Oracle ASM and Thin Provisioning – How To Reclaim Space

It came to my attention last November that I had crossed the one year anniversary since my last post on flashdba.com. I was so surprised that I immediately decided to write a new post, which took another three months. There are reasons why I'm no longer posting technical blogs about databases and flash, but I'll … Continue reading Oracle ASM and Thin Provisioning – How To Reclaim Space

Was I Mentioned During Oracle’s Q4 2015 Results Call?

In a proud moment for me, it appears that Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle, has mentioned my flashdba blog during the Oracle Q4 2015 results call. At least, that's what I'm reading into this section from the transcript published by Seeking Alpha: We grew in storage in the quarter and this is -- really we are … Continue reading Was I Mentioned During Oracle’s Q4 2015 Results Call?

The Great Hypervisor Bake-off: VMware ESX vs Oracle VM

This is a very simple post to show the results of some recent testing that my colleague and I ran using Oracle SLOB on Violin to determine the impact of using virtualization. But before we get to that, I am duty bound to write a paragraph of text featuring lots of long sentences peppered with industry … Continue reading The Great Hypervisor Bake-off: VMware ESX vs Oracle VM

ASM Rebalance Too Slow? 3 Tips To Improve Rebalance Times

I've run into a few customers recently who have had problems with their ASM rebalance operations running too slowly. Surprisingly, there were some simple concepts being overlooked - and once these were understood, the rebalance times were dramatically improved. For that reason, I'm documenting the solutions here... I hope that somebody, somewhere benefits... 1. Don't … Continue reading ASM Rebalance Too Slow? 3 Tips To Improve Rebalance Times

Oracle Exadata X5: The Road To Ten Billion Dollars

Now that the dust has settled on the announcement of Oracle's new Exadata X5 Database Machine, I've been doing some research in order to update my History of Exadata post (it'll be ready soon). While reviewing the datasheets and other collateral for the X5 I was struck by the meteoric increase in one particular statistic: the … Continue reading Oracle Exadata X5: The Road To Ten Billion Dollars

Oracle AWR Reports: When IOStats Lie

If you've been unfortunate enough to follow my dithering on Twitter recently you'll know that I've been lurching between thinking that there is and isn't a problem with Oracle's tracking of I/O statistics in its AWR reports. I'm now convinced there is a problem, but I can't work out what causes it... so step 1 … Continue reading Oracle AWR Reports: When IOStats Lie

Oracle AWR Reports: When Averages Lie

I was recently contacted by a customer who runs a busy ERP system on their Oracle database. Their users have been screaming for some time about unpredictable performance, where application screens which would usually open in under a second suddenly take an age. ERP systems are legendary for this, of course, because as each screen … Continue reading Oracle AWR Reports: When Averages Lie

Oracle, Parallelism and Direct Path Reads… on Flash

Guest Post This is another guest post from my buddy Nate Fuzi, who performs the same role as me for Violin but is based in the US instead of EMEA. Because he's an American, Nate believes that "football" is played using your hands and that the ball is actually egg-shaped. This is of course ridiculous, … Continue reading Oracle, Parallelism and Direct Path Reads… on Flash