a day in the life
A blog post in the classic retro style of 'Dear Diary'. Stay tuned next week for relationship woes, football reports, psychotherapy, unexpunged details on my health, teenage angst, my current mood, the music I am listening to and why I am going to be quiet for the next 13 days.
Or, as Mark E. Smith of The Fall, once said to requests for 'Bingo Masters Breakout'
'Are you still doing what you did 5 years ago ?'
'Yeah - well don't make a career out of it.'
Stagger downstairs for breakfast to find an early morning problem. The Virgin Media V+ box has rebooted overnight only it didn't reboot cleanly and is stuck on the 'Powering up' screen.
Norman Junior III and Norma Jean have already initiated a disaster recovery plan and are glued to the standby database (2nd STB).
This is a major worry as the TV must be working by 19:45 tonight otherwise I face the prospect of watching AC Milan vs MUFC in the pub with a load of ABU's (Anyone But United). Politely ask the wife if she can call '150' to try to get it sorted.
Drive to Oracle's offices in Thames Valley Park near Reading. I have done a lot of commuting to customer sites recently but I can't work at home today as I am too nervous. In addition, my wife is also at home and I need to get some work done (rather than mow the lawn, take a tempting lunch in a sunny beer garden or diagnose a faulty smoke alarm).
Listen to TalkSport who are dissecting last night's game between Chelsea and Liverpool. My abiding memory of 120 minutes of tedious football is a fat Scouser holding 6 fingers up and another holding aloft a plastic European Cup.
Plastic Scousers. Plastic treble.
Power the laptop up and yesterday's mysterious Windows warning message 'You may have been a subject of counterfeiting' has disappeared as miraculously as it appeared.
Sign into Oracle Instant Chat. I am making a conscious effort to use this tool more regularly and more effectively.
Check email using Thunderbird. Nothing too important. A colleague is asking for help with a Siebel query from hell that runs fast in UAT and, wait for it, slow in production. The query plan and costs are almost identical so the solution isn't immediately obvious. Offer a couple of suggestions (check data volumes, check statistics and histograms, 10053 trace, Alert 1162).
Quick scan of RSS feeds using Google Reader. Couple of quick blog posts about 'Leeds, Leeds, Leeds' and contaminated curry.
Update document following a comprehensive and thorough peer review. Deliver final document to account manager. Add a couple of useful notes to TiddlyWiki: Metalink Note 391116.1 (10.2.0.3 Release Notes) and bug 5131645 (high parse times in Oracle 10.1.0.4).
Microsoft Word livens the morning up by crashing as I click 'Save' for the last time. I am not sure what the question is but I am convinced Microsoft Word is not the answer. I loathe the program with a vengeance.
During the Siebel takeover, rumours were rife that Oracle do not use any Microsoft products at all. This was supposedly because Larry Ellison steadfastly refused to pay Bill Gates a single cent in license revenues.
Guess what - this didn't prove to be the case. Most desktops and laptops at Oracle run Windows XP preloaded with Microsoft Office. However, Oracle do use open standards so employees are free to use the email client of their choice. Oracle also provide software (Oracle Connector) to provide an email interface from Microsoft Outlook to accommodate the sales and marketing department.
Update a second document. This is a much shorter document (site visit report) with thankfully fewer comments and corrections.
Book flights to Oslo using the online travel system for next two weeks. I get an 'Exception Report' because I booked a slightly more expensive direct flight rather than going via Amsterdam and arriving 3 hours later.
I am going to Norway on a 'deep dive' but I have subsequently learned this is a technical training exercise run by, err, me to provide knowledge transfer and actually perform some real-life data migration with a Siebel integrator rather than scuba diving. I have visited this customer before and they specifically asked for me to return which was a welcome compliment.
Return the favour by reviewing a colleague's document (yes I do read and write a lot of words in my job). He scratches my back and I scratch his even though it is a little hairy for my taste.
It is now 11:40 and I suddenly realise I have forgotten to turn my mobile phone on. 2 messages. The first is a scary, schizophrenic, psychotic madman saying in a dull, menacing monotone 'Get some bloody work done'. This unsettles me so much I think it is a Leeds fan, my manager or a disgruntled Web 2.0 'A' lister and I immediately consider turning the phone off again.
