Of the many databases I have examined on releases 9i and 10g, most are using the automatic undo management feature and on the whole it does a pretty good job of managing the undo segments (for you other old timers, rollback segments).

However, I have been noticing, shall I say, some rather retro behavior as a result of the automatic undo management. In the bad old days when we managed the undo segments manually we...

 

Now, for sure, we need really good tools to help get the job done, but we also need to think about the workflow we follow to write our code.  You will find my latest ideas about that below. From a methodological standpoint, it draws heavily on Test Driven Development.

I will be building out these ideas further throughout 2007, and also we are looking at ways at incorporating these ideas directly into...

Probably one of the most often discussed and hotly debated topics in both data modeling and database design is that of normalization. Many database designers, architects, DBAs and senior developers have differing positions and/or beliefs on the topic. However quite unfortunately, they often are not communicating with optimal effectiveness due to some fundamental differences in terminology and understanding. The simple solution...

Caveat Emptor (Buyer beware) has been around since, well, since time began. Whether barter or cash, when doing a deal the buyer has to careful, this is especially true in the complex area of software licensing.

A case in point, Oracle licensing, I hear they are offering a degree in it as at times it is as difficult to figure out as quantum string theory.  A prime example is the wonderful suite of monitoring and analysis...

In my last blog, I use two tables join to illustrate the simple path control, now let’s use a three table join SQL statement to demonstrate a more complicated scenario. Let’s assume that A.key, B.key and C.key are all indexed.