Robert G. Freeman's Blog

Oh... Say it isn't so... Twinkies and Ding Dongs are bankrupt??

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:15:00 +0000

Look here! It' can't be...!!

Now I KNOW something is wrong with the world!!

Engineered Systems - Complexity vs. Simplicity...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:01:00 +0000

Oracle started the Engineered Systems decade (my word!) with the introduction of Exadata. Now we have Exalogic and other machines that provide this engineered system concept that I generically like to call Exa* (Exa-Splat). A lot has been touted with respect to the feature sets of these systems, and I've seen enough POV's now (both first-hand and word of mouth) that I can tell you that the performance improvements are real and significant.

However, I think that the story of Engineered system is about much more than being able to take a query that ran before in 24 hours and now it runs in 3 minutes. Sure, that's great and very important, but there is a strategic reason for Engineered systems and I'm not sure that is getting as much play as it should, because I think it's important.

Does this sound like you? Your environment is this collection of loosely coupled systems. You have these great, powerful database servers but when you look at CPU it's sitting at some number like 20 percent. You have servers all over the place. Your behind on your patching. Your constantly standing up new systems, and all the related infrastructure (network, disk, etc) and it just takes time. Your time to provision has the customers complaining. Your spending all your time reacting to problems, to configuring new environments, to wondering why this switch does not work with this server. You spend a lot of time wondering how to integrate various pieces and which technologies are best and which are certified. If this sounds like you, I call you tactical man. You are tactical in your thinking. Your poor customers really don't have the ability to derive knowledge from you because you are busy standing up systems for them. They are building database designs that are amazingly awful, and you are unable to help them because you have to work on the next fire, the next problem.

Is this you:

(phone rings)
You: Hello
Fred: Hey this is Fred. We need help with a database design. What's this normalization thing?
You: Sorry Fred, I'm working on installing four copies of Linux right now, can't help.
Fred: Hey, I understand, you guys are over worked down there. We will just use Hibernate to generate the schema, no problem.
You: No... wai...
(click on the phone)...

Are you tactical man? I wrote some time ago about the holistic DBA and really... becoming the holistic DBA is all about transitioning from Tactical Man to Strategic Man. The truth is that engineered systems can help you in this transition. How you ask... First, look at this handy dandy graphic I whipped up:

This image is kind of an exercise in simplicity (and my limited graphics design abilities) but I think it makes a point. As we move from higher complexity to simplicity, we move from being tactical (reactive) in our work to more strategic and proactive. Also, look at the graphic... in moving in this direction we reduce the number of people required and we reduce the costs as well.

Engineered systems is part of this drive towards simplicity. With an engineered system, you let the vendor do the painstaking work of finding the right components, certifying them, and making them all work together like a well oiled machine. With Engineered systems we get the benefit of scale.... If one problem surfaces on a given system, because the system are all similarly engineered we can immediately apply the solution to the problem across the various enterprises running that engineered system. No more wondering about this or that combination of hardware, we know (more properly the vendor knows) and the vendor take responsibility for providing that remediation across the platforms that are deployed.

Other benefits include the reduction of the proliferation of systems and hardware, reducing the overall footprint that has to be managed. This reduces costs and allows you to again move up towards the strategic part of the graph. There are a number of benefits with respect to the implementation of an engineered solution, be it Exadata or even the Oracle Database Appliance. We should not focus on just one part of the equation (performance) when asking ourselves, what do we do to improve productivity and become more visionary?

As a result... the DBA, the network engineer, the storage administrator, the Unix administrator, are all free to pursue tasks further up the scale, moving in the direction of strategic planning, proactive approaches to business problems and helping the customer do it right the first time. In being visionary about the systems we deploy we can improve our ability to react to strategic needs of the enterprise.

I know... this might sound like a sales pitch for Exa* products.... and I do work for Oracle, but everything I've said here is part of my experience, past and present. Tactical man is alive and the costs of keeping him in business are significant. Strategic man needs to be our goal, and with Strategic man comes a host of benefits including lowered costs and a better Enterprise. Engineered systems can help you migrate to becoming Strategic man...

Sure... really.... we all just love installing Linux and configuring Clusters... but is that really best for the Enterprise? I think not.

Writing a book.... Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:17:00 +0000

Greetings all...

So I'm in the middle of my new GoldenGate book. I've written chapters 3,4, and 5 and currently I'm working on Chapter 2. I know, that might not make sense but it did for me... :) At any rate, I've found GoldenGate to be a great little replication product...

I really think that this book is going to be a dynamite book and I think that GoldenGate is going to really come into the Enterprise more and more as time goes on for a number of reasons.

Don't Believe Everything You Read

When you write about a product you come across certain subtitles and problems that kind of make you wonder. In the latest case I was writing about the privileges that are required by the GoldenGate administrator account. I found a bit of a documentation error in that it does not include issuing a grant of the alter any table privilege (or alter table if you prefer) to the GoldenGate administrator account. This privilege is required to be able to issue the GoldenGate add trandata command which enables supplemental logging on a specific object within the database, a requirement for GoldenGate replication. Curious that this was missing.

The Concept of Least Privilege in Oracle Database Security
Even more curious is how my competition handled this problem and this leads to a discussion on the concept of least privilege and how even the most innocent of things can be a really bad. idea. In the data realm, security is strengthened by the notion of least privilege which is where a specific user account is given only the exact privileges it needs. In this day of hacking, break-in's and SQL injection, locking down the database is critical. All to often though, because it's easier, DBA's will grant administrative privileges to accounts, without considering the risks that this entails. The thought seems to be that in granting the DBA role to an account, we are saving time and money by not drilling down into the privileges that are really needed and only granting those specifically required privileges. Of course, we assume just because we have not been hacked yet, that we are immune from such nastiness and as a result we lazily grant DBA to anyone.

Maybe it's not hackers at all we need to protect ourselves from... maybe it's a software bug or design flaw (if you prefer) that we need to protect ourselves from. At any rate, granting DBA privileges willy nilly is just a really bad bad idea. There is a great deal of discussion on least privilege on the internet, and I think the concept is really pretty obvious to anyone of moderate intelligence. At least .... you would think.

Books are things that people read to learn how to do things, and how to do them right. Now, we all make mistakes and I'm the first one to stand up and make the claim that I'm far from perfect. But there are just some mistakes that one should not make. In this case, as I was chasing down the question "Why is the add trandata command not working - Eventual answer is because a privilege is missing from the documentation" I went to look at the competing Oracle GoldenGate works to see if they had anything to say on the topic. Much to my horror, I found both books espousing the notion of granting the DBA role to the GoldenGate administrator account! Holly cow! This is far from the Oracle recommendation and it's just plain bad practice. I had to shake my head after reading that in both books no less.

Back to Don't Believe Everything You Read
Which leads to the another point... about books and web pages.... be careful what you read (especially that Freeman guy, watch out for him). Make sure that you think about what you are doing as you are doing it. Not everyone is the Oracle expert they claim to be, and experts come with varying levels of expertise... I've seen web pages that have listed the "solution" to a specific problem with the Oracle database.... and while the solution stated works it is such a bad practice that the person recommending the change ought to be hung.... Ok, I'm not suggesting lynching be re-introduced as a common practice but maybe we ought to threaten a few people with pitchforks, billy clubs and march on them en-mase. This is where the trusted few really come in and make life better for us all. The Tom Kytes, Jonathan Lewises, Cary Millsaps, and the other recognized names in the Oracle community.

It's also where the Oracle documentation comes in, as well as Oracle support. It's also where YOU come in... Which leads to the last point...

File those SR's!!!
When you run into a problem of find a documentation bug what do you do? Do you find your own workaround and then just move on or do you file an SR on the problem and make sure that Oracle is aware of the issue? Look at how vast the documentation library is and you know the likelihood of incorrect or missing information is quite high. The folks that work on the documentation are amazing and do a great job, but as with any kind of writing mistakes happen... with a product as dynamic as Oracle, things are missed... You are an important part of the improvement cycle, so please, take a moment and file that SR or that Documentation bug and make life for all of us a little better.

Writing a book....

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:33:00 +0000

When I tell people I'm writing a book, I'm often asked how I like it. The process is long and can be frustrating, but it can be exciting too. I'm writing a new book now, on Oracle GoldenGate. I'm somewhat new to Oracle GoldenGate, but I've collected a number of contributors and I have also brought on a great technical editor to work with me. In the end, I know this is going to be an awesome book!

I thought I'd blog a little bit along the way as I write the book. I'll also blog about some things related to GoldenGate as I come across them. I'll share my writing moments, and the things I learn and experience along the way.

Before you start writing a book, there are a few hoops you have to go through. First, you put together the proposal for the book. The proposal tells the publisher about the book, who the audience it, why the book will sell, how big the book will be and so on. Along with the proposal, you also submit an outline that includes a table of contents, title and length of each chapter, and so on. The publisher takes all of this information, does a quick calculation to determine if they think they can make any money on the book and then decide if they will publish. This process may take 2-3 weeks if your an established author, with a book idea that clearly makes sense. If you are a new author or the book idea is not as straight forward then the process may take longer as the publishing world wants to make sure they are not going to loose money on the deal.

Having agreed to the basic terms of the book, the publisher will then have you sign a contract for delivery of the book. Typically this outlines how many pages and general content that will be in the book. It also will outline payment of advances and royalties that you can expect to be paid on your book. Once you sign the contract, you are on the writing trail.

I strongly advise prospective authors not to start writing until you have a contract unless your plan is to self-publish if you can't get someone to do it for you. I've seen what seemed like certain deals fall through at the last minute, and I've seen other authors start writing and then regret it because the deal fell through. So, if your going to write, make sure you have the contract signed.

When you start writing, the publisher is going to want you to write to a specific template/format. Generally they will send you a Word template (or whatever editor they want you to use) that will have specific formats for various parts of your book. With Oracle Press, I have a MS Word template they sent me. I simply plug it into my Word document and I'm off to the races.

I've written a couple of chapters in the book so far. As I said, GoldenGate is a fairly new product for me, but I actually think that makes my writing better. First, as I write the chapters, I see this material from the point of view of my reader, typically someone who is new to the product. I think this helps me write content that helps the new person, and I also think that it helps me see the pitfalls that might beset them.

For example.... when you are using GoldenGate, you need to enable what Oracle calls supplemental logging. Supplemental logging causes Oracle to record additional information about a transaction in the redo stream. GoldenGate needs this additional information to properly replicate data changes over to target databases. Now, to enable supplemental logging you can use the GoldenGate interface called GGSCI, log into the database and then use the command add trandata to enable supplemental logging for a specific table or set of tables. If you look in the documentation it seems as easy as doing that once everything is setup. However, there is a bit of a gottya it seems in that the documentation (in as far as I've been able to find) is missing one bit of crucial information. This has to do with permissions. It does not seem to note anywhere that the GoldenGate administrator account that you log into needs to have the alter table privilege.

Oh, maybe it's hidden in there somewhere and I have not found it yet, but that is just my point. I had a hard time finding it. Now, if I was an old GoldenGate expert, like my technical editor is, then I might have missed that subtle point. Because I'm somewhat new to it, I catch things like this and actually put them in the book... as notes or as a part of the overall text, they are in there. I think that is part of what makes my books good (I say this with all humility).

