Archive for the ‘Humor’ Category.
October 1, 2013, 3:48 pm
I work for a small company named Enkitec. I’ve been asked several times recently where the name Enkitec came from. In fact, someone told me just today that they had heard that “Enkitec is an anagram for necktie, which guys that work for Enkitec are universally reluctant to wear”. While that statement is true, it’s not the reason why the company was named Enkitec. Someone just happened to notice it a couple of years after the company was formed and mentioned it in a presentation. And thus the myth was born. The real story about the name was that we were trying to figure out what to call the company and we couldn’t come up with anything we liked (with a matching domain name that was still available). So we did what all marketing challenged people do, we hired a freelance marketing wiz kid to come up with some ideas for us. We met with him a few times over a couple of weeks and eventually settled on Enkitec. It means absolutely nothing by the way, but the domain name was available! 🙂 The thing that sticks out in my memory though is that the marketing guy wore these dark rimed glasses that made him look smart. One day I made some comment about how they improved his image and said something about how if I was the suspicious type, I would think that they were just for show. He then proceeded to admit that he didn’t actually need glasses and so the lenses were just plain glass. One of my favorite all time marketing stories!
June 27, 2013, 8:44 pm
Since everyone seems to be all twitterpated about Oracle Database 12c this week, I thought I’d post a quick note to let you know that the slides from the presentation on 12c Adaptive Optimization I did at the Hotsos Symposium 2013 (with a lot of help from Maria) are now available in the Whitepapers / Presentations section of this blog.
While I’m on the topic, I found this little blurb in the Oracle Database 12c Release 1 New Features Guide:
That’s the section that talks about the Adaptive Optimization stuff. I think the documentation folks meant that they were describing performance features that didn’t require any manual intervention, but it sort of reads like the features are really easy to describe, or maybe that the writers weren’t going to work very hard on describing them. At any rate, the wording struck me as humorous. 🙂
January 20, 2013, 10:22 pm
I got a look a new prototype for the next generation Exadata last week while doing some work with a company in Europe. Apparently there is a big push to be environmentally friendly there now and so Oracle is trying to come up with a model that uses less power and is biodegradable. The word on the street is that it won’t be available until after release 2 of the 12c database.
The new model has a few drawbacks though. For one thing, it only lasts a few weeks before you must either replace it or higher some rocket surgeon consultants to come in and tune it. From the early version of the prototype I saw, it does appear to be smaller and more tasty than previous models though.
That’s a picture of the lead designer (JP) showing off the prototype. The code name for the project is “Exanana” by the way. The new model should be available in select supermarkets after lunch (err launch). Here’s another picture of JP and one of the other designers (Paul) hamming it up for the camera.
I probably should have saved this post for April 1st!
December 8, 2011, 3:44 pm
Here’s a lovely Candy Striped pattern in an Explain Plan. Looks like the traditional Christmas candy canes. Just in time for the Holiday Season!
| 156 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 157 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 158 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 159 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 160 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 161 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 162 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 163 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 164 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 165 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 166 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 167 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 168 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 169 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 170 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 171 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 172 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 173 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 174 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 175 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 176 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 177 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 178 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 179 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 180 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 181 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 182 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 183 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 184 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 185 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 186 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 187 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 188 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 189 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 190 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 191 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 192 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 193 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 194 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 195 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 196 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 197 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 198 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 199 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 200 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 201 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 202 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 203 | FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 204 | L FAST DUA | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 205 | AL FAST DU | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 206 | UAL FAST D | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 207 | DUAL FAST | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 208 | DUAL FAST | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 209 | T DUAL FAS | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 210 | ST DUAL FA | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 211 | AST DUAL F | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 212 |.FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 213 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 214 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 215 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 216 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 217 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
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| 219 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 220 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 221 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 222 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 223 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 224 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 225 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 226 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 227 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 228 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 229 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 230 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 231 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 232 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 233 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 234 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 235 |. FAST DUAL | | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 |
March 29, 2011, 6:49 pm
You have probably all experienced situations where you get an error message from Oracle and it turns out to be a total Red Herring. Occasionally though the error messages can be really helpful. I got an email from a co-worker today (thanks Stephan) that read like this:
I was working on an external table today and fat fingered something. This is the error report-
Error report:
SQL Error: ORA-30657: operation not supported on external organized table
30657.0000 – “operation not supported on external organized table”
*Cause: User attempted on operation on an external table which is
not supported.
*Action: Don’t do that!
