Pythian Group

Pythian is very excited to return to the much-awaited RMOUG 12 held in Denver, Colorado from February 14-16, 2012. Keep your eyes open for Alex Gorbachev, Marc Fielding, Don Seiler and Gwen Shapira in attendance. We have a fantastic line-up of speakers this year featuring a total of seven papers presented by Alex, Marc, Don and Gwen. If you have any feedback on our sessions, please send your comments directly to the speaker or to Vanessa Simmons, Pythian Director of Marketing. Please also follow this link to sign up to receive notice of future speaking engagements, webinars or Pythian news.

Be sure to stop by our booth (#3,6,7,10) to say hello to our friends from the OakTable Network, and enter our draw to win the new Amazon Kindle with software provided by Cary Millsap (MR-Trace, MR-Tools & Method-R Profiler) and a pack of digital e-book downloads courtesy of Apress. Also slated is the RAC Attack workshop, which was first offered at Oracle Open World and UKOUG, and is now in its second year at RMOUG. Pythian is co-sponsoring this event with Apress and it’s a fun and informative way to learn from our experts how and when to properly build a RAC environment.

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The 2012 edition of RMOUG Training Days in Denver less than a month away, running February 15 and 16 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. Although it’s only two days, there’s a lot of technical content there, and a refreshing reduction in marketing-oriented presentations from “product managers”. It’s not too late to register, and it’s a pretty nice excuse to get to the Rockies in ski season. I’ll be doing two presentations, and am polishing up whitepapers and presentations for the submission deadline tomorrow:

• Exadata I/O Resource Manager: Ideal Technology for Database Consolidation, Wednesday 1:15pm in room 4B
• Peering Through the Cloud: The Straight Goods on Oracle Exalogic, directly after, Wednesday 4pm in room 4C

They’re right after each other in the grid, but I do get a short break for the dedicated exhibit hall time and paid vendor presentations (yes there are still a few; they have to pay the bills somehow).
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For the final day of UKOUG there are quite a few Pythian presentations. Unfortunately a lot of them happen at the same time, so it won’t be possible to attend them all live.

Using Oracle GoldenGate to Minimize Database Upgrade Risk

10:10, Media Suite
Marc Fielding

Even the best-planned database upgrades can leave nagging questions: what happens if my upgraded system performs unexpectedly? Is there a way I can go back to the previous version without downtime and data loss? Oracle GoldenGate allows DBAs to give affirmative answers to these questions. Drawing on upgrade experiences ranging from mid-sized databases to a large 10TB 90-CPU OLTP system, this session will show how to optimally configure Oracle GoldenGate, minimize downtime, maximize replication performance, and integrate Oracle GoldenGate into existing infrastructure such as Oracle ASM and storage-based replication.

Learn the various deployment scenarios where GoldenGate can minimize upgrade risk and delivery business value. Find out how GoldenGate can help not only during the upgrade, but after the upgrade as well. Learn how to use GoldenGate in medium- and high-volume environments. See real-world, tested GoldenGate configurations. Find out lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid.

The Answer to Free Memory Swap and Everything

10:10, Hall 8A
Christo Kutrovsky

Do I have enough memory? Why is my free memory so low? Am I swapping to disk? Can I increase my SGA (db cache) size? Can I add another instance to this server? Are my system resources used optimally? These are all questions that often haunt DBAs. This presentation is The Answer. It covers in detail the different types of memory, how to monitor memory, and how to optimally use it with Oracle. Multiple examples in the presentation demonstrate how certain actions on the database side cause different memory areas to be allocated and used on the OS side. Key underlying differences in operating systems approaches to managing memory will be highlighted, with special attention given to Linux and Solaris. Using Linux as an example throughout, this presentation explains how to effectively use tools such as “top”, “vmstat” and “/proc/meminfo” to look into into a system’s allocation and use of memory.

Amazon RDS, EC2 and S3 for Oracle Databases

11:20am, Hall 10B
Alex Gorbachev

This technical session focuses on specific recommendations and guidelines for leveraging the Amazon Web Services platform to host Oracle databases. We will looks into traditional database hosting using EC2 platform as well as recently introduced Amazon RDS on Oracle. We will look into how to configure, provision, backup, restore, monitor, and secure your databases in AWS. We will also look on how you can leverage S3 cloud storage for hybrid cloud deployments, particularly for backup and archival storage.

