The story continues...

There is a way of import data into SQL Server. A strange - or versatile if you want - way. Still there are a lot of tries before it is actually working. The best method is to export data to Excel sheets.
Then import them into the target database also using Excel sheets.

However suddenly during one of my import sessions suddenly the import screen locked. It is still locked while I am writing this.

So...SQL Server Manager is a strange tool that behaves very odd.

Are you trying to use GROUP BY in x++

Yes, I know, it is far from Oracle. But anyway...the syntax in the SQL world is

SELECT orderheader, sum(ordervalue)
FROM some_table
WHERE some criterias
GROUP BY orderheader

But when in x++ the order is another...

SELECT orderheader, sum(ordervalue)
FROM some_table
GROUP BY orderheader
WHERE some criterias

 I mean...come on! What the ...well. What is going on?

If you are going to read one article on PL/SQL this autumn...

Well...this is the one: https://blogs.oracle.com/plsql-and-ebr/resource/Why_Use_Plsql_Whitepaper7.pdf  Bryn is the PL/SQL-guy to read.

Why not read it this month...The conclusion is:

"PL/SQL is better suited to the task of executing SQL statements and processing their results than any other programming language that can do this. It brings these signific

ant benefits:

1. optimal expressiveness, maintainability, and therefore maximum chance of correctness
2. optimal security
3. optimal performance

"
It has never been said better...

A truly international company Oracle is...

Got this letter today because I want to subscribe to Oracle Magazine. I have done so during my 25 years in the Oracle world of databases et al.

Dear Lars Str, Thank you for being a loyal subscriber to Oracle Magazine! I wanted to reach out today to share our new and improved subscriber features. We're adding an extra level of security to your subscriber sign-in. When you sign into your Oracle Magazine account, you need to enter a password along with your email address. Your temporary password is: 0345676826 Please use this temporary password to access your account now or reset your password here. Once you sign in, you will gain immediate access to Oracle Magazine's award-winning digital content-now available for mobile devices too. That's right! You can now access Oracle Magazine via iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile app or online through your desktop or laptop browser. We're proud to offer more convenient ways to view and engage our content on the go or right at your desk. Enjoy your reading experience! My name is Lars Sjöström but the letter ö mingled my name up...Strange...Very strange, no UTF-encoding? No i18n at all... Truly Strange.

Setting up SQL Server 2012 vs Oracle some version

Setting up a SQL Server 2012 for various reasons. What are the differences vs a set up of a database, that are to be reached from remote. Well...there are some...There is a difference in terminology. And annoying default - but they are surely there for a reason - settings.

 A very good thing is that there is no TNSNAMES.ORA...:-). The Windows authorization mechanism handles all of that. So when everything is in place the remote PC finds everything very smoothly, thru the network.

Every change of the settings are done in various parts of the  SQL Server 2012 Manager-tool.






In SQL Server there is a concept of "USER" and (?) a "LOGIN". So...you couple the USER to a specific LOGIN.

CREATE USER myuser FOR LOGIN myuser;

You have to Enable TCP/IP protocol.

The annoying - imho - is the default setting that disables access from outside. So just find the Enable SQL Server & Windows Authorization.

From zero to an accessible database the time should not be more than 8-12 hours for a regular database knowledgeable person. But bare in mind that that is a straight forward installation.

Ran into trouble immediately...

Trying to install Oracle 12c database on a laptop. Now, the laptop is a laptop that is handled by a service organization. I have no authorization to create a user on that laptop...

So...the creation of the Windows user for the Oracle_Home-processes failed.

Will try again and use the Built-in Windows user.

What is there to do?

Container databases is The Future - or not?

Well probably not since there is no flashback.  What is a container database? Well there is lots to read on the internet. Of course. But it is - as I see it - the base for Clouds, private, public or hybrid.

The cloud is for sale!

In Europe as well in other parts of the globe there are movements rolling where you can buy and sell Cloud Computing resources. Interesting development.

There is a site already out there. Sharing prices at amazon.com.The site is closed, I just discovered...2014-01-13...

But there are other sites, this is the Börse in Europe for the Cloud. So capacity is for sale. App-servers, database servers, what have you. Go buy, or sell your capacity.

