All posts by Johnnyq72

About Johnnyq72

Jan has been working with Oracle since the early nineties. As an administrator, consultant and solution architect he has contributed to the ongoing development of informations systems, mainly for healthcare purposes. As European business developer, Jan recently took on the challenge of establishing a firm basis for Dbvisit Corp. Combined with this effort, his passion for the Oracle Standard Edition database helps to carry out the message for the necessity of high quality IT solutions.

Password validation takes a while, how cool is that!!


You log in to your favorite web app and it takes a little while to get your login validated, or your password consumed, depending on your take on things,
or
You log in to your favorite APEX application, and after every 3rd shot, it takes a bit longer to retry

You are sure what you are doing and you are surely not drunk, but just mistyped the ****-password.

It is annoying, but is it?

I was at DOAG2016 and one of the closing keynotes was by the amazing Thobias Schrödel. He had an amazing show – as you need to call it – on IT Security and he also did some life hacking examples. Amazing to see how quickly an account can be hacked!

One of the examples shown there was how to quickly “break” a password by just letting a password hacking tool run randomly (brute-force attack).
And, of course, there are many ways to make your secure your environment with a lot of different opinions, for example;

  • Change your password regularly
  • Make it 16 characters, using at least two capitals letter, 4 numbers, two extended characters, at least 4 lower case characters, and so on
  • Salt it
  • Single Sign-on
  • Pepper it
  • Hash it
  • and so on and so forth

And I am relatively convinced some of these countermeasures actually add to security in a real-world scenario. You know, the kind of place where users en up having to create an elaborate booklet of those traditional yellow post-its with password, just to be able to do their daily job.

What is the point?

Well, actually, in the battle against complexity, just waiting a couple of seconds before your get your next try to enter your password already adds a whole bunch of security.
Your brute-force tool can generate and enter a gazillion different password in matter of minutes, but if each next attempt makes it had to wait 3 seconds, or even 2 for that matter, will slow it down in a way that it makes no sense at all anymore to even try.

It’ just a thought, hope it helps.


#DOAG2016, definitely a crazy week.

#DOAG2016, the largest Oracle Community gathering in Europe. Taking place in Nuremberg, at the Nuremberg Convention Center NCC, one of the more impressive places to hold such a conference, towering 4 stories high, with a big central atrium!!
It is a huge effort to get all of this together!

In this blog-post I want to highlight some of the crazy things I experienced this week… And… I did try to follow my own schedule, but I wasn’t overly successful.

Young talent

One of the things that was somehow quite clear this week, is that we have a lot of young talent out there, eager to learn and share experiences. It is not just the #NextGen “movement” of DOAG, of which Carolin Hagemann made me aware, but just young people on the conference itself.

Discussing “Young PL/SQL” at the unconference session made us all aware that our part of the IT trade is no very sexy and popular with the youngsters. This all despite what was mentioned above. In universities we train SQL, but we don’t train to create real-life business applications, leveraging the power of the one language that keeps SQL close to the data it feasts on, PL/SQL. But, more on that below (Thick Database Paradigm).
To promote PL/SQL, basically two ground requirements were defined:

  1. Create a free ‘PDB as a Service’ for schools;
  2. Inspire teachers to talk about data centric computing

By finding somebody to be regionally or globally owner of this quest, it should be possible to get young professionals as familiar using PL/SQL for creating performant and business-ready applications as they were familiar using Microsoft Excel to do their accounting “back in the days”

ACE program

“There is a disturbance in the force!”

For everybody not acquainted with the Oracle ACE Program by the Oracle Technology Network… You should be!! Please read up, as it is an incredible cool initiative.

The disturbance, you ask?
Well, to retain your “status”, Oracle expects you to do “stuff” and this “stuff” is then evaluated on a yearly basis. Basically the initiative, the disturbance, is to get some transparency in “the stuff”. And, as always, everybody wants change, but few actually are good at “change”. There are rimples and things that change, but in the end; everything will be fine, unless, obviously, when it will not be fine.

Talks

I was honored to (co)host to talks at #DOAG2016:

Bad Boys of Replication – Changing everything…
With Oracle ACED and good friend Björn Rost, about an intense migration project we did some time ago. We were even offered to host our talk in Tokio, the biggest hall at DOAG!

