SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M;
alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-32017: failure in updating SPFILE
ORA-00384: Insufficient memory to grow cache

I wanted to see if I could duplicate the issue, so I tested it on my 11.1.0.6 Windows 64-bit instance. I prepared the system by setting pga_aggregate_target to 128M, sga_target to 512M, and memory_target = 1648M.

NOTE: Throughout these examples, I’ve removed the irrelevant results from “show parameter target”.

Setting It Up

SQL> alter system set pga_aggregate_target = 128M;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set sga_target = 512M;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set memory_target = 1648M;

System altered.

SQL> show parameter target

NAME                             TYPE        VALUE
-------------------------------- ----------- -----
memory_max_target                big integer 1648M
memory_target                    big integer 1648M
pga_aggregate_target             big integer 128M
sga_target                       big integer 512M

SQL> show sga

Total System Global Area 1720328192 bytes
Fixed Size                  2115656 bytes
Variable Size            1426065336 bytes
Database Buffers          285212672 bytes
Redo Buffers                6934528 bytes

The next step was to test the change:

Testing the Change

SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M;
alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-32017: failure in updating SPFILE
ORA-00384: Insufficient memory to grow cache

So I tried turning off memory_target, and look what happens to the PGA:

Turn off memory_target

SQL> alter system set memory_target = 0;

System altered.

SQL> show parameter target

NAME                             TYPE        VALUE
-------------------------------- ----------- -----
memory_max_target                big integer 1648M
memory_target                    big integer 0
pga_aggregate_target             big integer 1136M
sga_target                       big integer 512M

The PGA was given all of the extra space! This was pretty strange, so I went ahead and changed the PGA to 128M and tried my test again:

Try again

SQL> alter system set pga_aggregate_target = 128M;

System altered.

SQL> show parameter target

NAME                             TYPE        VALUE
-------------------------------- ----------- -----
memory_max_target                big integer 1648M
memory_target                    big integer 0
pga_aggregate_target             big integer 128M
sga_target                       big integer 512M

SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M;
alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-32017: failure in updating SPFILE
ORA-00384: Insufficient memory to grow cache

Even then, it would not let me grow the buffer cache. I had to disable sga_target for 11g to finally allow it:

Solution

SQL> alter system set sga_target = 0;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set memory_target = 1648M;

System altered.

SQL> show parameter target

NAME                             TYPE        VALUE
-------------------------------- ----------- -----
memory_max_target                big integer 1648M
memory_target                    big integer 1648M
pga_aggregate_target             big integer 128M
sga_target                       big integer 0

Is this expected behavior from memory_target? Did I miss something? Is it a bug in 11.1.0.6? I was not able to find any notes on Metalink regarding the issue. The Oracle Documentation states that this should work just fine. When memory_target is enabled, sga_target and pga_aggregate_target should only work as minimums if explicitly set.

I will play around with it some more if I get the chance. In the meantime, I have to wonder how many DBAs have confidently set memory_target, all the while not knowing their individual pools weren’t being sized properly?

Update 1

I just did another test where I “primed the pump” so to speak. To do so, I set the sga_target higher. It allowed me to grow the db_cache_size at that point. However, I then set db_cache_size down to 0, set sga_target back to 512M, and was still able to set db_cache_size back up to 1024M afterwards.

NAME                         TYPE        VALUE
---------------------------- ----------- -----
memory_max_target            big integer 1648M
memory_target                big integer 1648M
pga_aggregate_target         big integer 128M
sga_target                   big integer 512M

SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M;
alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-32017: failure in updating SPFILE
ORA-00384: Insufficient memory to grow cache

SQL> alter system set sga_target = 1300M;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 0;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set sga_target = 512M;

System altered.

SQL> show parameter target

NAME                         TYPE        VALUE
---------------------------- ----------- -----
memory_max_target            big integer 1648M
memory_target                big integer 1648M
pga_aggregate_target         big integer 128M
sga_target                   big integer 512M

SQL> alter system set db_cache_size = 1024M;

System altered.

SQL> show parameter target

NAME                         TYPE        VALUE
---------------------------- ----------- -----
memory_max_target            big integer 1648M
memory_target                big integer 1648M
pga_aggregate_target         big integer 128M
sga_target                   big integer 512M

SQL> show parameter db_cache_size

NAME                             TYPE        VALUE
-------------------------------- ----------- -----
db_cache_size                    big integer 1G

The end looks just like the beginning. The only difference would be an internal barrier being lifted.

One million kernels!

That’s a whole mess of VMs. Given the enormous amount of growth the computing world has gone through in the last few decades, you have to wonder whether one day we will be able to duplicate the internet as we know it today onto one single machine hosting millions (or billions) of VMs. It’s an interesting concept, at the least!