I also realize that by being new, I do miss out on some points-of-view that someone with more experience in the product might have. I try to deal with this in several ways. First, like I said, I have an awesome technical editor. He and I work hand in hand during the process, and truthfully, I use him more that most people use their technical editors. He catches things I might have missed, things I might have mis-understood and is there to help me with answers to questions.

I also bring on experts as contributing authors. I really do like to share in the success of a book and give others opportunities to be a part of the process. Writing a technical book will not make you rich, but it does give you credentials in the professional world. It looks good on a resume and can certainly help your career. As a leader and mentor, I like the people who work for me, or with me, to come with me on writing adventures so they can benefit from the experience. I also like having people I know on projects, because I know who they are and their work ethic. I also will bring on an expert or two, as a contributing author, for more advanced chapters either as the sole author of those chapters or as a major contributing author to those chapters. This way, the advanced chapters get the instant experience of someone who has a few hours of experience with the product and some time in the trenches.

In the end, this approach to book writing seems to work really well. I hope it will work as well with the GoldenGate book.

Next time I'll blog more about the writing process and the editing process. Sometimes the editing process is the hardest part of writing....

Yes... I have something nice to say about the TSA - Trusted Traveler

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:59:00 +0000

So, I live in the Las Vegas area. I travel allot too. I've complained a lot about the TSA here and privately because government bureaucracy, inefficiency and (how shall I say it nicely) some of the people involved in the government who are less than helpful, drive me crazy. I want things to be common sense. I want people to follow their own rules and respect people. More often than not the folks at TSA are quite nice and semi-efficient, but I've seen and blogged about cases where they acted in a manner less than professional in my opinion. Also, I hate it when someones web site stated policies do not match those actually enforced on the ground, and I've seen that with TSA in spades.

But now, for this moment, I'm going to give the TSA and Delta Airlines kudo's for the "Trusted Traveler" program. You can find information on the trusted traveler program here. The experience was great... no taking off shoes, no taking out laptops, no removing liquids for screening... I just put my bags on the belt, took my wallet and phone out of my pockets and walked through the metal detector. That was it. The line was short (mostly because the screening is for Delta frequent fliers and you have to sign-up for it (I seem to recall signing up for it a month or two ago). Also if you are signed up for CBP's trusted traveler program you can use the new line.

At any rate, it was a great experience. The lines at the Las Vegas airport are quite long, even the frequent flyer line.... anything that can shave time off there is well worth it. This time I was through security in 5 minutes. Amazing!

Happy holidays all...

The jack booted thugs of TSA...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 05:33:00 +0000

Today I was traveling from my new hometown, Las Vegas, to San Antonio.

Anyone that knows me understands that I find the TSA to be a bunch of clowns. There are a number of reasons for this, the least of which is that they just can't seem to be consistent, and they just can't seem to get things right.

First, I just renewed my license in the State of Utah. It expires on my birthday (the 30th of this month) and I was not sure I'd have time to get a new Nevada license before it expired. When you renew (or loose) your license in Utah, you get a temporary paper license that is good for 6 months. They mail you the permanent license a month or two down the road.

About 6 months ago I lost my license and had a temporary paper license for almost 3 months before I got my good license. During that time, I traveled all over the place including really sensitive airports like Washington, D.C., Orlando and L.A. I used my paper license (which has my picture on it) at every TSA checkpoint without a problem.

Today, I walked up to the agent/officer/whatever who was checking drivers licenses with my temporary license in hand. The jack booted thug in uniform (sorry, it just irritates me) looks at my temporary license and says "Sir, I can't take this".

Mouth agape, I ask the obvious question, "Why not?"

"Because it's paper", she replied.

"Yes, but it's a government issued ID. It has my photo on it." I said.

"Sorry. Our SOP says it can't be paper.", she replies.

Now, what do the TSA guidelines say about ID requirements? This is the main tag line:

“Adult passengers (18 and over) are required to show a U.S. federal or state-issued photo ID in order to be allowed to go through the checkpoint and onto their flight.” (see http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/acceptable_documents.shtm). Now, this web site goes on to list, as an acceptable form of ID the following:

* Drivers Licenses or other state photo identity cards issued by Department of Motor Vehicles (or equivalent)

So to me, this clearly implies that my temporary drivers license, with a photograph, is acceptable based on the requirements states on the web site.

I engaged the agent further and asked for a supervisor. To me, this is a major issue. First, it's clearly an inconsistency issue within the TSA. In my mind, they have gone loco, deciding to enforce one set of rules in one place and a second set of rules in a second place.

Second, what happens to the normal traveler who is carrying a temporary, state issued, drivers license and they don't have an alternate form of ID? The TSA web-site says:

"We understand passengers occasionally arrive at the airport without an ID, due to lost items or inadvertently leaving them at home. Not having an ID, does not necessarily mean a passenger won’t be allowed to fly. If passengers are willing to provide additional information, we have other means of substantiating someone’s identity, like using publicly available databases."

So it seems they will give us a hard time but if we can provide some other means of identification that they might, if they are feeling giving, let us get on our plane and fly. Of course, who knows what kinds of humiliation we will need to go through (pat downs, etc) in the process.

So the bottom line is that our friends at the TSA need to get their act together. They need to start doing their jobs and stop hassling the normal traveling public and concentrate on finding the bad guys. It's all a sham anyway. While I agree that the introduction of security measures such as metal detectors in the 70's went a long way to stop hijackings, I think it has done little to prevent terror except to terrorize and inconvenience the innocent citizen.

Some people are idiots - or - How not to give constructive feedback....

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:16:00 +0000

As most of you know, I write books. I've written a lot of books and I enjoy it and I enjoy hearing from people who have read my books. Knowing I'm not perfect, I don't mind legitimate criticism as I think it can make me a better writer. Still, once in a while, I get an email from an idiot. I sometimes find them funny, sometimes irritating and sometimes stupid. Here is a perfect case in point for an email I got today:

From: nick
To:my email address
Sent: Wednesday, September 7, 2011 10:25 PM
Subject: Your book
Is so poorly written it is a joke

Well, now this is a concise statement and full of facts and information that will help me do better in the future. My reply was as follows:

From: Robert Freeman [mailto:robertgfreeman@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 8:32 AM
To: nick
Subject: Re: Your book

Care to tell me which book you are talking about there Nick? I've got some 13 of them published. Your feedback is very concise and well written here ... and meaningful and helpful.

Robert

Now, Nick's reply is again so helpful. I'm impressed with his incredible skills with the keyboard. Here is his reply.

From: nick
To: 'Robert Freeman'
Sent: Thursday, September 8, 2011 9:40 AM
Subject: RE: Your book

im not getting paid for this email

you are for the book

oracel 9i

Does anyone in the world understand this reply? Now, I know that I should just let it go at this point. Replying to this guy is just not a good use of my time. Still, it's kind of fun so I did:

From: Robert Freeman [mailto:robertgfreeman@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 11:51 AM
To: nick
Subject: Re: Your book

I'm assuming you mean Oracle (not Oracel as you have spelled it). I have no idea what you mean "you are for the book", this makes no sense in English, which is clearly not your first language. Given that you have a hard time crafting sentences in English, I'm at a loss at how you feel you are qualified to judge the writing in the book. If you are referencing the content in some place, then I wish you would be more specific.

I would think you are talking about the book Oracle 9i New Features. If you could give me a specific example of poor writing instead of this subjective crap, I'd be thankful. Also I'm curious what you have contributed to the community in the way of white papers or books that makes you qualified to offer any kind of opinion. Normally I am thankful for comments that are objective in nature and make sense. This is quite the opposite and you need not bother replying unless you have something concrete and objective in nature to say.

Thanks

Robert

Nick thoughtful reply is seen here.... I'm done with the bozo at this point.

yes Oracle 9i New Features

and its not spelling error its TYPING error

but i bet you dont even know what or why a dvorak keyboard is.

"im not getting paid for this email you are for the book"

Nick, if you are reading my blog, take a basic English class. Then, once you learn English (and how to read) then I's suggest you spend time doing things to contribute to the community. Then I'd suggest you write a white paper or two, and then see if you can get a book written. If you can, after spending great amounts of time for very little money, I challenge you to write me again and THIS TIME write an email with some substance. For now, I'm done and I find you to be a very silly person.

For those of you who are interested... You can get my Oracle RMAN book here.

Flying the airlines.... a few thoughts on things that I don't understand or that irritate me...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:06:00 +0000

So I fly a lot. All over the United States, and, less frequently, internationally. I've met many Oracle types over the years in my travels, and I know that many professionals spend a lot of time on airplanes. Over time, I've come to find certain things annoying. I know there are far greater problems in the world than those annoyances associated with airline travel.... but since I'm on an airplane at 37,000 feet I thought I'd share some of my thoughts here.

1. Some flights have personal TV's on them which I love. I love the moving map, the information about the flight in real-time and so on. Here is what I find is weird. When you sign-onto the personal entertainment device (PED) it asks you your language. Of course I always select English. What irritates me is when the flight status is displayed then in English AND Spanish. I didn't ask for Spanish, why are you giving me Spanish. Is there some weird language where the word English somehow means Spanish? Why do I have to sit and try to interpret a language I don't speak and I selected one that I do speak? Also, I hate that the screen cycles through metric and English measurements. If I select English, default to miles and feet... or give me a choice. I hate seeing the conversions back and forth and back and forth.

2. Seat belts. It seems to be a universal message to certain travelers that when the seat belt sign comes on, that it's time to go to the bathroom. I don't get this. Go when the sign is OFF. Now you ask why I care....after all they are the ones taking the risk.... if the airplane hits a good bit of unexpected clear air turbulence (CAT) and I've experienced some really major CAT in my life, your body is going to come plowing into mine if you are up and about. A 200 pound human body makes one heck of a projectile. So for crying out loud, SIT DOWN when the seat belt sign is on.

3. Kids.... Now I fully realize that mothers can't make crying babies stop crying. It is sometimes painful to listen too, but it does not irritate me. I understand it. However when kids become old enough, and that there really is not an excuse for bad behavior, then it drives me crazy when parents will not discipline them and hold them accountable. Just now, I have a child behind me that has been screaming, making all sorts of noise and kicking the backs of chairs. His parents are here, and had no concept how annoying this kid was being to his fellow passengers. It was amazing, once I turned around and said something, how that made the difference. I'm not sure why people are more willing to take these things than just turn around and kindly let the parents know that the child is being annoying.

4. Reclined seats.... I like to recline my seat, and most travelers do. The problem is, at least on many flights that I'm on, when someone reclines the seat, I can't use my laptop because there is no room. I mean, what good is the wireless on the plane if I can't use my laptop. This is a total design fubar in my mind.

5. Electricity.... How many business people are flying? How many laptops do you see on planes? How is it that both at the airport and on the airplane that getting power is sometimes impossible. Now to be fair, Delta has put up charging stations in many of it's hubs, but there are few of them and they are often heavily used. Other airlines have done this too, but the problem still exists in large part and needs to be addressed.

OK... those are my gripes for now. What frustrated you at the airport or on the airplane?

Selling my baby.... N7598U

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:32:00 +0000

So I'm selling my baby, N7598U. I'm not getting out of the flying business, I love it way to much, but I'd like a bigger airplane and I'm moving to Las Vegas and other like factors have led me to decide to sell it. This blog entry is so I can point potential buyers to pictures and other information on the airplane.

The airplane is a 1976 Cessna 150M (N7509U) and I'm asking 20k for it. 1976 is the year before they started making the Cessna 152 in place of the Cessna 150. The airplane is hangared at U42 in the Salt Lake City area, and has been hangared continually since I purchased it 5 years ago or so. I'm also offering a couple of extras including a hand held Lowrance GPS (color with elevation awareness) and a mobile TCAS box. For those interested in the SLC area, I also have a hangar that we can transfer over the lease on. That's a big deal since the hangar list at U42 has about a 2 year waiting period at this time.

I don't have the exact hours associated with the engine and the airframe in front of me. I'll update this blog post once I get these numbers. I know the engine has hours in the low 100's. The airframe is probably around 7,000 hours or so if I remember correctly.

UPDATE: Hours are as follows: TTAF (Total Time Air Frame) 7674.1. TTE (Total Time Engine) unknown. TSMOH (Time Since Major Overhaul) 109.5. So the TSMOH is actually less than the 110 hours I was thinking.

So, what does she look like? Well, here are some pictures of N7598U. Forgive the less than perfect quality of the pictures. They were taken from my cell phone which usually takes better pictures .... I think the light wasn't that good for some of these.

Here are some pictures of the flight deck.... Lots of people ask about it. Note that we have one NAV/COM, a LORAN receiver (I can not vouch for it's functionality), ADF and transponder. This is a fully functional basic IFR platform and all the required inspections/tests for it to fly IFR are current including the static system (done last year so it has a year to go). I've had this plane in IMC several times and trust it with my life. The 150 does not have an alternate static system. There is a jack that you can plug your iPod into if you like.

The airplane has just come out of annual with no major squaks, and all AD's are complied with. So this baby is good for a year of flying.

So, nothing is perfect and this airplane has some visual squaks that keep it from ever being a contestant in the pretty plane of the year award. All of these issues are totally cosmetic, and I was working on fixing them a little at a time.... but there is still some work to go.

So what needs fixing?

Interior plastic really should be replaced at some point. It's cracking in some places.
The pilots window latch works, but not great. The window stays shut but it just does not quite latch the way it is supposed to. This is pretty typical of older Cessna's that I've seen.
The airplane needs a paint job. I had it inspected for interior rust when I bought it and no rust was found. I had the interior sprayed with rust killer to prevent any possible future issues. She has been kept in a dry climate for the last 5 years, so rust related issues are highly unlikely.
The front cowling is probably the ugliest part of the airplane. I was looking to just replace it, which surprisingly isn't that expensive when compared to other airplane related items. It's totally airworthy, but the paint is pretty bad and it just looks like it needs to be replaced.
The passenger door has a hole of some sort in it that is patched. I have no idea how the hole got there (I'm sure it's buried in the logs somewhere, I've just never gone looking for it. This is just a blemish, and is patched, and has no impacts on the airworthiness of the airplane.
The elevators show what appears to be some hail damage. It's very minor and again, how no impacts on airworthiness. I really have not noticed hail damage anywhere else.

Here are some pictures of the "Squaks"

I have fixed a few things. First of all, as you can see from the total time on the engine, it was recently replaced with a newly overhauled engine. The compressions are quite good on this new engine (high 60's and into the 70's). Also I've invested a bunch of money in airworthiness issues like replacing all the pulleys and cables, new brakes, tires, etc.... All of this is logged of course. Also the seats are in very good condition and look almost new. Here are some other pictures of the airplane....

Bet you didn't know that the 150M could go vertical did you!?!?!?!? :D

So that is the airplane in words and pictures. Thanks for taking time to look at it. I've been all over the US in this little airplane and she is a wonderful flying platform.

Funny but true story....

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 05:20:00 +0000

So, I'm in the middle of moving from Salt Lake to Las Vegas. Right now I'm working on packing up the office. While packing up on of my bookshelves I had to laugh. There in my hands was a 3.5 inch floppy disk. What was so funny you ask? Not one of the laptops I have today will take a 3.5 inch floppy.

Hope there wasn't anything important on it!

This needs to be dealt with...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:41:00 +0000

Does this bother you as much as it bothers me? This is the problem when people go spilling secrets. It puts lives at risk, even if names are not specifically divulged. In this case, thousands of classified State Department cables have been spilled out onto the public sphere, unredacted, and containing names of people who are involved in various aspects of government, including the names of whistle blowers.

For me, it's a bit of a conflict. I'm all for freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Still I think these freedoms require some self-discipline and I think there have to be some clear limits when it comes to certain things. Clearly national security is an issue that needs to be considered when we talk about freedom of speech. I often struggle with this balance for a lot of reasons, one of which is simply that I have this zeal to know what's going on and to understand the secrets and mysteries of our world.

However this is a world that is not safe, and there are people who would think nothing about destroying us in an instant. As a result of an imperfect world, the need for secrecy leads to imperfect solutions. If every citizen could be trusted to maintain secrecy, then I'd say every citizen should have access to all information. Of course, that is a bit of a dream world, isn't it?

If there are American's involved in this, I think that treason isn't too big of a word to use here. I think we tend to shy away from this word sometimes, but in some cases I think it's a valid description of what has been done. Clearly though, the big players are not Americans.

What to do about non-Americans in these cases? My thoughts are probably going to be controversial but I'm thinking that we need a concept of "foreign treason". I think we need to look seriously at the actions within some very narrow scopes, and consider that treason (or something like unto it) can be committed by a non-citizen. If a non-citizen commits an act that is so adverse to the people of the United States that there needs to be a means to bring this person to justice. As far as I'm concerned, the cases for such acts need to meet some very narrow requirements, such as putting citizens personally at risk through direct actions on the part of the person being charged. Really, this is not far from laws relating to spying. At any rate, I think that we provide a method to try these people (even in in absentia) and then provide a means by which to extract punishment. In fact, in this case, I'm not sure I'd be opposed to the use of intelligence agencies to bring these people to justice.

Anyway.... that's just a brain dump on my feelings about this.

Troubling ... what has happened to our country?

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:56:00 +0000

Have you heard about this? Does it not just make you wonder what has happened to our country when a man risks life in prison for recording the actions of police out in public? Does this not make you worry that slowly but surely we have a country that is turning into a police state and that our freedoms are being eroded away slowly. Frankly I find this story very concerning and upsetting. What is happening to this country if we can not keep an eye on our police, who are supposed to be working for us?

Of course, I respect that the police do sometimes get setup, that sometimes something taken out of context can be misunderstood and go viral and I understand that the police are concerned about such things. However in a free society we need to error on the side of liberty and freedom. I think that the presence, or likely presence of recording devices will make the police think twice about their actions. This can have negative consequences, causing an officer to hesitate making a decision that can have deadly results. Still, even this possibility does not seem to tip the balance of the basic right and principle that what is public is public.

This country was founded on the principles of freedom and liberty. There are clearly risks associated with such things and we accept those risks as citizens of this country. Being free, by it's very nature, is a riskier proposition than being regulated and controlled. It seems that many are willing to trade safety for freedom, and I wonder if they really consider the long term consequences of such an act.

At any rate, in my mind this is a clear case of abuse of governmental power. I think it needs to stop, now.

Kidney Stones - Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:51:00 +0000

Again, this has nothing to do with Oracle....Sorry.... I feel like my experience with kidney stones might comfort someone else in the same situation, so I want to share my story.... maybe you will benefit from it someday.

So.... you have a kidney stone, or rather like me, you have seven. I've already talked about the experience and surprise in finding I had stones here. It was so different than my previous experiences with stones which involved pain to major degrees.

So, after discovering I was a stone factory it was time to see the urologist. Very often the urologist will just take a sit and wait approach to smaller stones. Anything under 5mm has a fair chance of passing in a month or two, and it's always better for them to pass than anything else. While there is often pain, the pain can be managed.

Still when you have large stones > 5mm or, like me, you have a family of stones larger than the Brady bunch, it's time for alternatives. My alternative was laser based lithotripsy. You can follow the link to find out the details of the procedure. It's considered non-evasive (though you will pee blood for a while) which I think is a big positive. I don't like the idea of them cutting into me unless there is no other alternative. It just seems that the overall risks go way up as soon as they start opening you up, and I'm all about risk mitigation.

Even with the notion of it being non-invasive, it still involves a hospital, as it is an out-patient surgical procedure. It also involves a surgery room, anesthesia (general), and recovery. I'll talk about all of that later. Bottom line, at least for someone who has never had surgery (except for my wisdom teeth) it seemed like a big deal.

If you get nervous about these things (and most of us do) I strongly advise you get something from your doctor to deal with the anxiety. I know many of us are reluctant to take such things, but I have to say that all of this was much nicer not being accompanied with nerves, stress and anxiety. I think sometimes being strong means accepting that you are human and that you need to sometimes do things, like take medicines, to improve your overall experience in life. In the case of surgery, this is one of those times. Ask for and take the anti-anxiety medicines before the surgery. You will be glad you did. I was.... I wasn't nervous at all... which is unusual for me where needles are sure to be involved.

No food or drink after midnight is the rule of course. I hate that.... not because I eat or drink after midnight usually, but because knowing I don't MAKES me thirsty. They also don't let you take certain types of medication several days before like ibuprofen or aspirin... It seems like Tylenol is still in, which is good if you get a headache the day before surgery.

I checked into the hospital at 6am and they were quickly calling me back to start the process. They made me put on on the dreaded hospital gown. Ugh. That in and of itself is a humiliating experience. Then you lie on the gurney and they poke you with the IV. I think of the entire experience this was the single worst event of the whole thing. I hate needles. Hate. I mean real hate. Despise, you get the picture. However, I will say in an effort to be positive, that they got the IV in fairly easily ..... I held my arm real still and, like I always do, I kicked my legs are the needle went in. Somehow that made me feel better.

Another thing you need to bring with you to the hospital is a really good friend. Lisa came with me and she really made the experience much better than it might have otherwise been. She also provided some post-operative commentary which was... interesting.

After the IV (and the associated saline drip) I awaited my fate on the gurney. It didn't take long for them to come get me and wheel me out to the surgery area. They pulled me into a hallway outside the surgery room and the anesthesiologist gave me some kind of relaxant through the IV. To be honest, after that, I don't remember anything..... I was effectively in la la land.

Next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room. The first thing I remember is that they were telling me they were taking my catheter out. Great, I didn't know they had put one in.... Of course, I was so out of it that I didn't notice much when they pulled it out. I do recall a thought like, "oh.... that wasn't so bad." and it wasn't. Really, that kind of became the theme of this whole experience really, "not so bad".

During the surgery they went in, blasted the stones to hell, and removed them. Apparently they also put my kidneys through five kinds of hell because they hurt for quite some time after the surgery. Poor things. With the surgery done, they put stints in the ureters to help deal with the swelling. These stints would later have to come out... and that was fun, not.

