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RE: Offtopic:DBA Math, Beer and OEM

From: Steve Orr <sorr_at_arzoo.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 14:16:26 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.002CF869.20010316140052@fatcity.com>

Hey Dave,

Regarding...
> Create a reporting schema, install perl DBI blah blah blah...
Yeah, I've been getting ready to cobble together a better personal tool kit using perl DBI but they keep interrupting me with silly things to do like my daily job. ;-)

Regarding Canada-US relationships...
How do you spell Canada? C eh? N eh? D eh? ...Groan My wife is Vancouver, BC born and raised but she's a dual citizen because her Montana Mom got her a social security card soon after she was born. So we have intimate "US-Canada relations." This summer we're going to fly two flags... Old Glory and the Maple Leaf side by side. I have relatives ("outlaws") up in Calgary but if I'm ever up there I think I'd rather visit you. Besides, I owe you that stout. :-)

Regarding beer...
If you get a chance, visit your neighbor Walt Weaver just to the south and have a "Moose Drool" and a "Black Star" for me.

Best of Luck on the new job,
Steve Orr

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 8:31 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

jkstill_at_cybcon.com wrote:
>
> Well, I doubt that. With an average reach of 5 feet, it would take less
> than 8 million people to hold hands along the Canada/US border.
>
> You should check your math more carefully before spouting such nonsense.
>

Huh? I used

        28,000,000 people
        7000 miles
        5000 feet/mile
        = 0.8 ft = 1 ft/person

One!! I thought it was 10, must of dropped a zero somewhere.

I tell my developers when sizing tables an error of 2 or 4 times is okay but an order of magnitude is a bit much. Thanks for the correction.

More math, Steve has asked how many mile I put on my bicycle while in the valley:

        11 months
        10 days/month   (I telecommuted the other 2 weeks)
        8 miles/day
        = 880 miles
        add the zero I dropped earlier
        = 8800 miles

I thinks thats why it didn't work out in the valley for me. Only a four mile commute, I just didn't have the right attitude :)

You're right Steve, it is still a little cool to be riding in Calgary right now. (though there are some crazies who ride all winter, the thought of it being 30 below, on a bike makes me shiver as I sit here, Brrrrr). March in the valley is very similar to May in Calgary. In Calgary I usually bike from the middle of April to the middle of October. My house is six miles from downtown so I usually put on about 1200 (oh, add the zero, 12000) miles a year there.

Beers!! I found a place that served Humboldt Red Pale Ale. Any companies in Humboldt county looking for a DBA? I patronized the place (The Fish Market) until the keg ran out, notice I didn't mention this until the keg ran out, and then they told me they were not going to order another one. The nerve of some people. Really good beer, I was impressed.

OEM, after reading about the trials and tribulations of people trying to install OEM, why are people wasting their time and money running a product that requires you to take a massive security risk by running Intelligent agent.

I have a set of monitoring scripts (email me offline if you want a copy, do not ask for support if, they do not work on your db, you will learn more if you fix them yourself) that I install at every site. Within 15 minutes I have realtime text reports that cover everything from invalid objects, snapshot refreshes, extents, I/O memory. latches , config parameters.... ( about 6 pages of data).

Create a reporting schema, install perl DBI, (not on the db server, on a client somewhere) gnu-plot or a similar graphing package (anyone know a good perl one?) and within a week you have graphical historical reports.

It's free and you have increased your skills.

As for detecting outages, here is a short ksh script that connects to the db as normal user. If the connect fails, do a network ping. This is to determine which type of admin gets paged. It used to do a tnsping before the ping but since the DBA has to fix it anyways that was redundant. Far more relieable than OEM. And yes I know it is lousy code, but look at my math, what do you expect.

#!/bin/ksh
# Database monitor scrip, cron at desired time interval
# requires host ip address, email addresses for dba and sysadmin
# requires $ORACLE_HOME


if [ X$1 != X ]; then
  export DBNAME=$1
else
  echo "The database name must be passed as a parameter"   exit
fi

DBA="page_the_dba_at_yourcompany.com"
ADMIN="page_the_sysadmina_at_yourcompany.com"

DBTEST=test_account/test_password@${DBNAME} export ORACLE_HOME=/wherever/your/oracle/binaries/are

export HOSTN=ip_address_of_your_db_server

${ORACLE_HOME}/bin/sqlplus -s $DBTEST > /dev/null 2>&1 << EOF

        whenever sqlerror exit 1
        select * from dual;
        exit 0

EOF if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then

        echo "`date`: Database $DBNAME is up and running." else

      ping -c 1 $HOSTN | grep " 0% packet loss" > /dev/null
      if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then
        echo "ERROR !!! Network or Server DOWN !!!!"
        echo "Ping of $HOSTN failed !!!"
        mailx -s "ALERT !!!...$HOSTN ping failed" $ADMIN <<-EOF2
                Subject: Pinging $HOSTN failed
                Pinging $HOSTN failed.
                Please investigate!!!
EOF2
      mailx -s "ALERT!!!...$HOSTN ping failed. sysadmin notified." $DBA
<<-EOF4
                Subject: Pinging $HOSTN failed
                Pinging $HOSTN failed.
                Please investigate!!!
EOF4
      else
        echo "`date`: Database $DBNAME on $HOSTN is down!!!"
        mailx -s "ALERT!!!...Database $DBNAME is down on $HOSTN" $DBA
<<-EOF1
                Subject: Database $DBNAME is down on $HOSTN
                Database $DBNAME is down on $HOSTN.
                Please investigate!!!

EOF1 fi
# end-of-script

The problem with point and click GUI's is that they isolate the DBA from the detailed sql that is needed to really MANAGE Oracle.

IMHO Dave

--
Dave Morgan
Senior Database Administrator
Internet Barter Inc.
www.bartertrust.com
408-910-4183

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Steve Orr
  INET: sorr_at_arzoo.com

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Received on Fri Mar 16 2001 - 16:16:26 CST

Original text of this message

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