Author: Maria Colgan

40 years of Database innovations

June 16th 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of Oracle, which actually began life as Software Development Laboratories.

Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates set out to build the worlds best relational database and what an amazing 40 years of Database innovations it has been. From availability to security, Oracle Database has got you covered and we have only just begun!

To mark this great occasion, we’ve put together a short video highlighting all of the amazing features and functionality that has been added to the database over the last 40 years.

Feel free to leave you birthday wishes or comments for the Oracle Database Engineering Team in the comments section below.

Upcoming Events

The month of June is shaping up to be jam packed with great Oracle conference all across the global and I’m fortunate enough to have the opportunity participate in 3 of them  and hope to catch up with a lot of folks in person.

So where can you find me?

Oracle Gebruikersclub Holland Tech Experience 2017
On June 15th and 16th some of the best and brightest members of the Oracle community in the Netherlands will gather for a two day conference that will include sessions on the Oracle Database, SQL, Fusion Middleware and much more. I’m fortunate enough to be delivering 3 sessions at this event:

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Extremely useful Partitioning enhancements in Oracle Database 12c

Back in January, I promised I would write a series of blogs on some of my favorite new 12c enhancements, designed to make your life easier. I’m finally getting around to keeping that promise with this weeks blog post on my favorite partitioning enhancements.

Imagine you have a large SALES table that contains information on all of the sales we have had in our chain of department stores.

DESC sales
 Name	          NULL?    TYPE
 ----------     -------- ------------------------
 PROD_ID        NOT NULL NUMBER(6)
 CUST_ID        NOT NULL NUMBER
 TIME_ID        NOT NULL DATE
 CHANNEL_ID     NOT NULL CHAR(1)
 PROMO_ID	NOT NULL NUMBER(6)
 QUANTITY_SOLD	NOT NULL NUMBER(3)
 AMOUNT_SOLD	NOT NULL NUMBER(10,2)
 REGION 	NOT NULL CHAR(3)

There are also 4 indexes on our SALES table to help with our analytic queries.

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Optimizer Histograms

At the recent OUG Ireland conference I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion on the Oracle Database. During the course of the session the topic of Optimizer histograms came up. As always, a heated discussion ensued among the members of the panel, as we each had very different views on the subject.

Why so many different opinions when it comes to histograms?

The problem arises from the fact that some folks have been burnt by histograms in the past. In Oracle Database 9i and 10g, histograms in combination with bind-peeking lead to some unpredictable performance problems, which is explained in detail in this post on the  Optimizer blog.  This has resulted in a number of folks becoming histogram shy. In fact, I reckon if you were to put 3 Oracle experts on a panel, you would get at least 5 different opinions on when and how you should gather histograms!

So I thought it would be a good idea to explain some of the common misconceptions that surround histograms and the impact of adopting them.

This is a long post, so you might want to grab a coffee before you get into it!

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Upcoming Event: Georgia Oracle Users Group Tech Days 2017

I’m delighted to have been given an opportunity to deliver the keynote session  at this year’s Georgia Oracle Users Group Tech Days 2017.

The conference takes place on  May 9-10, 2017, at the Loudermilk Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia and is shaping up to be two great days of technical sessions delivered by some of  the best Oracle speakers I know.

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Oracle Database 12c now available on Docker

Last week at Dockercon, Oracle announced that the Oracle Database is now available alongside other Oracle products the on Docker Store.

Given how much folks here in Silicon Valley (including my better half) rave about how easy and great Docker is, I thought I would try it out and share with you exactly how I did.

Since I was a Docker virgin, the first thing I had to do was download and install Docker. Then, a quick trip to the Docker Store followed by a double click, and I was up and running!

Next, I needed to get the new Oracle Database container. Again, you have two options here:
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Best Practices For Large Volume or IoT Workloads

Over the last few years there has been a rapid surge in the adoption of smart devices. Everything from phones and tablets, to smart meters and fitness devices, can connect to the Internet and share data. You only have to follow @MarkRittman and his experiences with getting his kettle to boil remotely to see just how many devices within your own home can connect to the internet.

With all of these smart devices, comes a huge increase in the frequency and volume of data being ingested into and processed by databases. This scenario is commonly referred to as the Internet of Things or IoT.

Some people assume that a NoSQL database is required for an IoT workload because the ingest rate required exceeds the capabilities of a traditional relational database. This is simply not true.

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A Special Episode of Real Time BI

Yesterday I had the privilege to join Stewart Bryson, Danny Bryant and Bobby Curtis for a special episode of Real Time BI. During the show we had an opportunity to chat about some of our favorite new features in Oracle Database 12c, the transition to the cloud and what you can expect at the upcoming GAOUG Tech Days.

All four of us will be speaking at the Tech Days in May and from what I hear it’s going to be a great couple of days in Atlanta. So if you are in the area, it would be great to have you join us.

You can check out the full episode below!

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 call for papers has begun!

Believe it or not, it’s time to start thinking about Oracle OpenWorld 2017!

The Oracle OpenWorld 2017 call for papers is now opens! Oracle customers and partners are encouraged to submit proposals to present at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld conference, which will be held October 1-5, 2017 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Details and submission guidelines are available on the Oracle OpenWorld Call for Papers web site. The deadline for submissions is Monday, April 24, 11:59 p.m. PDT.

We look forward to checking out your sessions on the Oracle Database and how it has changed the way you do business!

New Top-N Queries and Pagination Syntax

At the RMOUG Training Days, a couple of weeks, ago @GeraldVenzl and I delivered a session demonstrating what it would take to get a REST enabled, web-based application up and running with Oracle Database 12c. During the session Gerald asked me to write a query to calculate the top 10 customers we had in terms of their total spend. Below is the query I came up with.

SELECT c.c_name, 
       c.c_custid loyaltyCardNo, 
       t.city, 
       t.state,
       SUM(salesAmount) total
FROM   customers c,
       t
WHERE  c.c_custid = t.loyaltyCardNo
GROUP BY c.c_name,
         c.c_custid,
         t.city,
         t.state
ORDER BY total DESC
FETCH FIRST 10 ROWS ONLY;

After the session I got a number of questions regarding the “FETCH FIRST 10 ROWS ONLY” syntax that I used, so I thought it would be worth explaining what it is and what happens under the covers when you execute it.

What is FETCH FIRST X ROWS ONLY?

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