Perhaps Oracle will find a niche in the million-VM-system world. Oracle 15N – The Neuronetworked Database.

Imagine buying a new car. In the new car comes leather seats, A/C, and a killer sound system. After driving it around for a few days, you get a reminder from the dealership:

The leather seats, A/C, and sound system are separately licensed products. Please pay the license fees or remove these add-ons from your vehicle.

Ouch! Thank goodness this doesn’t happen in the auto industry. There are, however, two industries where this type of marketing occurs every day: drug dealing and software sales. We’ll focus on software.

This time’s on me

You’ve downloaded your Oracle version of choice and run the installer. You ran DBCA, set up a listener, and you’re good to go. But what’s this? This automatic workload repository is amazing! So much historical data, right at your fingertips! Historic views via detailed reports that resemble Statspack on steroids, stunning visuals in the Performance tab of OEM!

Not so fast, buddy. After your initial taste, you might be hooked. But if you want to keep using these features, it comes with a cost. And that cost is going up, up, up.

This one’s going to cost you extra

As this article notes, the cost of these built-in packs are going up. The diagnostic, tuning, and database configuration packs are going up in price from $3,500 to $5,000.

Interesting…is it coincidence this change comes around the same time as announcements regarding the killer whale modeled Oculus or inifinity loop modeled Infinitas?

Just kidding Larry, you know I love you.

Going through withdrawal

If you can’t get the managerial approval to purchase these packs, the Performance tab will have to be grayed out in OEM and you won’t be able to use any AWR-powered features (AWR, ADDM, ASH). This article has a better breakdown.

However, you’re not left without options. You’ve still got Statspack, which DBAs have been loving since Oracle 8i. Statspack is not as intensive as AWR, but it is still getting better by version and is free to use without purchasing extra packs. You also have the trusty V$ and DBA_ views to aid in your tuning efforts. While not as comprehensive for real-time tuning as ASH, you can glean a great deal of information from them.

Rehab

If you still find you can’t survive without the pretty graphs and in-depth information provided by the tuning packs, there are other possibilities. Third-party tools exist which allow you to delve into your system’s performance woes. Unfortunately many of these tools require AWR, meaning you still have to pay for the Oracle packs to use them. One tool which allows both AWR and Statspack use is Ion for Oracle; I’m a bit partial to it, as I helped write the software.

With Ion, both AWR and Statspack (when possible) can be used to visualize important data:

If you’re interested in looking into Ion, visit the website (not via the contact form on this site).

Conclusion

Don’t take this post to mean I disapprove of Oracle’s methods. It’s an absolutely brilliant marketing method, and most of the shops I’ve worked with were hooked on AWR after the first try. One DBA I met went hardcore on his manager and said (and I quote), “you can have my diagnostics pack when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.”

However, for those of you stuck without AWR, you’re not alone. And with the increase in price for these packs, you might have a few new friends soon.

Class went very well. I taught the Burleson Consulting 3 day Oracle RAC course, one of our most popular courses which I am called upon to teach frequently. This class has it all: theory, installation, internals, tuning, network setup, disk setup, and tips from the field.

But enough about that for the moment…I just got back from Switzerland!

Geneva

Unfortunately bad weather postponed my flight by a day, and so I missed a good amount of time in Geneva. However, the next day air traffic was a little better, and I was able to get the flight from Norfolk to Newark, then Newark to Geneva. From what I understand, Newark Int’l is one of the few US airports with direct flights to Geneva, so at the least it was very convenient.

The visit to Switzerland was outstanding. Upon landing in Geneva I was picked up by a cousin who works for the WTO. He took me to his flat in Versoix where I got to visit some family I had never met before.

I didn’t sleep on the overnight flight, but I was determined to fight the jet lag and see some of the city. One of my relatives took me into Geneva from the Pont-Céard train station so I could tour the city a bit. She attends college in Geneva so she had to go off to class, but gave me an important piece of advice: keep an eye on the river and you can find your way anywhere.

The whole day I pretty much wandered around Geneva, finding various shops and disgracing the name of international travel by having a coffee at Starbucks (I know, I know). Later my cousin caught up with me and took me several places I hadn’t been, including up what felt like a thousand stairs to the top of the north tower of Cathédrale St-Pierre (St. Peter’s Cathedral). Turns out it was only 157 extremely narrow and tall stairs. Once at the top, the view is breathtaking. The room offers a complete panoramic view of Geneva and the mountains as you can see from these pictures:

After the flight, walking all over the city, and the climb up the tower (going down wasn’t so bad), I was pretty much beat. After dinner my cousin drove me to Lausanne and dropped me off at the Hotel Victoria Lausanne, a beautiful hotel on Avenue de la Gare (Gare being the train station).

