Oracle + Open Source

two worlds inexorably colliding

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Oracle OpenWorld 2007: Thursday Dispatch

Nov 15

Posted by Sean Hull in openworld, oracle | 1 Comment

Although this years event was huge, and as such a bit of a jumble at times, I enjoyed it very much.  I made many many new contacts this year, spontaneous hellos, introductions, business connections, and so on.
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There is a *LOT* of new stuff going on in the Oracle space, what with various new acquisitions, and no one person probably understands it all.

I’ll also say that I ran into an incredible number of new terms which I like to think of as reframing, or looking at things in a new way.  You might also call them buzzwords, so take your pick.  Some you may have heard before, some appear in a new context, and some are old and familiar.  At any rate go ahead,  mull over them and digest:

  • information fabric
  • information as a service
  • service oriented architecture
  • what’s the cookbook for doing that?
  • oracle by example
  • business process management – from order to cash
  • extreme transaction processing
  • data virtualization
  • coherence
  • data masking
  • it comes baked in or built in
  • moving from reactive to proactive
  • we can triage their problem
  • the democratic, approachable, modern leader
  • preintegrated
  • comprehensive
  • hot pluggable
  • go around the corner to find the treasure of an idea
  • drinking the open-source koolaid

So long Oracle OpenWorld, see you in 2008!!

Oracle OpenWorld 2007: Wednesday Dispatch

Nov 14

Posted by Sean Hull in openworld, oracle | No Comments

Well, Oracle has definitely drank the web 2.0 koolaid. It’s exciting to see it happen. From a new wiki, to a video cast, and even an unconference!

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OTN has also been podcasting for some time via the OTN Techcasts which I like. We even see some twittering, and meeting with bloggers.  I also see an Oracle user on twitter, and Justin Kestelyn.

Overall I think Oracle’s moves to promote social networking and transparency are good ones.  Perhaps it will be widgets and OpenSocial next, or maybe mashups!!

Oracle OpenWorld 2007: Tuesday Dispatch

Nov 13

Posted by Sean Hull in openworld, oracle | No Comments

It seems that Friedman’s “flat world” is now doctrine.

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Certainly The World Is Flat is a powerful book, and a powerful idea about what is happening to our global marketplace of ideas, products, and services. But once something becomes a marketing slogan you know it has reached another level of headiness, and universal application. Folks in technology may have had a particular propensity toward those ideas because of such outsourcing pressures on our skills in recent years.

But hold on, haven’t you heard about the new trend? The world is *not* flat, or so says the Economist, after reading Pankaj Ghemawat new book Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter. I agree wholeheartedly. Granted the pressure to outsource has been felt, but if economic numbers are to be trusted, it is quite small as a percentage of the whole, and now it seems the pendulum is swinging back the other way.

Rob Preston at Information Week argued something similar, that “The new ‘Flat World’ tilts back and forth and does not stay horizontal for long!”

Still it looks cool as a slogan on a stairwell anyway… Cheers!!


  

Oracle OpenWorld 2007: Monday Dispatch

Nov 12

Posted by Sean Hull in open-source, openworld, oracle | No Comments

Gosh I really love that word “open”.  When I hear it, I just get all warm inside.  I’ve always liked that Oracle used the word in it’s big annual conference name.  And this year’s show is bigger than ever.  I heard a rumor that there were 50,000 people here this year.  With an ever increasing round of acquisitions, the exhibitor and user communities just keep growing.

As you can see from this photo, they’ve totally blocked off Howard Street.  The video billboard there is at the 3rd street end.  I managed to catch it showing a frame of an open world!img_0566.JPG

Behind the billboard are tents where the lunchtime cafeteria was, because all the other square footage is now taken by exhibitors big and small.

And wow, were there a lot of vendors.  Even MySQL AB was here, as I blogged about earlier.  Open-source is a huge and growing component to the Oracle landscape now.  Oracle users seem to concur.  In 2000 when I was writing my book “Oracle and Open Source” no one would have believed that.  But the market pressures are working their magic, whether we like it or not.  I talked at length with Anand Pandey, a Senior Consultant with MySQL.  He handed me a very interesting whitepaper “Open Source in the Enterprise: New Software Disrupts the Technology Stack“.  A very interesting read indeed.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

MySQL AB At Oracle Open World?