Saving lives at sea at an industrial scale using Oracle Cloud Technology
An insightful (at least I like to think so) talk with my colleague Oliver Limberg. The talk is about the rapid development of a global portal for the maritime logistics branch.

I had a blast, and I hope you did too!

Community spirit

Oracle User Group conferences are about sharing and are about fun. Mr. Martin Widlake wrote a good post about that.

Apart from all the “more formal” things that happened, there were quite a few extracurricular activities, mostly involving an Irish Pub or a restaurant.

This all may sound quite funny and exciting, and, yes, it is alto talk with your co-workers: “Oh, hey, you are going to have fun and party all week!” Of course it is not a drag and a bore, but it has very profound function!
Whenever you run into trouble, these are the exact same people that are not only able, but probably also inclined to help you out, as you would help them out, as friends do among each other. In the end, they, you, your boss and your clients benefit. This is not to be underestimated too much.

The extra, special bit, that DOAG offers are the so called “unconference sessions”.
Not scheduled, no slides, nothing official, just getting together and discussing subjects of interest. Our “Young PL/SQL” was one of these “unconference session”, which turned out to be a great (and valuable) success!

Meeting people

Just to name a few, heroes of long and of yet to come for #DOAG2016:

Dietmar Neugebauer
Frank Dernoncourt
Joel Kallman
Johannes Ahrends
Kamil Stawiarski
Laurent Leturgez
Maja Veselica
Marcel Hofstetter
Piet de Visser
Sabine Heimsath
Stefan Kinnen
Stew Ashton
Uwe Hesse
Zoran Pavlovic
And alle the ones I forget to mention here!!

Thick Database Paradigm

Noting new in IT…

Well, no.

The Thick Database Paradigm (opposed to the “No PL/SQL Paradigm”) is nothing new. We have actually all been doing this since the eighties. Program your business rules, your constraints, everything that makes sure that your data is all that you want it to be, close to that data.
There are so many reasons that speak in favor of this approach that it is nearly overwhelming and deserves at least a book in itself. But, let me make a small attempt to highlighting a few here:

  • spare yourself network bandwidth, by not sending data all over your network to be processed
  • safeguard your data inside the (Oracle) database, so it can be protected by all that has been invented to do so
  • Transact data where it lives and combine and aggregate it there, you will be amazed by the efficiency
  • Remind yourself why you used to think “business logic in middle teer” was a good idea

If you leave possibile religious believes aside, there is no other conclusion possible then that the reinvention of “Thick Database” is the (re)discovery of 2016, right from the time when IT still made sense.

Yes, there are cases where an “Enterprise Service Bus” makes sense, but, as with every technology withing IT, it has a very specific area where it actually adds value or even makes sense. At best, a lot less than all the places where it is used currently!
Not to get carried away in this joyful blog-post, I will leave this topic at this.

The end

I hope to see you at the next Oracle User Group conference, somewhere… Please watch for the asterisk at his page for the conferences that I will attend.

tnsnames.ora, keeping your connections under control

There are a lot of ancient things that prove to be still valuable today.
Recently I came across something, which I thought I could or should share here.
Your tnsnames.ora file, centrally managed in a distributed environment.

This solution applies whether you are working with the Oracle Instant Client or with the full blown setup of the client software.

Imagine you have an environment with a reasonably big bunch of PC’s. Wether you are running Linux or Windows, or if you are running some Terminal Server Forrest, where deploying, packaging and launching applications cost an arm and a leg. To keep consistency across the environment, shortcuts are not an option.
I have seen the most exotic solutions, distributing a tnsnames.ora file. Pushing versions of tnsnames.ora out to workstations, have login-procedures check and copy files… Basically every trick in the book will, at one time, get you in the situation where you have a client, connecting to a database, containing something other than the end user expects… With the appropriate consequences…
It is my firm believe that the best way still is not to distribute the file.

The coolest thing (therefore) would be to have something (obviously extremely simple), containing all your database connection aliases.
Of course you can than add each and any every facility to maintain and update this file. Be it version control or automatic deployment. Basically this one copy of your file is the source of all truth, which of course adds some importance to the file itself.

