Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Category: Database / Oracle

  • How many records are there?

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    On the surface, it may seem like an easy question. Data Owners typically think this has an easy answer. If their data followed a very simplistic model, then it would have an easy answer. Just “select count(*) from table;” and report the value. Unfortunately for Data Custodians, the data is often organized in relational data…

  • URI in a Database

    This vendor’s application has been a headache for me for over a year now. We are getting close to upgrading, but there are some issues. One is why data in the new version is missing. I finally got the vendor to give me a query in the new version which was enough for me to figure…

  • SQL Server Alias Naming Breaks Convert Function

    The vendor installs the application which includes creating the database and schema (SQL Server 2008 R2). The schema defined a certain column as varchar(128) that the application code expects to return an integer. If one of the entries for a client is a non-integer value, then HTTP 500 Internal Server Error failures prevent users from…

  • Oracle 11g

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    The highest revision of Oracle database supported by Blackboard for CE/Vista is 10g. Wondering if other Bb clients have noticed Oracle 10g leaves Premier Support on July 31, 2010. The first year of Extended SUpport fees are waived, so July 31, 2011 we’ll have to start paying extra money to Oracle unless Blackboard starts supporting…

  • Truncate Table

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    Earlier in the week I picked on a DBA at UGA for wanting to use truncate learning_context. Overheard at the office a developer used truncate and caused those DBAs to recover the data. Ugh.

  • We Need a 4th Vista DBA / Technical Support

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    Work for OIIT! Become our 4th DBA / technical support person for our team. Located in Athens, GA (college town, UGA football) $, benefits, generous leave, rare snow we love open source PDF of GeorgiaVIEW DBA position Check out the PDF (right) for more information. Sorry for the convoluted route to the application… Click this…

  • Finding Sessions

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    Clusters can making finding where a user was working a clusterf***. Users end up on a node, but they don’t know which node. Heck, we are ahead of the curve to get user name, date, and time. Usually checking all the nodes in the past few days can net you the sessions. Capturing the session…

  • User Interface v. SQL Reports and Tracking

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    Blackboard Vista tracks student activity. This tracking data is viewed as a critical feature of Vista. Our instructors depended on the information until we revoked their ability to run reports themselves due to performance issues. Campus administrators can still generate reports (though some still fail). We doubt the solution to this is Blackboard improving the…

  • Fun With Oracle Environment Variables

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    This is more or less for the next time I lose all my brain cells from not working over the weekend…. Critical Oracle variables: ORACLE_HOME ORACLE_SID Pretty much any script that deals with Oracle needs the value of these. Cron doesn’t have these variables, so use export VARIABLE to provide them to the shell. Also,…