Re: Oracle Exadata Top Three Selling points
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2016 22:49:14 +0000
Message-ID: <6607DA80-3076-46CA-8D77-A3B54D64A2A9_at_businessolver.com>
Exadata patching has MUCH improved, and there were growing pains - that is for sure. I've always said - show me a data centers technology stack as currently up to date as an Exadata box is after a quarterly patch has been applied.
Frankly, I miss working on Exadata.
I liked the idea of OPlan when it came out, but I always found that some of the restrictions prevented me from using it.... I'm sure most of them are gone now.
Kellyn - Does OEM now handle the whole patch (cells, switches, etc) , or is it still just doing the OS and Database side patching only? It's been almost a year now since I did my last patch.
Of course the problem I had too was that I was dealing with government... who didn't typically want any internet connection and a OEM presence was a luxury... :)
RF
On Mar 11, 2016, at 3:41 PM, Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman <dbakevlar_at_gmail.com<mailto:dbakevlar_at_gmail.com>> wrote:
<Visibly rolls eyes>
"Now knows no one on Oracle-l has been coming to her EM12c and EM13c sessions on patching"... :)
When Oracle support folks patch an Exadata, they just build and submit a patch plan for Exadatas these days. I remember spending my last day at a company back in 2010 patching an Exadata for over 13 hrs and pretty much sacrificing a small animal afterwards because nothing went wrong. Now days, it really is quite easy to run a report, see what is available for patching, build a patch plan from it and submit it.
Thank you for giving me another topic I need to cover in blog posts... :) Kellyn
[Kellyn Pot'Vin on about.me]
Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman
about.me/dbakevlar
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 1:39 PM, Chris Stephens <cstephens16_at_gmail.com<mailto:cstephens16_at_gmail.com>> wrote:
"during my years of Exadata patching"
that is painful to read. patching seems to be a major piece of working with Exadata. that is really odd to me. if oracle controls the whole stack, why can't they simplify the patching process?
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 2:29 PM, Robert Freeman <rfreeman_at_businessolver.com<mailto:rfreeman_at_businessolver.com>> wrote: If used properly, I think Platinum is a great resource. The quality of the technicians are sometimes of question – I agree there. However, if you don’t like the one you have, then you can always request another. I also think that the biggest problems I’ve seen were with the customers who were the most hands off. I think one place people miss out on when engaging Platinum support is by taking advantage of the material and process that they have and learn about what they are doing. Be as involved in the process and ask questions. Let them do the heavy lifting but use the freed time to learn about the whole patching process. At first, patching can seem daunting, but once you have done it a couple of times (and have really dug into the dirty details like checking for bugs in the current patch set, etc) then it ends up not being all that complex.
I have a great checklist that I built during my years of Exadata patching. In it, more time is probably spent reading documentation (and subtle changes in the process do occur during various time so you always need to re-read the numerous documents). The volume of material can be so daunting that sometimes Platinum will miss something subtle in a new patch.
I have a couple of fun stories there but I can’t really tell them.
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org<mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org<mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org>] On Behalf Of Mayen Shah
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2016 11:30 AM
To: rob_at_oraclewizard.com<mailto:rob_at_oraclewizard.com>; oracle-l_at_freelists.org<mailto:oracle-l_at_freelists.org>
Subject: RE: Oracle Exadata Top Three Selling points
Even though quality of oracle platinum team support/monitoring/patching is questionable, that is added benefit.
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org<mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of rob_at_oraclewizard.com<mailto:rob_at_oraclewizard.com>
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2016 12:19 PM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org<mailto:oracle-l_at_freelists.org>
Subject: Oracle Exadata Top Three Selling points
I've put in a request for (2) Exadata 1/2 rack server (prod / dr ) and (2) 1/4 rack Exadata servers (SIT / DEV). My negotiation stated with full racks (really wanted 1/2 racks). It's moving forward to what I really want.
Our current environment is 40+ Oracle 9i - 11g databases on what ever hardware the customer could pull together. So, there are a couple solaris boxes, quite a few windows database server and a linux server. each database running on it's own server. My evil plan is to pull the customer into 2016 kicking and screaming, migrating all these databases to 12C PDB to create a private DB cloud. The DBA, development staff and director is supporing my efforts.
Now my director is asking for the three top bullet points to take to his boss. On why we should go to Exadata.
What are your top three reasons to move to exadata. I want this to be strong; so there is quite likely some things I have not thought about.
- Performance.
- Operational maintenance (one big server as apposed to 40+ servers scattered over diffrent versions and OS's)
- Make the DBA staff happy. :-)
-Rob
Robert P. Lockard Oracle ACE
Winner of the 2015 Oracle Developers Choice Award for Database Design
President Oraclewizard.com<http://Oraclewizard.com>, Inc.
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