I also have two text messages and a voicemail from my lovely wife, Norma. 'TV not working. Phone now broken. InterWeb down. Virgin man coming. Call me'. This is serious - a complete and catastrophic loss of digital services. On the night of the European Cup semi-final.
Then I remember. The phone line was very crackly last night so the 'Get some work done' message was a test message from myself to myself. Phew. I am not being stalked after all.
Resume document review.
Interrupted by a call from Frank, the Virgin Media engineer. He is initially puzzled by my professional business-like greeting: 'Norman Brightside - Oracle Expert Services. How may I help you grow your business ?'
Frank is in his white van, en route to my house and calls me to clarify which services are working. He wondered if all services are down and whether some idiot had been doing some overzealous gardening and simply severed the cable.
I tell him that I am at work but my wife is at home and she reports that the second TV is still working. I inform him that the last time I did any gardening was September 1991 but I do possess an axe.
Once again, I stress the importance of the main TV being functional by 19:45 for the most important match of the season. He roars with laughter and replies he is a very happy Liverpudlian and understands the importance of the task. I gently enquire whether his tools are made of plastic. He roars with laughter and holds 6 fingers up (which I can't see).
I work in building 550 alongside a group called 'License Renewals' who just do what it says on the tin. The people working here probably bring more revenue into the company during a single telephone call than I do in a calendar year.
Then I call the wife and tell her to prepare the metal shackles and heavy chains. I suggest that she deflates the tyres on Frank's van while claiming to be making him a lovely cup of coffee.
Back to the document review. This is a very detailed review about tuning Siebel data loads on Oracle 10g. A excellent, comprehensive document packed with technical information and useful strategies. Make a mental note to plagiarise most of this material and claim the credit for myself.
Norma calls again. Frank has fixed the V+ box already. This is absolutely amazing customer service. What on earth is going on at Virgin Media ? A engineer onsite within 2 hours of the call and he has already fixed the first problem.
Frank has also noted some error codes on the diagnostics screen and offers to replace the V+ box. Before he does so, he wants to ensure I am happy to re-enter my 'Planned Recordings' which will be lost. I tell him to swap the box and I will reluctantly re-program 'Relocation, Relocation, Relocation', 'American Idol' and 'Dragon's Den'.
Skip lunch in favour of water as I have 4 stone of blubber to sustain myself.
Stop procrastinating and embark on 4 weeks worth of expenses. A tedious, unbelievably time-consuming but necessary task involving lots of receipts, paper jams, printing, sellotape, envelopes and photocopying.
Courtesy call to customer I am visiting tomorrow (LoadRunner performance testing which is normally great fun).
Wife calls. Our hero, Frank, has now resolved the issue with the telephone line. Apparently, water had damaged one set of cables so he has re-routed to use the second set. The root cause remains unknown. Frank suspects the ongoing building work outside which seems a likely candidate although, confusingly, he agrees the builders have not interfered with the cables from the road to the house.
Finally prepare to leave office. Need to allow extra contingency of 3 hours to allow for traffic delays, earthquakes, road rage attacks, acts of God, or M3 lane closures that could prevent me getting back to my armchair before 19:45.
Everything was just going too well. Inevitably, fate suddenly dealt me a cruel and unexpected card. I was thwarted by a schoolboy error. In my rush, I foolishly fed a hotel bill together with a stapled credit card receipt into the office photocopier. The inevitable paper jam (Lift tray 3, turn green knob, release paper jam) meant lengthy and serious internal surgery. By the time, I finally extracted the bill, it was in 73 separate pieces. So was the photocopier. So was I.
I called the delightful Malmaison hotel in Oxford to ask for a copy of my bill. Thankfully, for once, technology came to my rescue. The kind lady faxed the bill directly to my office extension and it miraculously appeared in my Inbox as a TIF attachment. I noted that the Malmaison bill is headed 'DAMAGE'. Pretentious, moi ?
