From: Mladen Gogala on
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
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

"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
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
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.