SVG and OEM on windows 64 bit

Anyone try to use OEM from a windows 64bit machine? Looks like there is no SVG install for windows 64bit so the charts on the performance pages are all just gifs.

Seems surprising but alas with Oracle and their dealings with UI, its not that surprising.

I wanted Oracle to use flash in OEM 10g but that got nixed. I was glad to have SVG in OEM 10g rather than nothing, but SVG has been EOLed and so unless Oracle does something then there will be more and more cases where OEMs SVG components don't work in browsers as OS's advance.

On a good note though, in 11g I was happy to see some FLEX components but word has it that these will be pulled - hmpf!

I'm happy to see that my current company, Delphix, is using FLEX (not that FLEX is the only way to go but it's a nice way, at least until HTML5) . Here's an example of Delphix's interface

http://www.delphix.com/resources.php?tab=product-demo

After working at Oracle for 13 years , UI seemed to be some of the worst in the valley often harking back to web pages from 1992, it's nice to be at Delphix, a company that seems to appreciate UI and aesthetics. I never understood why Oracle's UI wasn't better since Larry was such good friends with Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs and Apple are so good at look and feel. I figured Steve Jobs would have influenced Larry and Oracle to have great UI, but alas there has never been any indication of that other than the fun demos Larry and Steve use to do around Oracle and the NEXT machine back in the day.

ASHMON on 64bit Oracle 11gR2

It's been years since I've changed any ASHMON code though I have used ASHMON whenever I didn't have access to DB Optimizer or when I wanted to specifically access v$active_session_history graphically. Yesterday, though, I just got a new laptop that is 64bit and I couldn't get ASHMON to run! So after only sleeping 4 hours last night I finally got it to run. (a lot of time was just getting Oracle to install which is a separate story - suffice it to say the 11gR2 full database download installed where as the 11gR2 client gave an error that main wasn't found).

The fix to make ASHMON run on 64 bit turns out to be pretty easy. To make ASHMON run on 64bit requires two 32bit dlls as well as forcing TNS_ADMIN to the directory with the tnsnames.ora (unfortunately oratcl doesn't seem to accept explicit database addresses , ie name:port:sid, that could bypass the tnsnames.ora) ASHMON for some reason wasn't picking up the tnsnames.ora in the Oracle 11gR2 directory. I could have forced ASHMON to use the Oracle 11 tnsnames.ora with TNS_ADMIN but figured it was easier to just point ASHMON to a tnsnames in the ASHMON install with TNS_ADMIN. You can edit ashmon/funcs/begin.tcl to change TNS_ADMIN to point to a different tnsnames.ora.

I have now made a new compressed file of ASHMON including the two dlls, oci.dll and oraocius10.dll, as well as changing the variables ORACLE_HOME and TNS_NAMES to point to ./ashmon and ./ashmon/network/admin respectively.

Here is the new "rar" file (I don't have gzip on my new laptop so just downloaded rar)

http://www.perfvision.com/ftp/ashmon_2010_10_22_64bit.rar

This version of ASHMON should run on any windows box within reason. The only "gotcha" is that you have to edit the tnsnames.ora file in the ./ashmon/network/admin to add your targets.

Oracle on VMware webinar tomorrow (Sept 30)

Tomorrow I'm on an Embarcadero hosted webinar about the pros and cons of hosting Oracle on VMware. If interested the link is at

http://www.embarcadero.com/oracle-database-performance-licensing-dynamics-in-a-virtualized-environment

It's an interactive Q&A webinar with Dave Welch the main guy at VMware's booth at Oracle Open World last week. Dave is pro VMware as one might imagine.
If you have any burning questions about VMware and Oracle and/or positive/negative experiences with Oracle on VMware, drop me a line and I'll try and get your content, questions and feedback into the webinar. (during the webinar questions can be posted in the online chat)

The current list of questions center around performance overhead on VMware, Oracle's attitude toward supporting VMware, whether RAC is appropriate and/or supported on VMware and how VMware compares to Oracle's VM server.

Oracle Closed World Presentations Downloads

Presentations from Oracle Closed World will be posted to

http://www.perfvision.com/ftp/OCW/

Links to scripts from Tanel Poder's presentations at

http://blog.tanelpoder.com/2010/09/20/oracle-closed-world-presentation-links/

Some photos from OCW 2010

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kylehailey/sets/72157625018583630/

Thanks all to an awesome Oracle Closed World and the Oaktable, Miracle Consulting and Embarcadero for sponsoring this event.

PS stay tuned for the 10 important database ideas black paper that we will be putting together from Oracle Closed World. (if you would like to contribute please email me kyle.hailey@embarcadero.com)

Kerry, Karl, Kyle

Link to a few more OCW 2010 photos from Karl : http://www.flickr.com/photos/kylehailey/sets/72157625025196338/

DB Optimizer vs OEM

Oracle OEM is slower, more complicated and it if it breaks, which has plenty, it’s super hard to fix.

OEM has nothing like visual sql tuning diagrams. If OEM can’t tune a query they you are at a dead end street with no way out. With DBO you’ve got the VST diagrams which explain tons about what is going on with the query

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoDnR02S2WA - VST demo from webinar with Jonathan Lewis
• http://db-optimizer.blogspot.com/2010/09/db-optimizer-251-released.html
• http://db-optimizer.blogspot.com/2010/09/sql-tuning-best-practice-visualizing.html
• http://db-optimizer.blogspot.com/2010/07/product-design.html

There is no load testing or SQL IDE in OEM

• http://db-optimizer.blogspot.com/2010/07/14-minute-video-overview-of-db.html

OEM’s SQL Tuining Advisor (STA) has a solid history of not being able to tune queries or worse still “tuning” the query and making it run slower

• http://db-optimizer.blogspot.com/2010/07/oracles-sql-tuning-pack-how-well-does.html
• http://db-optimizer.blogspot.com/2010/07/oracles-sql-tuning-pack-part-2.html
• http://db-optimizer.blogspot.com/2010/07/oracles-sql-tuning-pack-part-3.html

Oracle Closed World: last minute additions Exadata any MySQL talks

We've just added talks on Exadata and MySQL starting at 1:15-2pm today.

In summary

1:15-2pm Exadata and MySQL

2pm Gwen Shapira on webscale, /dev/null http://www.pythian.com/news/author/shapira/)

3pm Kevin Closson on SMT and Flash (http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/)

Beer served the whole time and lunch around 2:30

Oracle Closed World 1-4 Thirsty Bear, Sept 22, 2010, directions http://tinyurl.com/2dzjkh5

Oracle Closed World: last day with Kevin Closson as well as Gwen Shapira

Rest assured, Kevin has left his bow and arrow at home this time. We are working on a hands on presentation complete with hunting tutorial for next year!

Wednesday Sept 21 1-4pm will be the last day of Oracle Closed World 2010

Highlights of the last day will be

3PM - 4PM Keynote Speaker Kevin Closson will present on SMT and Flash (http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/)

as well as Gwen Shapira (http://www.pythian.com/news/author/shapira/) who will be talking convincingly about webscale, /dev/null

direction to Oracle Closed World at the Thirsty Bear:

http://tinyurl.com/2dzjkh5

Beer, Brains and Mayhem