Conference call with customer about clustering and high availability options for Siebel.
Finally, the expenses are submitted, the ToDo list and the Inbox are both empty and I am free to go home. I pick up my complimentary copy of Oracle Scene on the way out. Yet another perk of working for Oracle. At least, I hope it's complimentary.
With no more distractions, the nerves, the tension, the excitement and the sense of anticipation slowly continue to build.
attention all Oracle bloggers
Dust off that blogroll. Highlight your best technical posts. Update that photo in the 'About' tab. Polish the colours on your theme. Prime the hit counter and prepare for an invasion from the Web 2.0 'A' listers.
Justin Kestelyn (Oracle Technical Network) sparked some an interesting and though provoking discussion when he puzzled over the relatively low profile of Oracle Corporation in the Web 2.0 community.
Robert Scoble picked up the thread (twice) and there are some interesting comments. Certainly, I'd love to see a Scoble podcast from Oracle Corporation.
I don't know enough about what Oracle's rivals (IBM, Sun, HP, SAP, Siebel) are doing out there in the blogging community or how these companies are perceived by the Web 2.0 community to know whether Oracle is hard done by.
That said, a couple of points on Justin's original post
'Oracle's aggressive support of blogging'As an Oracle employee, while Oracle encourages and supports the blogging efforts of both employees and non-employees I think 'aggressive' is probably overstating the case. For example, Oracle don't offer a hosted blogging platform for aspiring authors merely a listing in a (albeit high profile) directory.
' rather large blogging community'For a company of 70,000 employees worldwide, does a blogroll containing 61 employee blogs, 10 executive blogs and 100 blogs from technical users truly constitute a 'large blogging community' ?
It would be interesting to know how the number (in percentage terms) of Microsoft and Google employees actively blogging compares with Oracle.
I am an Oracle employee and I have a neglected (internal eyes only) corporate blog only and this blog for my own personal outpourings. I have also occasionally toyed with the idea of applying for a corporate blog. However, to date, I have always resisted this temptation because although I am positive that a listing on blogs.oracle.com would drive a lot of traffic and boost my ego, maintaining a corporate blog carries a great deal of responsibility.
I am not referring to the Oracle guidelines governing content on a corporate sanctioned blog as these are common sense and perfectly reasonable. In fact, I am already obliged to abide by those guidelines here on this personal blog.
Authoring an 'official' Oracle blog would immediately create a wealth of (self-imposed) pressure on me to maintain that blog and keep adding technical, well researched, accurate, interesting and valuable content.
In my current role, I spend most of my working time working for customers. I simply do not have the spare time to spend maintaining a corporate blog.
'Or maybe I shouldn't even care !'Justin's closing paragraph is interesting. I am an Oracle employee and I also hold Oracle stock. Consequently, I am more concerned with Oracle product development and the stock price than how many engineers are blogging this week and whether Oracle have been invited to participate or host the latest 'Lunch 2.0'.
the sole responsibility of a production Oracle DBA
Many years ago, I managed a set of Oracle databases for various clients.
However, I was not an Oracle DBA. I was an Unix/C developer who happened to progress to Pro*C, PL/SQL and some ETL projects for data warehouses.
I was an mediocre development DBA because I was a mediocre developer and I had a keen interest in performance tuning i.e. I was (am remain) a 'glory hunter'.
I was not a production DBA because I didn't have the training, experience and discipline required for change controls and saying 'No'.
One day, the CEO of our 18 man Internet startup asked me to deliver a short presentation to the rest of the company what my team (me and my junior) did all day.
I put up a slide that said:
- Data Availability
- Data Availability
- Data Availability
Ironically, this wasn't what we did which was covered on the next 34 slides. We did absolutely everything: fixing code, reloading data, backups, analysis, ETL, extracts, PL/SQL, performance tuning, long hours, recovery, testing, code reviews, cloning, documentation, nervous breakdowns, monitoring, upgrades, configuration management, severed relationships, recruitment, management and coffee.
However, data availability is precisely the only thing we should have been doing.
Data availability is the sole responsibility of an Oracle production DBA.
