Intro Recently, I passed the AWS SAA certification, and while sharing your achievement on socials after long months of preparation and grind can be gratifying, some Pearson Vue test takers, didn’t have the same smooth experience, for unexpected challenges due to OnVue software glitches. In this short post, I’ll take you through the surreal blunders of my ... Read more
Blog
What Autoupgrade won’t Catch for you when moving to 19c Part1: Ghost OLAP
Intro So far, I have used Oracle AutoUpgrade, many times in 3 different OS’. Yet the more you think you’ve seen it all and reached the highest confidence level, another Upgrade will come byte you in the butt. The truth is every maintenance in any software or platform is unique, Oracle databases are no exception. Automation ... Read more
Tech Content creator toolkit: the cheat sheet
Intro Some of you are probably at a stage where daily work isn’t enough, and interacting with the tech community is the fulfilling mission you’ve been waiting for. But in order to do so, you need to level up your game. Whether your goal is to be a blogger, speaker, podcaster, or social media maverick, you ... Read more
OCI FortiGate HA Cluster – Reference Architecture: Code review & Fixes
Intro OCI Quick Start repositories on GitHub are collections of Terraform scripts and configurations provided by Oracle. These repositories are designed to help organizations quickly deploy common infrastructure setups on the OCI Platform. Each Quick Start focuses on a specific use case or workload, simplifying the process of provisioning on OCI using Terraform—a sort of IaC-based ... Read more
Cloud Showdown: Bare Metal vs. VMs in OCI – Pros & Cons
Intro The migration journey to the cloud for a business comes in different shapes and colors. Today, we’ll explore a quick comparison between Bare metal and VM platforms, which are two IaaS compute options available in Oracle Cloud infrastructure. Although specific to OCI, you might find similar benefits and trade-offs in other Cloud platforms. In this short ... Read more
Terraform for dummies part 6: Deploy a static website on Alibaba Cloud
Intro3 years ago, I started the terraform for dummies series where I wanted to deploy a static website in any cloud provider there was (the dummy in question was me duh:)). But the mistake most of us make is to think AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle Cloud are the only Hyperscalers out there. Wrong! Alibaba Cloud ... Read more
Terraform pipelines for dummies part1: Run a terraform configuration in GitLabCI
Intro Automating infrastructure provisioning with Terraform is nothing for many, but to truly harness IaC power, seamless integration with CI/CD pipelines is key. In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of setting up and running your Terraform configurations within GitLab CI from an GitHub imported repo. This powerful combination not only ensures consistent ... Read more
Farewell to ClickOps: OCI CLI seamless Data Guard Replication for ExaC@C
IntroSince the very beginning, everyone got introduced to Cloud services through the console as it’s very quick. But the cloud CLI tooling provides a stronger, yet user-friendly way to automate tasks, often covering features not even available in the console. Moreover, DBAs often assume that the CLI is primarily designed for managing compute-based services, overlooking ... Read more
Top picks for Cloud Native sessions at Oracle Cloud World 2023
Blabla free post: This is just some of my (personal) top Oracle Cloud World 2023 sessions I will have the chance to attend and speak at this September. Some of you may agree that there is no way to make a list that fits everyone but for those who are into Cloud native,IT Ops, and database ... Read more
Optimizing GitHub Workflows: How to Auto cleanup your cache after use
Intro In the CI/CD space, every second counts like in an F1 race. That's where GitHub Actions cache comes in. Caching is like a pit stop for your code – it saves precious time by providing pre-loaded resources to speed up pipeline execution by storing and reusing previously downloaded dependencies. However, cache use especially in ... Read more
Your GitHub Secrets Ain’t That Secret: (GitHub actions hack)
Intro Sometimes secrets in the real world aren't as secret as we think! Although it can be scary, it’s really easy to show the content of your secret in GitHub actions log. You might not mind if your repo is private but if it is public and your Open Source project still needs things ... Read more
Deploy multilevel OCI sub-compartments with terraform (using local module)
IntroIn my previous blogpost, we explored the challenges with relying on terraform registry modules for code sanity checks. Additionally, we reviewed OCI iam-compartment module and I shared my revised version in my Github. Today, we'll demonstrate how to deploy multi-level OCI compartments using my local module (iam-compartment), which you can easily clone from my GitHub ... Read more
