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Big Data Integration Oracle NoSQL Database

3.0 gets more involved in big data strategies
and deployments / 14 Building Bridges Are
organizational silos thwarting IT architecture
goals? / 20 Managing Expressly Manage Oracle
Database 12c with Oracle Enterprise Manager
Database Express / 37 The Joy of Low-
Hanging Fruit Are you taking advantage of BULK
COLLECT and FORALL? / 43 On Table Updates
and SQL Plan Baselines Our technologist
updates tables quickly via CTAS and optimizes
queries for evolution / 49

SUCCESS
ON SPARC
The latest SPARC chips and
systems are at the center of
better business processes
2 VOLUME XXVIII - ISSUE 4
Cover: I-Hua Chen
Up Front / 5
FROM THE EDITOR / 5
The Cloud OS
Tom Haunert
At Oracle / 6
EVENTS / 6
Find out about upcoming
technology and industry
events.
RESOURCES / 8
Your guide to Oracle videos,
webcasts, podcasts, white
papers, and more
BRIEFS / 10
The latest product news
INTERVIEW / 14
Big Data Integration
As NoSQL technology
evolves, Oracle NoSQL
Database 3.0 gets
more involved in big
data strategies and
deployments.
Tom Haunert
JULY/AUGUST 2014 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
Community / 16
PARTNER NEWS / 16
BOOK BEAT / 16
COMMUNITY
BULLETIN / 19
Happenings in Oracle
Technology Network
Roland Smart
ARCHITECT / 20
Building Bridges
Organizational silos thwarting
IT architecture goals? Put
away the sledgehammer.
Bob Rhubart
PEER-TO-PEER / 21
Close Encounters
Three peers extol the
virtues of in-person classes
and conferences.
Blair Campbell
CONTENTS
SUCCESS
ON SPARC
Consolidating older and underperforming
servers onto newer and more-efficient servers
running a high-performance operating system
and low-overhead virtualization technology adds
new enterprise capacity and processing power
to cost-cutting consolidation projects. Read how
organizations are turning to the new generation
of SPARC servers and the Oracle Solaris
operating system for better business processes
and a better bottom line. Philip J. Gill
/ 26
Technology / 33 Comment / 54
ORACLE ADF / 33 IN THE FIELD / 54
Region Extreme: Learning Circle, Part 1
Multi-Task-Flow Binding President Alyssa Johnson
Render an unknown number talks about OAUGs
of task flows in page or evolving mission and
dashboard regions. commitment to innovation
Frank Nimphius through community.
MANAGEABILITY / 37 Carol Hildebrand
Managing Expressly
ANALYST / 55
Manage Oracle Database Deploy Applications in
12c with Oracle Enterprise Different Environments
Manager Database Express, Organizations look to todays
a built-in browser-based application server platforms
graphical tool. Arup Nanda to run high-performance
PL/SQL / 43 enterprise applications and
The Joy of Low- services. David Baum
Hanging Fruit TIME CAPSULE / 56
Are you using BULK Flashbacks: Culture. Industry.
COLLECT and FORALL for Oracle. Oracle Magazine.
bulk processing yet? Rich Schwerin
Steven Feuerstein
ASK TOM / 49
On Table Updates and
SQL Plan Baselines
Our technologist updates
tables quickly via CTAS
and optimizes queries for
evolution. Tom Kyte
 3

Editorial
Editor in ChiefTom Haunerttom.haunert@oracle.com
Managing EditorJan Rogersjan.rogers@oracle.com
Associate Editor Patty Waddington
Contributing Editor and Writer Blair Campbell
Technology Advisor Tom Kyte
Contributors Rich Schwerin, Leslie Steere
DESIGN
Senior Creative Director Francisco G Delgadillo
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Design Director Richard Merchn
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Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
 From The Editor 5

The Cloud OS
In cloud computing, the OS is more important than ever.

