Pythian Group

Welcome, everyone, to the 177^th edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs. It was another week heavy with technical posts, so let’s waste no time, and get it all started with . . . 

PostgreSQL

David Fetter shares his recipe for adding only new rows: “Let’s say you have a table and a data set, and would like to add only those rows in your data set that aren’t already in the table. There are hard ways, but here’s an easy one.”

Simon Riggs, the Database Explorer, offers his thoughts on parallel query in Postgres: “I’m disappointed we’ve not made much progress with parallel operations and partitioning in core Postgres in last few releases. Recent Greenplum results show we have much work to do in improving things.”

David Christensen shares a PostgreSQL tip: using pg_dump to extract a single function.

Robert Gravsjö shares a screenshot of the new Sun Oracle PostgreSQL. That doesn’t even sound right, does it?

Read the rest of this entry . . .

So, a quick update on the Pythian/Oracle partnership, and what it’s like to be an OPN Platinum partner.

So far, it’s been really worthwhile.

And in under a month from the signing, Oracle has begun sending us amazing quality leads! The first was a doozie, an email made it’s way to us with the subject “OPN Solutions Catalog Message – Request for Information” and sure enough, inside was the full contact information for a prospective ISV partner who is looking for a collaborator to launch a managed service to their customers for operations support on their data-intensive systems. AMAZING!

And, I must say, the OPN group at Oracle are really a class act and know how to get a partner excited about working with them. In the mail today, we received a very nice box and in an unboxing moment that beats the iPhone or Nexus One … well it had no ninjas but it did have a beautiful magnet-latch lid! Inside was a lovely OPN Platinum partner plaque with a plexi stand, a letter of welcome to the programme, and a really cool OPN Platinum Partner grommet-sign tied in a red bow. Impressed!

We owe this to our VP BizDev Pete Ling of course, so here’s a gratuitous hero shot of him holding his prize:

Pete Ling holding his OPN Platinum Plaque

The all new OPN Specialized Program was officially launched on the 2nd of December, 2009. The very next day, we became one of the first OPN Specialized Platinum level partners. Maybe the very first!

This achievement took us lots of efforts before the launch to get recognized as one of the first platinum level partners but we’ve made it through. Now, we are working on updating all of our specialization areas. It’s still a bit cloudy on how to navigate in the new OPN Specialized interface but I guess in these days of cloud computing cloudiness is becoming a norm, especially early on!

The OPN Specialized Program was designed as the result of numerous acquisitions completed recently and over time the old Oracle Partners Network structure couldn’t accommodate all the different kinds of partnerships that Oracle inherited. The Oracle/Sun merger was going to make a tough situation untenable, and as a result Oracle designed OPN Specialized to simplify the search of a partner for Oracle internal staff and Oracle customers on one hand while it also lets partners distinguish themselves amongst the rest by technical areas and types of services and products. Congratulations and good job to the OPN group at Oracle for what we at Pythian believe is a much improved vision and structure for partnering with the vibrant Oracle ecosystem.

Our VP, Biz Dev and Strategic Alliances, Peter Ling, should take all blame for this as he’s been working on this non-stop. Well done Pete — you are a rock star, indeed

More details to come as we go through available options and build our profile so stay tuned — lots to learn still.

I recently nominated my colleague and good friend Christo Kutrovsky for the Oracle ACE program. Today, I’m excited to share that he has been accepted and is now part of the community of 200+ Oracle ACEs and Oracle ACE Directors.

Christo has been an active blogger on our blog and has made numerous top-class presentations at Oracle Conference world-wide. He has also been an active contributor on the Oracle-L list.

Christo has been always representing an independent voice in the community and it’s a pleasure to have him on board. I’m looking forward to his contributions to the Oracle ACE program and the Oracle community at large.

Welcome Christo!

For very personal reasons that don’t belong in this article, I decided a few weeks ago that it’s time for me to move on. The year and a half that I worked for Pythian have been a wonderful experience, and this is article is my tribute to this great company.

The MySQL Team

Being able to work side by side with two MySQL experts like Sheeri Cabral and Augusto Bott has been a great experience. I have learned a lot, not only about MySQL, but also about what a great DBA should be like. Both of them are recognized MySQL Community members and regular speakers at the MySQL Users Conference and other events. Sheeri has been named MySQL Community Member of the Year twice in a row. Both are a guarantee of excellent service.

