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June 18, 2008
Just a Little Fun
As the darkness and rain have given way to sunshine and dry weather (well, sort of), I've begun riding my electric bike not only to work, but also to the gym early in the morning. I was just thinking today that this little bike has really been a reliable way to get to work, and to make short trips around town. As fuel prices rise it seems even better. I'm guesstimating that it probably costs me about $4.00 per year for the electricity required to recharge the bike - not too bad! By the way, Dave Olson has an electric moped he's riding to work every day (from Salem). He let me take it for a short spin the other day. It was fun! Electrics are really quiet compared to other vehicles and generally heavier because of the batteries, but this moped takes about 2 seconds to get used to riding. It seems like we'll be seeing a lot more of this type of vehicle on our roads now that fuel costs have skyrocketed.
Posted by rossm at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
Astra Moving Forward
Astra continues to show itself to be a great, great asset for the campus. As we move forward with the configuration and implementation we see more and more advantages. It just can't be overstated how nice it is to have everything that is scheduled on campus right there in one spot to look at. It helps both those responsible for setting up class schedules and events, but also those who are looking for a place on campus for their event. It really helps to know whether a space is available or not just by looking - you don't have to call anyone.
That being said, the implementation continues to be difficult to move forward. One nice thing is I've met a lot people as they got their Astra client installed, and I haven't been out on campus this much in years!
Another area which has come up as we begin to use Astra in earnest is "exams". This is the tool whereby Astra does not schedule classes in their regular time slots the last week of the term - it schedules final exams that week instead. We have not yet used the exams portion of Astra, and it necessarily requires a lot more setup. This made a bit of a mess for the finals week this term as there were still classes showing in Astra even though they weren't really meeting. Of course, the space was needed for final exams and other events so it caused a lot of manual work that we'll be able to avoid in the future.
This Summer we are scheduled to go to Astra version 7, which is purely web based. That will be fun to see all the new features it contains. Also, it will eliminate the client/server architecture so I won't have any reason to be wandering around campus!
Posted by rossm at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
Bookstore Gets Pretty Demanding
As you know, this is about my least favorite time of year - Physical Inventory at both the physical plant stores and the bookstore are happening this week and next. Nathan is generously loaning us 6 laptops again this year for the bookstore's inventory. We used them last year and it was a HUGE improvement over those "Telxon" handhelds we used previously. The main advantage of the laptops is that they can stay connected to the server, so if someone attempts to count an item that doesn't match with the bookstore's data, it immediately gives an error. Then Kris can fix the error right then and there. With the Telxons, those errors accumulated in the counting batch and you would not see them until the batch was loaded onto the system. The only information you would have for an error was the batch number, the count, and the cost. Kris and I spent hours looking for the actual items that weren't in the system correctly. You might think the new method would make me happier, and it does, but it is still a ton of work.
In addition to physical inventory at the bookstore, we're still up against the deadline for getting the encryption software going. We should be getting an install CD from MBS next week, and it looks like either Friday am or pm we'll be doing that install. It's a beta release, but I've got my fingers crossed. Encryption is one of those black and white things - either it works or it doesn't, no middle ground. We should know pretty quickly which result we get.
Our new printer is on campus, but not yet installed. Soon, very soon....
Yesterday morning early, I applied the finishing touches to the 2008.1 upgrade (it was supposed to be done Monday night, but I forgot so had to get up at 6:00 am and do it before the store opened). This means that our system is A-1, up to snuff, with the most recent MBS software there is.
Anyway, the bookstore has a lot going on right now. It's always fun and challenging.
Posted by rossm at 9:57 AM | Comments (0)
RMAN Studies Begin
This week I began my in depth studies of the Oracle backup and recovery manager (RMAN). The UCS department purchased a great reference book on RMAN and I've begun reading it. Yes, it is a rather dry subject, but this book is a wealth of information. Here are some things I've learned so far:
- RMAN is installed as part of the Enterprise database, it exists in every db we have.
- RMAN connects internally to the db as sysdba.
- The control file contains information about all data files (.dbf) and RMAN stores backup information about each data file right in the control file. This is why it is not good to lose all copies of your control file.
- RMAN copies data files at the block level. No other backup strategy can do this. This results in a lot of benefits such as the ability to delete "null" blocks and blocks containing no data during backup.
- RMAN can backup the db while it's running (hot) without interfering with the use of the db. It does this by cloning the control file and making a backup consistent with the cloned control file. The db continues to work using the real control file.
- RMAN copies the blocks directly into one big file, in chunks, often using more than one process, and only RMAN can ever get them back to their rightful places again.
There's more, but you can get the idea of the types of things that I'm learning about RMAN. I still need to learn about coordinating our RMAN backups (all db's have current RMAN backups) with a good tape backup strategy, then deleting unnecessary backups. Also, the interaction between RMAN and the Flashback area needs more study.