I don't remember anything after that until I was in my little private room. I remember they were worried about my blood oxygen levels. They kept telling me to breathe and I was like I AM breathing. I kept hearing this damned alarm go off all the time, and that was annoying. Apparently the alarm didn't like the way I was breathing. I could hear my heart going on the monitor ... beep, beep , beep, beep... I remember thinking, you know, it would be totally uncool to hear this thing go beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee before I blacked out and had a heart attack, realizing that was my heart stopping and that something really bad had happened. Of course, that didn't happen and thank God for that!

After a while the alarm stopped going off, I stopped telling terrible jokes (apparently under the the influence of anesthesia I tend to be really funny or at least I try... LOL ) and it was finally time to go home. Once home, I just slept the rest of the day pretty much.

The next day I was up and I was so full of energy and that continues to this day. It was like night and day after the surgery. The pain killers kind of wacked me out and I was peeing blood out like crazy, but I felt better. My kidneys hurt like hell to be honest, and so it was good that I had pain medicine. I continued to pee blood for the next 10 days. It decreased over time and was almost over before my 10 day after surgery appointment with the doctor.

Ten days later I was at the doctor for my post-op appointment and to have the stints removed. I will say that having the stints removed was perhaps the single weirdest experience in my life. I expected to feel totally humiliated but I really wasn't. I think after being in the hospital I got past the humiliation thing. To remove the stints they insert this small scope in your penis (no anesthesia). it has a camera at the end and also there is this little "grabber" that the doctor can move around and use to grab the stint and pull it out.

Now, most men probably just groaned at the idea of something being shoved up their penis. I have to say that it didn't really hurt. It was uncomfortable, but not painful. It was also interesting because you can watch the tube travel into your body and watch as he finds the stints and removes them. It's kind of an odd feeling really as you go through this process, but it's not too bad. So.... if your reading this and waiting for that appointment, don't fear it.... it's a bit odd but it's over in like five minutes or so.

I bled pretty good again after that, and felt some more kidney pain for a day or two. Right now, about a week after that appointment, I still hurt off and on and need pain pills from time to time. I find that I bleed off and on and it's mostly associated with physical activity. I also find blood clots or scar tissue in the blood and that seems to be normal. I'm still surprised how much blood I do have at times, because I'll go a little bit without any blood and then I'll get some deep red. I think it's normal and it's getting less and less frequent.

I have a follow up appointment in 30 days, and all seems well now. The experience really wasn't bad. People who have had stones in the past have a 60% chance of having them again. So there is a possibility I suppose that I'll go though this again. I'm trying to do the things I need to do to avoid stones.... drinking a lot of water, avoiding salt (to avoid dehydration) .... I'm doing a little less well at watching what I eat I'm afraid (reducing protein and the like).

With respect to work, I was off and on for the first two weeks or so. The first two weeks I was able to engage in work on and off. Sometimes the pain and the pain pills would get in the way. I'm in my third week now and really starting to feel like I can engage full time.

So... that's my kidney stone story. Such as it is. If your going through it, I hope this helps you to worry a little less about the process and the experience.

Change...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:50:00 +0000

Heraclitus was a philosopher who lived about 500 years before Christ. He was big on the idea of Change being the a central part of the universe (the only constant is change). Right now my life is full of change and it's an interesting experience.

The technology world is full of change of course. It is truly a constant in our lives and I've often talked to non-technology people (and a few who are in the field) that are amazed at the change, and our ability to adapt. Adaption is truly the key.

My life in the last year has been one of major change. Some of it has been some of the worst change imaginable, and some of it has been very positive. Right now my personal life is in a state of a great amount of change, with relationships changing, kids moving to college, getting married, and so on. Some people cope well with change and some do not. I like to think I'm among those that do. Still change, even good change, is a source of stress and one needs to make sure that perspective is maintained during change. One also needs to maintain a sense of self during change and try to maintain a sense of self.

Right now, I'm going through the start of a divorce and my last child has headed to school. Both are changes that impact me deeply on many different levels. The divorce is peaceful and agreeable as such things go... though it's still deeply painful for us both I think we both can be proud of how we have approached the whole thing.

Lizzie, my youngest at 18, is amazing and doing well as she begins her college career. So now, the house is doubly empty, doubly quiet. In the wee small hours of the morning indeed....

Yet life goes on and so shall we all.... There is so much to be thankful for and so much that life gives us that we need to appreciate. God have given us a wonderful life here on this planet and it's up to us to make the best of it. :)

Now..... back to thinking about my next Oracle related post...

Kidney Stones.... My story.... Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:36:00 +0000

This story started some time ago. Over the last, oh, maybe 6 or 8 months, my body seemed to be wearing down. I was having all sorts of issues with becoming tired, feeling weak, my bowels stopped working for a few days, I would get this on and then off fever and in general I really started to feel like crap.
At first I thought this might be associated with medications I was taking (depression, blood pressure, cholesterol). I talked to my doctors about the meds and we did some adjustments and it really didn't have any impact. I was just getting worse and worse.

One week I'd just had enough and went to the local instant care provider. I had just run down in a major way, and felt like crap. My bowels stopped working, I had no fever at the time but I was to the point that I was needing to lie down for a nap every 3-4 hours. I also had developed a slight pain on the lower left side of my back that week for the first time. Now to me this was a warning sign, because I've experienced pain in this location before and that was when I had a kidney stone previously. However, the previous stones ranked a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale and this thing was like a .5 or so. The doctor and I figured it was a small stone passing and that it would be on it's way soon. We both wondered if my problems were related to the stone and so he gave me some pain meds in case the stone started hurting worse and I went home.

Two weeks later I was worse physically. I was even more tired, worn out and just always feeling sick. This time I was not feeling the stone at all and I was more concerned that I had some infection in my intestines somewhere. I went back to the instant care clinic and they decided to CT Scan me.

I sat in the office of the Clinic, wondering what it could be. I had all sorts of things going through my head... cancer? some weird virus? Flesh eating bacteria?

The doctor opened the door and came in the room. On his face was the look of someone who just had seen something they had never seen before.... Looking at his face I said to him, "Um.... you are not allowed to give me very bad news."

He looked at me and laughed. He said, "Sir.... I have never seen someone with this many kidney stones ever. You are my patient of the day. You have seven kidney stones in your body. If you had a fever you would be in the emergency room now".

SEVEN stones? These were not small stones either. The smallest was about 3mm and the biggest was over 10mm in size. They were spread all over creation, from my kidneys to the ureters and in between. Seven little nasty looking stones. The doctor gave me a referral to a urologist and I left the instant care clinic knowing that I'd found the reason for my troubles, and knowing that for the first time in my life (aside from having my wisdom teeth removed) I was going to have surgery. For a man 45, when you realize that your going to have your first surgery ever, you all of a sudden start to feel old. Very old.

I'll get to the surgery in a later post and my post operative care.... I think there are some interesting things to share there. What I want to share from this experience is that not all kidney stones hurt like hell. It was a lesson in not making assumptions. For months and months these stones were in my body and because I did not recognize the symptoms as being stones and rather attributed them to something like a virus, I ignored the problem and it got worse. The moral of the story then is that if you start feeling bad, it's worth getting it checked out. Also I think there is a second moral .... be active in your health care. I believe I should have asked for a CT scan on the first visit to the instant care clinic because I knew something was wrong. Sure we thought it was a smallish stone, but the other things going on in my body should have made me realize that this was not the work of a single little stone going down my urinary tract... one that was so small that it wasn't hurting me in any way. In retrospect, clearly based on all my symptoms, something else was going wrong and I should have realized it.

Next time I'll post about my hospital experience. I have to be honest, as far as such experiences go, I don't think it could have gone any better. Frankly, it was amazing.

The Holistic DBA – And there were numbers 6,7,8,9 and 10. (Part One)

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:35:00 +0000

We are almost at the end of our journey (and really are just beginning) to becoming the holistic DBA (well my vision of one anyway). We have freed ourselves of the ordinary day to day tasks that can be automated and reported on and now we have time that we can allocate to a number of things. We don’t keep re-inventing the wheel. We have our tools in place and reporting to advise us of any problems. We have also worked on our communications skills. Maybe we have read a book, or just practiced some of the ideas that I presented in my previous post.

One thing to keep in mind is that all of these priorities never really stop. They are iterative in nature. We can’t stop looking for a better tool, or more efficiency. By the same time, we can’t get bogged down in it either.

Now comes what may well be your most important legacy to the organization – priorities 6 through 10.

6. Help users to help themselves

7. Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations data policies.

8. Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations data designs.

9. Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations application designs.

10. As befits the organization, your abilities, and time keep up with current data related technologies.

Number 6 is a particular favorite of mine. This is of the “teach a man to fish rather than fishing for him” kind of thing. How familiar is this to you?

DBA: Yeah? (hey, you’re a little grumpy, you have not really recovered from the weekend yet)

APP Developer: Hey Tiny (you hate when they call you Tiny), I have this SQL code in module 4405 of the zantax application that’s running slow. Can you look at it and fix the database?

DBA: Yeah, sure.

You then proceed to spend quite a bit of time (in between swigs of Mountain Dew Code Red) ferreting out the running code, getting the execution plan, and chasing down the problem.

What’s the problem here? I mean, we are DBA’s. We are the lords of our domain! Right? If we are, let us build a better domain because this one is sick as a dog.

What’s wrong is this is not a scalable operation first of all. I know that there have been many times that I have had several calls at once (particularly after a new application release). There is one of me, thirteen developers and 10 problems all at once. It’s a classic queuing problem, anyway my queue does not process things any faster when they are piling up (in fact, it probably slows down). This is where priority 6 comes into play. It is the DBA being proactive, and teaching the developers (and even damagers) how to do things like bring up execution plans, understand them, figure out what’s wrong, craft a solution and test it before you ever hear about it (you probably already knew about it from OEM reports, but that’s beside the point. Even better, in our previous work perhaps we have arranged for developers to receive Top SQL reports on a daily basis, hmmmmm)?

I thought about adding another item to my list that was “Do everything you can to make your job scalable” or “Do everything you can to get others to do their job, so you can do your job”, but it didn’t quite seem to fit. Helping users and developers to help themselves is the better solution. How do we do that? Well we put on classes, we teach the mysterious dark arts of writing good SQL. We suggest to hiring managers that they might question their prospective hires about SQL and writing efficient SQL code. We need to turn this ship around, we need to change the paradigm such that the people writing the code, are the ones writing the tuned version of the code. We need to put the onus on them.

Your response might be, “Well management does not support that.” Really? Have you talked to management about that? If so how? Did you just walk in and blow up about all the idiots in the development group who could not code themselves out of a box. Did you throw in a lot of hot air or did you offer calm, level headed, solutions. Does your group just grouse about the duh-velopers in meetings, or does someone decide that enough is enough and today things change. Managers – You are expected to be the leaders, it’s you they will look towards for leadership and to follow. I know it can seem overwhelming at first, but just little steps…. Little steps and you can get an awful lot done.

Having completed steps 1 through 6, how much free time do you think you will have on your hands? Will we have freed up 20% of your time? 50% of your time? I suggest to you that if these steps have not freed up at least 50% of your daily workload, then you are not doing something right. You are still out there coding something cool in Java or Perl….maybe you are taking the time to read one of Craig Fergusons books (and I can get behind you on that one!) You still can’t let go of your built in DBA desire to tune SQL code or something else has you not making the most of your newly found free time. That’s where the remaining steps come in.

