https://blogs.oracle.com/wim/entry/more_oracle_linux_options A few days ago I wrote a summary of what you get with Oracle Linux. Because there are so many things, I forgot a few... and this is just a continuation of that previous entry.

There are 2 more features that I wanted to present :

Oracle Database Smart Flash Cache

DBSFC is a very cool feature that's available for both Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux customers with the 11gR2 database. In summary, it allows you to basically extend the Oracle Buffer Cache in memory (SGA) using secondary flash based storage. This flash based storage can be presented to the database through a file on a filesystem on flash storage, a raw disk device (flash-based) or through adding flash storage to Oracle ASM and creating a region inside ASM.

For the most part this feature is going to help with read-only/read-mostly workloads because DBSFC is a read-only cache extension. It contains clean blocks that got kicked out of the buffercache/sga and now first get placed in this extended cache. A subsequent read can then be from this fast storage instead of from the originating datafiles. When a block gets modified, it's modified in the standard database buffer cache, written to disk and copied over into the flash cache.

The white paper referenced above provides the details on how to use it and how to configure it in an Oracle Linux environment. You simply specify DB_FLASH_CACHE_FILE and DB_FLASH_CACHE_SIZE and that's it. Any Oracle Database customer using Oracle Linux can make use of this.

Assigning a control cgroup (cgroup) in Oracle Linux to an Oracle database instance.

Oracle Linux has resource management through a feature called cgroups. cgroups lets you create resource groupings based on cpu, memory or disk parameters (or a combination). cgroups is also the internal set of features that Linux containers (lxc) uses. Basically you put processes (pids/tasks) into a cgroup and then they live within the limits of that cgroup definition. With lxc you basically also get process isolation on top.

It works like this : as an admin you set up a cgroup, give it a name and set up paremeters around which cpu's to use, how much memory to allocate and so forth. The name is really just a simple mkdir in the cgroups virtual filesystem. You then use a new database init parameter process_group_name and when you start the database it will put its processes and as such its resources into that group. alter system set processor_group_name = 'cgroup_name' scope=spfile;. You can do this for each instance and this way you can isolate cpu and memory resources for each instance on a given OS environment. If you use Oracle Linux 5 with uek/uek2 or Oracle Linux 6 with uek/uek2 you can make use of this.

cgroups with Oracle Linux 5 and UEK/UEK2 has to happen manually, through mkdir and echo > controlfiles. In Oracle Linux 6 we have cgroup management utilities.

two more reasons :)...

https://blogs.oracle.com/java/entry/judges_selected_for_duke_s

The 2012 Duke's Choice Awards judges have been selected (or coerced), and it is an impressive list of community members:

• Yara Senger, SouJava
• John Yeary, Greenville Java Users Group
• Glen Peterson, JUG member and CTO PlanBase, Inc.
• Martijn Verburg, London City JUG
• Justin Kestelyn, OTN
• Michelle Kovac, Java Marketing & Operations
• Arun Gupta, Java Evangelist & Glassfish community member
• Sharat Chander, Java Evangelist team manager

In addition to the nine winners selected by the judging panel, a Community Choice winner will be selected via the java.net polling tool. The Community Choice vote will go live July 1st at java.net.

 A 10-year old tradition in the Java community, the Duke's Choice Awards awards are granted to the best and most innovative projects using Java. The primary judging criteria for this prestigious award is innovation, putting small developer shops on an equal footing with multinational giants. The ten most innovative submissions will be announced in the September/October issue of Java Magazine and showcased at Java One in San Francisco.

The Duke's Choice Awards celebrate extreme innovation in the world of Java technology. Nominate an individual, a group or company who show the best in Java innovation. There are no predetermined categories--it's all about innovation. Nominate via the easy online form at www.Java.net/dukeschoice. Nominations are open until June 15, 2012.

http://itnewscast.com/middleware/deploying-oam-11g-correctly-part-2-%E2%80%93...

