Pythian Group

I would like to share with you the virtual hosts set-up (two nodes each on the application tier, and two on the DB tier) for a customer using 11.5.9.

The Facts

• DB Version: 10.2.3
• CRS Version: 10.2.0.3
• ASM Version: 10.2.0.3
• APPS Version: 11.5.9

Set-ups by Sys-Admins

Sysadmins must set up a virtual hostname amongst the two available middle-tier (Applications) hosts. In our case, the hostnames are erpapp01, and erpapp02. Then the sysadmins set up a VIP as erpapp.

We also require from sysadmins virtual hostname amongst the two available backend (database) hosts. Hostnames in our case are erpdb01, and erpdb02. They then set up a VIP as erpdb. Read the rest of this entry . . .

Hardware

My Dell desktop:

[root@erp RPMs]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
cpu MHz         : 2793.022
cache size      : 512 KB

[root@erp RPMs]# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:      2073404 kB
...

Operating System

Download Centos Linux, and install the Linux operating system.

Kernel Version

Download kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL.i686.rpm and apply with:

$ rpm -ivh  kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL.i686.rpm 

The kernel should look like this:

root@erp RPMs]# uname -a
Linux erp.itskills.com 2.6.9-42.0.3.ELsmp #1 SMP Thu Oct 5 15:04:03 CDT 2006 i686 i686
i386 GNU/Linux

Read the rest of this entry . . .

For those of you who have been under a rock for the last several years, there is a buzz-phrase floating around—cloud computing. If you haven’t been paying attention, it is time to wake up.

While I could spend an entire blog post—if not several—on a definition of cloud computing, I will be talking only about cloud computing in the sense of companies moving servers from their building or network operations center to running virtual servers in this computing cloud.

While there are a number of companies providing virtual servers, the most visible is Amazon, with their Amazon Web Services (AWS). I will be talking about AWS in this post as it is the service with which I am most familiar. It seems like every month, AWS rolls out new options and services. Just recently Amazon announced that you can now run on AWS the Windows operating system along with SQL Server.

Amazon also announced a service level agreement (SLA) of 99.5%. The SLA is important. It is a guarantee of service uptime. If Amazon don’t meet the SLA, then you get money back. As any of you will know, you have to be able to count on your data center. 99.5% is a pretty good level of coverage.

Beyond that, one of the new features Amazon will be implementing during the next year is the use of regions and availability zones. Regions are distinctly different areas of a country (or completely separate countries); availability zones are designed to be insulated from failures in other availability zones and provide inexpensive, low-latency network connectivity to other availability zones in the same region. What does this mean? It will soon be very easy to deploy a set of servers in different areas and/or regions so that your data and servers are spread out and not vulnerable to a single point of failure.

I am not going to go into any detail about how virtual servers work. That’s not the point of this post. I am going to concentrate on what you can do with virtual servers.

Read the rest of this entry . . .

Hello everyone,

I have a senior Oracle Applications DBA opening here at Pythian’s headquarters in Ottawa. Working at Pythian is different than working in-house or as a consultant, because you’ll be making your contributions available to each of the customers assigned to your team, allowing you to see more use cases, more technologies, and work with more and varied environments, all the while building interesting and long-lasting working relationships with your peers.

I will gladly sponsor a work visa to come to Canada for the right candidate anywhere in the world.

We support some of the most interesting and mission-critical Oracle Applications environments in the world, including one that is FDA-regulated in support of a global biosciences company. Meaning lives are at stake. It doesn’t get any more mission-critical, or more personally rewarding, than that.

Top criteria:

• Outstanding Oracle Apps DBA on UNIX skills, bonus points for Apps RAC and major implementation and upgrades experience
• Exceptional troubleshooting, problem-solving and learning skills
• Superior productivity per hour and overall getting-the-job-done-right abilities
• Fluent communication skills in English, both written and oral, are mandatory. Second or third languages are also a huge benefit (we have customers all over the world and are always eager to add a language to our repertoire)
• Core DBA skills are a prerequisite for Apps DBA at this level, but you know that already
• Publications, blogging and presentations experience and interest a plus
• Experience with Oracle Applications Server and Portal a plus
• SAP, Peoplesoft and other ERP experience a plus

Job highlights:

• Work in an elite team of Apps DBAs for an elite group and growing of customers; you’ll learn more here in a year than in any in-house DBA job no matter how long you stay; I personally guarantee it.
• Work and gain valuable experience on every mainstream platform, including AIX, HP/UX, Solaris, Linux, Tru64, Windows, etc.
• Support every mainstream database technology and feature, including Oracle RAC, advanced queuing, advanced replication, every flavour of dataguard, RMAN, streams, etc. etc.
• Work across multiple industries including health care, manufacturing, media, dot-com, education, retail, services, and many more.
• Work in a company that values hard work, not long work.
• Work in a company that will allow you to research and write articles, presentations and blog posts on company time, and pay for you to present your research at just about any user conference worldwide where it gets accepted.

Learn more about Pythian and see our customer list at http://www.pythian.com.

To apply:

Send me an email with a one-paragraph introduction of who you are and why you are exceptional to me at vallee@pythian.com. Feel free to attach your resume in any format (Word, PDF, RTF, ODT, whatever makes you happy.)

More information about Ottawa:
Ottawa is a city of around 1,000,000 and is a great place to live.
Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa
Cost of living: http://www.finfacts.com/costofliving.htm
Quality of life:
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1000846.shtml

http://www.canadaka.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3052 (Globe & Mail article reprint)