Backup and Recovery Roundtable

11:20am, Roundtable Area
Michael Abbey

A discussion of backup and recovery technology, problems and solutions. We will poll the attendees for an agenda on the day and proceed with an informal discussion not limited to:

RMAN, OSB, Sans, Data Guard backups, RAC backups and other topics of interest.

Concurrent Processing Performance Analysis for Apps DBAs

2:25pm, Hall 10B
Maris Elsins

Concurrent processing is one of the key elements of Oracle E-Business Suite, that’s used by most of modules for scheduling and processing background jobs. Keeping this functionality healthy is important to get maximum performance out of it. The paper describes the key metrics to estimate the performance of the concurrent managers, discusses approaches and techniques that can be used to understand how well the concurrent processing is set up, what are the bottlenecks and delays in processing of concurrent requests and provides tips on how to deal with each of the identified problem. This paper is targeted for Oracle Applications DBAs and technical consultants.

On tap for Tuesday is a 2-hour master class from Michael Abbey, along with an all-day drop-in RAC attack workshop with Alex Gorbachev and the RAC SIG.

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For those of you attending UKOUG today, there is a healthy dose of Pythian presentations on tap this afternoon. Actually, you can do it wall to wall 2:30pm to 6:30pm if you like.

To note:
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(editor’s note: the author is talking about UKOUG, the UK’s major Oracle conference, happening this week in Birmingham)

And so it should be :). The flight over was uneventful, save for my excitement about having 3 seats to myself. Then the big challenge surfaced … a 5’8″ human trying to recline in a 4’10″ horizontal surface. I woke about a bit later with a stiff neck but the shut-eye was worth it.
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A mere 1 week until one of the treats of the year … off to Birmingham for the UKOUG show Monday the 5th through the 7th. My third time at this show and it was quite a treat each time. Brighton 1992 was my first voyage to the Mother Land and I was fascinated. I especially appreciated the painting on the crosswalks that reminded one to look right too before leaving the curb.  We stayed at the Metropole which was beside the Grand. There were small remnants visible in the front of the concrete that made up the facade of the Grand … October 12 1984 and thankfully Maggie (aka The Iron Lady) was ok after a bomb went off. October 1984 I was just getting started with Oracle (yes I first saw it when I was 8 :)).

My first venture into Europe was followed by a bevvy of trips into the continent in 1993, 1994, and 1995, ending up at the EOUG in Florence Italy where I gave a handful of papers. My presentations in Vienna in 1994 were a real eye-opener. Never before did I realize how quickly I speak and how poorly I tend to enunciate. Not until I had the opportunity to present to non English-language native attendees did I realize I had to slow down, speak clearly, and avoid idioms and colloquialisms.

As the mid 1990′s gave way to the soon-to-be new century, the Oracle tech space was teeming with techies and I had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with early gurus such as Lewis (yes JL … none other), Niemiec, Millsap, Shallahamer, and Ellis. You could not go to the corner store without bumping into one of these techs. I have had the pleasure of giving more than 100 presentations over the past 22 years and keynoting for a handful of user group events in North America.

One of my first adventures into keynoting was a closing session at user group day which happens Sunday before Oracle Open World starts. I discussed little known facts about Oracle, the software we have come to know and love; for example:

1. There was once a time when Oracle had 2 versions of their server offering … one for the VAX cluster and the other for all other platforms. In early 1990′s, the version of the former was at 6.2 whereas the latter still at 6.0. Around the time 6.0.34 was released, Oracle “married” the 2 versions into something like 6.0.36. Thus the VAX cluster install base got the pleasure of upgrading from 6.2 to 6.0.
2. The terminal release of a very popular SQL*Forms 2 was called 2.3. A while after 2.3 came out, there was a major new release called 3.0. The user community was informed that they should upgrade to 3.0 as soon as possible as 2.3 was the terminal release. Quite some time after 2.3 was discontinued, the Applications customers noticed they were running an as-of-yet unheard of release called 2.4.
3. Oracle V6 was released in 1988 and had an add-on called TPO (transaction processing option). It contained, amongst other things, a procedural extension called PL/SQL. A few years after V6 hit the streets, Oracle realized Pl/SQL was the answer to the implementation of stored objects that appeared with Oracle7. TPO was retired and PL/SQL bundled with Orace7 at no extra charge.
4. The foundation of the PL/SQL implementation was (and still may be) for many yearsa handful of packages called PIDL, DIUTIL, STANDARD, and DIANA. Ok, who was Diana? As it turns out it was an acronym, of which the first “A” stood for “Ada”. Ada was used primarily by the US Department of Defence DoD), an extension of Pascal and a plethora of other languages used by DoD.
5. SCOTT/TIGER? Bruce Scott, an early developer at Oracle had a cat named Tiger.