What’s OIDC and why should you use it asap in your GitHub pipeline (keyless)
Table of contentsPopular Authentications to Cloud (Why is it wrong?)OAuth OriginsOAuth 2.0 terminologyOAuth 2.0 workflowWhat is OIDC? OIDC .vs OAuth 2.0OIDC Authentication flowOIDC in GitHub ActionsMultiCloud keyless access examples (Azure/ AWS/ GCP)Hackers Paradise ! -- “ 10 million credentials from GitHub were accessible in 2022 alone.” --This is the shocking truth exposed in a ... Read more
GitHub Actions Cheat Sheet: What I learned from GitHub CI in 2 weeks
IntroThis year I set a goal to explore and learn most popular CI solutions like GitLab, including all cloud native ones. My first pick had to be GitHub Actions, which I heard a lot of but never used. So I decided to plunge into it to see how rich the solution was. Since I only ... Read more
How to Deploy Multi-Region Resources with Terraform: example(OCI Public IPs)
IntroAs with any software, terraform also has hidden gems waiting to be discovered, even after you've obtained your associate certification. Some features aren't always known until you need them, which is why we still a a lot to learn from the product. Today is one of those days! In this post, I will show how ... Read more
Devops: Demystifying CI vs. CD and the “Delivery-Deployment” Differences
IntroIn the space of software delivery, CI/CD has emerged as a game-changing framework that accelerates development life cycle. While most users consider practice a handy shortcut to knowledge, diving headfirst into the CI/CD universe without a solid grasp of the fundamental bases is like trying to learn salsa moves without understanding tempo or foot work. ... Read more
My corrected OCI-IAM-compartment Terraform Module
IntroSo, turns out I've been living in the Stone Age of Terraform. I thought keeping my code lean and mean was the way to go, but apparently, the cool kids are all about terraform modules. They're all like, "Modularity! Reusability! It's the secret sauce of Infrastructure as Code!". Up until now, with my resources ... Read more
Azure administrator Associate (AZ-104) certification takeaways
IntroIn my journey into multicloud, I started a ritual where I’d write about each certification I pass (GCP, Hashicorp) for my own use and for times when I’m asked for prep tips and takeaways.This time, Azure administrator associate exam is no exception.Whether you're preparing for an AWS, Azure, OCI, Alibaba or GCP certification, sharing your ... Read more
OCI-CLI Warning on Windows: Python 3.6 is no longer supported by core team & My fix to silence the noise
IntroHey there, You know what's been driving me crazy lately? That damn Python deprecation warning on Windows 10 after upgrading to OCI CLI 3.x. It's been going on for a month or two now, and at first, I gave up. But when my OCI CLI shell scripts prompts started to get ugly, I knew I ... Read more
Azure VM Selection Made Easy: A Script Identifying Best Constrained CPU VMs for High Memory/ Low CPU Workload
IntroAre you struggling to find the most Cost-Effective Azure VMs for Database Workloads or any high memory low CPU workload? Look no further! In this blog post, we’ll introduce the concept of Azure constrained CPU along with cases where az cli displays misleading info, and finally a script that makes it easy to identify ... Read more
Terraform tips: How to Recover Your Deployment From a Terraform apply Crash
-- “Because sh*t happens, be ready for when it does!” --IntroInfrastructure Automation is a lifesaver for OPS teams in their day-to-day duties, but when it comes to givin' full control to new tools and frameworks, watch out for problems that can no longer be fixed manually. It’s also a reminder that it is easier to ... Read more
ZDM troubleshooting part 4: NONCDBTOPDB_CONVERSION fails (GUID conflicts with existing PDB)
IntroEvery time I think I’m done with my ZDM troubleshooting series, a new topic pops up :). I have also learned that every migration is distinct and brings its own unique challenges, so I have decided to keep the series open-ended. In this post, we will discuss the steps you should take when a conversion ... Read more
What’s ODABR snapshot & how to efficiently use it to patch ODA from 18 to 19.x
Intro Although most of the focus, nowadays, has shifted to migration of on-premises workloads into the Cloud, companies still leverage Oracle databases engineered systems like Oracle database appliance to run their databases on-prem. As a matter of fact ,ODA is a low entry pricing and flexible CPU licensing platform that can still host workloads that aren’t ... Read more
ExaC@C DB state failed in OCI console while up & running in reality (fix)
