The penny hasn't dropped yet...
in [Oracle]
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From: Mladen Gogala on 3 Mar 2010 08:52 On Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:35:10 -0800, Noons wrote: > Amazing! Now, not only do we have to pay through our noses for ANY > support, if we don't install a viral tool that sends unknown information > to Oracle, we get low-speed solutions as well? They're really pushing it hard! They want to be able to charge for licenses automatically. The results are really beginning to show, on the OUG meetings first. The NYOUG in the last October was a disaster, pure marketing pitch, mostly by Oracle and a few satellites. None of my colleagues was there, it was a loss of time. I will not attend the spring meeting. I don't know of any DBA (v1.0, of course) who is not disillusioned and disappointed by the policies of the Oracle Corp. Oracle should really look carefully at what has happened to DEC, Microsoft and IBM. DEC fell when it begun doing things not unlike Oracle Corp. is doing these days, IBM saw its empire shrink and Microsoft saw the emergence of Linux, which has sprung up from nowhere and is now cutting deeply into the MS bottom line. IBM was the only company able to reinvent itself and adjust to the emergence of the mini-computer. Oracle has reinvented itself and became closed, secretive corporate giant without any scruples. The quality of their products is very questionable, their licensing practices too. Selling the product and then charging for the ability to tune it is morally dubious, to say the least. That is the primary reason why I am not suggesting to my boss to buy diagnostics & tuning pack license. Instead of a nice company that I was proud to recommend to my management, Oracle became a corporate bully that I am trying to avoid at all costs, whenever I can. Sic transit gloria mundi. -- http://mgogala.freehostia.com
From: joel garry on 3 Mar 2010 12:58 On Mar 3, 4:01 am, Noons <wizofo...(a)yahoo.com.au> wrote: > vsevolod afanassiev wrote,on my timestamp of 3/03/2010 8:15 PM: > > > I think it depends on the specifics of the case. If to investigate > > this case Oracle Support needs init.ora parametes > > or server patch level or similar then this information should be > > provided in one form or another. > > Good. All they have to do is ask for it, if/when needed. Period. I strongly agree with the sentiments in this thread. But, here I have to point out how common it is, to the point of being the mode, that people won't supply the necessary information up front (right Sybrand? :-) . From that viewpoint, it merely becomes an issue of degree as to how much they have to supply to initiate an SR. I'm sure we've all seen order entry systems that create a header as a separate transaction from the order lines - that's wrong from a design standpoint, but right from the viewpoint of having a resumable entry process (or points up the deficiency of not having multiple levels of transactions). So in an SR, they have to ask for certain information, it's needed at the start. It's not a big jump from there to analyzing the patterns of previous SR's to see what in most cases was needed. Where they cross the line is grabbing all information ever possibly needed. Think of this: if you have everyone upload all their trace files, you can mine that to create a decision support tool that can automate much trace file analysis. I'm sure you can name popular and not-so-popular people who have done that. So why not generalize that? Well, obviously that upsets everyone who wouldn't willingly upload all their data. Through the magic of Computer Aided Mass Hysteria, it becomes a potential publicity nightmare. So maybe we should convert potential to actual and tell Warticki about what we think on the MOS community :-D > > > For example if I ask Oracle Support to investigate ORA-04031 errors > > then I would provide them with > > - init.ora parameters > > - contents of V$SGASTAT, STATS$SGASTAT > > - if this is 10g and ASMM is enabled then information from the views > > that show how memory was resized > > - ORA-04031 trace files > > - alert.log > > Exactly. > > > So may be they are asking for information that should have been > > provided from the beginning > > Actually, they asked for nothing: they just sent that email as an auto follow-up > to opening the SR, long before anyone had a look at it. > > > However if they are using lack of OCM to justify a delay in the > > investigation when all necessary information has been provided then it > > is bad. > > ORA-600 on a select from subpartitioned table, trace dump of simplified > statement provided. What possible need would there be to know the MAC address > of the network card in that system? Well, what if that ORA-600 is hidden under several levels of technology stack? Way before you get there, you may indeed need to follow the problem including over the network. I would think most support calls are of the form "my program isn't working," I'm sure ora-600's are pretty scarce in the overall scheme of Oracle support. We would all like a direct line into tertiary level support, and personally I've noticed if the magic words are there, I often wind up there quick. But if I'm getting a java virtual error, I'm just as newbie as "my program isn't working" and I think an RDA is probably appropriate. OCM is just a proactive version of that, isn't it? The Network Is The Computer. And OCM puts all your Oracle usernames into a world readable file. Sigh. jg -- @home.com is bogus. http://twitter.com/safety