Nov 8

Posted by Sean Hull in mysql, open-source, oracle | 1 Comment

Incredible, but true.  It seems that MySQL AB will be exhibiting next week at Oracle Open World.  This of course isn’t the first time a competitor would advertise or exhibit on it’s rival’s home turf.  Still it certainly signals a changing landscape, and heats up the battle for market share.

Here’s a longer list of exhibitors at the conference.  I don’t see Enterprise DB there, but anything’s possible.  You will see RedHat as well as Suse, now owned by Novell, represented there as well.  Also if you make it to the conference, be sure to visit the Oracle pavilion section, where there are sure to be smaller booths for the Open Source Group, as well as Oracle Unbreakable Linux Support program.

Sum, Decode + Reworking a Group By

Nov 8

Posted by Sean Hull in oracle | No Comments

SQL can be tricky. Here’s a way to display date based summations across one row of output…

Suppose you have quarterly totals for 2006 like this:

SELECT TO_CHAR(orderdt, 'Q') Q, sum (price) the_total
FROM my_orders
WHERE orderdt >= '01-JAN-2006'
AND orderdt < '01-JAN-2007'
GROUP BY TO_CHAR(orderdt, 'Q')
ORDER BY 1;

The results would be like this:


Q THE_TOTAL
- -----------
1 1000
2 1500
3 1300
4 2000

Now let’s throw some SUM and DECODE functions into the mix.


SELECT
SUM (DECODE(TO_DATE(orderdt, 'Q'), '1', sale_price, 0)) Q1,
SUM (DECODE(TO_DATE(orderdt, 'Q'), '2', sale_price, 0)) Q2,
SUM (DECODE(TO_DATE(orderdt, 'Q'), '3', sale_price, 0)) Q3,
SUM (DECODE(TO_DATE(orderdt, 'Q'), '4', sale_price, 0)) Q4
FROM my_orders
WHERE orderdt > '01-JAN-2006'
AND orderdt < '01-JAN-2007'
GROUP BY TO_CHAR(orderdt, 'Q');

Results would then look formated I think how you would like:


Q1         Q2         Q3         Q4
---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
1000       1500       1300       2000

DBJ: Oracle, MySQL + Postgres Compared Part II

Oct 27

Posted by Sean Hull in databasejournal, mysql, open-source, oracle, postgres | No Comments

In Part II in this series, I talk about how these three databases compare in some particularly crucial areas.

For instance how do the optimizers of these different database engines behave, and why does that matter?  What type of indexes are available, particularly with respect to typical applications.  I then move on to datatypes available and which are missing.  You’ll find some surprises here.

Lastly the holy grail of any modern relational database, I discuss transactional support. Relevant concepts include ACID compliance, read-only versus insert and update activity, and so on.

A Vegetarian Database? Diet Essentials For Oracle

Oct 17

Posted by Sean Hull in abstract, collaborate, oracle | No Comments

This is the fifth in a series of abstracts I’ve submitted for the Collaborate 2008 conference in Denver CO.
There are healthy databases and their are unhealthy ones. We’ll take a look at what you feed your database, and how to keep it fit with just the right diet of hardware, configuration, and SQL query tuning.

1. Introduction – Diet of a Champion Database
2. Disk, Memory, CPU – Body by Intel
3. Applications – Lean & Fit
4. SQL Queries – High Fiber, Low Fat
5. Conclusions

Pixie Dust For Oracle: 5 Elemental Lessons

Oct 17

Posted by Sean Hull in abstract, collaborate, oracle | No Comments

This is the fourth in a series of abstracts I’ve submitted for Collaborate 2008 in Denver CO.
As an independent consultant for twelve years, I’ve encountered a lot of interesting and challenging projects. I’ll discuss five different cases, and what lessons I took away from each.

1. Intro
2. The Right Hardware
3. Importance of Good Testing
4. Patchwork or Good Design
5. Don’t Mix Opposites
6. Use The Technology
7. Conclusion

Is Your Database an Open Book?

Oct 17

Posted by Sean Hull in abstract, collaborate, oracle | No Comments

This is the third in a series of abstracts I’ve submitted for Collaborate 2008 in Denver CO.

Security is on everyone’s radar these days. You may be wondering yourself whether your database systems are really as secure as they should be. We’ll discuss some of the latest vulnerabilities, and what you can do to protect your systems.

1. Introduction
2. Authentication
3. Privilege Escalation
4. SQL Injection
5. OS Security
6. Network Security
7. Conclusions