(Re)introducing the tnsnames-parameter ifile=

With this parameter you can define an instance or form of tnsnames.ora file, and store it anywhere you can reach from the endpoint, where your Oracle client is installed.

the most simple version of using ifile = here would be:
ifile = <mount_point>/path/central-file.ora

you can multiplex your tnsnames.ora:
ifile = <mount_point_1>/path/central1.oraifile = <mount_point_2>/path/central2.ora

You can nest tnsnames.ora as needed:
ifile = <mount_point>/path/general-file.ora
In general-file.ora:
ifile = <group-specific_mount_point>/path/specific.ora

These options give you a very good set of opportunities to organize your redirection-setup the way you need it.
To me, having this centralized tnsnames-setup, brings advantages in connection troubleshooting as there are no occurances of file-discrepancies.
ifile = works and you get connected… or it doesn’t, no chance of missing that last update.

Hope this helps…

OTN Appreciation Day: PL/SQL

We are posting these blog posts today as part of the OTN Appreciation Day, a celebration for the Oracle Technology Network as suggested by Tim Hall, inspired by Debra Lilley.

The mission was not too hard: write about your favorite bit of Oracle Technology.

As a developer and a core-tech DBA and APEX enthusiast… the choice was easy! PL/SQL (apart from how it is pronounced or even written ;-)!

Why? Easy!

Not just because PL/SQL is easy to learn, for a language that is basically so extremely powerfull! But foremost because it is an easy choice.
If you have a database like the Oracle database and you have your valuable data living inside that database, you want to maximize the potential value of that data. Use and manipulate it quickly, keep it safe, make it available in a sensible way. For that you use PL/SQL.
You create a safe haven for the data, making sure it can only be manipulated in a safe and pre-defined way by exposing data retrieval and manipulation through PL/SQL packages and business logic, creating an API-interface, controlling the access to one of your most valuable assets.

One of the master showmanship features of PL/SQL is Oracle Application Express! Based entirely on PL/SQL, showing how powerful it is to incorporate modern web-technology on top of data-centric, data-driven application development.
With this technology, I see very little need to create utterly complex multi layered (mind you, I explicitly did not say multi tiered!) software stack approach, to create agile and modern applications. Add Edition Based Redifinition, and you have the perfect CI/CD* Agile Rapid Web Application Development environment everybody dreams of! Please, for once accept this simple truth 😉

So, my choice for this celebration: Please embrace PL/SQL and make your world a better place.

Long live the Oracle Technology Network!! Hurray!!

* Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery

#OOW16, San Francisco, looking back

In this post I just wanted to highlight a few things that have lingered with me since the 2016 Oracle Open World Experience.

Persistent DRAM
Now, here, being at home, I must admit that I cannot find very much documentation about this, but it got me thinking… A little paradigm-shift, where computers actually wouldn’t need moving parts anymore (ie. disks of any kind). Create devices that use these memory structures, quite possibly combined with flash-disks, to run entirely on RAM. The 3D XPoint Technology could be a nice example of this. I think I would applaud such machines.
I know, not a real export point I am making here, but if anyone has a better angle, I would love to read your comments.

Thick Database
This is a much better documented topic, much more tangible too.
Toon Koppelaars started this “new” approach with his talk at OTW16. You can review his presentation here and see the video’s of the presentation here and here.
I guess some really good points there. The creation of an application is a craft. You need to get the right materials and do a number of steps to get a solid foundation. Meaning you have to create a solid data-model (yes, even in the world of BigData, schema on write, etc.) most applications still rely on a data model and all that we were taught to go with that. Not much sense in repeating what’s in the presentation here though.
An eye opener and something to (re)consider!! I plan to talk about this a bit more later.

EBR & Oren
One of the best sessions I visited during OOW16 was the presentation by Oren Nakdimon accompanied by the illustrious Bryn Llewellyn.
The presentation discussed a true implementation of CI/CD using some of the capabilities of the Thick database paradigm as discussed above, combined with the possibilites that Edition Based Redefinition brings.
Using these technologies, Oren has been able to implement a rolling upgrade scenario for Moovit. I find this impressive.

Philippe Fierens & SPARC
I had the honor and pleasure of working closely together with my good friend Philippe Fierens during this edition of OOW. It always adds a dimension if you are able to tackle some of the challenges of the week as a team! Thank you Philippe.
Though Philippe I am also affiliated to the continuing efforts to build and maintain the Oracle SPARC architecture of which he is a strong advocate. Be sure to follow his blog to learn about the latest developments in this area.

Panel discussions on the last day
Saving the best for last… Literally!
On the last days there we some panel discussion regarding SQL / PLSQL and application architecture. I found these discussions to be quite meaningful and the interaction with the attendees was grand. Having people like Chris Saxon, Connor McDonald, Toon Koppelaars and Carry Millsap on a panel, there is no way you can go wrong!