Intro Exadata Cloud@Customer has the particularity of bringing the best of both worlds, where on-premises Data sovereignty meets the innovation & capabilities of the Cloud. Thanks to Control plane network that links up both ExaCC servers and OCI, users can create/manage resources through the Console or any API based cloud tooling (terraform,OCI-CLI, SDK..). Everything you do ... Read more
Top picks for Cloud Native & DB sessions at Oracle Cloud World ’22
Blabla free post: This is just some of my (personal) top Oracle sessions I will have the chance to attend Next Week. Some of you may agree that there is no way to make a list that fits everyone but for those who are into OCI and database migrations/upgrades this list might help, especially if ... Read more
ZDM troubleshooting part 3: Migration failing at ZDM_SWITCHOVER_SRC/ hack
IntroThis is the last of my troubleshooting series related to ZDM where I have accidentally become an unofficial QA tester for ZDM :). After describing scenarios in previous posts where ZDM service was crashing or DG configuration was failing. I will, in this article, explain why my broker switchover step failed the online physical migration ... Read more
ZDM troubleshooting part 2: Migration failing at ZDM_CONFIGURE_DG_SRC
IntroI didn’t anticipate to have a series of posts around ZDM, but I had few issues that were worth sharing so here I am. This post will describe what caused a failure of an online physical migration ExaCC right at the Data guard configuration phase. The good thing about ZDM, is as soon as any ... Read more
ZDM troubleshooting part 1: VM causes ZDM service to crash (plus fix)
Intro Zero downtime migration (ZDM) is the ultimate solution to migrate your Oracle database to Oracle Cloud. I recently started using it quite a lot during On-Prem to Exadata at Customer migrations. In my last blog post, I already shared tips about a ZDM installation error related to MySQL. This time, I’ll describe why my environment ... Read more
Terraform live cost estimate using infracost free plugin
IntroThe cloud offers unlimited scalability at lower costs with the available resources. Companies enable their engineering teams to launch infrastructure as and when needed. However, since costs aren't shown to engineers before Cloud resources are deployed, the real cost implications are unknown. That causes higher than expected costs and ballooning budgets over time, which is ... Read more
Explore Alibaba Cloud part 2: AliCloud CLI installation and few examples
Cloud CLI tools are the Most direct and simple way to interact with a new Cloud platform, It is the perfect tool for executing simple and repeatable tasks which you don’t need to keep track off. Alibaba Cloud CLI tool which also manages Cloud resources (or stacks) is no exception. In this blog post, we ... Read more
ZDM installation error in Oracle Linux 8 (Failed to initialize MySQL) & how to fix it
Intro Zero downtime migration (ZDM) is one of the best option available to migrate your Oracle database to Oracle Cloud. Automation and simplicity are among its strong benefits beside zero downtime feature. Although migrating in OCI is the classic use case(see Oracle migration & integration specialist certification), I had the chance to try a different scenario ... Read more
Explore Alibaba Cloud part 1: Intro to Alibaba Cloud
Intro I always believed in the horizontal approach to learn the cloud rather than the vertical method. I’m just convinced there is more to learn when you open your perspectives, even if you lose the ability to narrow your expertise on one platform. That’s a little price to pay if you want to broaden your lenses. ... Read more
Windows commands line cheat sheet for DBAs
IntroWe all know Windows is the preferred platform for Oracle DBAs !! I hear that every day :D. All right, maybe not so much ;). But Jokes aside, when your client has the majority of his DB workload running on windows, it’s hard to dodge the job. It becomes even more challenging to switch to ... Read more
Hashicorp Terraform Associate certification takeaways
Intro The thing we usually forget when completing a certification is to save a mental image of the topics that were exciting to learn or the concepts that we had no clue about right before starting the preparation. This is what practitioners should focus on after every major Cloud cert exam, as it provides an accurate ... Read more
Terraform for dummies part 6: Deploy Oracle DB System 21c using terraform
IntroWhat’s the point of moving a database to the Cloud if we can’t automatically deploy it. After blogging about web compute provisioning on AWS,OCI, Azure, & GCP using terraform. The least I could do as a (future-ex) DBA is to terraform database provisioning in Oracle Cloud. On top of that, I also wanted to include ... Read more
How to remote clone a PDB from a READ ONLY refreshable PDB (tips & tricks)
Intro I didn’t know I had that many things to write about refreshable PDB clones, but I do like the techno and how useful it can be to application teams that want to replicate QA environments out of their prod database very quickly. After showcasing how to automate the refresh of a PDB clone using oracle ... Read more