It is to ensure that data is available at all times to all users.
It is not to tune queries from 37 seconds to sub-second.
It is not to experiment with parallel query and parallel DML to tune a third party application.
It is not to ensure that you can clone 'ALL_OBJECTS' in less than 17 seconds.
It is not to ensure you can load 184 million records in 72 hours.
It is to ensure that you can restore data from a catastrophic failure.
It is to ensure you can restore service following an expected failure.
It is to ensure you can restore from the backups deposited in secure off-site storage.
It is to ensure that the file system holding the archive logs never fills up.
It is to ensure that you can have a coherent plan to restore service after any unexpected event.
It is to ensure that you take responsibility and say 'Yes. That is down to me'.
Top Of The (Oracle) Blogs
Oracle blogs I read by Technorati ranking. Cue Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love'.- Life After Coffee - Jon Emmons - Rank: 18,499 (405 links from 190 blogs)
- The Tom Kyte Blog - Tom Kyte - Rank: 24,521 (345 links from 145 blogs)
- Oracle BI and DW - Mark Rittman - Rank: 31,939 (458 links from 112 blogs)
- Oracle Scratchpad - Jonathan Lewis - Rank: 44,328 (242 links from 83 blogs)
- Eddie Awad's Blog - Eddie Awad - Rank: 60,122 (175 links from 62 blogs)
- Doug's Oracle Blog - Doug Burns - Rank: 83,319 (216 links from 46 blogs)
- Kevin Closson's Oracle Blog - Kevin Closson - Rank: 87,506 (100 links from 44 blogs)
- The Oracle Sponge - David Aldridge - Rank: 102,376 (72 links from 38 blogs)
- The Oracle-Base Blog - Tim Hall - Rank: 112,139 (57 links from 35 blogs)
- So What Co-Operative - Jeff Hunter - Rank: 154,372 (62 links from 26 blogs)
- Pete-s Random Notes - Peter Scott - Rank: 161,008 (92 links from 25 blogs)
- Radio Free Tooting - Andrew Clarke - Rank: 168,201 (70 links from 24 blogs)
- Oracle 10g Blog - Chris Foot - Rank: 168,201 (51 links from 24 blogs)
- Oracle WTF - William Robertson - Rank: 194,372 (70 links from 21 blogs)
- Dizwell Informatics - Howard Rogers - Rank: 194,372 (61 links from 21 blogs)
- OracleBlog - Robert Vollman - Rank: 194,372 (44 links from 21 blogs)
- Oracle Stuff I should have known - Andy Campbell - Rank TBD (55 links from X blogs)
- We Do Not Use Blogs - Mogens Norgaard - Rank: 259,194 (26 links from 16 blogs)
- Laurent Schneider OCM - Laurent Schneider - Rank: 322,022 (176 links from 13 blogs)
- Oracle Newbies Blog - Lisa Dobson - Rank: 322,022 (29 links from 13 blogs)
- OraMoss Oracle - Jeff Moss - Rank: 347,530 (150 links from 12 blogs)
- Confessions of a database geek - Beth - Rank: 347,530 (32 links from 12 blogs)
- Oracle Alchemist - Steve Karam - Rank: 413,015 (13 links from 10 blogs)
- The Eric S. Emrick Blog - Eric Emrick - Rank: 413,015 (12 links from 10 blogs)
- Oracleoid Blog - Alex Gorbachev - Rank: 656,741 (27 links from 6 blogs)
- BobaBlog - Robert Baillie - Rank: 656,741 (7 links from 6 blogs)
- Igor's Oracle Lab - Gary Myers - Rank: 766,996 (6 links from 5 blogs)
- DBA's R US - Nuno Souto - Rank: 1,220,048 (11 links from 3 blogs)
- Optimal DBA - Daniel Fink - Rank: 1,220,048 (11 links from 3 blogs)
- Oracle on Windows - Edward Whalen - Rank: 1,724,033 (3 links from 2 blogs)
porting Drupal to Oracle and DB2
A couple of interesting papers discussing the portability issues and challenges involved when trying to port Drupal to the freely available versions of Oracle and DB2.