Friday, October 10, 2008

About Clear Communications

Like everyone else I like to rant once in a while. I rant about the shortcomings in Oracle software, the tools and technologies I work with. But this time I want to rant about a decisively non-technical topic. Arguably it is something that everyone must have felt - at least once. It's about communicating clearly. Why don't people do it? Why don't they articulate whatever they are trying to say. Instead they spit out incoherently with thoughts coming across as sloppily slapped together expecting the other person to somehow put it all together. I am not talking about children; these are responsible adults who supposedly make up policies and act as thought leaders. Unclear thoughts and communication not only frustrates people; but is dangerous. It misdirects efforts leading to wastage and often utter failure.



Today I had on the receiving end of such a travesty. Earlier, a manager of an application team wrote to me this email (reproduced verbatim) about a requirement:



We are having a shortage of capabilities on the servers. So we want to increase the capabilities somehow. What do you recommend?



I was scratching my head. How can I comment or influence the capabilities of their applications? Perhaps they are asking about some limitations which might be solved by some Oracle technology features. So, I called them for a quick chat. After half hour I still wasn't clear about what limitations they are trying to solve.



And then, after one hour, I got it: they are talking about capacity; not capability! And not only that it's about the database server; not the app server. [Trying to pull my hair out at this time]



My recommendation would have been to send them to an English school; but, being occasionally wise, I kept it to myself.



OK; let's move on. I promised to have a DBA look at the capacity issue.



And a DBA did. Sme days went by and it apprently reached a boiling point. I was told nothing has been done by the DBA and, well, that's not acceptable. so, I intervened. I asked the DBA for her side of the story. It was pretty simple - the CPU, I/O are all normal, way below utilization. The growth projections were eight times. Yes, eight times. So, the DBA made a request for the increase in capacity and that's where the friction has started. No one anticipated the eight fold increase; so there is simply no room. Stalemate!

As the head of database architecture, I question any growth projections, especially ones that go up 8 times. And I did. Here was the response "we are running on 2 legs and we will run on 16 legs in the near future".

2 legs?!!! What is that? What is a leg?

As it turns out, the application is running 2 java virtual machines. the app architects are recommending to run 16 JVMs to add redundancy and distribute local processing. From the database perspective, that means 2 clients now will become 16; but the overall processing will *not* go up.

Instead of saying that in plain English, the App manager coined a term "leg" to describe the issue in apprently in some technical way. This was communiated to his management chain, which in turn interpreted it as 8 fold increase in processing and demanded that we create 7 more databases. They approved the new "databases" and allocated the budget. But since the friction came with a member of my team, I became involved. As I always do, I questioned the decision and that's how the truth came out, which in turn also cleared the mystery behind the "capability" story described above.

All these hoopla about people not communicating in a clear manner. Adding 16 more clients should have simple enough to connvery even to the mail guy; calling it "legs" confused every one, wasted time and increased frustration. If I hadn't questioned it, it would have been implemented too. 7 more databases doing nothing to solve the issues present.

Communication is all about articulation and presentation of thoughts. The key is empathy - put yourself in the recipient's shoes and try to look at what you are saying from that persepctive. It's not about English (or whatever the language used); it's about the clarity of thought process. Granted not everyone will be able to present the thought process equally coherently while speaking; but what about writing? There is no excuse for not writing coherently, is there? The only reason for being incoherent is just a I-don't-care attitude. Of course, there are other things - unfamilairity with the language used, lack of time, environment (typing on the blackberry with one finger while cooking with the other hand), state of mind (typing out the report while waiting for the third drink to arrive at the bar); but most of the time it's just plain lack of empathy. If you don't have that, you just don't communicate; at least not effectively. And when you don't communicate, you fail, regardless of your professional stature.

As Karen Morton once said during a HotSos Symposium, and a mantra I took to heart and live by the lines everyday:


Knowledge and Experience Makes you Credible
Ability to Communicate Effectively makes you Useful


Useful - that's what I and you want to be; not just credible. Thank you, Karen.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Upgrade Experience for Patchkit 11.1.0.7

The first patchkit for 11g - 11.1.0.7 - came out a few weeks ago, for Linux systems. Unlike most other patchkits, this one contains some new functionalities. Oracle patchkits are usually only bugfixes with al patches regression tested collectively; not added features. This one does have some new (albeit minor) features.

The upgrade was relatively easy but took a long time - about 30 minutes. I encountered one issue and a roadblock. Here is the annoying roadblock

A Very Import Pre-req

Do not forget to check for this pre-requisite. This is the time_zone check, as specified in the patchkit readme file.

SQL> select version from v$timezone_file;

VERSION
----------
4

In my case it returned 4, which means no further action is necessary. Had it returned something else, I would have to follow the instructions mentioned in MetaLink Note 568125.1.




Asking for Email for Security Notification

It was interesting to note that the installer asked me to enter my Email address to send me updates on security. Funny; I get that already anyway. So I ignored and clicked "Next". Nope; it popped a little window asking me to confirm that I do not need email. Sure, I confirmed and pressed Next. No, the same issue, it asked me again to confirm and so on. Vicious circle!

There was a little checkbox below that said "track security via MetaLink" and asked my MetaLink password (not "id", which it presumed to be my email). I checked that box and entered my email and password, and it allowed me to go further.

This is a little awkward. Not everyone will want to get the email. And in any case, a mere email will explain little about the security issues. And why would anyone want to embed his/her MetaLink password in a response file?

Cool Feature: The Pre-upgrade Script

Oracle now provides a script utlu111i.sql in the $OH/rdbms/admin directory. Run this script before you shut the database down for upgrade. It will tell a lot about the issues you may need to fix before trying the upgrade.

The Issue

The issue I encountered was while running the catupgrd.sql script. After applyng the patch, I started up with the UPGRADE option and then executed catupgrd.sql script, which promptly failed. From the error message (which, I unfortunately, I couldn't capture), it was clear that the failure was due to the presence of Data Vault feature. I apparently installed Data Vault option while installing the software. The message says it clearly:

Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Production
With the Partitioning, Oracle Label Security, OLAP, Data Mining,
Oracle Database Vault and Real Application Testing options

Well, I need to remove it before I can upgrade. It needed a recomp of the Oracle software:

oracle@prolin1$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib
oracle@prolin1$ make -f ins_rdbms.mk dv_off

Next, I relinked the Oracle software:

oracle@prolin1$ relink oracle

Now the catupgrd.sql script ran successfully as expected. It took about 1 hour to complete.

SQL> select * from v$version
2 /

BANNER
-----------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.7.0 - Production
PL/SQL Release 11.1.0.7.0 - Production
CORE 11.1.0.7.0 Production
TNS for Linux: Version 11.1.0.7.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 11.1.0.7.0 - Production

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