Ustreaming, Boxee and Xbox .

Being an Oracle DBA. Oracle has changed in this decade from 9.2 to Oracle 10 and the promise of a self fixing database. Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and the potential power sharing with the SAN folks. Self tuning Databases in the form of the STA (Sql Tuning Advisor) . Oracle has worked hard toward getting a viable monitoring product that now challenges all the incumbents in the form of Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control. Active Dataguard was built to solve the challenges of Logical Dataguard while offloading backups from the primary systems.

This is also the decade where Oracle decided to make more money from its customers with the concept of a pack. AWR & ADDM which were replacement for Statspack are now the Diagnostic Pack. STA is now part of Tuning Pack. and to blackout a database in Grid Control you need to purchase a diagnostic pack.

The end of the decade also brought forward My Oracle Support (and the demise of our beloved metalink) and 11.2 and Oracle’s Ambition to create a global problem management database that would proactively inform customers of problems based on other people that already had that problem . Oracle had been trying to push OCM for a while now and Larry Demoed the next version of Grid Control at OOW2009 that had this built in.

This decade had brought forward war and promise of change . This Decade brought forward the Iphone , wich for me was the biggest technological feat. Today i am addicted to the iphone even though i was never a Mac fan, My next hardware purchase will probably entail a Mac.

I’ve had the opportunity to work on great new technology and meet and tweet with a great many friends and people that are far more knowledgable than myself. Which is why in ending my new years resolution is to keep myself in technology and keep pusing myself in newer technologies.

What are your resolutions and what was the defining moment / feature in Oracle for you this decade.

Happy New Year to all and Please enjoy JibJab’s Year in review

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

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Copyright and Software License Agreement (Buyer Beware)

fuadar — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:24:03 +0000

——-
I was really baffled today when on moving to a newer laptop i was unable to install Self Test Software for 10g that i have had for a number of years . I have liked some of the content and have used it for reference when needed. Today when i transferred stuff to my new laptop i was unable to activate a product that i paid for .
The customer Service rep politely pointed me to the software license agreement that apparently i had accepted in 2006 when i bought the product.
The License agreement states

“The term of this Agreement begins upon installation of this Software and shall terminate 3 years from the date of purchase. STS reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if you violate any provision of this Agreement. If the Agreement is terminated for any reason, you agree immediately to return to STS all copies of this Software and all accompanying items. ”

SO even though i own a piece i dont own it because it was only given to me for 3 years. While i agree to most people Oracle 10g test questions might not be valid after 3 years but i feel that i should own a product and have the right to use it if i paid for it . The Company can desupport the product but it should be on the discretion of the customer as to when he stops using it.
Just a Buyer Beware rant on software licensing agreements.

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Pictures from Openworld 2009

fuadar — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:09:38 +0000

Just thought I’d share some of the pictures from openworld

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Using EMC Clones and IBM ESS FlashCopy to Backup your Database

fuadar — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:37:06 +0000

Lets Face it. Todays Databases are getting bigger and bigger and backups not only are painfully long depending on the methodology you are using but also can cause performance issues. While Oracle has allowed for various methodologies including Backing up from the Physical Standby and now IN 11.2 the introduction of Change tracking file compatibility for incremental backups with Active Dataguard. Companies that like Hardware solution also have a choice of using products like EMC Clones or IBM Flashcopy . TO use either of these the Frame must be an EMC or IBM Frame. These copies can be mounted onto a seperate host and Full backups can be offloaded to tape as well as a Local DR copy split to account for various errors.

Metalink Doc id #302615.1 provides and excellent overview of How to Use Rman with Split Mirror Technology.

This Document by EMC and Oracle also provides and excellent overview. While Old The concepts still hold true in Oracle 10 and 11.

I have had the oppurtunity to test the solution as well as perform extensive recovery testing to ensure the solution works

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