Simon Krenger

As with all the new features that Oracle 12c brings us, we want to test them out! So one of the lesser known features in the new release is the Automatic Data Optimization with the Heat Map mechanism. Oracle describes the feature in a White Paper:

Heat Map is a new feature in Oracle Database 12c that automatically tracks usage information at the row and segment levels. Data modification times are tracked at the row level and aggregated to the block level, and modification times, full table scan times, and index lookup times are tracked at the segment level. Heat Map gives you a detailed view of how your data is being accessed, and how access patterns are changing over time. Programmatic access to Heat Map data is available through a set of PL/SQL table functions, as well as through data dictionary views.

Sounds great, how can we use it? It turns out, that is relatively easy, all you have to do is to set the HEAT_MAP parameter to “ON” (source) and add an ILM policy to your table:

For my own reference, as I was asked what the minimum memory size for an Oracle database is. It turns out, that both in Oracle 11g R2 (11.2) as well as in Oracle 12c (12.1), the minimum value for MEMORY_TARGET (sum of SGA and PGA) is 152MB:

So here is yet another troubleshooting post. Today I was applying another PSU for an older Oracle 11.1.0.7 database and received the following error after issuing $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/opatch apply:

The following warnings have occurred during OPatch execution:
1) OUI-67215:
OPatch found the word "failed" in the stderr of the make command.
Please look at this stderr. You can re-run this make command.
Stderr output:
/usr/bin/ld: crti.o: No such file: No such file or directory
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
genclntsh: Failed to link libclntsh.so.11.1
/usr/bin/ld: crti.o: No such file: No such file or directory
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status


2) OUI-67215:
OPatch found the word "failed" in the stderr of the make command.
Please look at this stderr. You can re-run this make command.
Stderr output:
/usr/bin/ld: crti.o: No such file: No such file or directory
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
genclntsh: Failed to link libclntsh.so.11.1
/usr/bin/ld: crti.o: No such file: No such file or directory
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

My quick Google search returned only results that indicated I had to set my LD_LIBRARY_PATH. I already had set this environment variable correctly, so I looked on for more answers. In My Oracle Support document 471745.1 I found that I had to install the package glibc-devel:

I was eager to try out the new Pluggable Database feature of the newly released Oracle 12c Database. I installed the software, created the database (see my post about the “ENABLE PLUGGABLE DATABASE” clause which I forgot the first time around) and then wanted to create a new Pluggable Database (PDB) like so:

SQL> CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE kdb121p1 ADMIN USER simon IDENTIFIED BY tiger;
CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE kdb121p1 ADMIN USER simon IDENTIFIED BY tiger
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1
ORA-00942: table or view does not exist

Oh, really strange, what kind of error message is that?
First off, I made sure my main database is a Container Database:

As many of my colleagues, I have been eager to try out the new Pluggable Database (PDB) feature of the newly released Oracle 12c Database. I installed the software, created the database using my default CREATE DATABASE statement I have lying around and then tried to create a pluggable database by issuing the following command:

SQL> create pluggable database kdb121p1 admin user simon identified by tiger file_name_convert = ('/pdbseed/','/kdb121p1/');
create pluggable database kdb121p1 admin user simon identified by tiger file_name_convert = ('/pdbseed/','/kdb121p1/')
                          *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-65090: operation only allowed in a container database

It turns out a database explicitly needs to be created as a Container Database (CBD) in order to be able to create new PDBs!

During a silent Oracle 12c Release 1 database installation on a newly set up Oracle Enterprise Linux box, I encountered the following error when performing the installation:

[oracle@pandora database]$ ./runInstaller -silent -responseFile /home/oracle/database/response/kdb.rsp 
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking Temp space: must be greater than 500 MB.   Actual 45136 MB    Passed
Checking swap space: must be greater than 150 MB.   Actual 4031 MB    Passed
Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2013-06-27_12-11-01AM. Please wait ...
[oracle@pandora database]$ [FATAL] PRVF-0002 : Could not retrieve local nodename
A log of this session is currently saved as: [..]

But when I checked the hostname, everything seems to be just fine, I even get the FQDN:

Alright, it seems that as of yesterday evening, Oracle 12c Release 1 is available for download for the Linux x86-64 platform!

Now excuse me, I’m off to test out the new release…

So I get many visits for my post on Oracle Full Datapump Export Batch, so here is the same export script for UNIX systems.

Before using this script, please read my advice:

Ok, so here is a problem that a developer brought up. I thought that this problem is quite interesting and also a bit confusing. Obviously, according to Oracle, this is not a bug – it’s a feature!

When issuing a CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW statement for a different schema (as DBA), one might encounter the following error:

dba@KDB01:SQL> CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW simon.simon_mv AS SELECT * FROM dual;
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW simon.simon_mv AS SELECT * FROM dual
                                                         *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

For our setup let’s assume we have two users:

When you install the InstantClient binaries, you often want to use your existing TNSNAMES.ORA file containing all your databases. So how do you specify the location of your TNSNAMES.ORA file?

The Oracle website has the answer: