Consider this to be the first of many blogs on the art of performance monitoring and tuning using 10G Enterprise Manager. I'll start the series by discussing how the latest release of Oracle's SGT (Sissy GUI Tool) will force us to change the way administer, monitor and tune Oracle databases.

In upcoming blogs, I'll break 10G Grid Control's monitoring infrastructure into individual components and discuss each one in-depth. By the time I'm done, we'll all be 10G Enterprise Manager experts.

In my last blog, I discussed the various testing strategies we implemented at Giant Eagle to make sure we had a trouble-free migration to Oracle's latest and greatest release. In this blog, I'll discuss some general techniques you can use to make any database upgrade easier and less error-prone.

In upcoming blogs, I'll cover how we have configured 10G Enterprise Manager to monitor and administer our 10G test and production databases. In addition, I'll also describe how we use the tool to perform performance monitoring and tuning. Performance monitoring and tuning using 10G EM is so drastically different than 9I OEM, that it is definitely worthwhile for me to spend some time telling you how we use it. With SQL joining billion row tables on a regular basis, we quickly become experts on all new tools we use here.

It has been a long process, but we have successfully converted our first production warehouse to Oracle10G. The database has been running for over a week now with no problems and is performing better than we thought it would. In this first post-turnover blog, I'll cover some of the testing strategies we used to ensure a successful migration to Oracle10G. In part 2, I'll provide you with a laundry list of helpful tips and techniques you can use to make any database upgrade easier and less error-prone.

Consider this to be my first "stop the presses" blog. We ran into an issue with RMAN that I think everyone needs to know about. Although the problem's impact was significant enough to stop our 10G conversions, we have identified an easily implemented preventative measure, a fix and an explanation.

If you intend to upgrade any 9I databases to 10G and use RMAN to back them up, it would be worthwhile for you to spend a few minutes reading this blog. If you don't, you may be recreating all of your database's controlfiles to fix a problem that is EASILY prevented.

Giant Eagle's warehouse development team has also been busy putting Oracle10G through its paces. We have spent a lot of time learning how to administer Oracle's latest and greatest release, so let's now turn our attention to what Giant Eagle's application developers have been up to. In this blog, we'll review the results of our application testing and compare some batch and on-line execution times from our 9I data warehouse to its 10G counterpart.

I'll begin part 2 of my series on RMAN by discussing a few of the 10G enhancements that we are interested in. I'll finish this series with our 10G RMAN test plan. Considering that we will be using this new release of RMAN to back up and recover our multiple terabyte data warehouses, I won't rest easy until I know I have tested every command that we use here at Giant Eagle.

Call me paranoid but I will never, ever, ever trust any tool with my career. The test plan included in this blog may seem like overkill to you, but if it reduces my personal anxiety and lowers my (and my unit's) stress during our next recovery, the time spent testing RMAN will be well worth it. The more stressed you are during a recovery, the greater the chance you will have of making mistakes. Recoveries are stressful enough. I don't want to be wondering if the tool is going to work.

Recovering an Oracle database is a wonderfully complex task. Data files, log files, control files, full backups, hot backups and point-in-time recoveries all combine to make many administrators lie awake nights wondering if their databases can be easily recovered. Oracle10G contains numerous enhancments to the RMAN backup utility. As a result, a thorough testing of 10G RMAN is warranted.

In part 1 of this 2 part series, I'll provide you with a few backup and recovery tips, tricks and techniques that I think will help both beginners and experts alike. Since we are RMAN aficionados here at Giant Eagle, I'll finish the blog with an introduction to RMAN. In part 2, I'll highlight a few of the 10G RMAN new features we are interested in and provide you with Giant Eagle's detailed 10G RMAN test plan.

After spending 20 hours testing Enterprise Manager, I'm happy to report that everything works as advertised. The tool is rock-solid. I thought for sure the product would have at least a few problems that I could report on. So instead of a bug discussion, this blog contains some of the tips and tricks I learned during the execution of my Enterprise Manager test plan.

This is the first release of Oracle that has forced me to spend more time learning how to use the tool to administer the database than I have spent testing the new features the database provides. Now that our 10G OEM testing is finally complete, I'll provide you with two blogs in quick succession. In this first blog, I'll provide you with a high-level over of what we found during our installation and in-depth testing. In the second I'll finish my discussion on OEM with a bulleted list of notes that I compiled during my 20 hours of putting 10G OEM through its paces.

We have been testing Oracle10G for some time now. So, I thought I'd spend 5 minutes giving you a quick update on a few new features we are interested in.