Thursday, May 29, 2008

RMAN DUPLICATE - automatic temp files recreation

As part of our 10g upgrade project, we are testing our existing RMAN scripts, especially the DUPLICATE command that we use to clone databases. In one my previous posts, i have already outlined the procedure to clone a database using the DUPLICATE command.

It works fine in 10g too; however, an added benefit in this release is that it recreates the temp files automatically. The temp files for the destination database will be created in the directory specified by the DB_FILE_NAME_CONVERT parameter with file names and file sizes similar to the source database. This eliminates the manual recreation of the temp files after every database clone performed with the DUPLICATE command.

With this new feature in 10g (specifically it is an Oracle 10g R2 new feature) the DUPLICATE command eliminates one more manual step performed during the database cloning process.

Monday, May 19, 2008

How to become an Oracle DBA

I was on a vacation for three weeks in April and hence could not blog since more than a month. We are also currently busy upgrading our E-Business Suite 11.5.10.2 on 9.2.0.6 database veresion to 10g R2 version and also completing Linux Migrations of the rest of the Oracle systems that we have here. The upgrade is still in the development phase and we are planning to golive in July this year. We are all very excited about the upgrade especially because of all the goodies and new features that come with 10g release. So far the upgrade looks smooth that but i will post my experiences with issues (if any) once we are ready to GOLIVE.

Yesterday i got an email from a regular visitor of my blog who happens to be a fresh computer science engineering major and he wanted to know how can be become a good Oracle DBA with no prior experience.

One has to start with a Professional training course in Database Administration. I recommend DBA University courses. Learning by oneself is also a good idea especially if one is a computer science major already because one picks up RDBMS concepts in college usually. I recommend getting trained with Oracle Real Applications Clusters (RAC) directly. A useful book that i came across is the 'Personal Real Application Clusters' . This book is from Rampant Press (well known for their specialized Oracle concentration). Though i did not go through the book, the topics and chapter look quite interesting.

It will be a very good experience setting up your own personal RAC system. The industry is converting more and more Oracle single instances into multi node clusters (Real Application Clusters) for high availability and scalability. The favorite platform for RAC is Linux and of course it will be become the platform of the future. The book seems to be a good handbook for building your own Oracle RAC on Linux Platform easily and in a cost effective manner. Increased confidence and a sense of accomplishment will be the result of this exercise.