Laurent Schneider

Check the latest issue on oracle.com/oramag

emgrid 10.2.0.3 is not the second patchset of 10gR2, it is Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control Release 3.

Well, it is still called a patch set and must be applied to 10.2.0.1 or 10.2.0.2.

But it is a new release !

You can download the soft and the doc on otn
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/oem/index.html

Out of the new features, you have a Linux pack for your Unbreakable Linux, Management pack for Siebel and Oracle Content Database, and also Linux Server Administration to manage your Linux (RHEL4 and SuSE9).

The critical patch update for january is released. However, not for every version.

Already in CPU Oct 2006, many versions were delayed. The release date of 10gR1 Tru64 for example was Nov 15, but the note has not been updated for months. 9.2.0.8 Linux was released so late (29 Dec), that the CPU2006OCT-9208 is considered to be CPU2007JAN (patch 5490859). For 10.2.0.3, there is no CPU2007JAN

I applied both 9208-cpu2006oct and 10105-cpu2007jan to my notebook database.

Both complained about not existing XDB schema, but I ignore those (I have no XDB schema). Otherwise it went fine.

I apply the CPU as soon as released for testing purpose. However, applying the CPU as soon as possible in PROD does not apply to most of my customers.

In the Critical Patch Update 2007 January Pre-Release Announcement, you may wonder why there is a 8.1.7.4 CPU patch.

The reason is, Oracle 8.1.7.4 is still supported for some application supported by Oracle like Siebel, E-Business and Clinical.

Have a look at Metalink Note 148054.1

I will be speaking tomorrow in German and Wednesday in English in Credit Suisse Bank.

The workshop is about the differences between single instance and RAC

Some of them : architecture, availability, scalability, manageability, skills required, price. I will talk also about the operational aspects, upgrade, dictionary, parameter file.

10.2.0.3 patch is released for various plateforms, like Linux (x86,x86_64,Itanium), Windows (32bits/64bits), Solaris (64 bits) and Z/OS
Patch 5337014

While browsing on the support/desupport notice, I find out that exp is going to be desupported in 10gR2.

Metalink Note 345187.1

The original import will still be supported for upgrade from older releases. For upgrade to newer releases (11g,12g), use expdp.

How long is Oracle 9iR2/10g going to be supported? Infinitely!

Metalink updated the upcoming desupport advisory.

For 8iR3, you had something like :

Error Correction Support (ECS):     31-DEC-2004
Extended Support (ES):              31-DEC-2007
Extended Maintenance Support (EMS): 31-DEC-2006

Now for 9iR2, 10gR1, 10gR2, you have this :

Release  GA Date   Premier   Extended  Sustaining
                   Support   Support   Support
-------  --------  --------  --------  ----------
DB 9.2   Jul 2002  Jul 2007  Jul 2010  Indefinite
DB 10.1  Jan 2004  Jan 2009  Jan 2012  Indefinite
DB 10.2  Jul 2005  Jul 2010  Jul 2013  Indefinite

Sustaining support is less than extended support, you do not get upgrade script and compatibility with new products (ex: connection from 9i client to Oracle 14x is not supported). But it let you keep your very old stuff supported by Oracle.

Read more :
Oracle Lifetime Support Policy Datasheet PDF 110K
Oracle Technical Support Policies PDF 258K

Check the oracle magazine on otn.oracle.com/oramag

In the peer-to-peer, you can read more about 3 Oracle Aces, Steve Karam, Nicolas Gasparotto, Dave Moore.

In the technology columns, three more aces talk about Oracle technlogies. Steven Feuerstein about The Right Place for PL/SQL, Arup Nanda about Recover in a Flash, and Tom Kyte about On Top-n and Pagination Queries. Tom also remind us that group by does not sort. However, if you have one application which used to expect sorted result in 9i and is now produced unexpected result in 10g, you can still read the Note:345048.1 in Metalink to find some workarounds, for example by deactivating hash-group-by with _gby_hash_aggregation_enabled parameter set to false

Today is a good day, I have been accepted to the beta program and will be able to download 11gR1 beta 4 shortly.

There is a Confidential Disclosure Agreement, so do not expect to read more on 11g here before the production release.

My blog articles about 11g in OpenWorld 2006:
11g New Features
11g New Features part II

I successfully installed 10gR2 patchset 2 on my notebook :

SQL> select ACTION,VERSION,COMMENTS from registry$history;

ACTION  VERSION    COMMENTS
------- ---------- ------------------------------
CPU     10.2.0.2.0 CPUOct2006
UPGRADE 10.2.0.3.0 Upgraded from 10.2.0.2.0

SQL> select COMP_NAME,VERSION,STATUS from dba_registry;
COMP_NAME                           VERSION    STATUS
----------------------------------- ---------- -----------
Oracle Expression Filter            10.2.0.3.0 VALID
Oracle Database Catalog Views       10.2.0.3.0 VALID
Oracle Database Packages and Types  10.2.0.3.0 VALID
Oracle Database Java Packages       10.2.0.3.0 VALID
JServer JAVA Virtual Machine        10.2.0.3.0 VALID
Oracle XDK                          10.2.0.3.0 VALID

For Windows and Linux x86, Oracle Database 10.2.0.3 is available

download

check Oracle SQL Developer 1.1 Evaluation Release is Now Available!