OTN & a bow
Finally, looking back at this OOW, it was actually the first one I visited as a member of the OTN Oracle ACE community.
Boy, does that make a difference in how you experience Oracle Open World!!
Of course, you can chill and relax at the OTN Lounge, learn a lot of different things, spot Oracle Hero’s as the wander by if you are a “regular” visitor to OOW. And, by all means, I recommend you do as it is extremely valuable.
But the difference this time was that I really belonged there.
A very big thank you to Jennifer for the hard work you put into making all of this possible!
And, please, support Girls who Code, the initiative OTN sponsorred this year by tweeting a selfie with the hashtag #girlswhocode and the appropriate sticker!!

#doag2016 my picks and suggestions

As many conferences evolve over the years, the number of sessions on offer can easily be overwhelming. I have overheard many conference attendees wrestling with their choices for what to see and which sessions to attend.

For DOAG 2016 I have a short overview with my picks and with one or two tip-sessions. I hope this helps, though it is just my personal preference of course…

Please note that this post is based on the printed version of the conference planner and this may obviously be subject to change. Find the on-line version of the conference planner here!

Tuesday, November 15th
08:30
Goto-session
Connecting Oracle & Hadoop by Tanel Poder
Tip
Structuring an APEX Application by Alex Nuyten
Meet your match: Advanced Row Pattern Matching by Stew Ashton

11:00
Goto-session
How to identify the Right Workload for Database In-Memory by Andy Rivenes
Tip
Die Schlechten ins Kröpfchen – SQL analyse für DBAs by Martin Klier

12:00
Goto-session
Was die IT von der Luftfahrt lernen kann by Uwe Küchler
Tip
Using image copies for Oracle Database Backup by Ilmar Kerm
Using SQL Transaction Framework to rewrite Bad SQL on the fly by Kerry Osborne

13:00
Goto-session
Plötzlich Multitennant – was ändert sich für den DBA by Uwe Hesse
Tip
Oracle VM auf Exadata – Erfahrungen aus der Praxis by Christian Pfundtner
Einsatz von Maps in APEX by Denis Kubicek

14:00
Goto-session (TOP-tip)
–> Session got cancelled, but will be at UKOUG!
Patch you application with No Downtime (& No extra Costs!) by Oren Nakdimon
Tip
Hacking Oracle’s memory – About Internals & Troubleshooting by Stefan Koehler

15:00
Goto-session
XML in der Oracle DB by Wolfgang Nast
Tip
PL/SQL Performance – Best practices für Laufzeitoptimierung by Jan Gorkow

16:00
Goto-session
The Oracle Optimizer – Upgrading Without Pain by Nigel Bayliss
Tip
Erfahrung nach einem Jahr Fusion Middleware 12c by Jan-Peter Timmerman

17:00
Goto-session
Active Session History: Advanced Analytics by David Kurtz
Tip
MySQL for Oracle DBAs by Philipp Michaly
Deploying PL/SQL Applications, Building Rome in a Day by Alan Arentsen

Wednesday, November 16th.
08:00
Goto-session
Logical Replication in 12cR2 – What are the options now? by Vit Špinka
Tip
Function madness: Use and Abuse of PL/SQL Functions by Piet de Visser

09:00
Goto-session
Ensuring your Physical Standby is Usable by Michael Abbey
Tip
RMAN – From Beginner to Advanced by Marcin Przepiorowski

10:00
Goto-session
Oracle Secure Backup – eine Livedemo by Sven-Olaf Hilmer
Tip
Oracle Hacking Session by Kamil Stawiarski
Advanced Interactive Grids by Patrick Wolf

11:00
Goto-session
The Battle: Linux vs. Windows by Dierk Lenz, Johannes Ahrends and Martin Klier
Tip
Adaptive Features or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying… by Ludovico Caldara
Controlling Execution Plans – Workshop by Kerry Osborne

12:00
Goto-session
Application Express für den DBA? Geht das? by Joel Kallman
Tip
Und Sie bewegt sich doch by Lothar Flatz
APEX Desktop Apps – Interaktion mit dem Client System by Daniel Hochleitner

13:00
Goto-session
Hash Joins and Bloom Filters by Toon Koppelaars
Tip
Ansible für Oracle DBAs by Alexander Hofstetter

