Oracle10G - Let the Installation Begin!
In my previous four blogs, I provided you with a laundry list of new features in Oracle10G. I felt it was important that readers have a general understanding of some of the features we'll be testing here at Giant Eagle. I purposely kept the information at a high-level. I wanted to make sure I covered as many of the new features as possible without turning them into the world's longest blogs. I also kept the tone of those blogs a little less conversational and more informational. I wanted to make sure we had a firm foundation on which to build future discussions upon. I think that must be the ex-Oracle instructor coming out in me. Rest assured, I'll be providing you with more in-depth information as we move forward with our Oracle10G testing. That's the great thing about blogs!
Since my name isn't easily recognizable, some background information is in order. Compared to the other authors on the site, I sometimes feel like it is the "Who's Who" (Burleson, Ault, Lewis, Nanda) and the "Who's He?" (that would be me). I actually spoke after Rich Niemiec at an Oracle Open World a few years ago. Now I know how the guy that bats AFTER Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa feels.
I have been administering Oracle since Version6 and have had a pretty varied career during that time. I've bought Oracle, sold it, learned it and taught it. I've worked as a DBA, Database Architect, Database Technologies Specialist as well as a consultant specializing in tuning/performance and advanced architectures. I have also been employed as a senior-level certified Oracle Instructor for an Oracle training center. Achieving the senior-level title allowed me to certify my fellow instructors. The greatest accomplishment in my career came was when I was awarded the Oracle Approved Education Center (OAEC) Quality Achievement Award. These awards are given to the top 4 instructors in the OAEC program. But teaching and too much travel go hand in hand. I'd still be teaching if it weren't for my wife forgetting who I was occasionally.
I am currently employed as the Database Manager for Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My unit currently administers 75 Oracle and 60 Microsoft SQL Server databases. Giant Eagle has several data warehouses in the multi-terabyte range with a few tables having 5 billion rows (plus or minus a few million). It is a challenging and exciting environment here. We look forward to continuing our implementation of Oracle10G and taking advantage of the advanced features and benefits that Oracle's latest release provides.
We have rigorously tested many of 10G's new features in our labs and are currently beginning our first real application conversion process. I'll be providing you with all of the gory details, from our first installation in our test environments to final production migration. The DBA leading the charge, Jim Dojonovic, likes to "aggressively" test and implement new technologies. Aggressive is the key word; he already has the developers running a little scared. Luckily, the developers that will be testing Oracle10G are strong technically and aren't easily intimidated by new technologies (or Dojonovic for that matter). It promises to be an interesting ride. Now that you at least have a general understanding about our environment, let's move on to the information.
Oracle10G Documentation
Like most shops, we started our initial 10G evaluation by downloading the documentation. After reviewing it and using it for a few months, my review can be classified as "two thumbs up." What can I say, the Oracle10G documentation is organized better, easier to navigate and easier to search than its Oracle9i counterpart. I like the new splash page that comes up featuring the "Getting Started", "Most Popular" and "New Features" sections. The 10G documentation's search function is also more robust and less error-prone.
The splash page provides a true documentation portal look and feel. The tabs across the top divide the documentation into loosely grouped categories such as "Getting Started", "Administration", "Application Development", "Data Warehousing", etc.. For those of you that know the exact book you need, Oracle continues to provide the "Book Listing" page that provides a listing of all Oracle books in alphabetical order.
The documentation took up 800 MEGs on my PC at home. If you will only be using the HTML documentation pages, you can reduce the amount of disk required by searching for all of the PDF files in the documentation directory and deleting them.
If you remember anything from this blog, make it the following sentence: "The hallmark of a being a good DBA is not knowing everything, but knowing where to look when you don't." But there is so much information available on Oracle that it tends to become overwhelming. How do you find that one facet of information, that one explanation you are looking for when you are confronted with seemingly endless sources of information? Here's a hint, GO TO THE MANUALS FIRST.
Call me old school, but I still read the entire set of documentation for every new Oracle release. The order of the first few books is always the same: "New Features", "Concepts", "Administrators Guide", "Reference", "SQL Reference", "Performance Tuning Guide" and "Data Warehousing Guide". The remaining books are read in no particular order. It's pretty much what I feel like reading at the time. When I was teaching, I always reinforced to my students that they needed to reference the Oracle documentation FIRST.
There are numerous industry pundits out there claiming to be "The Expert" on Oracle technologies. Take some advice from your friendly ex-Oracle instructor. The only sources of information that you should bet your career on are the Oracle Documentation, MetaLink (metalink.oracle.com) and Technet (technet.oracle.com). As a database manager, the last thing I want to hear is "Well, in Nick Knowitall's latest book it says it should have worked" when you're explaining to me why you crashed one of our production databases. Don't get me wrong; third party resources are an invaluable source of information. Just trust (and read) the documentation first.
Oracle10G Media
Oracle allows you to download its documentation and product sets from its technical discussion site called Technet. If you are new to Oracle, just sign up and you can immediately start downloading the 10G product set and documentation. Technet also provides frequently asked questions, articles, discussion forums and best of all - it's free!
Customers are also able to request CDs by logging on to MetaLink. Oracle's premier web support service is available to all customers who have current support service contracts. Oracle MetaLink allows customers to log and track service requests and search Oracle's support and bug databases. The website also contains a patch and patchset download area, product availability and life cycle information and technical libraries containing white papers and informational documents.
Log on to MetaLink (new users will have to create an account using their Oracle CSI number) and ask Oracle to send you a copy of Oracle10G for your operating system. Oracle ships CDs QUICK. They have always arrived here at Giant Eagle within a few days. For those of you that haven't purchased Oracle before, Oracle's website (www.oracle.com) will allow you to purchase any product Oracle markets.
When our first set of 10G CDs arrived, the DBA opened up the package and said "Hey, where's the rest of them? I think they forgot to send me all of the CDs I need to do the install." We checked MetaLink and found that Oracle10G only needs a couple of CDs. One main CD and another called "The Companion CD" which really should be called "The Companion CD that is required for all installs" since it pretty much has to be installed when you install Oracle.
Next Up
In my next blog, I'll describe the environment we are installing Oracle10G in and a detailed description of the installation process on HP, IBM RISC and LINUX.
