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Continue reading...Exadata
Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade
This will be a short but very important blog post for those of you with Exadata systems. Then you should Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade.

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Why is this important?
Until a week ago, the database upgrade MyOracle Support (MOS) note showed the process using the DBUA. And we had plenty of customers asking us why AutoUpgrade isn’t mentioned there. Our team worked already with some of you, and we knew that AutoUpgrade works perfectly fine and takes over some manual actions.
But our MAA team wanted a perfect solution. They …
Continue reading...Do we offer patched Gold Images already?
Internally we can use a Gold Image service at Oracle. I can download a zip with 19.6.0 included. But externally for you as customers, the download of 19.6.0 required that you download 19.3.0 at first, then apply 19.6.0 on top of it. But a day ago, a tweet by my Belgium friend Philippe Fierens caught my attention. Do we offer patched Gold Images already?

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What is a Gold Image?
Since Oracle 18c, the installation routine has changed to the better. You download zip file containing the Gold Image, you create a directory and …
Continue reading...Mobiliar Insurance consolidates over 350 PDBs to new Exadatas
The year is almost over and many of you will take off in your well-deserved holidays. At this point it’s not time yet for a 2019 summary or my “Best Records of 2019” list, but to highlight a great success story from Swiss Mobiliar Insurance’s Oracle team.

Photo by Melina Kiefer on Unsplash
Mobiliar Insurance – never heard about them?
There are actually two typical situations when you’ve never heard about Mobiliar Insurance (“Die Mobiliar“) before. You either don’t live in Switzerland and you never visited one of our workshops nor any of the talks Alain Fuhrer and …
Continue reading...Automatic SQL Plan Management – Slight Change with 19.4.0
I did blog in more detail about Automatic SQL Plan Management in Oracle 19c. And Roy and I had really a lot of discussion in every customer meeting at OOW19 about it. But there is a slight change to where the feature is available with Oracle 19.4.0.

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Slight Change
When you compare the settings of SQL Plan Management between Oracle 19.3 and 19.4, you’ll see the difference:
column parameter_value format a45 column parameter_name format a25 set pages 200 SELECT PARAMETER_NAME, PARAMETER_VALUE FROM DBA_ADVISOR_PARAMETERS WHERE TASK_NAME = 'SYS_AUTO_SPM_EVOLVE_TASK' AND PARAMETER_VALUE <> 'UNUSED' ORDER… Continue reading...
Exadata Upgrade to OL7 and to Oracle 19c
This is just a short blog post to ensure I will find the necessary information when somebody asks me again.. In case you plan to do an Exadata upgrade to OL7 and to Oracle 19c, the below links are the most important ones you should start with.
- Exadata Database Machine – Maintenance Guide: Updating Exadata Software
- Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade
- MOS Note: 2542082.1 – 19c Grid Infrastructure and Database Upgrade steps for Exadata Database Machine running on Oracle Linux
- Fred Denis’ “An Unknown DBA” Blog with lots of tips and tricks and more
–Mike…
Continue reading...Oracle Database 19.2 for Exadata is now available for download
Time flies – and we have 2019. Since a few minutes Oracle Database 19.2 for Exadata is now available for download.
Oracle Database 19.2 for Exadata is now available for download
You can download as of today Oracle Database 19.2 for Exadata from the Software Delivery Cloud (eDelivery).
Just type in “Oracle Database” into the search window:
And then add it to your cart:
Documentation
And of course, the Oracle Database 19c documentation is available as of now as well:
Further Information
Please read more on the Oracle Database Blog.
–Mike…
Continue reading...Conventional INSERTs into HCC tables may be slower since Oracle 12.2
I work with several customers at the moment on their Oracle 12.2/18c “go live” projects. And one of these customers encountered a strange issue when comparing Oracle 11.2.0.4 to Oracle 12.2.0.1/18.3.0: Conventional INSERTs into HCC tables may be slower since Oracle 12.2. Actually in this particular case, significantly slower. Read below why this can happen and how the workarounds look like.
Hybrid Columnar Compression
There’s a lot of material to read and study about Hybrid Columnar Compression (HCC). With HCC we store the same column for a group of rows together. The data block does not store data in row-major …
Continue reading...When will Oracle Database 18c be available on-prem?
When will Oracle Database 18c be available on-prem? Some of you will answer: It is available already, isn’t it? And you are right. But I don’t want to blog just a marketing message but some facts. Others may ask: When will it be generally available on-premises?
==> July 23, 2018: Linux 18.3.0 on-prem is available – please click here <==
When will Oracle Database 18c be available on-prem?
As of today, March 20, 2018, Oracle Database 18c is available already in/for:
- OCI and OCI-C Database services
- LiveSQL.oracle.com
- Oracle Exadata and SuperCluster on premises
- Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) on premises
Actually …
Continue reading...PERL scripts for large migrations supported on all platforms (except Windows)
This topic fits very well as I present about +100 TB migrations today at the “Harmony” User Group Conference in Finland.

Finland in May
The question whether the PERL scripts for RMAN incrementally rolled forward backups we deliver via MOS Note 1389592.1 (11G – Reduce Transportable Tablespace Downtime using Cross Platform Incremental Backup) will be supported for migrations to non-Exadata systems such as Oracle SuperCluster as well.
And yes, now we got an update into the note saying:
Although preferred destination system is Linux (either 64-bit Oracle Linux or a certified version of RedHat Linux), this procedure can be used …
Continue reading...Oracle Database 12.2 for Exadata/SuperCluster available
Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 on-premises for Exadata and SuperCluster is now available for download from Oracle eDelivery/SoftwareCloud.
Connect to eDelivery and login.
Search for: “Oracle Database” and mark “Oracle Database Enterprise Edition …”
.
Click on “Select Platforms” and select “Linux x86-64“, then hit “Continue“:
Once you accepted the license agreement you’ll be able to download the software:
Please be aware that the software can be installed on Oracle Exadata and Oracle SuperCluster ONLY. To take advantage of the full potential of Oracle Database
12c Release 2 you should …
Oracle Exadata at Thomson Reuters
Very cool presentation released about the introduction of Oracle Exadata systems at Thomson Reuters, a customer we did visit in the past onsite in Minneapolis, MN 🙂
Oracle Engineered Systems at Thomson Reuters
Engineered Systems, the Foundation of Efficiency
-Mike…
Continue reading...Patches, Patch Sets, Patch Bundles, Bundled Patches …
Ouch … just realized that it has been a while since I posted a new topic on the blog. But actually the past weeks I was busy doing workshops, working with customers – and finally (yes!!) participating on an Exadata training class. Sitting there for 3 days, listening the instructor, playing around with the cell simulator and all the exercises was quite a nice change from the daily business. And I believe I’ve learnt something useful 🙂
Well, daily business, this brings me back to a topic which hit my inbox today again for the 2nd time in a …
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