What's Coming in 2006

Over the course of the last year, we discussed 10G R1 and R2 releases, converting Giant Eagle warehouses to 10G and testing strategies for 10G RMAN and Enterprise Manager to ensure they worked "as advertised" with Oracle's latest and greatest release.

We also spent a LOT of time covering 10G Enterprise Manager. But you should know by now how important I feel this tool is. DBAs of the future won't need to dive as deeply into the Oracle internals to solve day-to-day problems. The future of Oracle database problem solving will be administrators interpreting and implementing the recommendations generated by the advisors and ADDM. I absolutely and firmly believe that the advisors and ADDM will become more intelligent in their recommendations. Administrators being required to "become one with the optimizer" to tune Oracle workloads are rapidly drawing to a close. I have shown you the future of database administration - DBAs using OEM wizards, advisors and automated recommendations to quicky and effectively administer Oracle environments.

Collaboration Suite, Portal, OID
Giant Eagle is currently building applications that use some interesting Oracle technologies. One of these applications is a large information portal that uses Oracle Collaboration Suite, Application Server, OID, Portal, Single Sign-On and database product sets. We'll be using everything from Oracle Chat to Advanced Replication.

Members of my unit are rapidly becoming experts at installing, configuring and administering this rather robust environment. Starting this Monday, I'll be installing 10G EM R2 agents on the information portal servers. It will take me a while since there are about a dozen of them. Like I said, the environment is very robust.

ASM
I'll also be blogging about our 10G ASM testing. We have had numerous discussions on ASM and whether it has a fit here at Giant Eagle. With several of our warehouse databases being multiple terabytes in size, you should understand why we are being cautious. We are currently creating a rigorous ASM test plan. I intend on providing you with a blow-by-blow analysis of our ASM testing.

Data Warehouse
Speaking of warehouses, I'll be blogging more on warehouse-related topics. Giant Eagle contains a wealth of expertise in building, administering and leveraging warehouse databases. We were building them before they became popular, having warehouses that are over a dozen years old now. The idea of blogging is to transfer information to teach others. I think we can compete with anyone in the industry in terms of using and leveraging large data stores. Remember our motto is "we never met a piece of data we didn't like." There's good reason for that motto. It allows us to compete and win in a very competitive market sector. As a result, none of my blogs will provide any information on how we use the data, just how we build, administer and monitor it.

10G R2 Testing
We fully intend to upgrade our warehouses to 10G R2 in the first quarter of 2006. There are features that we must take advantage of, which will be discussed in an upcoming blog. I don't mind being on the latest release of any product when that product has been tested using a thorough, well thought-out test plan. Some DBAs are smart, some are lucky and the rest of us have to be thorough.

10G EM R2 Testing
Our ace installer, Ron Berner, has just installed and configured our first 10G EM R2 enterprise-wide administration environment. I'll lead off the new year by showing you the new features and functionalities contained in the latest release of Oracle's premier management product. I performed a quick review of the product yesterday and I am certainly impressed by the new functionality it provides.

Oracle Express Edition
I talked about this product in a previous blog. But one of my job requirements at Giant Eagle is to evaluate new database products and technologies. I have installed and evaluated other lightweight databases, including MYSQL, and I wasn't impressed. I like feature-rich database products. I realize that I may not take advantage of all of the features the database provides, but I can't predict what features my users will require from my database products in the future. I want the database to solve as many business problems as it can. I don't want to be forced to purchase other products or write custom code to provide a solution - I want the database to inherently provide that solution.

I fully intend to put Oracle Express Edition through its paces. I work with DBAs and developers that are experts at stress testing hardware, software and my management skills. We'll let them loose on the product and see what happens.

Podcasting
For those of you that don't know what podcasting is, here's the Wikipedia definition.

Tom Parrish recently interviewed me for DBAZine using Podcast technologies. We talked about my thoughts on receiving the Oracle Ace title, database outsourcing (I spent quite a few years working for a database outsourcer), my career as an instructor and my thoughts on the future of database administration.

I firmly believe that Podcasting will become just as popular as blogging. I also think that with super-editor Dana Farver and Podcasting expert Tom Parrish at the controls, DBAZine will be the leader in using Podcasting technologies to disseminate information.

Personally, I really enjoyed Tom Kyte's Podcast interview. Being interviewed after him makes me feel like the guy that bats after Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds. I think my interview tuned out well, though. I have lots of ideas on who we should be interviewing in the future and will work with Dana and Tom to schedule them.

Interviews
I'll also provide you with an interview or two of my own. Giant Eagle has some interesting folks that are truly experts in their chosen profession. Their areas of expertise include BPEL, Oracle SSO/OID, Oracle App Server, warehouse design, enterprise architectures and the list goes on and on… To break things up, I'll intersperse my regularly scheduled blog with a well-placed interview or two.

Summary
I appreciate those of you that read this blog. I would also like to thank the folks at DBAZine for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the Oracle community.

Giant Eagle continues to push the Oracle technology envelope and next year we intend to push it VERY hard. It should be an interesting and exciting ride.

Thanks for reading.