ExaCC dbaascli command with mysterious PILOT error when creating a PDB
Intro I lately had a silly error while running dbaascli on an ExaCC cluster but the java output was not helpful at all. This is a super short post that shows where to find dbaascli execution logs and also an example of what can break your command execution depending on who runs it. My error I was ... Read more
What they don’t tell you about refreshable PDB clones (ghost archives)
Intro In my previous blog post, I showcased how to automate the refresh of a PDB clone using a DBMS scheduler job which gives a better control on the frequency, instead of relying on the minutely refresh. Handy if you don’t like keeping an automatic refresh every X minutes and rather have it run once a ... Read more
OCI Bastion Service Part II: Create Bastion service using OCI CLI & Terraform
Intro In part II, and after demonstrating how to use OCI Bastion service using the Console (see part I ) we will cover how to create Bastion Service using automation tools like OCI CLI and terraform as I didn’t want all these approaches to be lumped in one post. Quick table of contents - Create Bastion ... Read more
OCI Bastion Service Part I: How to use it to connect to your Private Subnet (Console)
Intro In the cloud, bastion or jump server is the only node exposed to the outside world and acts as a gateway between the private network where your backend resources (application, databases..etc) are hosted and the Internet. A Bastion runs bare minimum applications and is extremely secure. Even if any network can access it, it is ... Read more
Terraform in OCI: The infamous error 404-NotAuthorizedOrNotFound
IntroTerraform uses API to interact with your Cloud provider’s platform. Hence many error messages thrown by your terraform deploy come directly from the cloud platform (i.e OCI services) . In some cases, they prove to be very unhelpful and empty of insights, leaving you wonder what really is breaking your deployment. These are part of ... Read more
☁☁ My Terraform labs 2021– Cloud recap ☁☁
IntroThe first time I had seen a glimpse of this Infrastructure as Code artifact in 2018 (presented by Roopesh Ramklass at our TOUG meetup), I found the it ugly as hell and sworn to never touch it (probably confused it with Json ;)).Today I am happy to admit that I was totally wrong and it ... Read more
Compare OCI, AWS, Azure, GCP application services
Intro Common trend for cloud providers is to compare their services/offers with AWS (even AWS itself does it when releasing new features). But it seems that the top 3 reached a sort of agreement where they only acknowledge their respective direct competition & dismiss any player outside this oligopoly. Oracle Cloud or AliCloud being more than ... Read more
RMAN, INCARNATIONS, and ME part II: Recovery ignoring backups / ORA-19563: datafile copy header validation failed for file
Intro In an ideal world, I believe, every backup script should be matched by 2 recovery scenarios. As this swiss OUC figure reminds us, having a backup that works means nothing without a tested restore and recovery. Today I’ll try to depict the don’t do’s after an recovery of a controlfile with open resetlogs using RMAN. ... Read more
RMAN, Incarnation, & ME part I: “ORA-19906”: Recovery target incarnation changed during recovery
Intro If there is something I honestly always struggled with as a DBA, it’s RMAN incarnation. Both mystical like its name suggests and vital, ensuring absolute consistency of your database and backups. But deep down, you always know it’ll back fire one day out of the shadows. Because that’s where it hides, lurking until a human ... Read more
19c PDB Refreshable clones
Intro Beside Long term release benefits, upgrading to a multitenant 19c Database will allow to completely ease the way test environments are refreshed from production servers. Say Goodbye to complex & lengthy RMAN duplicate scripts and hello to remote cloning. Even better with refreshable clones, production data is now automatically updated. Many blogs were written about ... Read more
How to run Datapump from a PDB as SYS when ORACLE_PDB_SID can’t work
Intro In Oracle multitenant architecture, default database container upon connection is CDB$ROOT. But as of 18c, a new environment variable appeared to ease the direct access to a specific PDB (given a defined ORACLE_SID). The variable in question is ORACLE_PDB_SID. As explained in Mike Dietrich’s Blog, this variable is checked by a small AFTER EVENT LOGON trigger ... Read more
Terraform for dummies part 5: Terraform deployment On-premises (KVM)
IntroFor a long time, Terraform was associated with deploying resources in the cloud. But what many people don’t know is that terraform already had private and community based providers that worked perfectly on non cloud environments. Today, we will discover how to deploy a compute vm in a KVM host. Not only that, but we ... Read more
KVM lab inside a VirtualBox vm (Nested virtualization) using vagrant
IntroIt has been a while since I wanted to blog about nested virtualization, but the good news is I now have a vagrant build to share with you so you can vagrant it up:). KVM started to interest me as soon as I learned that Oracle allowed for hard partitioning on KVM boxes if installed ... Read more
Create a local Windows10 VPN bastion using a vagrant box
IntroThere are many examples online on how to create a linux vagrant box including mine. But not so much around windows boxes. The easiest way? just shop around in Vagrant Cloud, identify a windows box, and spin it using vagrant up. That’s exactly what I did but I faced a problem after the trial period expired ... Read more
Terraform for dummies part 4: Launch an vm with a static website on GCP
IntroAfter AWS,Oracle Cloud, and Azure, GCP is the 4th cloud platform in our terraform tutorial series, we will describe what it takes to authenticate and provision a compute engine using their terraform provider. The instance will also have an nginx website linked to its public IP. If you want to know about the differences GCP ... Read more
Terraform for dummies part 3: Launch a vm with a static website on Azure
IntroIn this tutorial we will try provisioning a vm on azure using their terraform provider and reproduce the same deployment I have completed on AWS and Oracle Cloud. As usual we won’t just deploy an instance but also configure an nginx website linked to its public IP. I’ll end this post with some notes on ... Read more
Vagrant tips: How to automatically adjust the Time Zone of your vagrant box
IntroI was playing with my Linux vagrant boxes lately and I realized I was always spinning third party boxes that had a totally different time zone (Europe/UK mostly). Up until now I never bothered as I have used bunch of those from vagrant Cloud for years. I sometimes notice, and think of using a shell ... Read more
Google SDK (CLI for GCP) installation and few CLI examples
IntroGoogle as most of the cloud providers today, offers a simple Cloud shell solution with all required tools to connect to their platform securely using APIs. However, If you still want to have it in your laptop along with other development tools, you can always install Google Cloud SDK (especially if it’s for educational purpose). Cloud ... Read more
GCP Short lab: launch an instance, Startup script & test logging via CloudShell
Intro GCP Cloud Shell not only allows to execute and automate tasks around your Cloud resources, but It can help you understand what happens behind the scene when a vm is provisioned for example. That’s also a good way to prepare for the GCP Cloud engineer certification. Although it normally takes a subscription to ACloudGuru ... Read more
GCP Associate Cloud engineer certification takeaways
Intro I have been asked lately to share some prep tips after I passed the GCP Associate Cloud Engineer Certification. Although there are tons of articles online describing the exam content and many resource materials to help prepare for the exam, I decided to share my thoughts around the preparation journey along with my feedback on the ... Read more
What makes GCP networking service different from other Cloud providers
Intro During my preparation for the GCP Associate Cloud Engineer exam, I first got myself a free tier account which usually lasts 3 months. This allowed me to play with the Cloud Console as it’s the fastest way to get to know a cloud provider’s services & offering. Being already familiar with AWS, Azure, and Oracle ... Read more
OVM Series part 3: Backup and recovery with ovm-Bkp (plus scripts)
Intro This is the last part of the OVM series where I will describe the backup package provided by oracle called ovm-bkp . Even if the Premier Support period has already ended (March, 2021) and OLVM is supposed to be the replacement, a lot of workloads are still running on OVM including new PCAs (Private Cloud ... Read more
OVM series part 2: What to collect when opening an SR
Intro In my last post, I have described few commands within Oracle OVM manager CLI. This time, the topic is about how to identify the relevant information of your OVM environment as well as the logs and their location for each component. OVM servers and OVM manager have their own logs, and when issues occur It’s good ... Read more
OVM series part 1: Getting started with OVMCLI
Intro I have been introduced to Oracle OVM rather accidentally. I was more familiar with the traditional vmware or hyper-V but when I was asked to help a client to implement their ovm backups, I got more curious about it. This post is the first of a series of 3.I will try to show some basic ... Read more
Interview With Oracle FPP head Ludovico Caldara