By moving to these steps we are moving away from being tactical DBA’s and we are moving towards becoming strategic DBA’s. You might fear the notion that I’m trying to push you along this path, making you leave your cherished million lines of perl code behind, the dark nights of overtime while rebuilding some tables in your database and all those fun, cool, technical things that you do that really offer, in the long run, no real value to your employer, and in fact, increase costs, significantly.

I feel like I’m writing a book here. Still, these are just my observations and my view of what will ultimately make for a successful data organization. I still have more to say, but it seems like I have said enough for this post. So, I’ll try to finish my thoughts in the final installment.

Political - Social Security and other entitlements...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:42:00 +0000

So, I'm going to spawn off into a non-Oracle direction. I was reading this article today. In the article is indicates that social security disability will be out of money pretty soon (2017) and the general Social Security fund will run out of money in about 20 more years (I suspect sooner). I know that there is a lot of finger pointing going on with Social Security and who is to blame. I want to point a finger that might be unpopular but I think it's the truth. Who is to blame for all of these problems? Seniors that's who. I also blame anyone over 18 of course, but I think the seniors deserve a special place in the Social Security Hall of Shame.

Why do I say that? First, it was their generation that started this whole really bad idea. It was their generation that figured the government could do the job better than the individual. It was their idea to start funneling money to a big federal government and not demand accountability, not demand that the money be protected or reasonably invested. Instead, they allowed politicians to control this large amount of money. They played Russian roulette with the future generations for their own benefit. They started a huge, largely uncontrolled social experiment and just plowed into it.

Over time the program just snowballed into so many things it was not originally. Everyone got on the bandwaggon of course, from the liberals to the so-called conservatives adding more and more burden to a program that was already going in the wrong direction. We all like freebies, don't we? Free drugs, free medicine and health care (free is a relitive term of course). It turns out that this stuff really isn't that free. Also things like social security and medicare start to interfere with the market and in the end result in higher prices, not lower. One of the reasons health-care is so expensive, I believe, is because it is abstracted from us to a large degree. We pay our co-payments, we see hospital discount the total costs due to insurance agreements and we are happy.... we don't have to do much except write a small check and we don't have to consider the cost/benefit of the services.

That's not to say that I don't think that providing health care is important. I'll even agree that lower income folks need some assistance in keeping healthy because part of how we keep this society working is making sure that those who do not have continue to have opportunity. In my mind, we always need to provide opportunity. I just think there are better ways of doing it.

As with so many other personal liberties we give up to our government, they will willing to give up their money for a promise. Now it seems that as time progresses, they might get their promises fulfilled, but the future generations will instead end up working harder, Saving less, being taxed more, and having far less in the end to show for what they have done. All of this in the name of Social Security benefits that the ancients gave to themselves, mortgaging the futures of generations. This to me was selfish, thoughtless but not surprising. We humans often have grand ideas and want to help people (and ourselves). When it comes to the implementation of those grand ideas we get petty, selfish, bicker, steal, and we see the truth, money corrupts and corrupts completely.

Of course now, those same people who setup this pitiful system, this house of cards, are on the front lines of making sure they get their share. The great ponzi scheme that is Social Security is starting to fall. We see the likes of the AARP and other groups supporting the ancients fighting for their "rights" and their "entitlements". Why won't the ancients stand-up, and accept that they have made a huge mistake and that something needs to be done. Why can't they accept that they have had a major part in a failed program, and that since they took the lead in building it, they should take the lead in taking it down? These people often are ones who have fought for our freedom, fought for the future of the United States and what we are. Where is there resolve now, where is there willingness to sacrifice for the good by supporting the deconstruction of this failed program.

I am not suggesting that we need to just pull the support from the ancients or even those a generation removed from the ancients. Clearly we have this program in place, people depend on it and we need to make sure that those who can't survive any other way are protected (and even perhaps have their services improved). Still, it's clear, this program can not survive as it's currently constituted. If you are an ancient who is sitting with several million dollars in the bank, healthy and really have no need for social security, perhaps you might be willing to step up to the mark and just let your benefits go away. I'm sure there are a number of ways we can reduce the outlays over time that will preserve the benefits for the ancients who need them, while phasing out the program for later generations.

So what do we do about those later generations? We teach them to save. We teach them the process of diversification of assets. I know my five kids have all graduated from High School and in doing so had little knowledge about assets, asset management, or how to prepare for your future. We need to educate the people. We need to ensure that people to save, but not by sending money to the government, this is the more inefficient method of saving that there ever was.

As for the political types who see the money coming into Washington as power, for those who see it as an opportunity to redistribute income or an opportunity to gain political clout or any other number of really scummy and immoral reasons, you need to stand up and realize the destruction your kind of thinking has wrought on this economy and our society.

I know that on both sides there is a polarization that will never end. There are also a large number of those who don't care and won't take the time to understand because they are happy to have someone watching their back (even if it is the government who is poised to stab you at the same time if your not careful). There are those who are too lazy to really understand what is really going on, who are willing to look past the TMZ's, Comedy Channels and Extra's of the world.

That leaves those of us in the middle, who are rational, non-polarized and who actually care about both people, basic morality (and I'm not talking about religion here) and fiscal responsibility of the individual and the government to stand up and take the lead. We need someone who can work the media, who can communicate to the people, who can remain humble through the process and yet make the case clear. I wish we could find an ancient to do this, someone who was part of the generation that started this disaster, for that voice would be the most powerful of voices. What we need is a leader.... one that will stand up and say in his ancient voice (I'm thinking a Charleston Heston type here).... "You will not take my freedom from my cold dead hands."

What will it take to turn this around? What will it take to actually strengthen our society so it is more self sufficient and more people actually are actively interested in their futures? I don't know.

Ok... enough politics for now. More later...

What does a Great White flopping in a boat have to do with databases?

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:43:00 +0000

Greetings! I am the proud expecting father of several kidney stones in August. Yes, in August they are going to clean me out of a number of stones all over the Freeman internal acreage. I can hardly wait.

I saw this picture:

and believe it or not, it made me think of databases. This boat was trolling around with scientists doing shark study when Jaws here leaped out of the water, and settled right where you see it. You can see the story here.

So, does this make you think of databases? No....? Your thinking this is making me think about how fast I could get to the front of the boat. I don't blame you.... I'm sure someone said, "We are going to need a bigger boat"

But what if I suggested this was an Oracle database example. How about the idea of elastic scalability? Freeman, are you hopped up on your pain meds? No! I think this is a perfect idea of what elastic scaling is all about.

So, your database server (the boat) is humming along doing what it was *designed* to do... chumming water, chasing sharks, tagging them, catching an occasional red snapper, whatever. Your ship is built for this mission, it's designed for the load.

Then, in one moment there is this BIG FRIGGING FISH laying on your boat. This is the sudden rush of users. Maybe your a state agency and it's election day, maybe you are some gossip rag that just got sued or you are some database vendor reporting incredible earnings... whatever the story, all of a sudden this big fish just plopped into your neatly tuned system and you realize, it's not going to scale.

In this case, the big shark caused all sorts of damage, causing the boat to need to be towed into port. Do you want your system to have to be towed into port just because it could not scale, and rapidly. This is where true architecture, configuration, *thinking* and planning come into play. Sure, maybe today you are dealing with small, 2 foot long sharks which, even if they did flop up on your boat, won't cause much of a problem (but the teeth do still hurt). But what about the future? What about the unknown? How prepared are you for that? How likely is it?

The is the beauty of RAC I think. Even if your using RAC One Node, or just clustering a single machine for the moment, the ability to easily scale out is powerful. Yes, it might be a little expensive and not everyone is going to need that power, but it is something to consider for mission critical applications/databases.

Anyway.... that's my fish tale and I'm sticking to it.

P.S. Amazingly - the shark LIVED......

The Holistic DBA -- Number Five - Communication - Part Four

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 02:27:00 +0000

** Note: As I have posted this my poor Doctor has informed me I have three kidney stones…. Ugh! So…. It might be a while before I post Part five… Sorry…. I'm afraid surgery awaits me. Gads....**

If you will recall in my last post I provided you with a list of what I consider to be the priorities of a holistic DBA. These were:

Be able to reliably, consistently and efficiently backup and recover the databases and all database in accordance with SLA, RPO and RTO’s.
Ensure database uptime with respect to all SLA, RPO and RTO’s.
Ensure all databases are secure.
Monitor all databases in a consistent and reliable manner.
Communicate in an effective manner.
Help users to help themselves.
Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations data policies.
Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations data designs.
Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations application designs.
As befits the organization, your abilities, and time keep up with current data related technologies.

I have already discussed numbers 1-4 previously and now I want to move onto number 5…

Communication. When we went to college or high school, more than a few of us laughed at the notion that we needed a class in communication. I mean, we knew how to talk, didn’t we? We took it for the “easy A” and sighed our way through the instructor as he dolled on. You may have skipped class often, relying on your memory and textbook to get you through, and it did…. Oh how wrong you were my friends. While the academic side of communication may be a lot for us to muster (and just like 10046 tracing, most of us really don’t need to master the academic side) our ability to communicate is critical. It is, in the end, what leads to our failure or our success.

Case in point….

I once knew a DBA who shall remain anonymous. A critical system went down, boom, crash with all the accompanying bells and whistles. Now, because of the date and time and that some month end processing had just occurred, the business needed the database restored to July, 1, 2011 (all names, times and places are changed to protect the innocent). The business communicated the date, the DBA communicated the date back and started the restore. All seemingly went well, the database was up and restored to 6/1/2011. However the users began to report inconsistencies in the data. Yes, most certainly some data was not restored and was missing. Panic ensued, some reason or other was conjured up for the failure and another restore commenced. Again the restore was successful and we though happy day, who let the dogs out, woot! Until the call came that the data was again, completely wrong. Now, I’ve given you just enough information to figure out why we were wrong. Can you see it? I was called in because it was becoming a panic situation. I looked at the restore code, called the DBA doing the restore and pointed out the mistake.

So, what was the communication failure here? Was there one? The customer communicated the right date to restore, and the DBA communicated the date back to the customer. It was all seemingly well communicated. However, there was a failure in communication here (as opposed to a DBA failure in my mind) and a failure of process. What were those?

First the failure to communicate was in not cross checking the date that he read back to the customer (in one format) with the date he used in the actual restore and recover command (in a different format). Note that the customer said July, 1 and our poor DBA (using scripts, again the bane of existence) entered 6/1/2011 instead of 7/1/2011. A simple mistake to make, a hard mistake to catch sometimes when the pressure is on and the customer is like “HEY, GET THIS THING BACK UP!”.