Gotta love it. They don’t actually tell us what we did wrong, but they do tell us how to resolve the issue!
Apparently some of the Oracle developers have a sense of humor.
By the way, I’m sure you already know this but there is a nifty little Oracle provided tool called oerr that spits out this information:
SYS@SANDBOX1> !oerr ora 30657
30657,0000, "operation not supported on external organized table"
// *Cause: User attempted on operation on an external table which is
// not supported.
// *Action: Don't do that!
December 22, 2010, 6:21 pm
Ha. This one was a little surprising. I ran across a SQL statement that gets fired off hundreds at a time in rapid succession. Each execution taking several seconds – too long for thousands of executions in a row. The statement looked like this (cleaned up to protect the guilty):
b1 := '10355P034001SGL00066';
b2 := '10355P034001SGL00066';
select count(cust_id)
from customers
where substr(cust_id,1,length(:b1)) = :b2;
What was the developer trying to do? How can we fix it? Your comments are welcomed.
Continue reading ‘Funny Developer Tricks – (substr(cust_id,1,length(:b1))’ »
October 28, 2010, 6:35 pm
I spent most of the last week in California at Oracle’s XMonth (it was really a week so I’m not sure why they called it XMonth). Which reminds me of a tuning engagement I did a few years ago. I showed up at the client’s facilities and we started discussing the problem. They told me that their daily job was running too slow and it was causing major problems. So I asked them what time the daily job ran each day. And they told me that it ran every 20 minutes. Ha! “And why do you call it the daily job?”, I asked. They weren’t really sure. The job was taking about an hour to complete as I recall, but I digress.
At XMonth, they had three tracks: Exadata (and two others that I can’t remember). I did learn a few things I thought were worth sharing.
- Exalogic is not shipping yet, but we did cover it in some detail. Exalogic’s biggest advantage appears to be the Infiniband fabric. It can be connected directly to any DB server using IB (Exadata for example) and can communicate with the extremely low latency RDS protocol.
- Oracle has relaxed their “no changes to the Exadata configuration” stance (but only very slightly). They said that it was OK to change out the Cisco switch and replace it with some other equivalent switch.
- A competitive analysis of Sun’s server line was provided. It included T series, X series, and M series servers along with Exadata. Exadata pretty much kicks all other options in the teeth (in my opinion). M series are still suitable for very large applications that are unable to scale out via RAC – such are Oracle’s own MRP package which uses the dbms_pipe package limiting its ability to scale in a RAC environment. But in general, the advice to the sales team was that if you are in a competitive situation, in most cases you should lead with Exadata.
So that’s about it. Oh they also let me talk about our experiences with Exadata. That was fun and I got to try my hand at a virtual presentation, as there were participants all over the world following along with Webex. The software has gotten pretty good for doing these kinds of presentations by the way. It was good practice for the Virtual Oracle Conference we have coming up next month. (note that there are only a couple of days left to sign up at the discounted rate)
September 8, 2010, 8:47 am
Well I stayed at home today to do some writing on a book project while one of my sons and one of my daughters and my wife went to the Fort Worth Natural Science Museum. So I was feeling a little overworked and like I was missing out because I’ve been slaving away writing “scholarly technical material”. Then I got a text from my son. Just a picture that’s all.
I’m sure these two books will probably sell a few orders of magnitude more copies than any book that I contribute to. Kind of puts it all in perspective. I think next weekend I’ll go to the zoo with them.
August 24, 2010, 9:52 pm
Well we had to give it a shot.
So we created an Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software CELLBOOT USB flash drive. I’m not kidding, that’s what the Oracle/Sun guys decided to call it. They didn’t even use an acronym in the manual (I guess “ESSSCB USB FD” doesn’t roll off the tongue much better than the whole thing anyway). We used the make_cellboot_usb utility to create the thing off one of our storage servers, which by the way was not that easy to do, since the USB ports are in the back of the 4275’s and they are not easy to get to with all the cabling that’s back there. Anyway, once we had the little bugger created we pulled it out of the back of the rack and booted a Dell Latitude D630 off of it. Here’s a picture:
Notice the thumb drive is all lit up like a Christmas tree.
Here is a close up of the screen (in case your eyes are going bad like mine):
So we tried a couple of different options but eventually got to this screen:
Notice the ERROR line in the middle of the screen. Somebody wisely put a check in the boot procedure to verify the machine type, presumably if it’s not a Sun 4170 it will throw an error. We thought about hacking the system but decided not to at this point as we had real work to do. (maybe later when we’ve got nothing else to do)