What are the implications of this "stock" exchange. Well time will tell. But it is kinda strange. Or it is not...there could be companies that will gain capital from computer storage, or computer application server resources during, let's say the Olympics in the year 2016. Or when a company suddenly and in a minute time gets lots of DoS-attacks. Or even not attacks. But a immense grow on traffic.

Then, who do you gonna call? Cloud-sellers...

Moving from Forms 10g to 11g

Remember that there is a new version PL/SQL engine taking care of calls to the database. I stumbled upon a strange error moving from 10g to 11g.

Now in 11g, the PL/SQL is more restricted in functions behaviour.

A function MUST return av value. So code that looked like this, roughly, in Forms 10g passed, but should not have passed. When run in a 11g environment there are strange behaviour of this new more robust view of a function. Some of these errors can be hard to find, but a &debug and/or

MESSAGE('Informative text');

does the trick.

Here is what passed earlier, but no longer during run-time. It compiles, but is giving strange errors in Forms 11g. Note that the solution is just to RETURN something in the THEN-clause.

FUNCTION MyFunc(i_personId) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
  l_MyVariable VARCHAR2(80);

BEGIN
 IF some_expression 
   THEN NULL;
   ELSE
   /* Do something */
   RETURN('RESULT');
 END IF;

END;

To ExaData or not to ExaData

that is the question. Several years ago ExaData platform came along. When should you go for that platform?

I do not really know...in the beginning of the ExaData product release it was stated that it was aimed at Business Intelligence [BI] applications and not OnLine Transaction Processing [OLTP] applications. Now when Cloud computing is more and more not just a buzz word but a reality things might have changed. They have changed, the new applicances are aimed at OLTP. Which is a natural step in the ExaData product line.

However...there are troubles for the non database guys...

There are of course implications on applications. Some tips over here. But there could be more. And then Tom Kyte is not addressing the DataBase Administrators [DBA] but the developers of the applications. The transition - yes transition not migration :-) - to ExaData from a traditional Oracle DataBase solution have implications on the application.

That is not necessarliy the primary focus for the DBAs, they see the advantages from their point of view in disk space mangagement and such things that DBAs should and are caring for.

Oracle Forms slowly fades away...

I have heard that sentence so many times.

It should be rephrased to "Oracle want their customers to let Oracle Forms  built applications to fade away". The reason for that is the there are new things, jDeveloper and other products that are in the pipe line to be sold.

However, there are very many business critical systems out here - in Sweden as well as in the world - that uses a stable, in production running Oracle Forms/Reports/Discoverer-application. The important thing here is business critical, and stable. Such applications are not taken out of service in an afternoon without a controlled, in-depth study on the cricital businesses processes that are supported by this application.

Slowly fades away is an understatement. The Oracle Forms/Reports/Discoverer-applications has always been fading away, let's say in 5-8 years or so. And believe me, when I say that there are many many applications in critical production systems that will be around for at least 5-8 years more.

There is a natural fear to exchange horses in the middle of the stream.

My advice is to isolate parts of existing Oracle F/R/D-applications and investigate what path to take, are you going to JDeveloper, Application Express or a mix of them both, or are you going to slowly move to JDeveloper, ApplicationExpress or Open Source-solutions? Or are you going to .net-thread?

The technical part of the matter is just the underlying part, the important thing is to get in place a technical platform for all your business applications, a standard to build applications upon.

What's the fuzz around Windows 8

I stumbled upon this presentation that gives you a short introduction.

http://www.slideshare.net/AnastasiaKl/windows-8-and-windows-phone-8-developer-story-anders-bratland

Windows 8 is here, not around the corner, but Oracle Forms/Reports/Discoverer applications might be run in this environment.

It will be exciting to see where this evolves. Because NOKIA Lumia 920 is here to stay, not in the commercial public sector. The increase will probable be noticed amongst hand held terminals that interact with internal traditional OLTP applications.

Web Logic Server 11g and the cloud is in the air

We have now, where I work, got the WebLogic Server [WLS] up and running. It can be recovered safely in case of hosts that looses control and has to reboot. The BEA way - remember WebLogic was bought from BEA by Oracle some years ago - is different than the Oracle Way. Study the nodemanager in your fave-WLS-book. The nodemanager can be set up in a way that is IS a windows bootstrap process for all the other processes - and God knows there are lots and lots of processes that should be up and running - that are needed for a Forms/Reports/Discoverer-based application.

