IOUG Virtualization SIG Symposium - November 7-8

Interested learning more about Virtualization and Oracle VM technologies? Don't wait, just enroll now  to the upcoming IOUG Virtualization SIG Symposium, scheduled on November 7-8, to hear what the industry experts has to say on virtualization technologies.

Here is a brief synopsis/highlights of IOUG SIG Virtualization Symposium:

November 7 - Oracle on Oracle VMRegister Today10:00am - 10:55am           Oracle on Oracle VM - Expert Panel
11:00am - 11:50am           Successfully Deploy the Infrastructure Cloud with Oracle VM
12:00pm - 12:50pm           The RAC OVM Templates and the new DeployCluster tool on OVM3
1:00pm - 1:50pm                The Latest on Oracle VM
2:00pm - 2:50pm                Simplyifying Application Deployment in Cloud Using Virtual Assemblies and EM 12c

November 8 - Oracle on VMwareRegister Today10:00am - 10:55am           Virtualization Architecture and Performance Metrics
11:00am - 11:50am           Oracle Virtualization Best Practices from VMware Support
12:00pm - 12:50pm           Virtualization Migration Strategies
1:00pm - 1:50pm                Storage Best Practices for Oracle on VMware
2:00pm - 2:50pm                Raising the Bar with Oracle on Vblock(tm) Systems
Oracle on Oracle VM - Expert PanelPanelists: Tariq Farooq, Honglin Su, Kai Yu, Mike Ault
Virtualization is the foundation stone in the cloud computing era.   In this session, expert panelists and speakers present, detail and elaborate on a comprehensive concepts overview, insights, recommendations, best practices, current strategies, pros and cons, relevance/role in cloud computing, prevalent/dominant paradigms and technologies and a whole lot more about virtualization as it relates to Oracle DBAs - from the perspective of Oracle on Oracle VM.

Successfully Deploy the Infrastructure Cloud with Oracle VMSpeakers: Charles Kim, Nitin Vengurlekar
Virtualization is the process of abstracting computing resources such that multiple operating system and application images can share a single physical server, bringing significant cost-of-ownership and manageability benefits.  Though its Oracle VM, Oracle offers scalable, low-cost server virtualization solutions for varying workloads and applications, as well as the driving force behind consolidation.  Over the past couple of years, Oracle VM has become a major challenger in the Oracle Database virtualization space.  If you are considering Oracle databases on Oracle VM, you cannot afford to miss this session by Charles Kim and Nitin Vengurlekar, Managing Directors from Viscosity North America, as they share their virtualization experiences on successfully deploying Oracle VM and describe how customers can achieve lower CapEx and OpEx using Oracle VM.
Key topics covered in their presentation will be:
- OVM History and Architecture
- OVM Core Features
- OVM 3.x New Features
- Importance of Templates
- Deployment Workflow
- Steps towards Virtualization
- Challenges
- Best Practices

The RAC Oracle VM Templates and the New DeployCluster Tool on OVM3Speaker: Saar Maoz, Consulting Software Engineer, Oracle Corporation
The popular RAC OVM templates were refreshed this summer to more optimally support OVM3.  A new tool called DeployCluster allows for even faster automation then ever!  End to end (including network setup)  clsuter build with no Dom0 or Guest VM access.  All previously released RAC tempates can be mixed and matches and full backwards compatibility is retained for OVM2 users.  Come see for yourself how easy it is to deploy RAC in an OVM2 environment.  Demos will be show live as time permits.

The Latest on Oracle VMSpeaker: Ronen Kofman, Director Product Management, Oracle VM, Oracle
Oracle VM has come a long way with great customer interest and analyst recognition.  In addition to the application-driven architecture and design to scale, Oracle VM continues to drive integrated management into all aspects of the product.  Join us in this session to get a technical deep dive of the latest features in Oracle VM and expanded management support.

Simplifying Application Deployment in Cloud Using Virtual Assemblies and EM 12cSpeaker: Kai Yu, Dell Oracle Solutions Engineering
Oracle virtual assemblies provide a great way to simplify the deployment of enterprise-class multi-tier applications and their configuration dependencies.  Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder 11gR1 can create Oracle virtual assembly packages by capturing the state of an installed application topology.  Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c can deploy there assemblies in the cloud resulting in fully operational application stack within minutes.  This session will walk you step by step through the Oracle virtual assembly creation process.  This session will also demostrate how you can use Oracle Enterprise Manager 12 Cloud Control to deploy an assembly in a self-service cloud built on a Dell platform.