14:00
Goto-session
Delivering Continuous Availability for Database Services by Michael Timpanaro-Perrotta
Tip
Dbvisit – Oder doch lieber Data Guard by Andreas Kother
Chase the Optimizer Every Step of the Way by Mauro Pagano

15:00
Goto-session
Top 7 Plan Stability Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them by Neil Chandler
Tip
Advanced RAC Programming Features by Martin Bach
Weblogic 101 for DBA by Osama Mustafa

16:00
Goto-session
Bad Boys of Replication – Changing Everything by Björn Rost and yours truly

17:00
Goto-session
Oracle System Statistics by Paul Matuszyk
Tip
Compression – Technik und sinnvolle Umsetzung by Klaus Reimers
Node.js der Alleskönner by Kai Donato

Thursday, November 17th.
08:00
Goto-session
FAQ about Masking Sensitive Data in Oracle Database by Maja Veselica
Tip
Data Guard in Oracle 12.2 – Crash Course by Zoran Pavlovic

09:00
Goto-session
Mining the AWR v2: Trend Analysis by Maris Elsins
Tip
Regular Expressions: Say What? by Alex Nuyten

10:00
Goto-session
Databases Clone Using ACFS by David Hueber
Tip
R.I.P. Oracle Database by Markus Lohn

12:00
Goto-session
Writing Efficient SQL Statements by Joze Senegacnik
Tip
Validate User Input in APEX by Richard Martens

13:00
Goto-session
Backup und Recovery PoC auf der Recovery Appliance by Frank Schneede
Tip
Ready, Steady, GIT: Einführung eines Versionskontrollsystems by Carolin Hagemann

14:00
Goto-session
Warum sollte man die Multitennant Database Option Verwenden by Johannes Ahrends
Tip
Collections in PL/SQL by Frank Haney

15:00
Goto-session
Saving Lives at Sea – At an Industrial Scale Using Oracle Cloud Technology by Oliver Limberg and yours truly
Tip
Part 1: The NoPL/SQL and Thick Database Paradigms by Toon Koppelaars and Bryn Llewellyn

16:00
Goto-session
Part 2: The NoPL/SQL and Thick Database Paradigms by Bryn Llewellyn and Toon Koppelaars

And!!
Do not forget…
The first ever APEX Hack’a’thlon is going down on Friday the 18th of November at the DOAG Education day. If you are interested or just want more information, don’t hesitate to drop a line.

#OOW16, San Francisco

This year, 2016, is turning out to be an amazing year again, with #OOW16 being once again on of the apices!

Looking back

After the discovery of the Oracle community in 2012, as a result of a very first trip to downtown San Francisco in 2010 for #OOW10, an amazing chain of events was set in motion. This very first introduction in the Oracle World was as ‘a mere participant’ in this awe-inspring, large than life event.

Over these past few years I have met so many people, made so many new friends around the globe… This all literally changed my work, my life; basically everything changed.

After visiting Oracle Open World for the first time, I had the opportunity to work with Arjen Visser and the team of Dbvisit on building a strong brand for this amazing company in Europe. This also brought me back to San Francisco in 2014.
And boy, things have changed!
Not only was it a coming back, it was a fest of friendship, with so many people to meet, either brand new or in a chance to catchup once again. It was also the first time I had the opportunity to participate & share. With #RepAttack I had the opportunity to share knowledge about logical replication and the many benefits it holds for making the most out of your data.
Did I mention the utterly amazing fact of getting not only accepted by the Oracle Community, but also recognized, together with my dear friend from Belgium, Mr. Philippe Fierens, as a genuine Oracle ACE?

A new step

This edition of Oracle Open World, OOW16, again adds a brand new dimension to the visit to San Francisco!
Not only will it be as the Director Operations of Portrix Systems, supporting the Annual Swim in the bay event in cooperation with Oraclenerd Chet Justice, it will be as a selected speaker too. An opportunity I would have never anticipated to be possible.

Speaking-OOWWhen Your Database Server Crashes

I will be discussing the various aspects around the protection of data and how you can justify various investments to accomplish this.

Sunday, Sep 18, 10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. | Moscone South—306

I cannot start tp imagine what the impact of this years trip shall be, I do know that I am looking forward to meeting many of you again. This year too, the OTN Lounge will be the base camp for the travels through the Open World landscape. Don’t hesitate to stop by and say hi!!