The communication failure here was also a process failure. I’m not going to dive into the dynamics of stress under fire, but our poor DBA was under duress to get this database back up and running. To his credit (he really is a good communicator) he reported the problem down the line. In the end, I think the failure was MY failure as his direct manager (who was technically capable) I did not double check his restore script. I didn’t assign someone to work with him during this crisis. I don’t see this as a failure of the DBA but rather a failure of what should be a mandatory oversight process during a critical outage. The failure to communicate was mine. The failure to get the database restored on time was mine. The buck stops here, with me. I know, it’s cliché, but it’s the way I feel. How do you feel when a mistake is made? Do you try to understand it, do you take ownership of it or in your mind is it just one of those things that happens? In my mind, the latter choice is an utter failure to communicate, with yourself.

Let’s dig deeper into this communication thing. Look at the remaining priorities #6 through #10. Is it not obvious that each of these require that you communicate effectively? Don’t each of those priorities (which I think become critical enterprise wide priorities) require effective communication? What is required to be an effective communicator? There are many websites and books that will walk you through the basics of communication but let me tell you what I think makes for an effective communicator:

One note – this list applies to both public, meeting and private speaking – Some items may have more importance depending on the audience you are talking too.

Your speech - You have got to learn how to speak correctly. This does not mean you need to sound like a snot nosed Harvard law professor. It does mean you need to know how to properly conjugate verbs, how to avoid double negatives and other such things. I don’t claim to be the expert in this area (in fact I’m not) but I think it’s profoundly important to higher levels of success. Don’t use your point-of-birth-origin as an excuse to not speak the tongue correctly. You’re not the Larry the Cable Guy, you are a professional DBA. Be that.

Your vocabulary - If you want to sound like you know what you are talking about, improve your vocabulary. Pepper it with words that add meaning to your thoughts. Understand the current technical jargon (in concert with priority #10) that is related to the topic you are speaking about. Learn what a thesaurus is and use it when you write. Writing is a great way to improve your vocabulary, even technical writing.

Don’t communicate to death by Email – Be an explorer and get out there and meet people! Get your butt up and go find the person and talk to them. Follow-up with an email if you think it’s important. Get updates by email if you like. The point is, in the process of communication, we need to learn to be personable. We need to learn to get along with people. We need to learn that being irritable all the time makes people shy away from us. Learn to go find and meet all the people that make a difference in the organization. Make it a goal, say once a day, to meet someone new, and find out what they do. Learn their name, learn their skills and where they fit in the organization. Knowledge is a powerful thing, and putting a face to a name is important.

Be credible - Understand that if we constantly espouse ideas that are ridiculous that we will lose credibility. However, don’t be afraid to take a chance and let an idea fly. Just be prepared to defend it and to back down if you are found to be in the wrong. Don’t let pride get in your way, rather let your professionalism and a touch of humility and a dusting of persistence be your guide to when it’s time to say “I was wrong”. You will lose very little (if any) credibility if you admit you were wrong. You will lose a lot of credibility if you stomp off and refuse to accept that you were in error.

Pick your moment – Now with respect to #4, you might well be right but the moment was wrong. Perhaps something is going on that is not making the person capable of really listening to your point-of-view. Perhaps it’s your approach. Perhaps it’s any of the items on the list. The thing is, we need to pick the moments to discuss various topics. An idea that you have that is amazing, brilliant but a little risky might fly right after your group has had a great quarter. That same idea might well get summarily dismissed if your organization is struggling to meet its SLA’s. Which in fact, implies you might be skipping the priorities before the communication priority.

Your tone - Your tone is critical and you need to gauge it carefully when you speak. Use your tone to create drama, to create impressions of important with respect to a certain topic or to re-assert everyone’s attention on yourself and not the pizza that just entered the room.

Know what you are talking about - I’ve sat in so many meetings when the pro-ported professional pro-DBA espoused some obnoxious, totally wild, incorrect statement with respect to Oracle and everyone just sat there and nodded their heads. What would you do? Would you correct him? Would you take issue if his plan was wrong? If you don’t know what you are talking about, then you won’t have a clue what to say. If you are not past #1,2,3,4 and moving forward into the later priorities, you are going to have nothing much to add to the conversation. Learn your trade, and learn it well.

I’ll include one key, and I think important, but to that last statement. In fact, you don’t need to know, and cannot know everything. What you do need to know, and must learn to do is figure out how to collect information and understanding quickly, efficiently and understand if that information is reliable. You simply can’t know everything. You can know how to find out about a great many things in a few clicks. You can discover existing standards, tools and technologies quite quickly, if you have the understanding on how to do it.

Know your lines - Know what you’re going to say before you say it. This is particularly hard with respect to one on one meetings or group meetings. However death by power point is the second most common cause of Gout in the United States, only bested by an intense desire to stand-up, pull your hair out of your head and say “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore”. I’ve also come to understand that the lines “It’s my money, and I need it now” are starting to cause many people to have gout flare-ups.

DO NOT come into a in person presentation with power-points and a dull dry script that you don’t know. It’s disaster waiting to happen.

Similarly don’t go talking to those up in the golden tower without having your facts at hand, without fully understanding your argument and also understanding who your enemy is. Yes, I believe that communication can be a battle area and I come prepared to go to war. You should too. (sometimes surrender is inevitable but you can always re-group for another day).

Practice - This is why priorities #1 through #4 are so important. Yes, they are important to the organization to be sure, but for you to be the best DBA for the organization you need to learn to communication. You need to be willing to communicate, you need to have time to communicate. Getting #1 through #4 in place, automated, repeatable should be the first step to improving on your communication skills. It’s those communications skills that will take you down the yellow brick road to becoming the holistic DBA.

Listen - What does listening have to do with communication? Just about everything! The key to communication is listening. There are incredible orators out there, but when you are in a one on one, or one on group discussion, it’s listening that will be the key to your success. Other people have great ideas. Sometimes those people are quiet, and often go unheard. Help them speak up when they have a good idea. Also, as you listen to the group dynamic, if you allow yourself to “step away” from it for a while and just listen to what’s being said, you might have some insight come to you that you that might not otherwise. You might find yourself being the man-in-the-middle, as it were, the un-polarized DBA with the correct solution that is obvious and defusing. Sometimes listening can lead to a successful meeting where just talking can lead to a disaster.

Does communication really belong at the #5 spot? Part of me really wants to park it in the number one slot for a lot of reasons, and maybe I should. The reason I park it in the #5 slot is that I see it as the gateway to the greater universe and the method by which we hyper-inflate our jobs and become the best damn DBA’s on the planet.

Ok… enough about communication. No, my name is not Covey. I don’t purport to be an expert on communication. I do know what I’ve seen work, and what I’ve seen fail terribly. I’m also not perfect at it, not by far…. I get frustrated way to easily, I find my tolerance levels dip into very low levels way to easily and I lose patience when I get stressed. Just saying, I’m far from perfect.

More about the last priorities on my next post…

DBA 3.0 (The Holistic DBA) – Part Three Afterthoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:36:00 +0000

Having posted part 3 a few comments have shown up in my in-box, and a few thoughts have come to mind that I really wish I’d included in this particular article. So I think I’ll share them now.

First, I wish I’d addressed the concern with complexity a bit more directly. In the story of the DBA who took the complex backup spaghetti code and replaced it with equally complex backup spaghetti code, I totally didn’t point out the issue of complexity. Reducing complexity should be one of your key drivers when it comes to “refactoring” your existing DBA code (backup, monitoring, etc…). Reducing complexity reduces likely failures and that gets back to the core of the whole point of what we are shooting for, freeing up your time so that you can pursue more worthwhile ventures than tracing down that annoying bit of code that keeps failing.

Another comment has been made about something I’ll call DBA approachability. I’ll address it in the future, but I’ll say now that I agree one hundred percent with this opinion. I think being approachable fits in with priority #5, which is communication. A lot of our DBA crankiness comes from the fact that we are usually busy trying to deal with the implications of priorities #1 through #4 not really being mature. Not automated. Not self service. We have a list of tasks to do (x number of databases to restore, 5 emails from developers asking for help, my boss wants my status report and now you are asking me what I think of flashback database? Stand in the back of the line buddy). When #1 through #4 are out of wack, so are we and so is our ability to communicate efficiently, and we find we are stressed and over loaded. We really can't do our job effectively.

Then…. There are those folks who just don’t have a nice disposition. I once worked in a place, I’ll call it the Entire Massive Political Insight Realignment Engagement Institute (or the EMPIRE Institute). At the EMPIRE institutes DBA shop everything was a mess. Everyone was running around like a droid with his head cut off. It was pandemonium. In one of the various DBA shops there was myself, Ben and Sidious (who’s mother apparently loved Star Wars)). In spite of the Craziness, Ben was the nicest guy you would ever meet. He could be taking on five storm troopers, three wookies and a sand worm and still give you a warm smile, sit down with you are talk about your problem and help you find a solution. He'd pour you a cup of hot chocolate, offer your a doughnut and listen to your problems. If you had a suggestion to offer, he'd listen to that too.

Then there was Sidious. Just walking by his cubicle you could feel the ice coldness of his being. Somewhere in the background, you could hear the dark voices singing the song of lament and danger. When you poked your head in, he would turn in his chair, and the hideous look on his face made it clear, you were not wanted.

“What is it you want, young Freeman?”, he would ask. Clearly he had no respect for me what-so-ever. The problem is, he had no respect for anyone, he had no time for anyone other than his apprentice somewhere in the shadows lurking (ok…. So I’m making some of this up, but it’s based on a true story, I promise! ). He just sits there, in his throne chair, watching over his empire lest anyone rebel and try to seize power.

“Um…. They asked me to create some tablespaces, schemas and other object like things. I need the DBA keys please”, I responded.

Sidious, on the right arm of the chair, pointed to the piece of paper that contained the passwords I desired. He looked at me, “You want these, don’t you?”

“Um, yeah…. Your manager told me he told you to give them to me.”

Sidious looks at me, “No one manages the dark side of the force but me young one.”

“But your manager….”

“I said NO ONE Manages the dark side of the force but ME young one.”

The point of all this was Sidious thought he owned the world. I was given a directive to do certain things because Sidious didn’t know HOW to do them, was screwing things up and I was there to fix those screw ups. Sidious was hell bent on showing me who was in charge. He was hell bent on making sure my life was miserable. He was hopeful that I would become his minion and bow to his demands. Kindly but firmly I resisted the temptations of the dark side. The temptation to tell him to take a hike down a long nuclear chamber, the temptation to cut him down with my Skywalker 1000 side-arm. However, I had weapons that he could not contend with. I had the force at my back (in the form of management three levels deep), I had persistence and I had a kind but firm, I'm not going to take this blue lightning light crap from you brother, you are messing with the wrong guy.

After the ensuing battle between myself and Sidious, ending at the manager’s office at least three times, I finally pried the passwords from his cold, tired, 600 year old hands. While there were words had (mostly by Sidious and management), hearts broken (mostly the near-retirement age women sitting in the area who were subjected to Sidious and his words and actions) and a few cubicles burned with his evil blue lightning like electrical powers, I managed to keep my cool.

Really, I did.

Really!!

The point of all of this really is that even if we have to say no, there are ways of telling people no that are positive, and there are ways of telling people no that cause mass rebellion, planets to be destroyed, and general hostility throughout the galaxy. How you communicate tells allot about who you are, the kind of person you are, and has some direct impacts on the organization.

I mean it, I did keep my cool! Really!