I want to thank Ludovico Caldara [FPP & Cloud MAA Product Manager @Oracle] for accepting the publication of this interview which is based on a conversation we had some time ago. It is mainly focused on the Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) “FUNDAMENTALS”, but I hope this could help the community to glean a ... Read more
My Vagrant fork of Oracle Fleet Patching and provisioning (FPP)
Intro I have been asked to read about Oracle database fleet management at work but the turnoff was that it relied entirely on OEM. Aggregating both functionalities makes provisioning, in my opinion, cumbersome and unattractive for shops that only want to manage the fleet. Luckily for me, I got acquainted with an even better framework ... Read more
The not so AUTO …UPGRADE ! (ORACLE Autoupgrade in Windows )
Intro First, before anyone starts sending me print screens about their successful Autoupgrade, or flexing about how their 100+ databases were smoothly migrated to PDBs over the weekend, I am stopping you right there. This is my honest feedback on the experience I had when trying the tool on a windows environment. It is obviously not ... Read more
Convert local listeners to Oracle Grid managed listeners
Intro One of the advantages of Oracle grid Infrastructure is to restart all managed resources (databases, asm, listeners,…etc) automatically whenever you (re)start the cluster service (crs) or reboot the whole server.I recently had to patch an oda where the client still had few listeners (with non default ports) managed locally and not through grid. This means ... Read more
Add SCAN VIPs to Oracle RAC with zero “listener” downtime
Intro Infrastructure teams are usually more keen to maintain a network stability rather than altering their existing configuration every other day.This means that once the application and database hosts are provisioned and running, the DBA won't witness a topology change unless a migration of the servers/applications are in the pipes. But for highly available environment like ... Read more
Deploy a webserver vm using Azure CLI and bash scripts (Linux/windows)
Intro Azure cli was another tool I had to try right after passing Az-900 azure certification, because what are certifications for if it’s not to give a little itching to get your hands a little dirty. Thus, az-cli became my third victim after oci-cli and aws-cli. As in my previous cli tutorials, the aim is to ... Read more
Azure CLI installation and few CLI examples
Today we will see how easy Microsoft has made it to install azure CLI which is a Command Line Interface (CLI) tool that manages azure Cloud resources. In previous posts I explored the installation for the CLI software of both Oracle and AWS, I have to say that Azure CLI is by far the simplest ... Read more
Oracle quarantine Webinars 2020
Blabla free post, this is just a list of some of the best Oracle webinars recordings I had the chance to attend this year (or at least tried :p). Some of you may agree that there is no way to attend the tons of events that stormed online since COVID madness started. So why not ... Read more
Terraform tricks : How to mimic nested variable substitution using locals
Intro “Developer’s constant urge to use Terraform like a programming language :)”My impression after enjoying my first terraform applys is that it's kind of rigid, though when someone says Immutable and declarative in the same sentence, you should definitely get that it's not procedural by design. Therefore, you can’t expect a bash shell script programmability. ... Read more
Terraform for dummies part 2: Launch an instance with a static website on AWS
IntroThis has become a habit so far to explore different ways of automated provisioning for each cloud provider. This time, I will try Terraform on AWS and reproduce the same deployment I have completed on Oracle Cloud, and as usual we won’t just deploy an instance but also configure a website linked to its public ... Read more
Launch an ec2 instance with a static website using awscli in 10 min (FreeTier)
Intro aws cli is a strong yet easy way to automate simple repeatable tasks covering aws resources as it’s a direct, human-readable doorway to aws cloud platform. This tutorial will not just demonstrate how to provision a website in awscloud, but will hopefully trigger your curiosity on the numerous possibilities the Command line tool can ... Read more
AWS CLI installation in 10 minutes
Almost every Cloud provider has a Command Line Interface (CLI) which is a unified tool to manage cloud resources. In previous post I described how to configure Oracle Cloud infrastructure CLI. This time my focus is its AWS equivalent as I intend to explore different ways of provisioning instances in all major Cloud shops (OCI,AWS,Azure,GCP), ... Read more
AHF Cheatsheet