There are two things I learned about Lausanne that made it startlingly different from Geneva:

1. Less people knew English. I had to pick up a few more French phrases
2. Everywhere was either up a hill or down a hill

Lausanne is a city built on a mountain (actually three hills that are part of a mountain). It was my first trip to a multi-level city, where every destination required a climb up steep roads or long stairs. While it made for beautiful scenery, it also made for aching quads and a burning desire to quit smoking immediately.

While not teaching, I wandered Lausanne (up down, up down). Every time I thought I’d seen the city I’d climb a new hill or set of stairs and find a whole new area to explore. I found several great shops and hangout spots. One of the nights I had dinner with my client at the fabulous Café-Restaurant du Vieux Lausanne, an excellent restaurant featuring an assortment of fresh game.

On the final day of class I caught the train after work towards Geneva. The plan was to take a regional train to Coppet and catch another train from there to Pont-Céard, but it didn’t quite work out that way. When I arrived in Coppet there were two other trains and no sign explaining their destinations. They left before I could ask anyone and I was stranded at the Coppet train station. I called my cousin in Versoix who came to rescue me after a bit.

After dinner with my family he took me to the Mövenpick hotel near the airport so I wouldn’t have to take a long train ride early in the morning.

My flight left the next morning, a long drawn out flight behind a man who obviously forgot to wear deodorant for a few days running. But hey, no flight is perfect, right?

Training Overseas

When I told my family where I was going, one of the first things they asked was “Why fly you all the way from the USA?” Why indeed?

Sure, Oracle has offices in Europe, and of course there are some great Oracle minds in Europe as well. However, I think that an American DBA Consultant has two major things going for them:

1. Client volume. I don’t have any numbers on American vs. European Oracle clients, but I’m pretty sure that Oracle enjoys heavier use in the USA. What’s more, the niches of these Oracle shops are many and varied: military, banking, internet, media, software, hardware, etc. I’ve taught classes for clients who design video games, clients who design and write microcode for enterprise storage arrays, clients with some of the largest and most active databases out there, and many more. While Oracle is used all over the world, it has its roots here in the USA, and it has the client list to prove it.
2. Dollar value. Right now the value of the dollar makes a US consultant very appealing. What used to be pricey is now affordable due to exchange rate inequities.

The combination of broad expertise and low cost make it a win-win for everyone.

Dine In or Delivery?

Burleson Consulting specializes in onsite training; this means I fly to you and teach in your shop. In some situations I’ve had clients who book a hotel conference room for a classroom. But why go with that as opposed to in-class training from Oracle or another provider?

First off, I will say this: I have worked as a Sr. Instructor for Oracle University. It was a fun job and I got to work with some great people who taught Oracle daily to dozens of students. Oracle U. is a great place and good for foundation training.

One reason to go with on-site training is cost. I’ve had classes ranging from four students to twenty. Some may think it’s better to cram as many people as possible into a classroom, but it really depends on what you hope to get out of the class. More students means less time for real one-on-one time and an in-depth experience. Too few students can mean you fly through too quickly as there are not enough questions to keep the class moving. Even with only four students, you can’t beat the price.

Our 3 day RAC course is $9,000 for up to 20 students plus travel expenses for the instructor. The 5 day Oracle University course is $3,750 per student plus travel expenses for each student. Send four students to class and you’re talking $15,000 plus expenses for four. Send 10 students and you’re topping $40k with expenses, which could have bought roughly 4 in-house Burleson Consulting courses. For that price, you could even reward your DBAs with a cruise on which they can learn Oracle!

Another reason for on-site training is comfort. Just like a dining experience you have two choices: dine in or delivery? The pros and cons are much the same as well:

Dine In – You travel to an Oracle University near you and get the authentic Oracle experience. The white wire-bound notebook, the Oracle Corporation slide deck, the Oracle Instructor who delivers the course and administers the labs. The course you take will be written by dedicated courseware developers and will cover all of the topics necessary to gain a foundation in your chosen topic. Labs will be pre-created and ready to go to let you try what you’ve learned. However, as with dining there are some negatives as well:

• You don’t know who your waiter will be. Let’s face it, going to class is luck of the draw. You will get an instructor that has been chosen to teach the class, not chosen specifically for your needs.
• You don’t know the crowd. The rest of the class may not care about the things you do. In a packed class of 20 or more it is very easy for the class to get side-tracked on something that doesn’t help you, or for your question to get lost in a flurry of other questions.
• Custom requests may not be feasible. Sometimes it’s difficult getting questions answered in a mixed classroom environment. Your instructor, while knowledgeable, may not have seen the situations you have. As such, they may not be able to answer your questions. Additionally it is not possible to go into long drawn-out scenarios or problems in a class.