From: Matthias Hoys on 3 Mar 2010 16:20 "Hemant K Chitale" <hemantkchitale(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:048e5c7b-cd84-4fce-aae4-569f745b8fbb(a)z10g2000prh.googlegroups.com... > > Maybe there should be a poll on this. > I don't like OCM and I don't use it. I rarely upload RDA output files > either. > > Hemant K Chitale RDA? That's that "thing" that generates about 745.367 HTML files in a big zip file, right? Matthias
From: Noons on 3 Mar 2010 16:41 On Mar 4, 4:58 am, joel garry <joel-ga...(a)home.com> wrote: > I strongly agree with the sentiments in this thread. But, here I have > to point out how common it is, to the point of being the mode, that > people won't supply the necessary information up front (right > Sybrand? :-) . From that viewpoint, it merely becomes an issue of Not really. If you look at the SR entry process, the basics of information are all there: type of licence, release number and patch level, OS/hardware. And the ability to load trace files and other supporting evidence. As well as clear instructions asking if possible to provide a simplified reproducible case. That's a heap more than the usual Usenet "help" entry and has served well before, why would it not be effective now? > Where they cross the line is grabbing all information ever possibly > needed. And not needed. That is the problem. > Think of this: if you have everyone upload all their trace > files, you can mine that to create a decision support tool that can > automate much trace file analysis. I'm sure you can name popular and > not-so-popular people who have done that. So why not generalize > that? I disagree. Support is not reducible to a mechanized, half-arsed pseudo-AI tool cobbled together from past information. Each release of Oracle has its own problems with new features - as well as a fair share of others that are common with previous releases - most unfortunately, but it's a fact! Any attempt to automate analysis of SRs in such a climate is doomed to even more overhead, while still needing specialist work. The notion that every SR can be analyzed upfront by such a tool is doomed, like so many other prior attempts at the same: nothing new here, it's not even a new idea. Tried before, never worked, never will: software is not some immutable universe definable by a static rule set. > Well, what if that ORA-600 is hidden under several levels of > technology stack? Way before you get there, you may indeed need to > follow the problem including over the network. Not at all. Ora-600 is an internal error in Oracle code. Period. What causes it may be a simple command in sqlplus, or a very complex chain of events starting with the fluttering of a butterfly's wings in China. It still is an internal error in Oracle kernel code and needs to be treated as such. Forget the rest: it's got nothing to do with geography or entomology! > I would think most > support calls are of the form "my program isn't working," Sure. And how/where is OCM going to help there? > I'm sure > ora-600's are pretty scarce in the overall scheme of Oracle support. I wish... I've hit 13 of them in the last year alone... > there quick. But if I'm getting a java virtual error, I'm just as > newbie as "my program isn't working" and I think an RDA is probably > appropriate. OCM is just a proactive version of that, isn't it? The > Network Is The Computer. And OCM puts all your Oracle usernames into > a world readable file. Sigh. I don't have a problem with a tool that collects basic information *about Oracle configuration*. Like hell I'm gonna let lose a tool in my servers that collects information about the network itself, its setup and most secure information. Read on about the arp command, present in any pc although few know what it can do. No way it's gonna happen. Period.
From: Noons on 3 Mar 2010 16:50
On Mar 4, 5:23 am, John Hurley <johnbhur...(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: > You do not need to run the Oracle Config Manager "live" you can run it > disconnected so that it gathers the config information required to get > an SR moving and then you can feed in the output. John, please! I am *fully* aware of how OCM can be run: I installed and examined it AGES ago. It is a viral tool. It has no place ANYWHERE in a modern data centre. Period. > Since you can gather the information disconnected you are free to look > at all this information before you ship it into Oracle. I am not even remotely interested in wasting my time filtering what is sent to Oracle: my employer doesn't pay me to do Oracle's work. Is that clear? > As long as Oracle support makes up the rules about "necessary" > information ... well there's not much we can do if we need them to > work on an SR. Guess what: we are the paying client of a service, we make the rules. Basic law of business, as well as common law. Oracle better not forget that... > You can try going up the support foodchain without supplying it. You bet. And I can also make my next support payment dependent on Oracle changing their attitude. |