This is another post in our OAM 11g Academy series. To view the first post in the series which will be updated throughout to contain links to the entire series, click here: http://fusionsecurity.blogspot.com/2011/02/oracle-access-manager-11g-academy.html

A couple months ago Chris wrote a good post about the best way to deploy OAM from a web server / network architecture point of view.

read more

http://www.careersinfosecurity.com/tips-for-contracting-cloud-services-a-4797 What Organizations Need to Consider Choosing a Vendor
Cloud services contracts often provide little to no wiggle room. What steps do organizations need to take before signing any contract? IT security lawyer Françoise Gilbert offers some key strategies.

https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=10356744&tstart=0#1035... Friends,
...

https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=10356743&tstart=0#1035... any ideas from experts?

thanks!

http://twitter.com/Oracle/statuses/205784819202916354 Oracle: If you've demonstrated leadership deploying #Oracle solutions, share your story. Oracle #Leadership #awards: http://t.co/tGlEVdmA

https://blogs.oracle.com/javase/entry/6u34_developer_preview_is_now The early access build of Java SE 6 Update 34 (6u34-b01) is now available for download.

You may subscribe to our Java SE Developer News feed

or if you prefer emails, enter your email address here:

https://blogs.oracle.com/oraclemaster/entry/11g_r2_rac_expert_%E3%83%89%E3%82... 昨夜は気づいたら眠ってしまっていた。寝かしつけの途中で寝てしまったのだ。作業中のノートPCは開きっぱなしだったが無事だった。ちび怪獣も睡魔には勝てなかったらしい。

昨日、ちび怪獣が私に「あーん」してくれる話を書いたが、 ちび怪獣（息子　1歳8カ月）は動物への餌やりが好きだ（私への餌やり？も含めて）。

ちび怪獣は、今までに、アヒル、ウサギ、山羊、羊、ロバ、馬、シカ、アシカ、イルカ、キリン、ゾウ、トラに餌をやったことがある。

タイのチェンマイの動物園のサファリで、野菜スティックをシマウマとキリンに食べさせたときは、ちび怪獣（当時　1歳2カ月）はキリンにあげるついでに、なんと自分もムシャムシャ美味しそうに頬張っていた（幸い、お腹を壊すことはなかった）。

チェンライのカレン族の村でアジアゾウにサトウキビとバナナをやったときは、当然のようにバナナは自分用のおやつだと思っていた。

そして5月の連休で行ったハルビンの虎園では、アムールトラに鶏もも肉をトングで摘まんでオリに差し入れた。いきなり肉に飛びつくアムールトラ。驚いて大泣きするちび怪獣。ちび怪獣の声に驚き泣きだす他の子どもたち。壮絶な光景だった。ちなみに、ハルビンの虎園では生きている動物を餌としてやることもできる。日本円にして600円払えば生きている鶏一匹、何万円か支払えば生きている羊を餌としてトラにやることができる。鶏もも肉の塊（260円くらい）と鶏一匹と、何が違うのか、と考えさせられた。

海外の動物園は、成都、クアラルンプール、あと、コロンボの動物園に行ったことがあるが、日本では見られない動物がいたり、展示方法もダイナミックだったりして面白い。コロンボの動物園では、他の動物用の飼料をゾウが運んでいた。使役用のゾウだ。

さて、今日はどのトピックを勉強するか・・・。まだ何となく受かる気はしないのだが、6月に入るとまた少し仕事が忙しくなってしまうので、その前に合格しておきたい。

実は月曜にGoldとPlatinumの試験対策セミナーをオンラインで受講したのだが、そのセミナーの中で

・分からない問題は後回し。他の問題がヒントになるかも
・消去法で選択肢を減らす
・最後は勘とか常識で考える

と言っていた。いけるかも？！
あぁ「試験範囲は完全に網羅しておくように」「理解していないと解けない」とも言っていたなぁ。

一番乗りの人のコメントによると、Gridの出題が多いようなので、やはりGridの勉強をすべきか。

と書いているうちに、寝室からちび怪獣の声。まだ寝ててくれ、6時前だ。

https://blogs.oracle.com/javase/entry/6u34_developer_preview_is_now The early access build of Java SE 6 Update 34 (6u34-b01) is now available for download.

You may subscribe to our Java SE Developer News feed

or if you prefer emails, enter your email address here: