The joint IOUG and OAUG Collaborate 2009 conference is a just over two months away. Not only is Collaborate a premier event for Oracle database technology and applications technical sessions, it’s a good format for hobnobbing with fellow database professionals.

 

This year’s event is being held Sunday, May 3rd, through Thursday, May 7th, at the Orlando convention center. I’m taking my family along and fully intend...

I recently got an email from a user, and after I replied figured that it might be helpful for others to see as well.

 

The Question:

“I was at the ROUMG conference and have a question.   You guys showed how to setup a short cut in the options.  Like to do a select statement – you can type in a short cut word and it will do the put the script in.  Like autofinish.

 

I know I need to build...

Like most things in life, there are prerequisites and preparations for Oracle databases.  Regardless of version, this is especially true for application access and usage. Oracle is a highly scalable and configurable database, therefore DBAs must configure their database for how it will be used to guarantee meeting their users’ expectations – including database developers. Failure to do so can lead to perceptions of “slow performance”...

Written by Rene Woody

This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle.  It sheds some insight on why the SQL optimization process can take hours to run and what you can do to shorten the process.



SQL Statement...

In a previous blog http://www.toadworld.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/67/EntryID/324/Default.aspx I discussed a real life example of “How to use Quest SQL Optimizer to tune complex SQL”. I spent two days installing the database and another two days tuning a complicated SQL statement, which originally the SQL statement executed in 8 hours...

The Oracle 11g database is nothing short of a modern technical marvel. From the features it offers to the many platforms it runs upon – it’s amazing how far they’ve come. But as a “true enterprise” database, Oracle 11g requires some DBA oversight to be applied when creating databases. Although Oracle supplies a very simple and yet fully capable database creation assistant (DBCA) utility, one needs to use it intelligently. AS I tried to point out in a prior blog, Oracle 11g on a notebook: Tread Lightly, creating an Oracle 11g database on a notebook is not ideally done with DBCA defaults. So, I thought I’d walk you through my basic recommendations for creating a light weight Oracle 11g database.

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By Johannes Ahrends and John Pocknell This 3-part blog will help you differentiate between what Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) offers the DBA compared to Toad DBA Suite for Oracle and how the same tasks are approached using each.

 

Toad DBA Suite for Oracle provides a complete solution for DBAs using Oracle Standard Edition, or in smaller shops where OEM is not being used or as a complementary solution for...

Written by Rene Woody

This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It explains the order in which the SQL statements are displayed.

After the optimization process is finished, the SQL alternatives are displayed in the order of their Oracle cost from the smallest cost to the largest. The Oracle cost is found in the execution plan and is generated by Oracle. The Oracle cost provides an estimate of the system resources that will be used by this execution plan to process the SQL statement. The theory is that the SQL statement with the lowest cost should be the best alternative. When actually testing the performance of alternative SQL statements in your database environment, you will find that frequently the SQL statements with the lowest cost are not the best performing SQL, since if Oracle cost estimation was correct for this SQL, you probably would not need to tune this SQL, so the best practice is to execute all the SQL alternatives to find the best one and not just assume that the SQL statement with the lowest estimate is the best.

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We don’t get this particular question per se as often as one would expect, but we do see enough user problems where this fundamental issue becomes the underlying question to answer for problem resolution. Below is a chart for the release dates for both Toad and Oracle. The “blue highlighted” dates are when Oracle first releases a major new version, such as Oracle 10g in January of 2004. But it’s the “red highlighted” dates...

Written by Rene Woody This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It covers the importance of finding the best “driving path” for retrieving rows from the database.

 

We’ll use a simple illustration of a Nested Loop...

US Airways flight 1549 teaches us that improbable events actually do occur sometimes. When the NTSB goes to investigate, the airplane’s black boxes will prove vital in the determination of cause. We can leverage this concept to fortify our chances of surviving a serious investigation. In this article I introduce design considerations for what I call the Black Box Data Store, the important data you need to prove your innocence in an investigation.

Oracle explain plans – they are considered by many as critical when optimizing or tuning SQL statements (I however prefer to look at trace data in conjunction with explain plans). For those who prefer primarily to rely on explain plan interpretation, comprehension and improvement – Toad offers numerous capabilities to make the entire process simpler and more productive. Because let’s face it, explain plans are like much proofs...

Is German your native language?  Read this blog in German on Johannes' tech articles page.

Since version 10g, Oracle provides a new job scheduling mechanism named scheduler. There are several advantages over the old dbms_job function but as often the documentation and the various functions is more confusing than helpful. In 11g...

Coming off of a break myself, it seems appropriate to discuss the architectures what support continuity, when your company takes a break from following compliance policy. In this article, we discuss why this might happen, and what you can do to minimize the disruption this type of break can cause.

Is German your native language?  Read this blog in German on Johannes' tech articles page.

A lot of companies with Oracle databases have been using RMAN as their main backup utility for years now. But others are still relying on the classical way by copying data files or even using Oracle export as a backup method. There are several reasons for this,...

I’ve got Toad Freeware installed and running on my Ubuntu 8.10 Linux machine – and so far, not a single problem has yet occurred (knock on wood).

 

Here are the basic steps that I had to perform in order to “Make it so” (as Star Trek Next Generation’s Captain Piccard would say):

Install Ubuntu with Wine – make sure that the Wine version is latest and greatest...

In part 1 of this series, I reviewed the automated refactoring features in SQL Developer. Now I will check out PL/SQL Developer (version 7.1.5)'s refactoring features.

 

To access these features, I highlight some code in a procedure edit window and then choose Refactoring from the right click menu. I see these options:



 

I...

 

 

 

Happy new year everybody. I hope everyone had a great holiday season. It’s tough getting your head back in the game after a long holiday, that’s for sure! But there is a lot to look forward to in 2009 with our DB2 products. Toad for DB2 came a long way in 2008. As you may or may not know, we are in process on transitioning all of the functionality of our Quest Central for DB2 product over to Toad.  ...

Written by Rene Woody

This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It explains how the Oracle optimization hints are applied to the SQL statements to generate more execution plans.

 

One technique that you can...

Recently, I received an email from the presales support team. They asked me to help them tune three SQL statements for a benchmark database provided by a customer. Our presales support said that our SQL Optimizer was not providing any alternatives for two of these three complex SQL statements. I found two of these SQL statements were very complicated and I knew that there should be a lot of alternative SQL generated. Finally,...

Many business analysts rely heavily upon Microsoft Excel as one of their primary tools for manipulating and reporting upon their business data. Sometimes they will send data extraction requests to their information systems (IS) people to perform and then deliver, sometimes they’ll instead access it themselves in place via the external data interface within Excel, and sometimes they’ll extract the data themselves from the Oracle...

Lately I’ve been seeing what I think might be an interesting yet disturbing new trend: whenever there’s a problem that initially seems unusual and/or unexplainable, it’s not uncommon to quickly question virtualization as a potential source of the issue. I fully understand that virtualization adds a new variable to the basic equation – and represents greater complexity due to more moving parts. But it seems to be somewhat rushed...

 

 

 

I have long been attracted to the idea and process of refactoring (explained below). It is now very exciting to see that automated refactoring features are working their way into tools for PL/SQL development. I will analyze these features over the next few entries in my ToadWorld blog, starting with SQL Developer and then moving on to PL/SQL Developer, and finishing up with SQL Navigator and Toad.

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Written by Rene Woody This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It covers how to specify the table join syntax to be used when generating SQL alternatives.

 

When the syntax for SQL statements was originally developed,...

For most users, the significant new feature for v9.7 will be the AppsDesigner. This technology allows a Toad user to take a collection of Toad commands or Actions and create a miniature Toad App or macro that you can then replay on demand or schedule to run when needed.  

Like most new features, you generally will learn how to use them when you are faced with a task that requires said feature. I’d like to share an...

A few weeks ago I wrote Part III of this series – and fortunately (or unfortunately for my poor ego) an astute reader wrote to ask for some clarification on my Excel chart. Ends up my Excel formula had a mistake – so many thanks to Johannes V. Djernæs from Miracle A/S in Denmark. So I’ll be...

Just a very brief blog this Thanksgiving week (my favorite holiday of the year) – part 2 of last week’s relatively easy suggestions on how to make Oracle run as fast as possible on minimal computer setup. As before, my goal is simply to squeeze as much performance blood from the Oracle turnip as possible when deployed on limited capacity equipment....

Written by Rene Woody

This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It covers optimizing SQL statements that use VIEWs.



In early versions of the Oracle database, a VIEW was handled like a temporary table that...

After working with Toad for almost a decade (I think I first saw it as a new grad in ’99…), I tend to start taking things for granted when I do demonstrations for customers or present at conferences on the beauty of Toad. It’s very easy to get excited about CRUD Matrices and the beauty of PL/SQL debuggers, but overlook the critical core features that users often miss out on.

Well, ‘overlook’ is such a critical, judgmental...

Lot’s of people have asked “How can I setup Toad to run off a flash drive?” The reason for this question varies in nature and intent by requestor – but the general concept is that some users need the ability to carry Toad with them. Some are contractors who must use whatever computer and/or desk is open that day. Some are database developers who must travel around their company to perform or assist with various tasks. And...

Just a quick blog this week – some relatively easy suggestions on how to make Oracle run as fast as possible on minimal computer setups such as a notebook PC. My goal is simply to squeeze as much performance blood from the Oracle turnip as possible when deployed on limited capacity equipment. The suggestions below should work for most operating systems, including Windows, Mac-OS and Linux – simply interpret and apply the suggestions...

Catchy title – huh? But don’t laugh, in today’s hectic world many database professionals (whether DBA’s or developers – and sometimes even end users) just wish that the Oracle database would go faster. That may seem self evident – but let’s just accept that premise for now. So what does this mean for Toad users?

 

Toad offers numerous database monitoring, diagnostic and tuning screens or utilities. But not all...

Written by Rene Woody

This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It covers how to generate more SQL alternatives.



When you optimize a simple SQL statement,...

Query Builder is the heart and soul of Toad for Data Analysis. We've spent lots of time and effort working to make it very useful and intuitive. Recently, in version 2.0 of Toad for Data Analysis, we introduced a few new features including reverse engineering SQL to a Query Builder model, creation of DDL scripts and better connection awareness. The linked doc is a very nice write up that Shawn Pickett (Senior Developer) and Alan Bala (Development Team Lead) have put together.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Cary Millsap’s “Method-R” technique for Optimizing Oracle Performance via detailed analysis of all of the business process wait states. It is fundamentally sound since it’s based on genuine business concerns...

Migrating to a database that supports Unicode is a challenge. You are safe if you are currently using  US7ASCII for you Oracle database because Oracle provides a mechanism with ALTER DATABASE SET CHARACTERSET UTF8 which allows you by just bouncing the database to switch to this new character set. But what if you are currently on a different character set? In Europe we have a bunch of WE8 (Western European) or EE8 (Eastern European) character sets and as they are not a strict subset of Unicode the ALTER Database does not work. So the only chance is to export the whole database, create a new one (with UTF8 or similar) and import it again.

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As I travel certain parts of the globe doing presentations on PL/SQL, I meet many extremely talented PL/SQL programmers – people who meet the most complex challenges you can imagine with a deft combination of intense creativity, hard work, and of course Oracle PL/SQL.

Oracle Magazine names only one as the PL/SQL Developer of the Year at each Oracle Open World, and this year the award was given to Alex De Vergori of Betfair.  Oracle Magazine writes:

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A few weeks ago I wrote about how simply adjusting various virtualized infrastructure default settings that a database could perform up to 440% better. Of course “your mileage” will vary, but the key point is that taking the time to properly layer your virtual infrastructure settings can have substantial impacts – which are only...

Part 2: The Game of Mastermind

 

Software development is one heck of a serious job. It turns out, however, that there are several games you can play to improve the quality of code you write. This is the second of two blog entries that introduce you to two of my favorite brain development and training games: Set and Mastermind.

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Written by Rene Woody

This blog is a continuation of a series (view last blog on the Optimization Process) about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It covers how to limit the number...

If you have ever looked in the Toad data directory you were probably a little bit bewildered about all the stuff in there. This article will try to shed some light on what all the files in there are used for by the Toad application.

Last week I wrote about how simply adjusting various virtualized infrastructure default settings that a database could perform up to 440% better. Of course “your mileage” will vary, but the key point is that taking the time to properly layer your virtual infrastructure settings can have substantial impacts – which are only magnified...

From the first version of Toad we have always had some form of code completion (It was originally called Toad insight or something like that) but it has always been a fairly simple affair where you either got a list of columns in select statements or a long list of objects of many different types completely unaffected by the context in which you invoke the code completion.

Starting in 4.0 the code completion support...

In an application like Toad connection and transaction handling will invariant become a complicate affair. During the years we have been working on this we have tried to make it as intuitive as possible so that you usually don't have to think about it. However, in some cases you can still run into problems so this post will try to explain how we handle connections and transactions so that you can avoid the pitfalls.

Version numbers between the different components of the different products can be pretty confusing ever for us who work on it. Before 3.0 of the Core (The part of Toad that is shared between the products) each product had it's own release schedule and with that each had it's own release version of this. After release 3.0 we now try to coordinate releases between the different products (They are usually staggered with a few...

For the upcoming 4.1 release I have actually been able to spend quite a lot of time to reduce startup time in Toad and hopefully there should be a quite noticeable difference. One of the changes made is to make the initialization multithreaded so the improvement should be even more pronounced if you have more than one CPU core.

There are a couple of other things you can do yourself in both 4.1 and versions before that to reduce startup time if you are annoyed by it.

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We have a bunch of terms referring to different aspects of the Toad application internally and I thought I would share some with you because it's not that uncommon that it slips out in the Yahoo Boards when we talk about it so why not just go through them and explain them.

The documentation of what command line options are available on the Toad.exe is not necessarily that well covered in the documentation. True there is rarely any need to specify anything on it unless something goes wrong. I just thought I'd go through what is available.

First of all the format. Toad allows any parameters to be specified regardless of if it knows what they are or not because some plugins might want to read it later on unbeknown to the original startup code. All parameters are specified using this format.

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I recently took some time to look through the different releases we have made of Toad over the years since we started and just thought I would share it with you guys. I chose the Toad for SQL Server release because that was the one which had made the most releases (For instance Toad for DB2...

Every once in a while I've been writing Toad stuff on my personal blog and I figured it is time to stop doing that and try to do this blog into something a little bit more useful. Entries in this blog will also be cross posted on the site Toad Wrangling

I will try to write tips and tricks about how to use Toad as I can think of them.

I'm one of the original developers...