My Predictions For Pythian

Read the rest of this entry . . .

This presentation was done by Sheeri Cabral of The Pythian Group and went into how to use SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS to get more information about your Innodb tables, foreign keys and transactions. This is a great presentation to learn how InnoDB works.

It also went through how to use SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS to tune several InnoDB variables:

innodb_adaptive_hash_index
innodb_commit_concurrency
innodb_concurrency_tickets
innodb_file_io_threads
innodb_log_buffer_size
innodb_max_purge_lag
innodb_sync_spin_loops
innodb_thread_concurrency
innodb_thread_sleep_delay

The slides can be downloaded from:

http://technocation.org/files/doc/ShowEngineInnoDBStatus.pdf

(Note that the slides open up to the middle section, which has slides plus notes, but if you just want the slides without notes, that starts on page 1 of the PDF.)

The video can be watched below, or directly on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocdjspoLM58

Welcome to the 162^nd edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs.

Oracle

The big news this week came was Oracle’s unveiling the OLTP Oracle Database Machine & Exadata v2, as reported by Alex Gorbachev.

Kevin Closson covered it, of course: Oracle Drops Exadata In Favor of Sun FlashFire Based OLTP Database Machine?, and he and his readers kick it around in a diverting way.

The dbaStreet blog offered their very thorough HOWTO, 11gR2 rac installation on 64 bit Linux step by step.

Iggy Fernandez was questioning Method R, in an excellent interview with Cary Millsap.

If that’s not enough “R” for you, there’s another item in the “Q” — Cary himself on the importance of diagnosing before resolving.

The ORACLE-BASE Blog observed that the RELIES ON clause is no more. To which Tom Kyte responded, Read the rest of this entry . . .

On the 23^rd of June 2008, I wrote a note saying that I had just joined Pythian. Today I am posting a similar, but different, note saying that as of the last of September, I will no longer be employed by Pythian, the time has come to look for new challenges. Although I am sad to leave, I do look forward to the future and what it may hold for me.

I wanted to take this moment to thank Pythian for having me, for having such great co-workers whom I count myself lucky to have worked with. I also want to give a special thanks to Augusto for taking care of me when I first joined, and showing me around how the company works. I must thank Paul as well—he is an exceptional person to work with, and I’ve come to value his opinion and expertise very highly.

I will still be around. I will be working with MySQL, and I will be active (probably even more than currently) in blogging, in conferences, and in the MySQL community—so you have not seen the last of me. It’s been a great time so far, and I intend to make even more of it in the future, to involve myself much more than I have done so far.

As a closing note, I want to address a concern I had in that very first blogpost, and that was, if it’s cold in Canada in July—and I can tell you that it is! I had to wear a jacket (even during the day!). I also fondly remember some days talking to the team from here in Malta, and someone reported a temperature -23C, and I look outside and it’s +19, so I guess that comparing Ottawa with Malta may not be the easiest, nor the most fair, comparison. It’s like poutine versus pastizzi!

Thanks, and we will be in touch. I hope to see you all around the world and to cross paths again! As we say in Maltese, Narak iktar tard!

By popular demand, here is my tour of our new World Headquarters.

We moved in today! We’re very proud of it and I’m sure if you check out the video you’ll agree it is pretty Shaktastic. :)

I’ve been just sending the abstracts for UKOUG 2009 Conference before the extended deadline is over and realized that I hadn’t spread those exciting news. Actually, the news spread via Twitter before I saw the official confirmation in my inbox. Well, I guess the blog post title says it all. It’s a pleasure to join this program and get engaged in its activities.

I should mention that the process actually involves the acceptance on my side and there are expectation from me such as participation in local, global and online events with Oracle and their product teams as well as participate in some OTN activities. Well, there is rather nothing I haven’t done before except maybe access to some special events where Oracle product teams share some pre-release information. Well, I surely won’t mind any additional info to satisfy my curiosity.

Finally, thanks to Francisco Munoz Alvarez for nominating me to become an Oracle ACE Director.

Now, I guess I will have to scout the internet and update all my online profiles. When is this magical Web 2.0 going to actually work?!