Do You Speak AHF ?Oracle Autonomous Health Framework (AHF) presents the next generation of All in one solution that includes tools which work together autonomously 24x7 to keep database systems healthy and running. It does so while minimizing human reaction time using existing components like orachk, TFA and many more. I started digging about this ... Read more
Fixes for Vagrant/Virtualbox errors due to latest Windows 10 updates
INTROIt is always hard to keep up with Operating systems upgrades and patches for software companies, not only vagrant or Virtualbox. But if there was an OS that could make it even worse for us — end-users — that would definitely be Windows 10. Microsoft can’t never to amaze us, so much their updates side ... Read more
How to Launch an OCI instance with Ansible roles (Always Free)…
IntroToday, we will conclude our “Oracle Cloud automation" journey with deploying an instance using Ansible (roles). We will demonstrate how an Always-Free compute instance can be launched and accessed through SSH thanks to OCI Ansible Cloud Modules. This tutorial along with the previous Terraform and OCI-CLI shell labs will also help you prepare for ... Read more
Terraform for dummies: Launch an instance with a static website on OCI
IntroTerraform brings a new paradigm where Infrastructure becomes a Code, and with Cloud becoming what it is today, everyone is invited at the (devops) table. Therefore, after provisioning with oci-cli in my previous BlogPost, I will explore the same task using terraform.To add more fun, we won’t just deploy an instance but also configure a ... Read more
launch an oci instance with oci-cli in 10 minutes
IntroCatchy title I give you that, but there is more in this article than its title. Besides getting familiar with OCI-ClI, this lab will introduce another way to work with OCI API requests as described in the OCI Operations Associate exam(1Z0-1067) training. The tutorial will not only walk you through the required steps to have an ... Read more
Install OCI-CLI in 5 minutes
I recently had a weekly digest from medium website and noticed a blog post talking about configuring OCI in 5 minute. The funny thing is that you had to pay a subscription to read about what Oracle documented for free. I don’t know how SEO works but I thought I would use the same title ... Read more
Tmate, the perfect Instant terminal sharing Tool for Remote collaboration
We love Tmate and we bet you will! “Visionary, outstanding, almost magic” that’s what I thought the first time I got my hands on Tmate. Sure, we all know about TeamViewer, VNC, and other remote desktop products we used hundred times to help our parents or friends through a shared screen. But nothing compares nor prepares ... Read more
VEEAM backup and Bare metal recovery of an Oracle DB VM
IntroThose who aren’t lucky enough to use VMware or Hyper-V in their infrastructure might find it painful to provide a seamless way to manage their virtual backup and recovery strategy (i.e Ovm, kvm..etc.). Veeam turns out to be a solid alternative that might spare the pain of reinventing the wheel along with the hours of scripting ... Read more
How to Enable Nested Virtualization in VirtualBox (New Feature)
Did you ever want to have labs where you could play with different hypervisors withing a single virtual machine in your laptop? I know this sounds more like an INCEPTION remake than a decent requirement but you can't blame us for being greedy knowing all what tools like virtualbox can help us do nowadays. To give more context ... Read more
GoldenGate : setup Bi-Directional Replication in Multitenant environment (PDBs)
Intro GoldenGate replication solution allows you to capture, replicate, filter, transform, and deliver real time transactional data across Oracle or heterogeneous environments. Goldengate 12c features along with Oracle multitenant architecture introduced some changes to the way replication works (see Fig-1). Another interesting fact is that few of Oracle Streams features have now found their way into ... Read more
Vagrant: Create a Red Hat 8 base box packaged for Oracle 19c (Vbox)
Intro Vagrant is an opensource tool for working with virtual environments (VirtualBox,HyperV,Vmware..etc). It provides a simple command-line client for managing these environments, using a text-file (VagrantFile) defining the attributes of each environment. To know more about vagrant you can try their getting started guide or consult the Vagrant official documentation.Vagrant cloud already offers a plethora ... Read more
Clone a RAC 12c VM environment with Virtualbox (import/export)
Intro Have you ever finished a lab in your laptop with several virtual machines connected to each other and thought “Well that was neat! but how can I create a backup in my external hard drive and run it again at work or in any other computer?” The answer lays in this very article. For those ... Read more
Oracle Cloud 2nd gen DBAAS Tutorial: Deploy a 2 Nodes RAC database service
