Blog

Finding non-default configuration settings in SQL Server

In our Remote DBA practice, we frequently perform comprehensive system reviews for our customers on their database services.

Amazon RDS for Oracle: First Impressions

On Tuesday, Amazon announced availability of an Oracle version of their Relational Database Service (RDS). RDS is one of Amazon’s cloud services.

Determining optimal Amazon S3 transfer parallelism

Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) is a robust, inexpensive and highly-available internet data storage service.

Oracle tablespace hot backup mode revisited

Here’s a revised version of an old popular article I wrote over ten years ago. I wrote this when I was at Amazon.com, long before I came to work at remote DBA provider Blue Gecko. Enjoy! Oracle’s pre-RMAN hot backup mode is the subject of one of the most pervasive and persistent misconceptions about Oracle.

Good OCP / Bad OCP

For those contemplating launching a career in Oracle database administration, there are essentially three routes.

How Incompetence Stimulates the Information Technology Economy

As information technology professionals, we constantly complain about mismanaged projects in which we have the misfortune to be involved.

Converting Hexadecimal Oracle SCNs to Decimal

Oracle serializes transactions and manages concurrency and recovery using an ever-increasing number called a system change number, or SCN.

ORA-00054: Resource Busy and Acquire With NOWAIT Specified

Ora-00054 fix! Learn how to resolve Oracle errors, including this truncate error: ORA-00054: Resource Busy and Acquire With NOWAIT Specified.