I’ll put it this way. Why do we have developers using crap (I'm sorry, highly developed software) like hibernate to build schemas? It’s because they don’t want to come talk to us about the problems they are having with provisioning development environments, or we are not responsive to their needs, or we are not providing help and education with schema design and have not had the time or the inclination to teach them, to communicate with them. The same holds true for the desire to have constraints be present in source code rather than the database, etc…etc….etc….

So the bottom line is, a self-assessment is required, and probably on a regular basis. The basic question is this, are you really accessible? Is your countenance that of Ben or Sidious? Based on that answer, how does that impact the organization and how does it make your life easier or harder. Tough questions, tough answers and even tougher solutions sometimes. Or maybe not. Sometimes the solution is just learning to smile, say a kind word or two, remove the F-Bombs from your vocabulary and …. When you have time, you might attend to that face of yours. Sidious really needed some massive plastic surgery… I heard it was an old battle wound during the dark days but wow…. He was so shriveled up, and those eyes were so eerie…. Like they just looked through you.

All joking aside…. We will address communication in the next installment. Being nice, being personable, being trusted are all part of that equation.

And I really did keep my cool...

DBA 3.0 (The Holistic DBA) – Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:40:00 +0000

DBA 3.0 (The Holistic DBA) – Part Three

It’s been a little while since I wrote part two of my DBA 3.0 series. I find it’s 3am in the morning, I can’t sleep, I don’t feel well and I’m cold.

A perfect time to write.

First, I’ve decided that my concept of DBA 3.0, though well intended, is not very descriptive. There is one comment on my previous post where someone mentioned that they used the moniker DBA 3.0 in a work to describe something. Now, DBA 3.0 is generic enough that I don’t feel all that bad about adopting the name, but in my mind that is not descriptive of the concept. So, I’m rechristening the idea as the Holistic DBA (and maybe to make it extra cool we could add something like – The Next Generation to the title…. naaahhhhhhh).

In exploring the idea of the Holistic DBA in my previous posts, I lamented that many are entrenched in their cubicles, that many do not speak the language of business, that many are too busy writing scripts or digging into the next new technology. All of these things, in their proper proportion are good things, no doubt. It’s when the priorities get out of wack, then what we do (or as often what management tells us to do) can get us into trouble. In my world view, the holistic DBA is not a specialized DBA. They don’t spout out 10046 translations without using TKPROF, they don’t dump the contents of datafile headers and use bbed to magically open the database (and if they did I’d question if they were really an expert at all).

Let me say, first and foremost, that not every DBA needs to be a holistic DBA. Also, not every organization needs to have every DBA be a holistic DBA. There is a need in the technical world for specialization if your organization can afford it and if the need can be justified based on cost, meeting customer expectations and principally (in my mind), meeting established Service Level Agreements (SLA), Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Restore Point Objectives (RPO). I will also counter that every specialist DBA needs to have the skill sets and countenance to be a holistic DBA, especially that of communication.

There will always be a need for Lewis, Kyte, Millsap and that breed of expert (forgive me if I left your name out, you are all much smarter than me and I freely admit it).

And now, I’ll let the shock wear off your face with the notion of SLA’s, RTO’s and RPO’s. You might be asking, “What, do organizations really have those?”. Indeed, the best run, most successful data organizations do have those, somewhere.... often in a form that is pretty much useless, and not updated since the last great depression.

The organizations that have repeatable success have those. Organizations that fly by the “seat of their pants” typically do not, and that is one reason why those types of data organizations fail, eventually.

Eventually is a key word here too. Just because your ham-strung, bailing wire and spit, technical marvel has not yet failed, be sure that it will someday fail. When that day comes the song will be “Who’s got the job today? Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah!” as opposed to, “Information, I need the number for the unemployment office”.

If you think that it’s just the little boys who fail, and that the big boys and your big boy organization is immune from failure because of its vast size, number of DBA’s and it’s wonderful glowing talk about procedure, process and all the like, you are waiting to stand in the unemployment line too (or you should be already there). No my friends, the evil angel of death is an equal opportunity player when it comes to data center death and subsequent total mis-management of the world. In fact, I would suggest that the bigger you are, the harder you are more likely to fall and fall hard. Just because it hasn’t happened yet does not mean that the grim reaper does not have you on his visiting list… he is, after all, not omni-present. The stories I could tell of the foolish big boys and the key assumptions they made that caused massive failures.

So… What do we do to fix these problems? First of all, we have to realize that we have some principle goals as DBA’s. I’d like you to consider the following items as part of a list of these principle goals:

Be able to reliably, consistently and efficiently backup and recover the databases and all database in accordance with SLA, RPO and RTO’s.
Ensure database uptime with respect to all SLA, RPO and RTO’s.
Ensure all databases are secure.
Monitor all databases in a consistent and reliable manner.
Communicate in an effective manner.
Help users to help themselves.
Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations data policies.
Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations data designs.
Work to understand and correct bad behaviors with respect to the organizations application designs.
As befits the organization, your abilities, and time keep up with current data related technologies.

Do you notice anything about being the hero of the day on this list? Good, because you should never need to be the hero of the day. Yeah, it feels good when it works, but the unemployment line feels even worse when it does not.

Do you notice irritating details with respect to policies and procedures and doing backup and recovery testing? You didn’t? Really? Look closer at the list my friend. It’s in there.

Now…. I ordered this list in a very specific order for a specific reason and I wonder if you can tell me why? What is it about this list that, when done in the order listed, makes for a holistic DBA?

First, I think they are arguably in some order of importance. You might shift a couple of them around, say 2 and 3 or 8 and 9 (or you might consider them one and the same), but generally they are in order of priority (in my eyes) to any data organization. What else though, is magical about this list?

Automation, replication, consistent execution. Look carefully at 1 – 4. Holy cow, they are all something that can be documented, easily. They can be implemented rather easily one time, fire and kinda-forget within the constraints of an established policy (for example: Occasional maintenance, testing and the like thrown in to the schedule) and automation.

Something else I’ve noticed about the whole automation thing, we really like re-inventing the wheel don’t we? Why do we feel like we have to spend hours of time re-inventing the wheel by writing korn scripts, throwing them into Cron and having them run all over creation. Oh, here’s is a smart guy, he put them all on a shared NFS drive. UGH. Do I really need to mention the problem here? Do I really need to say this is the wrong way to be doing things?

Case in point – again the characters, places and all identifying information have been properly scrubbed. Maxwell Smart was a DBA in a rather large DBA organization. Now Maxwell was tasked with the assignment of getting RMAN “up and running” and to replace the stock of old, spaghetti code of backup scripts in the process. Maxwell is a pretty smart guy, but he really needs guidance and he really didn’t get much on this assignment. He felt the weight of this assignment on his shoulders quite broad and heavy. As a result, Maxwell replaced the old spaghetti code backup scripts and replaced them with a new set of equally spectacular spaghetti code backup RMAN backup scripts. Essentially we changed nothing in the process, except the tool that did the backups. The overall architecture was not considered, the total non-supportability of the scripts in the future was not considered, and the result was a product that was no better than what it replaced.

The point is that the holistic DBA, as we continue to define what and who they are (in my own limited understanding) is that we hope that Maxwell Smart will have moved past steps 1-4 long ago. That Maxwell would have moved onto the steps that offer the greater good, #5 in particular, and then steps 6 through 10. If Maxwell were a holistic DBA he might have come to understand some principles of architecture and design, that he didn’t possess when he re-created hell and he might well have created a backup haven.

Perhaps your retort to using technologies is something like “Well Grid Control didn’t work with backups n number of versions ago and so I gave up on it.”. Really. How very odd. The one product that Oracle gives you to make your life easier and at the first hint of failure, you give up on it. Instead you resort to korn, perl, or heaven knows what scripting language is your favorite and you spit out this cool, really dense code. WOW…. Meet Dr. Frankenstein. You have your creation and its’ a monster. Do I really need to tell you why it’s a monster? The bottom line is the holistic DBA put’s his ego and desire to raise the dead on hold and does it the right way. He/She does it in a way that is automated, centrally manageable and easy to use.

So, your retort, “what if it is broken”? Then my friend, it’s time to remember your priorities above, call Oracle support and get the damn thing fixed.

Then you retort, “They never work on my SR, they never call me back”…..my goodness someone call the wambulance and rush ahead to priority number 5 and get it down fast. The bottom line is that the holistic DBA can not be a passive “Yes man”. You don’t have to be a jerk, you don’t have to be evil incarnate to get what you want but you do have to persevere. You have to pursue excellence, even if those around you seem not to be following the same path. Heavens, this is leading me down the path to calling this the Black Belt DBA but I’ll avoid the temptation.

If you are not getting the support you desire from Oracle (or any other vendor) then who’s responsibility is it to get the level of support you need? YOU! It is your job to make these things work, and to bust dam’s (and perhaps even utter one or two aloud) in your pursuit of a solution. Oracle support can be very responsive if you know how to use it, and if you are persistent. If you don’t know how to use it, beyond opening an SR on Metalink, there are some great training tools available to teach you how to use the support system. Working with any support organization is a bit like working with an old car with an engine that tends to flood way to often. You have to figure out how it works, what knobs to pull and just how to pull them. Once you figure that out, the car will start up pretty well just about every time. Again though, I put the onus back on you to make support work for you. If you are going to sit and wait for support to come looking for you then the fault, in my opinion, lies within yourself.

So, we’ve figured out that 1-4 are pretty easy to take care of (though the implementation may take some time and major initial effort which can frustrate those who love to do things by the seat of their pants). Do you notice something else about #1-4? First, they don’t require you to know how to do 10046 tracing. They don’t require that you know how to do explain plans. They don’t require that you have to be able to do data file header dumps or a triple summersault with a half-gainer pike on the database (is that possible?). You might protest, but I need to know how to do these things? I need to be able to look like I know what I’m doing. I agree, you need to look like you know what you are doing. Remember that this list is a list of priorities. Few people will remember you for your marvelous once every six months 10046 trace that fixed one year old SQL code that was not designed to be scalable. They just won’t. They will remember that your database was restored flawlessly and on time and that the business never even noticed things were down. Better yet, they won’t even remember because they didn’t notice and there was no need to. If you have a good boss, he will remember. If you get off the wambulance and show some persistence in your reviews, he will certainly remember.

Here is another point about the over-arching nature of numbers 1 through 4. They can be costly if not done right. If you find yourself iterating only between these various areas of DBA Ville, you are costing your employer vast sums of money that really does not need to be spent.

Another point about 1 through 4 is about automation and simplification. You need to realize that these are just lines in the page and that there are other needs in this section that you need to “read between the lines”. Automate, automate, simplify, simplify. For example, if you find that you are creating lots of databases or lots of schemas, and that takes a lot of your time, find a way to automate that workflow. Make it user serviceable. The tools are out there to allow you to do basic, simple, automated provisioning. Rather than spending 6 hours to 5 days to provision a database, let’s spend 2 seconds as you click the approval email that is a part of the overall workflow. These are the kinds of things that you need to be doing, now.