See you in San Francisco for #OOW16

SYSAUX LOB segment for auditing bug not released in Standard Edition

Last week we were struck by an issue, which turned out to be a bite from a bug!
SYSAUX table-space had quickly filled up to the “my data-file is full”-limit, which in the end was fixed by adding a data-file.

Strange thing though, that for a very small footprint database, we now have a very big SYSAUX table-space.

Some investigation brought me to the Unified Auditing being standard active in database 12c (you can read up on that background with my friend Ann Sjökvist here).
We are faced though with a different (and possibly a little more obscure) Bug 20077418 – RECLAIMING THE SECUREFILE LOB SEGEMENT IN 12.1 Standard Edition.
What this bug boils down to is the following:
There is a lot of audit data recorded by default, the ORA_SECURECONFIG profile is running out of the box. I haven’t taken the time to figure exactly out what is written, where and how, but I know it involves a LOB segment (SYS_LOB0000091833C00014$ by SYSAUD) which is, in our case in comparison to the total database size, HUGHE!! The management of this audit data, usually driven by DBMS_AUDIT_MGMT, has absolutely no effect on this segment (at least not on shrinking it).

Searching for the mentioned bug you just find to EE bugs (18109788 & 22272580) but they at least they give _some_ clues… The actual bug is undisclosed and in status 11 (being worked on).
In the end it means that auditing is fine, even in SE, but, for the moment, restrain yourself… The data you gather cannot be managed (yet). And for the rest:

If
select policy_name
from audit_unified_enabled_policies
;

yields any results, consider switching this auditing off (eg.SQL> noaudit policy ORA_SECURECONFIG;)

Hope this helps…

#DBADev (Ops), who knows what is going on…

I have been considering writing this article for quite some time now.
APEX Connect 2016 in Germany’s capital Berlin and the DOAG Database days have finally persuaded me to talk more about #DBADev, let me explain why…

Whenever in the stone age…

During my career as DBA, I was always working closely together with Oracle Forms & Reports developers. In retrospect, the cooperation in that time was remarkable.
These Forms & Reports developers had always been used to working on a host-based platform.

For those of you who actually remember Oracle Forms & Reports and wonder…
Was there ever Forms & Reports host based?
Yes there was, but it is creepily long ago!!

Because of the nature of Forms & Reports, there always was a lot of consideration about where to place application code. This especially became true when PL/SQL was introduced and the migration to Oracle Forms & Reports 6.5 came about.
This brought the transition to client/server based computing and introduced physical distance between the database and the “front-end”.
Front-end between quotation marks, as in today’s world we don’t actually know “front-end” anymore in this same qualification. The “Frond-end” was always more elegantly and fittingly described as a “fat-client”, because of the sheer size of the software and utilities that were required on the end-users workstation.

The physical separation and distance between the presentation entity and the data manipulation engine required and inspired a lot of thought and debate on where the bulk of data processing had to be done.
You can imagine the impact of having a specific data manipulation done inside an Oracle Form that lived on a desktop on the other end of the network. Especially when the required data set is large. Having 1,000 records being fetched, where 2 where manipulated and then send back in bulk, repeated 100 times, 4 times a minute on a 10 Mbps network. OK, clear, that needs to be done smarter.
The solution: work with small data sets and do database side manipulation to limit client/server communication. And actually, that worked quite well!!

All good and fine… But how does this tie in to #DBADev? This already sounds so harmonious. And how could APEX Connect 2016 have inspired this article?

Well… Let’s see

Later on, I found that this cooperation appeared to be not so normal.
If you step out of the world of client-server computing and move on to “todays world”, that started more or less in the nineties with web based computing – or cloud-computing “avant la lettre“ or “my stuff on your computer” or however you describe it – you find a world that consists of “strange things”.
I find these things “strange things” because I believe they are suboptimal, and luckily I find myself not alone in this corner.
Suboptimal in a way that data manipulation solutions (lets call them applications for now) should be considered to be database agnostic. This independence dictates that you use the database as just a data store or even more accurately, as a persistency store. Blane Carter 2 minute TechTip

In another scenario these applications are designed and build by developers who are very good at creating intuitive and sharp looking user interfaces. Unfortunately often with a lesser developed understanding of the mechanics involved in dishing up and serving data to this newly established middle tier.