I n November 2011, Oracle introduced

Next Steps
READ more about
Oracle Solaris
oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11
bit.ly/1juvxQS
Oracle Solaris Guarantee Program
bit.ly/1mHegIU
OpenStack
bit.ly/1juvEMo
Send Mail to the Editors
Send your opinions about what you read in Oracle
Magazine, and suggestions for possible technical
articles, to opubedit_us@oracle.com. You can
also follow our @oraclemagazine Twitter feed or
join us on Facebook at bit.ly/orclmagfb.
Letters may be edited for length and clarity and
may be published in any medium. We consider
any communications we receive publishable.
Oracle Solaris 11the first cloud OS.
In April 2014, Oracle introduced Oracle
Solaris 11.2, with updated cloud features.
A cloud OS must do more than update fea-
tures, however, and Oracle Solaris certainly
does more, with new cloud features and
technologies that will continue to open
the cloud to high-performance mission-
critical applications.
Ongoing Evolution
Oracle Solaris 11.2 feature updates deliver
better performance for Oracle environ-
ments running the cloud OS, including
kernel mode acceleration, which delivers
performance acceleration for Oracle Real
Application Clusters; memory prediction
technology, which enables lower memory
utilization; and a new shared memory
model and other Oracle Database co
engineered enhancements.
Perhaps one of the most overlooked
ongoing features of all recent Oracle Solaris
releases has been the guarantee. The Oracle
Solaris Guarantee Program ensures that even
as new Oracle Solaris releases support new
features, binary applications and source code
developed for earlier releases of Oracle Solaris
will continue to run on newer releases.
Open Revolution
Oracle Solaris 11.2 includes built-in, efficient
enterprise cloud virtualization. Oracle Solaris
Zones, for example, have been enhanced in
the new release to include support for fully
independent and isolated environments,
called kernel zones. Also new in the cloud OS,
application-driven software-defined-
networking support, from application to
storage, helps to ensure that application
service-level agreements are maintained
within data center and cloud environments.
One new feature of the Oracle Solaris 11.2
cloud OS, however, has received the most
attention: a complete OpenStack distribution.
OpenStack is an open source cloud
project, and the OpenStack distribution in
Oracle Solaris is a foundation for building
an Oracle Solarisbased cloud. OpenStack
in Oracle Solaris 11.2 provides a central loca-
tion for managing compute, networking, and
storage resources. With OpenStack, Oracle
VM templates, and the new unified archives
capability, organizations can deploy a single-
system, multi-virtual-machine OpenStack
environment in a matter of minutes.
New features mean new choices. For vir-
tualization, Oracle Solaris 11.2 supports mul-
tiple virtualization technologies, including
Oracle Solaris Zones and Oracle VM Server
for SPARC. In addition to the option to build
Oracle Solarisbased clouds with OpenStack,
Oracle Solaris 11.2 offers the choice to build
clouds based on the Oracle Optimized
Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure.
Established Institution
From OpenStack to an open invitation:
The institution that is Oracle OpenWorld
San Francisco runs September 28 through
October 2, 2014, and registration is now
open at oracle.com/openworld. Be part of
the latest Oracle announcements, explore
Oracle partner solutions, listen to other
Oracle customers, network, and be part of
the cloud computing conversation.
Tom Haunert, Editor in Chief
tom.haunert@oracle.com

CONNECT: bit.ly/aVgo69 bit.ly/orclmagfb twitter.com/oraclemagazine linkd.in/orclmag