Oh, by the way, the db's are running strong. I managed to screw up the Helpdesk app a little doing some tuning on it, but other than that I've kept under the radar.
Posted by rossm at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2008
What's Happening With Oracle These Days?
Inquiring minds want to know! Well, the productiond db AERO has really settled down. It's fine tuned, mostly set up well, and Sundown has been reliable since the hardware problem was fixed. My new goal is to just keep the thing running continuously for awhile and see how it does. The one item that still needs more polish is the RMAN backups. We're taking RMAN backups every day, but we need to coordinate the disk backups with the tape backups, then remove those backups we no longer need from the disks. I'm on Chapter 2 of my new sleep inducing - RMAN Backup book. It is a really good book, but you have to admit it's a pretty dry subject!
Our 10gR1 database is having some issues - mainly, the Computrition users are going crazy because their application is sooooo slooooow. We've been looking over the db for bottlenecks, but nothing too definitive has come up yet. A couple of tablespaces were pretty full, so I gave them some more room to work. Also, it looks like our server is a bit short of RAM, so we're looking at throwing some hardware at the problem, too. As of yesterday, we're getting good RMAN backups now.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way things are set up right now. This Summer I hope to get 10gR2 running on Maverick, which we'll use for a development instance and also for testing our backups. Dale and I continue to find more and more things the new Enterprise Manager can help us with, so we'll be exploring that some more, too.
Posted by rossm at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)
More Parameters R Us
Sometimes things go right! SWAMP was giving me more fits because of the 2000 parameter limit imposed by the newer version of the Apache web server. Of course, we were trying to pass about 2400 parameters - just a few over the limit. That got me interested in this parameter problem again so I started looking around for some way to increase the limit. We had tried before to increase the limit, but then the web server wouldn't start. Well, to make a long story short, the config file requires the limit to be set in a particular place. So, I put the new directive in the right place, Ron bounced the web server, and voila - a new limit of 15000 parameters. Woohoo!
I know what you're thinking - "Who passes that many parameters around?" But, remember that each piece of data counts against the limit, whether it's in an array or not. So, 15 or 20 data items per record, 2-300 records or so, bang, you're over the limit. It's actually pretty easy!
Posted by rossm at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
June 4, 2008
Bookstore Buys Hardware!
The bookstore received its new POS (Point of Sale) controller last week, and Mark and I installed it with the help of MBS. This controller plus additional RAM memory in 6 of our 7 cash registers is necessary to implement the encryption software as required by the credit card sensitive data rules. The install went fairly well, and the new controller is now up and running. There are still three cash registers that need RAM upgrades before we use them (these are the extra registers we put up for rush week). There is also a 2008.1 MBS application upgrade which needs to be installed in the next week or so in order to accommodate some data changes MBS is implementing. That is another night time job that must be done when the store is closed.
It also looks like we're going to involuntarily be "Beta testers" for the new encryption software. We must be in compliance by June 30, but MBS keeps pushing back the release date. It was due out earlier this year, and was just recently pushed back to "this Fall". We need to at least give it a try to see if we can make it work by the end of the month. Beta testing has not been a particularly good experience for me in the past. I'm very concerned that our registers will just not work, which is a problem when the store is open.
I almost forgot - the bookstore also ordered a new HP printer to replace our Lexmark (yahoo!!). It's not here yet, but will be soon. Yesterday I took over a printer stand that the physical plant modified for us. The old printer fell off the makeshift stand it was on a couple weeks ago. This stand is a very solid piece made by the carpenter shop at the physical plant, and it fits right in. Thanks Marsha and John!
Posted by rossm at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)
Oracle Databases
Things have settled down quite a bit on the Oracle database scene. The hardware glitch on Sundown has been fixed, so the goal now is to keep AERO and the web server up except for necessary scheduled maintenance. We had a nice meeting with the systems people regarding the backup process. I ordered a reference book on RMAN backups, and will be refining our backup strategy as the next db project. We currently maintain RMAN backups for AERO, but there is a need to coordinate these backups with the tape backup process.
The 10gR1 instance now has the food service application and Viking running on it. The Viking users were quite anxious to get moved to 10g to take advantage of some of Viking's newer features, but Viking will only run on 10gR1 with a specific character set (not the default set). By coincidence, that character set is the one our existing 10gR1 instance uses. Michael Ellis moved Viking over last week. So, Viking got upgraded and also that frees up a server for us to use for a test 10gR2 instance. Dale and I will be working on that in the near future. We need to remove the 9i instance and install a 10gR2 (or 11??) instance there. Well, we don't ever have a shortage of interesting things going on with the Oracle databases!
Posted by rossm at 7:36 AM | Comments (0)