Plenty has been said about re-inventing the wheel, about the costs of re-inventing the wheel and the dangers of re-inventing the wheel. Use the Damn wheel why don’t you and quite finding little reasons not to use the wheel and build your own wheel. “But there are bugs in the wheel”, you say. All wheels have bugs. The problem is, the only person who can solve your wheels bug is you, and if you leave, then who is it going to be. Sure, the Oracle wheel might have a bug or “undocumented” feature in there, but can you really cost-justify the time and money spent re-inventing the wheel rather than taking the support organization to task and making them fix the problem? Also, keep in mind that the wheel they created, has been tested many more times and in various different ways than the wheel you are creating.

The real point, with numbers 1 through 4 is that they really can take up an inordinate amount of time if not done correctly. They can also cause an inordinate amount of damage to the organization if not done properly. We need to have these settled, on automatic pilot and flying without aide of an instructor reliably. Then we have freed up time for tasks that are more strategic, and therefore quite important.

That the leads to the that magical mystical number 5? Let’s talk about that and the rest of them in my next post.

Todays DBA Words of Wisdom...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Fri, 06 May 2011 21:43:00 +0000

First, I'll post part three of my DBA 3.0 thoughts soon. But right now, a word from the DBA Guru...

So we climb the top of mount Oracle..... it's a difficult climb, fought with peril. We wish to face the peril, for it is perilous and that is what drives us... also we wish to seek the wise words and pearls of the great DBA Guru Dali Lamba DoDad who knows all Oracle.

Upon reaching the peak, we see the great house of DoDad, where the guru gives audiences.

"Come in my child, I see you have climbed the mountain and are worthy of my presence." he tells you....

"Yes your worship... I come seeking the wisdom of the Oracle of Oracle." you say. You are amazed, for you have never seen this man at Open World, or Collaborate or at any user conference.

He looks at y ou, and says, "Come closer my son, and I shall give you words of wisdom..."

You kneel and scoot closer to the Dali... he takes your head in his hands, moving his lips to your ears. You await his words, the words that will forever change your life as a DBA.

Dali says, "Wise DBA does not allow automatic backups to begin when testing database PL/SQL code on crappy PC. Wise DBA will realize that backup has begun instead of freaking out and going into full performance tuning mode."

Indeed, the Dali is wise......

A slight diversion for the moment.... Not Oracle Related

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 02:46:00 +0000

I'm in LA right now, working on a gig (do we call it a "gig" at Oracle...? Guess I better check with legal on that one).

I'm on the 25th floor of my room.... watching the sun go down and the city lights come on... I look out in the distance and I wonder about all the people out there. I wonder what they are doing... some are still working, some have just gotten home for dinner, some are putting their kids to bed. Some are crying over a lost loved one tonight, others joyful over the birth of a child. Some are lonely, some are getting it on like wild. Some are just sitting and watching TV, and some are working out, sweating to the oldies.

Some, like me, are just sitting out and watching the sea of humanity and wondering what will come next. Dwelling on what was, what could have been and what could be. Life, passing by, one tick after another, and yet with the loudness of society it is still so quiet, so still, so lonely sometimes, isn't it?

And I look up, at the few stars that I can see from here, and I wonder if there are others like us out there. Do they feel, do they hurt, to they cry tears and feel joy? Do they suffer or do they have powers we don't even begin to understand. I wonder if I was born before my time, for I so wish to travel those vast distances and see all the wonders of the universe. I want to see other planets, other species of life.... I want to see all those things.

Also as I look out, I miss those who are gone. My mother, taken from me.... my family all growing up and moving about... getting married and some living far away from me. Missing and lonely, traveling about but not feeling complete.

I still live with my depression you see.... I still find it my silent partner, walking with me, whispering to me songs of lonesomeness, songs of longing, songs of frustration and wistfulness. A desire to magically transform all at the sound of my voice, so that all will be right with the world. So that all will be in it's proper place, in it's proper prospective.

And the sun goes down, and night comes. The lovers love or they quarrel. The widow sits alone, silent waiting to return to her loved one. The children sleep dreaming of mickey mouse, Donald duck or a cat named Clifford. Men sit in prison, guilty and innocent. Their wives and children thinking of them, loving them. It is a world that goes on and on, lives in the millions and I sit here, from the 25th story and silently observe them in my mind, and watch the lights as they twinkle.

Good night America.....

The changing world of the DBA (Part 2) - DBA 3.0

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:14:00 +0000

My first post received some great comments and so I want to continue with the theme of the changing world of the DBA. Back some years ago there was this Collaborate (or Open World I can't remember now) session that was DBA 1.0 vs. DBA 2.0. In this session, our gallant 1.0 DBA stepped up and used scripts, and the equally gallant DBA 2.0 used OEM to manage the database. This was in an effort to prove the virtues of DBA 2.0, using the automated tools that Oracle makes available and so on. I thought it was a great session and I think that it might not quite have proved the case for DBA 2.0. DBA 1.0 was still pretty in the thick of things with his scripts, but I will say that I like the GUI's for lots of things too.

I submit though that we need to move beyond the DBA 1.0 and 2.0 world, and become DBA 3.0.... Maybe we should have been DBA 3.0 in the first place and we just didn't realize it.

In one comment from Michael "Misha" Rosenblum there was a suggestion of a "development DBA". He sugested the following attributes for a development DBA:

[he would be] a senior specialist that would have enough knowledge of database architecture "to be dangerous", but mainly be involved in two key areas:

working on impact analysis/advanced research for the senior management.

[he would be a]bridge between all groups (educating developers about new features, translating to "real-DBA" all needs of developers etc, making sure that architects are staying in this Universe etc).

This would be a good start I think, but I think that DBA 3.0 goes deeper than this. Some organizations have development DBA's, some have architects, the job of database and data design can be pretty watered down at times. However, it seems to me that in most (there are always exceptions) places I've seen, be it a development DBA, a regular DBA, an DBA architect, what have you, we are often late to the ball.

We often show up at the door after the party has started, the decorations are up, the music has been selected and the guests have arrived. We are late to the party to find that the guests are all under age, the drinks are all alcoholic, the party favors have not been delivered nor ordered, the seats are missing pieces to make the sit up properly, and we don't have enough budget money for speakers because someone forgot that when you order a stereo for the DJ, you might just want speakers and the cables for those speakers (or just as likely the speakers were ordered with the cables that are incompatible).

The point is, that we were not involved at the beginning. Why was this? We probably had heard somewhere about the party that was coming, heck we even got an invitation to it at some point. We knew that our skills would probably come to bear at the party since we know a thing or two about planning parties. So why did we not get involved.

There may well be a lot of reasons for that. It could be that party planning is just one of our many responsibilities. It could be that we have many parties going on, in different stages and at different locations. It could be that we are just sitting back at our station, watching the monitors, making sure that people are doing the things they are supposed to be doing. We are looking at the things we know have to be going on, but not really thinking about the things that are not going on (like the ordering of the alcohol).

Perhaps management has turned us into mere security guards, watching these monitors because that is what management thinks we do. Have we told them differently? Have we tried to tell management that we need to be pro-active and not reactive. Maybe we are comfortable sitting and watching those monitors, is that possible? There sure it a lot less risk doing that.

Still, time after time we see the disasters happen. Party after party just does not work right, success is not repeatable. We see all the reasons why, but what can we do?

The same is true of many (not all) DBA's. At time, it's the DBA who is at fault. Some are comfortable sitting in their little space, controlling their little domain, keeping their heads down, being the hero when they tune every slow piece of SQL that comes across their desk. All hail the DBA who can tune anything. Really though, I submit that if SQL code continues to need tuned by the DBA then there is only one person at fault for that, the DBA.

There are the DBA's that enjoy a good laugh too. They joke when the hardware is not ordered on time, when the wrong components are ordered or when things are not configured properly. These DBA's live on the failures of others, making themselves look so much the better. But really, are we? As one commenter responded in my previous post:

"In my opinion a DBA is a guardian of data."

And I could not agree more and yet, do we really do all the things needed to guard that data if we are just sitting in our little cubicles and watching things happen. Waiting for parts to be ordered, delivered and put together.

Are we guarding that data if we are not there at the beginning, articulating to management what our role really should be. Are we there making sure we understand what hardware and OS that others are deciding we should use is the right choice? Are we there, fighting the good fights (loosing once in a while) or are we cowards, or so politically correct that we can't stand up and say, this isn't the right choice.

Are we on the front end of modeling, or are we allowing developers to start the modeling before we ever get involved. Are we cowering to demands from others that we allow tools to model the database for us, or that we don't need to model in 3NF because of this reason, or that reason?

If it because we really don't understand and can't articulate the reasons to model in 3NF? Is it because we can't articulate in a language that business and development understands the need for the use of best practices and that, 3NF performs just fine, thank you very much, if you think in terms of groups/sets rather than procedural thinking.

The point is, if we don't understand what we are doing, how can we hope to help others to understand how important these things are? If we understand but we can't articulate to others how important these things are, how can we hope to ever become DBA 3.0?

I submit that we must become DBA 3.0, and beyond. We must learn to change, we must learn to communicate, we must learn how databases work, why backups are important, why DR is important and learn to communicate that. We need to learn how to translate things like outages into dollars, which is the language that the business and management understands. I assure you a manager will understand "The cost of a two hour outage to this company is 3.5 Million dollars and that cost doubles every two hours." rather than "We need a DR plan, there are terrorists out there!"

Ok..... my flight is landing.... more later. Your thoughts are quite welcome!

The changing world of the DBA...

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Freeman) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:48:00 +0000

It seems that I'm finding myself gravitating towards two non-technical discussions related to the world of the DBA these days. The first is the nature of the changing world of the DBA. The second has to do with support, using support efficiently and getting what you want from support.

In this Blog post I think I'll address some of my thoughts on the changing world of the DBA. I've talked about this at several presentations and have gotten good feedback on some of my comments. In fact I'm thinking of putting together a presentation on this topic as a whole.

The bottom line is that our world (as a DBA) is changing. It used to be that we were all kept busy with the day-to-day drudgery of managing our databases. We were busy trying to keep the thing up and and running, responding reactivity to user requests and imminent fires and really didn't have time for much of anything else, or perhaps we didn't make time for anything else. I think many of us liked working in reactive mode, liked being the hero in spite of the 2am calls. We liked being the DBA, who was talked about in hushed reverent silence in the halls because of our awesome skills and how we saved the day. This kind of thing appeals to our ego, and is a very positive reinforcement behavioral loop. We were DBA's, Database Administrators.

I'd like to propose a new definition of the acronym DBA. I'd like to change it to one of the following:

Database Advocate
Database Articulater (which I don't think is a word, but I'm not above making words up if they serve my purpose).

The point is that DBA's (administrators) can no longer afford to do our jobs in a "Business as usual" type of mentality. If so you will find yourself becoming a dying breed. We can no longer spend our time huddled in our cubes (or at home!) looking at tablespace available space, looking for disk space, helping users tune SQL statements, creating accounts, unlocking accounts, and so on. All of these things are time consuming tasks that are easy to automate.

Why are we spending our time tuning SQL statements? Why are we spending out time fighting COTS applications that don't work well? I propose that the reasons we are doing these things is because we are not doing the job we should be doing, and that we have not communicated effectively to management and the business what our jobs really should be and what we should be doing to really provide the best value to the enterprise.

I'll have some more thoughts about this in my next post...

Robert