Delivery – With a class delivered to your company door, you get a class made for you. The instructor (that’s me) is there for the needs of your company and no others. The course can shift and vary, going in the direction that is most important to you. No matter how large the question, no matter how drawn out the explanation, no matter what the scenario, you’re the one and only client and therefore you’ll get results.

One huge benefit of going with a company well known for both consulting and training is that you get an instructor who has been in the field. Many times when I’m asked a question in class, I can say “You know, I saw that same thing just last week.” We show up to class with fresh war stories, a plethora of advice, and a broad perspective. I’d much rather hear an instructor say “Oh, I had that problem and did this to fix it” than “A student of mine had that problem. I wonder how he’s doing?”

I honestly love the combination. As a consultant I get the best of both worlds: consulting in a wide variety of databases, and training with dedicated clients. Sometimes the two meet: mentoring is a huge part of my consulting practice (it is horrible when a consultant leaves a client wondering how something works), and Q&A and problem solving are part and parcel of the classroom experience. And in the end, it is the client who reaps the benefits.

Yet another benefit is that you get to choose your instructor. Instead of choosing a course and date, you choose the options that work best for you. Instead of luck of the draw, you get an instructor and a course that works exactly how you need it to work. When you have a mission critical project coming up or employees that must be trained to work on your environment, having these choices can be the difference between a great project and a failure. If you really like your instructor, you can hire them for consulting too (hint hint)!

Conclusion

• The trip to Switzerland was a blast. I got to see Geneva and Lausanne and have a great time in both.
• When it comes to training you have options, even with an ocean between you and your instructor. It’s a good idea to weigh your options carefully.
• Remember YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary. Some people work better in a dedicated classroom environment, some work better in a familiar environment like their workplace. Both individuals and companies play a part in the decision making.
• I need to learn more French for next time I head to southwestern Switzerland.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’re enjoying the holidays!

Au revoir!

This is my second trip to Europe this year (the other was to Florence for a RAC class), and I’m hoping this is indicative of a higher demand for training from Burleson Consulting overseas. International travel is a great perk for a DBA.

Once I get home I’ll be posting pictures and a better blog entry.

• Access to Metalink
• Loads of good coffee
• At least two computers
• A yearly cruise on which they can learn Oracle

There’s only one thing better than an Oracle class, and that’s an Oracle class taught by top notch instructors aboard a cruise ship sailing the western Caribbean. I’ve been on two such cruises, and they’re getting better every year.

Last year, I taught aboard the Carnival Glory in a three day RAC at Sea blitz. This year I was joined by John Garmany and Don Burleson in our Oracle Tuning TechBlast at Sea aboard the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas, where we explored many advanced Oracle topics: everything from object storage to backups to the optimizer.

In March of 2009, we’ll be setting sail again with the Oracle TechBlast at sea on the new Independence of the Seas, a veritable floating city. One day of class will be held in the Ft. Lauderdale Grande Hotel and Yacht Club, with the two remaining days being at-sea days aboard the ship. Stops this year include Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel, with no class on port days! Topics include Oracle RAC, Tuning, Streams, Dataguard, and more.

You can read all about the 2009 TechBlast here.

I hope that you can join myself, John Garmany, Andy Kerber, and Don Burleson as we run through a wide array of important Oracle topics.

Having a hard time convincing your boss? Try these tactics!

It’s a great opportunity and a lot of fun. Bring your friends, your family, and enjoy joining a group of fellow Oracle professionals in one of the best training opportunities out there.

Follow Tico the Fairy as she teaches Princess Ruruna how to simply management of her nation with a well made database.

Why not? Google used a comic to sell their new Chrome browser, after all!

Actual Headline: Oracle Shareholders Choke On Ellison’s Package

Carry on.

UPDATE: Thanks to Bob Rhubart for pointing out the subtitle!

Those of us acquainted with RAC might be shouting “WHAT?!?!” at about this time. This is because without raw volumes, our only choices for OCR and voting disk placement seems to be a CFS (such as OCFS).

However, wording in the Metalink note indicates that ASM will be able to support the OCR and voting disk (“and other database files”) in 12g. The note hints at broader support for NFS in 12g as well.

And so I’d like to introduce The Adventures of Ace, DBA. Ace is a Jr. DBA trying to make it in a tough corporate world. The comic is about his trials and tribulations, imaginings, and other fun experiences as a highly stressed DBA.

Enjoy!

http://www.orcldba.com/ace/