Jim Czuprynski

The previous article in this series discussed the basic concepts of Oracle Database Resource Management (DRM) for managing database server resources. This next article moves beyond the conceptual phase and tackles building, maintaining, and monitoring resource consumer groups, resource plans, and the resource directives that bind them together. In the previous article, I showed how […]

Synopsis. Oracle Database Resource Management (DRM) provides tools that allow any Oracle DBA to manage a database server’s CPU resources effectively for application user groups and during different resource demand periods. This article provides a brief overview of how DRM works and then delves into the preparations necessary to implement a simple DRM configuration. I […]

Synopsis. Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) features have been expanded significantly in Oracle 9i. This article discusses several of these new features and includes examples on how to implement them to make any Oracle DBA’s backup, restoration, and disaster recovery plans more effective. Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) is one of the most versatile tools in any […]

Synopsis. Oracle Label Security (OLS) offers a powerful implementation of row-based security that is perfect for restricting user access to specific data, especially in a data mart or data warehousing environment. Previous articles presented a brief overview of how these features work, and how these features can be implemented in any Oracle database. This concluding […]

Synopsis. Oracle Label Security (OLS) offers a powerful implementation of row-based security that is perfect for restricting user access to specific data, especially in a data mart or data warehousing environment. Previous articles presented a brief overview of how these features work, and how these features can be implemented in any Oracle database. This article […]

Part one of this series provided some real-life scenarios for which Oracle Label Security (OLS) could be used to effectively enforce the corresponding business rules and the dynamics by which OLS secures data at the row level. In this article, we will delve into how to set up OLS on an Oracle 9i database, how […]

Synopsis. Oracle Label Security (OLS) is a relatively new feature of Oracle 9i. It offers a powerful implementation of row-based security that’s perfect for restricting user access to specific data, especially in a data mart or data warehousing environment. This article presents a high-level view of this new set of features in preparation for implementation […]

Synopsis. Changes to Oracle database objects can wreak unexpected havoc on the applications that depend on them, especially when the database objects are invalidated even for a brief period. This article discusses some techniques that any DBA can put into practice to limit the impact of database object changes on dependent applications. As a wise […]

During a recent code review of our production databases’ stored procedures and packages, I took the time to convert the objects from the deprecated (but still serviceable) USERENV function to its Oracle 9i replacement, SYS_CONTEXT. The conversion was relatively painless, of course, but it also opened up a new world of possibilities for utilizing the […]

I recently had an opportunity to review a Microsoft Access query created against one of our production databases. The query seemed to run forever and took up huge amounts (4GB) of TEMPFILE space. Our development team eventually solved the problem – an inexperienced developer had missed a critical join between one of the six tables […]

A few Saturdays ago, I performed a planned viability test of my Oracle 9iR2 hot standby database. I terminated the transmission of archived redo logs from the primary site, activated the standby database, and compared results between primary and standby sites. As expected, row counts, dollar totals, and a few other measures matched up perfectly. […]

Synopsis. Sizing the Program Global Area (PGA) is now one of many tasks made simpler under Oracle 9i. This article discusses how a database server utilizes the PGA, how the PGA can be automatically sized using PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET initialization parameter, and how the PGA’s size can be monitored and tuned using some new dynamic database views […]