Which rights must be granted for displaying TOAD session browser

Following rights must be given to specific user, here MYUSER, in order to display sessions in TOAD session browser.

GRANT SELECT ON GV_$SESSION TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$PROCESS TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$SESS_IO TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$SESSION_WAIT TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$SESSION_EVENT TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$ACCESS TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$SESSTAT TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$SQL_PLAN TO MYUSER;
GRANT SELECT ON GV_$SQLTEXT_WITH_NEWLINES TO MYUSER;

How to Apply Multicast Patch before root.sh

Applying multicast patch is not trivial at all, and there is not clear instruction steps in readme of the patch, regarding with the order of patching, or when/where to apply.

Beware that this installation scenario needed because we need to install 11.2.0.2.2 version. Below you could find the steps for applying multicast patch:

1. Follow installation instructions for  11.2.0.2.0 grid infra, till Execute Configuration Scripts window (root.sh script execution window)

2. As it stated in Configuration Scripts window, run orainstRoot.sh script in both nodes.   [You may get orainst.loc not found errors, if you try to start following multicast patch here!]

3. Execute root.sh script in first node, (check that ASM, grid processes become online after then)

4. Apply Multicast patch (9974223) on first node, without skipping any CRS related step in patch readme.

5. Multicast patch on second node(for configuration B), skipping below locking steps because root.sh is not executed in 2nd node:
<CRS_HOME>/crs/install/rootcrs.pl -unlock
<CRS_HOME>/crs/install/rootcrs.pl -patch

[We inspired from http://oracledba.flyingamigos.com/archives/380, thank you flying amigos.]

6. Execute root.sh script in 2nd node.

7. Install database software.

8. Stop HAS and cluster. And apply multicast patch to database home by:

<CRS_HOME>/bin/./crsctl stop crs

<CRS_HOME>/bin/./crsctl stop cluster

opatch lsinventory -detail -oh /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1

opatch napply custom/server/ -local -oh /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 -id 9974223

Thank you Tamer Onem, from Oracle, this note could not be "complete" without his enrollment.

Infrastructure Consolidation Projects

What is consolidation? At first, it seems a process which enables making things with smaller number of resources.

Below picture that depicts the economy of using one resource, one jar, for many fish, which forms a real motivation to managers, and initial understanding of the concept.



I had a chance to coordinate and enroll in operational standardization, consolidation projects.

At first glance,  you may wonder why do we need consolidation or normalization projects? We may find the answers with more questions like following... Why systems fall in a state that are not economically operable? Why whole service responsibility is given on one or two super-persons who never gets ill, or goes to holiday,  having roles like database administration, application server administration, hardware&software procurement, application administration etc? Why not divide and conquer responsibility of service management? Why do we try to use one resource for all problems?

Why people tends to put one fish in one jar, instead of putting more fish in one jar. This maybe because of less knowledge/specialization/expertise in operation, fast, unplanned installations, badly managed projects and vendor driven configurations/installations for applications/services.

Let's continue on consolidation projects... They took place among different divisions, teams, outsource companies, and tens of people, having goal of responsibility transition to several technology specialized groups such as database, application server, disk, test, security, resource management, procurement  from single responsible group.

After consolidating/normalizing our service/application infrastructure we found a pot of gold, here comes, what is in this pot:

- Opportunity to technology improvement like filesystem to ASM, legacy Sun Cluster to Oracle RAC. It is an opportunity, because you are not renovating, it is a process that designing the underlying infrastructure from scratch.

- Decreasing the number of hardware & software, licenses, operation personnel which lead great savings, which means decreasing OPEX (operational expenditure).

- Combining above two issues, recall that technology inevitably occurs in infrastructure every 3-5 years, due to organic growth of business, and maintenance cost increase, and manager's will to prefer CAPEX with compared to OPEX.

- Have a chance to harden the underlying infrastructure, because we deal with fewer system. Hardening matrix example

- Adopt "service" concept to infrastructure, for example an application will go to database infrastructure over application server with its database service connection. This lead flexibility in locating services to database instances.

- Applying operational standards (backup, maintenance, patch, etc.), database security standards, change management, not using production for everything, change through development to test and to production environments.

- Compliance with security standards. In our case, compliance with ISO and SOX security requirements. Enabling segregation of duties or simply separation of duties. Centrify, guardium like technologies makes things easy.

- Specialization in operations: Special tasks must be operated by specialized people, in order to make it faster with high quality.

- At last, which is simpler? Defending tens of castles or only one. Such as monitoring a large database, application server, is always a lot more easier than managing tens of them. For example, you will only get one RMAN backup, instead of ten; this is not only database task, but also backup, and first line monitoring task. You could increase the examples for application server administration, Oracle Gateway administration, Oracle EM grid agent administration etc.

A picture which may lead understanding the compliance to security/operational standards, shows the real outcome value of consolidation projects. This is like putting the fish in a bag, and changing the water again and again because it is impossible to use air pump due to its cost or technology. Why not put these fish to modern aquarium with air pump, light, plants, thick glass.



I want to add more words for specialization... In Turkish, there is a saying, "If you own only a hammer, everything seems nail to you." In real world, do you really have only hammer in your hand, and  nails to be nailed... or specialized tools like screw driver, pliers, saw for screwing a screw, gripping/bending a copper cable, cutting woods etc? You must utilize from specialized tools, people, in your systems... You must divide your service into specialized responsibility areas...