The next step is to make sure that everything else is in place in terms of configuration and other platforms that are needed in order to get WLS in a controlled manner serve Forms/Reports/Discoverer-applications.

There are considerations in integration between Forms and Reports. The next step in that area is to choose between Jasper, BI Publisher or something else. BI Publisher is an expensive animal...and has imho an american view on reports distribution in general.

Further, 12c is around the corner, in a year or two there is a Forms/Reports/Discoverer 12c platform. Reports will still be around, despite what Oracle says. It is another marketing matter that Oracle wants you to move from Oracle Reports...

To cloud or not to cloud that is the

question. There are doubts out here. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427206/the-hidden-risk-of-a-meltdown-in-the-cloud/ is one doubt.

As I once said, the internet is trust issue. Coined this in a community long time ago. Still valid.

If you do not trust the site you leave. If you do not trust that the opt-out will work you do not click the opt-out for a spam mail.

If companies that should or would or could go cloudy in a positive sense do not trust the providers of the cloud internet is in trouble. The meltdown metaphore is a great image to think about. And there are issues of trust in all three levels of Cloudiness.

Platform as a Service PaaS
Infrastructure as a Service IaaS
Application as a Service AssA

The platform are the - surprisingly enough - platform for the cloudy future itself. There you have boxes (as Larry made jokes about...during a OOW 2011 or so...) flat servers or what have you.
Infrastructure is the next level of cloudification efforts. Do not start here, start at Platforms.
Later on - four years or so when company is at true level 5 of CMM - then go for AssA.

The road is long but the path is clear.

WIndows 7 and Forms and Vista and...OC4J

Recently I wrote on the subject Vista PC and the lack of OC4J container. Now...Windows 7 is coming around the corner.

There are issues there as well. I am investigating them as I write...I will be back, in a non-Schwarzenegger way...
There seems to be some security issues on behalf of the Windows 7 OS. And some jar-issues. You have to clear the Java Cache in order to get things on the road.

Still some testing to do.

Migration to 11g Web Logic Server

This is an interesting task... There are new things floating around as I have been around for some years. New architecture, new windows 7...with strange behaviour.

Well, we are encountering a nice future...

No flash, Flash and then back again.

My Oracle Support is changing again...the flash version - that got a some critisism in the very beginning - has come to an end.

Strange. That the HTML-version did not see the light earlier. Or that the HTML-version could exist a short period of time to wait for the version 2 of the HTML-variant.

Maybe the name will switch back to Metalink as well...:-)

Smaller foot print WebLogic Server

Find the file \user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain\bin\setDomainEnv.cmd and edit it.
In the beginning set JAVA_VENDOR to be Sun.
set JAVA_VENDOR=Sun
Change these values
set XMS_SUN_32BIT=256

set XMX_SUN_32BIT=512
to
set XMS_SUN_32BIT=128
set XMX_SUN_32BIT=256

Further more, find set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms256m -Xmx512m and change that
to set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms64m -Xmx128m. That will reduce foot print of the WebLogic Server substansially.

Last, change the same parameters for Reports. set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms256m -Xmx512m to
set EXTRA_JAVA_PROPERTIES=-Xms64m -Xmx128m

Oracle Forms 11g and WebLogic Server

Remember that there is no local flavour of the old and useful - imho - OC4J Oracle Application Server Containsers for J2EE 10g in the new Forms 11g environment.
That could - and will present a problem to be solved- in the developer environment of the application life cycle management.

Further, the WebLogic Server needs a larger footprint that the old way of doing application development using the OC4J locally on your - typically - PC. Test and production environments is another more solvable issue, since they are mostly Linux based environments. But the development usually are done using the traditional PC with XP.

I have seen trouble installing the Forms 11g on a Vista PC so do not try that at home, it might not even be certified. Please consult the certification table at My Oracle Support for information on that issue.

There are means to lower the foot print for the local WLS Server that is needed if you want do perform basic tests on your PC environment. There are parameters to set, you will find them on google.

Check comments on the EOUC-meeting in Prague

You can do that using http://www.twitter.com and also by going to visible witter tools and search the tag EOUC.
Or use this link.