I anticipate seeing people from all over the continent at UKOUG. The attendance over the past few years has been growing and nothing short of astounding. I am giving two papers at the show … one on a dear friend of us all called rman and the other on a close second … the physical standby. For me, even in the midst of emerging technology solutions, there’s still nothing like the old-fashioned Oracle CORE database arena.

Pythian continues to have a busy quarter with events right up to the end of the 2011 calendar year.

If you happened to miss us at a past event, email events@pythian.com to reconnect or request a copy of the any of the presentations we’ve made through 2011 or earlier.

Live events

• Ottawa, ON – Nov. 16, 2011 – The HRPA presents it’s 2011/2012 CEO Dinner series and kicks off the season with a rare appearance by Pythian CEO Andrew Waitman speaking with his unique insight on “Perspectives on Business Success and The Critical Role of HR”. If you missed this rare opportunity to hear Andrew and are interested in the subject, reach out to us to connect with him.
• Birmingham, UK – Dec. 5-7th, 2011 – Find Pythian experts at the UKOUG’s Annual User Group Conference. Founder Paul Vallee will be in attendance, along with our sales and local UK team members. Catch sessions by:
• Alex Gorbachev: Database I/O Performance, Measurement, Planning & Amazon RDS, EC2 and S3 for Oracle Databases
• Christo Kutrovsky: Oracle Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression – Leveraging it Fully
• Marc Fielding: Oracle Exadata I/O Resource Management, Ideal Technology for Consolidation
• Maris Elsins: Concurrent Processing Performance Analysis for Apps DBAs
• Michael Abbey: RMAN Setup Best Practices & Using a Physical Standby to Minimize Downtime for Database Release or Server Change

To meet with Pythian at UKOUG send a note to us.

Web events

• Nov. 2011 – Movember Campaign: Team Pythian, both individually and collectively are adding to the “mo”mentum of the Movember “mo”vement in support of men’s health issues. Go Mo’s go!
• Nov. 22, 2011 – “Register – Introducing Oracle Database Appliance with Alex Gorbachev“
• Nov. 23, 2011 – “Register – Under the Hood of Oracle ASM – Fault Tolerance with Alex Gorbachev“
• Nov. 30, 2011 – “Register – Peering Through The Cloud – The Straight Goods on Oracle Exalogic with Marc Fielding“

Watch for Pythian across North America presenting our experience with Oracle Database Appliance in various cities and at various user group and local Oracle events in conjunction with your Oracle field sales team. If you missed us recently at TOUG, and NoCOUG – send us a note at oda@pythian.com and we’ll share our beta experience and details of the free migration offer we announced at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 where Pythian will upgrade or migrate you to ODA free of charge. Get all of your ODA questions answered candidly by our expert team, and learn how to take advantage of all Oracle Database Appliance has to offer and get upgraded to Oracle Database 11g in the process.

While Oracle OpenWorld is still hot in our memories, I’m going to be presenting two of my OOW11 sessions at the Toronto Oracle User Group’s DD Day 2011 on 28-Oct-2011 — in just a bit over 2 weeks. Last time I presented for TOUG at their summer meeting in 2008 which makes it a tad over 3 years ago. It was a good fun and I’m looking forward to see many of you there again.

By the way, I think it’s quite a deal at $140 for non-members and $90 for TOUG members for a one day conference like that, especially if you are interested in the topics presented.

I have two sessions to present:
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Better late than never – we absolutely have prizes this year for the Blogger’s Meetup. Alex has been way too busy of late to get this organized (joking, not ALL his fault…). Seriously, we do have prizes. We will have beer and there will be food at Jillian’s in a very short time.

I gotta run and get this organized, so this post is short and sweet. Should be no complaints as this year we have not just two, but THREE prizes. Read on, or you’ll get the scoop at the meetup.

1) Bandana art contest on stylish Pythian & OTN designer bandanas — one lucky blogger will receive an Ipod touch generously sponsored by Pythian (we love this event, can you tell?).

2) For the best, most creative blog post about the meetup itself, OTN is giving away a free registration to Oracle OpenWorld in 2012. But, there are a few small rules:

1. the blog post must use as many names of people in attendance as possible.
2. the blog post must be readable. It needs to make sense to someone who wasn’t there. It must be a story and not a list.

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