Virtualization Architecutre and Performance MetricsSpeaker: George Trujillo, VMware
Attendees will learn virtualization architecture foundations, reference architectures and key performance metrics for running Oracle in virtual infrastructures.

Oracle Virtualization Best Practices for VMware SupportSpeaker: Mike Matthies, VMware
This session will focus on best practices from a VMware support perspective.  VMware support will show attendees how to avoid common mistakes, misunderstandings of configurations and best practices learned from the trenches.

Virtualization Migration StrategiesSpeaker: Charles Kim, Viscosity NA
This presentation will focus on Oracle virtualization best practices.  Topics will include the Oracle Virtual Infrastructure, migration options with the same endianness, migration options for different endianness and best practices.

Storage Best Practices for Oracle on VMwareSpeaker: Brad Davie, EMC
Storage is a key component of any virtualized infrastructure.  The speaker will discuss storage hardware and software capabilities, and provide a comprehensive set of storage best practices designed to enhance performance, scalability and availability of Oracle databases running in a VMware environment.

Raising the Bar with Oracle on Vblock(tm) SystemsLearn how VCE delivers a pre-engineered and validated converged infrastructure to reduce costs, speed time to value and de-risk Oracle deployments.  Gain an inside perspective on harnessing the power of Vblock(tm) Systems to ensure and predictable Oracle performance, as well as enhanced operational agility and scalability for E-Business Suite R12 & RAC.

Look forward to see you VIRTUALLY.

How do I decide between Shutdown NORMAL|IMMEDIATE|ABORT

Well, as an Oracle DBA, we have been taught and learnt the various database shutdown modes, NORMAL|IMMEDIATE|TRANSACTIONAL|ABORT that would be used as situation demands.

When the NORMAL|IMMEDIATE mode doesn't work, as a last resort, we use the 'SHUTDOWN ABORT' to terminate an active instance as quickly as possible, leaving a database inconsistent mode. Of course, the subsequent database startup requires an instance recovery and the recovery will be performed by the SMON b/g process automatically. Having said that, sometimes, this mode would have a huge risk of data corruption, specifically in pre 8.1.6 version.

Beyond a doubt, the 'SHUTDOWN ABORT' is the fastest mode of a database shutdown. Nevertheless,  we sometime afraid of using this mode due to the above mentioned facts. In order make a decision between a clean shutdown and shutdown about, one can do the following exercise:

Determine the of rollback is required (in bytes) for a clean database shutdown:

      select sum(used_ublk) * 
         <block size of the undo/rollback segment tablespace> 
         from v$transaction;

If the amount of rollback required for a clean shutdown is very little, then go ahead with 'SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE'.  In case if the amount of rollback required for a clean shutdown is huge and time consuming, use the 'SHUTDOWN ABORT' command, preferably if you are on >8.1.6 version.

Bring up the database in RESTRICT MODE subsequently to verify the rollback progress:

        select sum(distinct(ktuxesiz)) 
        from x$ktuxe where ktuxecfl = 'DEAD';

Upon rollback completion, shutdown the database cleanly, using the 'SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE'.


Reference:
What Is The Fastest Way To Cleanly Shutdown An Oracle Database? [ID 386408.1]

Notable changes discovered (accidentally) in 11.2.0.2

The other day I was building some test scenarios for my chapter, and accidentally discovered adding new instance to an existing RAC database was made simply in 11.2.0.2.  I still remember the long procedure we use to practice to add a new instance, either manual or using the DBCA. However, in 11.2.0.2, with simple 'srvctl add instance -d <database_name> -i <instance_name> -n <node_list>' command, you can add a new instance very quickly. In fact, the srvctl utility now capable of doing all the procedure for you.

I also quite liked the power of srvctl utility, for example, in 11.2.0.2 in order to mount an ASM diskgroup on any ASM instance, I can simply do it using the 'srvctl start diskgroup -g <diskgroup_name> -n <nodes_list> command. This is was pretty much handy for us during our database migration project in the recent past.

Also noticed if a diskgroup is unmounted on any node in the cluster, and you try to do the instance movement or new instance addition on that node, the diskgroup will be mounted automatically in contrast to earlier versions where an error message popes up.

Perhaps I could be a bit late discovering(accidentally) these changes, however, one should definitely agree, each passing day a new learning day.