Pythian Group

This is the 182nd edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs. Make sure to read the whole edition so you do not miss where to submit your SQL limerick!

This week started out with me posting about International Women’s Day, and has me personally attending Confoo (Montreal) which is an excellent conference I hope to return to next year. I learned a lot from confoo, especially the blending nosql and sql session I attended.

This week was also the Hotsos Symposium. Doug’s Oracle Blog has a series of posts about Hotsos. If all this talk about conferences has gotten you excited, Joshua Drake notes that 14 days and the hotel is almost full for postgresql conference east which is March 25th-28th in Philadelphia. And the Oracle database insider notes that the Oracle OpenWorld call for papers is now open.

According to Susan Visser this week (ending tomorrow) is also read an e-book week. So if you have not already done so, read an e-book! She links a coupon for an e-book in the post.
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Video fragments of my session posted at the end — read on.

I arrived at Omni Mandalay Hotel on Sunday evening with Dan Norris. I was flying through Chicago and it turned out that Dan was on the same flight and only few rows behind me. Small world.

Preparations for the conference were very chaotic on my part and, of course, I didn’t have either of my presentations ready. I was very stressed and getting sick as well — it looked like a complete disaster waiting to happen. I’d like to say that I was feeling like Doug Burns as he often managed to get sick just before a conference. Of course, I worked on my slides for the last few days as well as on the flight and presentation was slowly getting there but boy was I tired!

I quickly said hello to the crowd in the bar on the way to my room and rushed away to do some more damage to my slides. And then I had a brilliant idea — I could still see one of my best mates and do something good about my presentation! I asked Doug if he was interested in the preview (he probably wasn’t interested but he couldn’t say it to me) especially that my session wasn’t on his original agenda. Of course, that would mean that he had to leave a bunch of other good friends and spend some time tete-a-tete. Knowing Doug, this is some of the hardest thing to ask from him but it shows how good of a friend he is! (Plus, everyone thinks that he is anti-social anyway. Shhhh!)
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If you do not know what International Women’s Day is: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Start planning your blog posts for Ada Lovelace day now (March 24th, http://findingada.com/ Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.)

To that end, I would like to point out all the women currently in science and tech fields that I admire and think are doing great things. I think it would be great if everyone, male or female, made a list like this:
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The 181^st edition of Log Buffer has been published by Gary Myers on his Sydney Oracle Lab.

Having recently moved his blog, Gary approached the Log Buffer coordinator to volunteer for an edition because he knows that, with LB being a popular and established destination in the database blogoshphere, it would help him broadcast his new blog and welcome readers to it. You can do it too–simply send an email to the Log Buffer coordinator.

Here’s Gary’s Log Buffer #181.

Hello and welcome to Log Buffer #180. Time’s a-wastin’, so let’s go!

Oracle

There was so much Oracle stuff this week that I’ve decided to cram a little more of it into Log Buffer by providing a little less context than usual.

Jonathan Lewis shares an explication of aliases: “I was asked the following question recently: ‘Does the use of table aliases affect performance?’ To which the best answer is probably ‘Yes, though in general you probably won’t notice the difference and there are reasons more imporant [sic] than performance for using table aliases.’”

Doug Burns continues his most recent series: Statistics on Partitioned Tables – Part 2, and Statistics on Partitioned Tables – Part 3.

Charles Schultz demonstrates how VPD + bad ANYDATA practices can really bite: “The point of my blog was that using CAST can really screw up your data. Oracle Support is filing a bug on this behavior, as it looks like an overflow problem.”

Pythian’s Gleb Otochkin begins a series on Oracle GoldenGate installation.

Guy Harrison provides a thorough introduction and recommendations on memory management for Oracle databases on VMWare ESX.

Robert Vollman returns to blogging and offers his 10-point plan on improving your SQL queries.

Jared Still sheds some light on a cool but unknown RMAN feature. Read the rest of this entry . . .

You have found the 179^th edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs. Welcome. Enjoy your stay. We begin with . . . 

SQL Server

Merrill Alrich gets going with a fresh juxtaposition–his thoughts on motorcycles and Access. “Many DBAs,” he writes, “have been called in to rescue people, or teams, or projects who have mission critical Access applications gone horribly wrong. It’s very unpleasant, especially the typical discussion we have to have with the Access afficionado . . . ”

Brent Ozar is in on this discussion too. Here he gives his top 10 reasons why access still doesn’t rock.

Brent’s blog also has an interview with Joe Sack, “ . . . public face for the SQL MCM program.”

Aaron Bertrand has a couple new items in his Bad Habits to Kick series: inconsistent table aliasing and blind SQL Server installs.

The Rambling DBA Jonathan Kehayias, advises, pay attention to maintenance cleanup job configuration, specifically with regard to backup files.

Jeremiah Peschka shows how a simple refactoring of functions in the WHERE clause can turn a performance disaster into success. Read the rest of this entry . . .

Pythian has launched a Partner Program to assist Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), whose applications have intensive database requirements. We assist their client base by helping them correctly plan, deploy, and manage the underlying database infrastructure, be it MySQL, Oracle or SQL Server, to ensure the ISV customers’ software environment is sound, and performs well over time.

By partnering with Pythian, software vendors can rest assured that their applications will perform well, knowing that their customers’ databases are correctly installed, configured, and maintained for proper ongoing usage, and customized specifically to the ISV’s application requirements.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks, as we announce new ISV Partners whose clients are thriving from this relationship. We’re working with some fascinating ISVs whose technology is second to none!

Have a look at our Official Press Release!

Gerry Narvaja has published the 178^th edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs.

LB is always looking for contributors, so if you’d like to publish an edition of your own, drop a line to the Log Buffer coordinator. It’s an excellent way to put your stamp on the database blogosphere.

Here is Gerry Narvaja’s Log Buffer #178.

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?

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This is the 176^th edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs.

There were heaps of mostly technical posts this week. I think bloggers are tired of kicking around the ins-and-outs of Sun and Oracle, and wanted to talk about what really matters. So let’s start with . . . 

Oracle

Harald van Breederode shows how to setup a private DNS for your virtual cluster.

Pythian’s Alex Fatkulin discusses Oracle GoldenGate Extract Internals.

From Charles Hooper comes this investigation: Simple Query Generates Complex Execution Plan, the Mysterious 4063.88 Second Single Block Read Wait.

Coskan Gundogar was also in a deductive frame of mind. Here is his Working with statspack-part-1a-Diagnosis, featuring both a challenge and purty pictures (pastels!).

Here is Jonah H. Harris with an introduction to the NEXTGRES Gateway, a MySQL Emulator for Oracle. Jonah writes: “So, a few people have asked me what NEXTGRES Gateway is. My short answer, the ultimate database compatibility server.  . . . I’ve been working on this personal project non-stop for the last 8 months and am really excited about it.”

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