Tackling time troubles - how to use dates correctly in Oracle

For the Oracle Code series of events I have delivered an older but still relevant talk called "Tackling Time Troubles." ...

Using AI for database administration automation - extracting useful information from log files

When talking about automation for Oracle Database Administration, besides automation of software installation and ...

MySQL high availability with HAProxy, Consul and Orchestrator

Introduction In this post we will explore one approach to MySQL high availability with HAProxy, Consul and ...

Oracle parallel query hints - part 3: PX_JOIN_FILTER

In part one of this series on Oracle Parallel Query Hints, I looked at PQ_DISTRIBUTE, and part two was about ...

Why column stores?

Introduction I’ve been working with data in many forms for my entire career. During this time, I have occasionally ...

Spark UDF memoization

Memoization is a powerful technique that allows you to improve performance of repeatable computations. Although it ...

SQL Server and Azure - hybrid partitioning - a low-cost solution to retain your data

It's already a fact: cloud is here to stay. As time goes by, we have a better understanding of how it really works as ...

Oracle 18c Non-CDB databases in the Oracle Database Cloud Service (ODBCS)

Oracle is implementing a cloud first approach and hence the newest releases such as Oracle Database 18c first appear in ...

Oracle parallel query hints. A reference series part 2: PQ_REPLICATE

The Mechanics of PQ_REPLICATE in Oracle 12.2 In part 1 of this series, we talked about the basic mechanics of the ...

Why is my Forms 12c Application so slow?

After a recent upgrade Users cannot work with the forms application anymore; it has been a few weeks since an upgrade ...

RDP Issue - CredSSP encryption Oracle remediation

Introduction We have recently had some issues accessing a few client servers and found it is related to a Windows ...

Data classification with Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL DB (GDPR, PII, HIPPA...etc)

This blog post will cover SQL Server on-premise or IaaS and Azure SQL DB and how to classify data in both. Let's start ...

Backing up your MySQL instance physically with Docker

In a previous post, I had mentioned that I was doing a bit of digging into Docker in order to get a better grasp of the ...

Fun with Oracle Data Guard Broker

The beginning So, there we were attending to our jobs and tending to our customers when an emergency alert came in: a ...

Backup strategies in Cassandra

Authenticating Vault against LDAP for accessing MySQL through ProxySQL

Earlier this year, I was presented with the challenge of streamlining user access to MySQL, allowing users self-serve ...

Debugging CBQT OR expansion with 10053 trace

I had been working with a client to add a little bit of functionality to an analytical view that we had been running ...

Google Cloud Platform quick tip: Cloud Shell boost mode for Docker development

I explained in an earlier post how I am using GCP's Cloud Shell for all of my command-line needs all the time. Whenever ...

Lightweight transactions in Cassandra

Cassandra support for transactions Unlike commonly used relational database platforms, Cassandra does not support ACID ...

Graceful master switchover with ProxySQL and Orchestrator

Introduction One of the things I like about Continuent Tungsten is how Tungsten Connector can hold traffic while a ...

BTRFS performance compared to LVM+EXT4 with regards to database workloads

Introduction In many database builds, backups pose a very large problem. Most backup systems require an exclusive table ...

Azure Cloud Shell - cloud what?

What is Azure's Cloud Shell? Azure Cloud Shell is a browser-based, interactive shell that comes in two flavors: ...

Creating dynamic tasks using Apache Airflow

What's Airflow? Apache Airflow is an open source scheduler built on Python. It uses a topological sorting mechanism, ...

Infographic: five ways to make analytics for everyone

It’s not a stretch to say that data is taking over the world. You can see the signs everywhere, from news stories ...

Datascape podcast episode 26: a brief tour of the Google Cloud Platform

In episode 26 of the Datascape, we give you a whirlwind tour of the Google Cloud Platform, otherwise known as GCP. We ...