With the continuing professionalization of IT over the past 20 years, we have seen the creation of a wide variety of disciplines. These range from those who think about IT (architects, managers, designers) to those who build IT (programmers, engineers) to those who run IT (system administrators, operators) and the majority of these disciplines today are self-contained groups of professionals and specialists who excel at their own game. Basically that is good as the profession is wide and complex enough to support this.
The problem is that there is no longer anyone who has the whole picture.

Bring it on / together!

apex-logoAPEX Connect 2016, to me personally, was the first time I really saw #DBADev in practice. With the following two examples I want to illustrate my inspiration.

The first talk of this genre was @alexnuijten with his confessions, and subsequent smart tips and best practices in “Structuring an APEX application”.
As a pure database developer like Alex, you are automatically more prone to thinking about “DBA-stuff”. A lot of these best practices, although they are very database centric, like using a view for each application screen, are obviously primarily there to help the developer. And, don’t get me wrong, that is a very good thing! Alex inspires to try and combine the best of both worlds, which helps getting the most out of your application, your database, and therewith frankly, out of your total investment.

The second example was the information-packed presentation by Dietmar Aust @daust_de, called “Oracle APEX Scripting – die Kommandozeile ist Dein Freund“ (the command line is your friend).
Much more than “just about developing”, this presentation bridged gaps in more than one way. Perhaps it is even #DBADevOps if you think about it.

The recent DOAG Database days held a few additional surprises with the presence of @cczarski and @nielsdb. A very will pitched presentation by Bruno Cirone really sparked the growing interest in the topic!!

It is funny how an idea that was initiated some 18 months ago, conceived together with Sabine Heimsath @flederbine has grown and evolved out of natural demand. For me, this is one other aspect of the industry, where APEX is setting new frontiers.
With a growing awareness and more people recognizing the gap, the deficits it is bringing and the benefits cooperation brings, I have good hopes.

APEX is not only the technology that enables you to create web-based apps super quickly, it is also the technology that brings developers and DBA’s truly closer to each other, ensuring a maximum bang for the buck when it comes to utilizing your database infrastructure investments!
I am not saying we are there, but this is definitely a first step in the right direction!

Username & password required at Weblogic domain startup

When installing a new WebLogic Domain for any a-specific Oracle (Fusion) Middleware application or any other implementation requiring a WebLogic domain like ORDS for instance, a new ‘home’ is created under [MW-home]/user_domains/. [MW-Home] translates, for instance, to /u01/oracle/product/Middleware.

ordsTo start your brand-new domain, or perhaps and rather, to automate the startup of your domain, you would use the supplied [MW-home]/user_domains/[DomainName]/startWebLogic.sh command-file.
This file will start the Weblogic domain (the Admin Server) and the deployed components. After this start, you will be able to follow through with the administration over the web-console. Typically its URL is: http://[ServerName]:[PortNumber]/console.

One nasty thing you can run into, is that starting the server can require you to enter username and password during the run of [MW-home]/user_domains/[DomainName]/startWebLogic.sh. Of course this is rather annoying because it requires interaction which is not good for auto-start. Regular input-tooling you can wrap around this command-file, for example with input redirection, would require you to save your username / password combination in plain text. That is certainly never a good idea!!

Luckily there is a trick to enable your WebLogic domain to start without this interaction. And it also makes sure that username & password are not stored in plain text. Actually it is quite easy to get this facility in place.

This is how:

Go to [MW-home]/user_domains/[DomainName]/Servers/AdminServer/security and create a plain text file called boot.properties.

This file gets two lines:
username: Your WebLogic Username
password: Your WebLogic Password

Basically, this is now a plain-text recording of the username and password on the server, which seems quite scary.

Good thing though, is that when you have successfully run [MW-home]/user_domains/[DomainName]/startWebLogic.sh command file, which will now continuously run through, username and password will be encrypted:

#Thu Mar 10 14:11:38 UTC 2016
password={AES}JoMm+ymJUvbcQld84ofjSR5KhwFVP7mCgTpYBtTS7TA\=
username={AES}vY8NlWXCh156j/uAIpyFY4MVxPt8cdAbUpaTku+sJsU\=

You will now be able to call [MW-home]/user_domains/[DomainName]/startWebLogic.sh from your startup-script without having to worry about the need to interactively entering username / password or have to worry about plain text storage of these to artifacts.

Hope this helps!