IntroOracle Database Cloud Service (DBaaS) provides a platform to create full Oracle database instances in a virtual machine (VM). It's the same familiar Oracle Database, now in Oracle cloud. Oracle made things even easier since you can now Sign Up for Free Oracle Cloud service and Get $300 of free credits good for up to 3500 ... Read more
MAA setup– Creating Single instance Physical Standby for RAC Primary – 12c
Introduction:Oracle provides many options for preventing downtime and data loss, all of which make up the Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA). The Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture offers a set of standard reference architectures--Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Solutions-- that comply with Customer Business Objectives. With multiple instances, the RAC system gives a transparent HA and scalability ... Read more
Enjoy and experiment RAC Features
Introduction: The goal of this section is to explore some of the Oracle Clusterware feaures as node fencing, callouts, as well as working with services and Policy managed servers . To know more about the cluster lab used in this article please have a look on my previous RACattack on Redhat 7 blog post >> ... Read more
Deploying Oracle active Data Guard 12c on Windows servers Part II (Administration)
6.Data Guard Administration In the Part II We will perform the following tasks in this lab to manage and validate the data guard configuration (followed in order). if you wonder how we got here check the Part I : Implementation 1. Configure the Data Guard Broker 2. Change the redo transport mode (via Broker/ ... Read more
Deploying Oracle active Data Guard 12c on Windows servers part I
1. INTRODUCTION Data Guard started with a very simple database function designed to keep a synchronized database copy with a lot of manual work. It has now become a tool with automation, recovery and failover features. Oracle Data Guard remains the only solution available today with the best RPO and RTO benefits for businesses. This document describes the ... Read more
Deploying Oracle active Data Guard 12c on Windows servers Part III (FAST START FAILOVER)
7. FAST START FAILOVER7.1 CONFIGURATION FAST START FAILOVERFast start failover allows Data Guard to automatically failover to a previously selected standby database without human intervention. Data Guard monitors the status of the configuration continuously and triggers a failover if necessary.This architecture makes the fast-start failover ideal for high availability and disaster recovery.» Prerequisites to enable ... Read more
Restore standard naming of network interfaces on Red Hat enterprise linux 7
Disabling consistent network device naming To disable The consistent network device naming feature and create your own manual ma,ing scheme ,for example eth0,internet0 or lan0. Follow the below steps so that all network device names will be eth followed by an integer. Log in as root, or as a user with superuser privileges. Edit the GRUB 2 general settings file. Create a backup copy ... Read more
12c Data Guard : Resolve Log gap Error: ORA-16724: “cannot resolve gap for one or more standby databases”
This error happened while my Lab standby server was unreachable for few days. Although my setup was built on top of a Windows environment, the resolution process stays the same here for fixing this error (using an RMAN incremental backup) . For more details about the Data Guard setup used in this example please refer ... Read more
Deploying Oracle RAC Database 12c Lab on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 with Virtual Box -racattack Repack
Introduction: This document provides a step-by-step deployment procedure with some of best practices to install and configure an Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) Database 12c Release 1 (12.1)* with Oracle ASM on Linux RedHat Entreprise 7 virtual machines (Virtualbox). Most of it is inspired by the RACAttack project that was written collaboratively by many authors all ... Read more
70-462 Training Kit Setup Preparation: Hyper-V – SQL server 2012 on Windows server 2012 R2 – Part 2
Here we are in the last section to configure the practice Setup . We will assume at this point that sysprep has been executed on the parent Vm as described in the first part of this Lab (see Part 1>>) and all the VMs have gone through setup process. OS Configuration Overview This section is comprised of ... Read more
70-462 Training Kit Setup Preparation: Hyper-V – SQL server 2012 on Windows server 2012 R2 – Part I
Introduction: Training Kit (Exam 70-462): Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases, states that 6 machines are needed in order to complete the lessons and exercises. Though I consider it an overkill for a database administration certification (especially when one only needs 3 machines to try out all or most of Oracle High availability features RAC /DATA ... Read more