PS: there is now a RPM for Linux, which I installed on my SLES 10 notebook with SUN JDK 1.6.

In the Metreon Theater, Quest announced toad 9. Steven Feuerstein presented one feature : Unit Testing in TOAD. Go to http://www.toadworld.com, unless you are a vi man

I like this one. It will really ease the migration to Linux. A very good news for me.

Go to oracle.com/linux

a new major release of the famous compression utility for windows is available as a beta
http://www.winzip.com/betawz.cgi

Better compression, RAR+Bzip formats extraction and more

I downloaded the CPUOct2006 patch for 10.2.0.2 and applied it successfully to my database.

SQL> select action,id,comments from dba_registry_history;
ACTION         ID COMMENTS
------ ---------- ----------
CPU       5490848 CPUOct2006

in the logfile, apart from a few ignorable ORA-02303: cannot drop or replace a type with type or table dependents errors, everything went fine.

Applying the security patch shortly after they are released is in my opinion a good practice, because a fix could sometimes reverse-engineered to reveal the bug.

Tomorrow afternoon I flight via London to SF for OOW2006. I am quite unhappy about not taking my notebook, my phone, not even a book or a SuDoKu in the plane Well, I hope BA will not refuse to serve me wine this time as Delta did last year

Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.2)
Enterprise/Standard Edition for Solaris Operating System (x86)

Linux x86

Solaris Sparc 64bits
Solaris Sparc 32bits

Patchset 9.2.0.8 is out for a few plateform. I am quite surprised it did not come out on Solaris 32bits first, as I expected, but rather on the following

Microsoft Windows 32bits
Microsoft Windows 64bits
Linux Itanium
Linux x86_64
HP UX PA-RISC
IBM AIX5L
IBM z/OS (OS 390)

This is the terminal release of 9iR2

I read forums.oracle.com frequently. I have read and answered thousands of questions there.

Those days, they launched a new release, I do not know what the improvements are, but it is fairly unstable. Well, it has been worst in the past, but I keep getting We’re sorry, the server encountered an unexpected condition and timetouts occasionaly.

Another nightmare for users was the blank-trimming effect, it was hardly possible to format the post, all multiple spaces were trimmed to one space, even by using [code] or [pre]. It is now fixed!

There has been also two new icons, Usefull answer and Correct answer, but it has been removed already. It makes me remembers the smilies they introduced in a previous release, where :p bind variable was translated to a smile...

Problem with the downtime is that the experts go away. I post and read hundreds of messages on metalink, especially in sqlplus and plsql forums. The problem on metalink, lot's of users expect to have an immediate and advanced answer from Oracle, because they pay for support, and they do not invest time to write the question properly nor to say please or thank you.

I recently start writing on the linux and oracle forums of developpez.net, where they put a high value on proper formatting, code of conduct, correct spelling (in french).

I successfully applied patch 5225799 on my notebook

SQL> select action,version,id,comments from dba_registry_history;
ACTION VERSION          ID COMMENTS
------ ---------- -------- ----------
CPU    10.2.0.2.0  5225799 CPUJul2006

I just received my Oracle Magazine yesterday. Blair Campbell from Oracle published my interview in the peer-to-peer columns.

Go to otn.oracle.com/oramag

Oracle Secure Backup is out. It enables the use encryption of backup on tapes, it can help you to save on media library costs (no need from a media manager any more).

Well, I am curious how many customer will take the challenge to migrate from tivoli or netbackup to oracle secure backup…

Oracle Release a solaris release for the intel/amd 64bits platform.

This is the first release ever from oracle on solaris x86-64.

Download Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.1.0) for Solaris Operating System (x86-64) now

isqlplus and sqlplusw (gui sqlplus windows) will be desupported in 2010. Read Note 359855.1 and Note 359859.1 on Metalink.

Oracle recommends migrating to Raptor (SQLDeveloper) or to Application Express (HTMLDB) or command line sqlplus.

Oracle Support apparently does not know that Raptor changed name before going to production, well, names change so often, it is difficult to know them all!

the patchset 1 of database 10gR2 is available on AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Linux and Windows yet.

download patch 4547817 on metalink

As a habit of changing name of everything, the catpatch sql script has been renamed to catupgrd

Well, it is now renamed to SQL Developer.

There is now an expected “Save password” checkbox to save the password… apart from the name, it looks quite similar to raptor

check on metalink for availability:
patch 4505133

I am waiting for eomgc 10gR2 for AIX so I check the download page often. Instead of adding new plateforms, I notice they just removed Solaris !
Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 2 (10.2.0.1) for Solaris Operating System (SPARC)

google cache