oracle magazine July/August 2014

6 Events

Technology Events Oracle User Groups

Conferences and sessions to help you stay Burlington Ruby Conference

August 23, Burlington, Vermont
on the cutting edge burlingtonruby.com

German Oracle Users Group

Regional Meeting
August 4, Hamburg, Germany
Oracle OpenWorld doag.org
September 28October 2
South African Oracle User
San Francisco, California Group HR/HCM SIG Meeting
Oracle OpenWorld is the most important educational August 8, Johannesburg, South Africa
and networking event of the year for Oracle technolo- saoug.co.za
gists, customers, and partners. Thousands of sessions NoCOUG 2014 Summer Conference
and hundreds of demos and labs help attendees dis- August 21, San Ramon, California
cover new product and technology solutions, improve nocoug.org
their technical proficiency and knowledge, learn tips
Austin Java Users Group Meeting
and tricks for currently installed products, and gain August 26, Austin, Texas
an understanding of where the industry is headed. austinjug.org
Register at oracle.com/openworld
Suncoast Oracle Users Group Meeting
August 26, Tampa, Florida
soug.org
Flash Memory Summit USENIX Security Symposium
August 57, Santa Clara, California August 2022, San Diego, California Dallas Oracle Users Group Oracle
Database 12c New Features
fflashmemorysummit.com fbit.ly/1qf8i1i August 28, Irving, Texas
This three-day event includes tutorials, in-depth This symposium brings together researchers, doug.org
sessions, hands-on labs, and keynotes from practitioners, systems administrators, and systems
UKOUG Development SIG Meeting
industry experts. Tutorials cover flash tech- programmers and includes refereed papers, panel September 9, Reading, England
nology, architectures, solid-state drives, hard- discussions, and Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. ukoug.org
ware, testing, storage, and applications.
Midsize Enterprise Summit West Central States Oracle Application Users
Group Executive Luncheon
XChange 2014 September 1416, Dallas, Texas September 12, St. Louis, Missouri
August 1719, San Antonio, Texas fxchange-events.com/mesw14 csoaug.com
fbit.ly/1mYQd7d This conference brings together more than 220
All India Oracle Users Group Tech Day
XChange 2014 features sessions and demos CIOs and senior-level IT decision-makers to meet September 14, Kerala, India
focused on IT topics such as cloud computing, with top technology vendors and analysts to offer aioug.org
storage optimization, networking, virtualization, insight into the ever-changing midsize market.
UKOUG Business Intelligence and
security, mobility, and connectivity. Reporting Tools SIG Meeting
MobileHCI September 17, London, England
Quest INFOCUS ANZ User Group September 2326, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ukoug.org
Annual Conference fmobilehci.acm.org/2014 OAUG South Australia Meeting
August 1819, Melbourne, Australia MobileHCI covers the field of human-computer September 24, Adelaide, Australia
fbit.ly/1h8Gc7v interaction (HCI) and is the premier forum for inno- ausoug.org.au
Sponsored by Quest International Users Group, vations in mobile, portable, and personal devices
OUG Ireland HCM SIG Meeting
this conference features content related to and the services to which they enable access. September 24, Dublin, Ireland
Oracles JD Edwards products and Oracle ukoug.org
Fusion Applications. DEMO Africa
September 2526, Lagos, Nigeria
REGister for these upcoming Oracle events fdemo-africa.com Events locator
Oracle OpenWorld 2014 DEMO Africa is the initiative of the Liberating
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September 28October 2
oracle.com/openworld Innovation in Opportunity Nations partnership, Oracle Events
aimed at enhancing the technology startup oracle.com/events
JavaOne
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oracle.com/javaone oracle.com/technetwork/community
African economies.

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 SEpt. 28 - Oct. 2, 2014
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8 Resources
Whats New at Oracle
The latest videos, podcasts, blogs, and more
Videos
Better Clouds at Lower Costs
fbit.ly/1n8L5hd
Learn how to build efficient clouds with Oracles
SPARC servers running Oracle Solaris.
Simplify Your Business with Oracle
Business Analytics
fbit.ly/1g90cWz
Learn how to keep costs down without sacrificing
performance or data quality for discovery, busi-
ness intelligence, and planning applications.
Why Move Business Applications from
IBM to Oracle
fbit.ly/1iljLHD
Improve performance and efficiency and reduce
costs by moving enterprise applications from IBM
Power to Oracles SPARC servers.
Oracle Real-World Performance
Video Series
fbit.ly/QtTS2b
Oracles Real-World Performance team
shares best practices and performance
methodologies to help you make the most of
your Oracle Database investment.
Webcasts
Ricoh Americas Delivers on Anytime,
Anywhere Promise with Cloud and
On-Premises Integration
fbit.ly/1r5GxbS
Discover the rewards of using Oracle
AppAdvantage for SOA-based cloud, on-
premises, and mobile integration initiatives.
Spend Testing Time More Effectively
fbit.ly/OKNXVk
Explore the latest trends in software testing that
allow you to deploy higher-quality applications in
less time.
Top Data Warehouse Trends and
Opportunities for 2014
fbit.ly/1dy5Gvq
CONNECT:
JULY/AUGUST 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Discover the data management issues that CIOs sionals to discuss improving strategy execution,
are most eager to solve. operational excellence, and financial performance.
White Papers E-Books
Simplify the Migration of Oracle Database Oracle Applications Together with Oracle
and Oracle Applications from IBM AIX to Systems: From the Customers Perspective
Oracle Solaris fbit.ly/1rFN8go
fbit.ly/1egb5Wb Hear from current Oracle customers about how
Learn the four steps required to migrate from running Oracle Applications on Oracle systems
AIX to Oracle Solaris, and explore an example that simplifies IT and delivers speed and efficiency.
illustrates the effort, duration, and benefits of
the migration. Resource Centers
Data Integration for Oracle Applications
The Top 10 Reasons to Choose MySQL for fbit.ly/1ht6XEy
Next-Generation Web Applications Access white papers, customer testimonials, and
fbit.ly/1lhPL3e more that illustrate how to gain incremental value
Gain a better understanding of why MySQL is the by using best-in-class data integration solutions.
best choice for modern web-, mobile-, and cloud-
based applications. Oracle University
Complete Oracle Solaris 11 Curriculum
Podcasts fbit.ly/1i1Rdr3
Oracle Cloud, Featuring Demand Analysis Quickly obtain the skills needed to manage
fbit.ly/1qj5Eta mission-critical cloud deployments.
Hear Peter Mulligan, Demand Analysis cofounder
and vice president of sales and marketing, New Oracle WebLogic Server 12c Curriculum
discuss why his company chose Oracle Cloud for fbit.ly/1hMlzKG
its customer intelligence solution. Explore training and certification for Oracle
WebLogic Server 12c.
Making the Right Storage Choices:
Part 1High Availability
web locator
fbit.ly/1hC2cTv
Learn the characteristics of highly available
Oracle Consulting
systems and their impact on the efficiency and oracle.com/consulting
performance of your storage architecture. Oracle Events and Webcasts
oracle.com/events
Social Media Oracle Newsletters
Oracle President Mark Hurd on LinkedIn oracle.com/newsletters
Influencer Blog Oracle Podcast Center
oracle.com/podcasts
flinkd.in/1ernjIb
Oracle University
Read Oracle President Mark Hurds posts about bit.ly/ouoramag
enterprise IT mandates, executive leadership, Oracle Support
customer imperatives, and innovation. oracle.com/support
My Oracle Support
Oracles Instantis Page on LinkedIn myoraclesupport.com
flinkd.in/1sB0wCT My Oracle Support Communities
communities.oracle.com
Join other project portfolio management profes-
oracle.com/blogs facebook.com/oracle twitter.com/oracle linkedin.com/company/oracle bit.ly/LdGiM0
Simple. Adaptable.
Manageable.
quic
uides for
Solution g !
eployment
and easy d
Simple: We are committed to making our solutions the easiest to
install, configure, and integrate into either existing IT systems or data
centers or new build-outs. We ship our solution as ready to install
as possible (e.g., tool-less rack PDU installation and standard cable
management features). With our easy-to-configure infrastructure,
you can focus on more pressing IT concerns such as network threats.

ace!
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Adaptable: Our solutions can be adapted to ft any IT confguration
at any time from small IT to data centers! Vendor-neutral
enclosures, for example, come in different depths, heights, and widths
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ur
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Manageable: Local and remote management are

simplifed with out-of-the-box UPS outlet control,
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and robust reporting capabilities help you prevent
IT problems and quickly resolve them when they do
occur from anywhere! Whats more, our life cycle
services ensure optimal operations.

Easy-to-deploy IT physical infrastructure

Solution guides make it easy to determine what you need to solve todays challenges. The core Integrated InfraStruxure solutions include
everything for your IT physical infrastructure
of our system, vendor-neutral enclosures and rack PDUs, makes deployment incredibly headache-
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10 Product Resources
TUTORIALS AND VIDEOS
Java SE 8 Technical Videos
Dive into the new features of Java SE 8
with this series of technical videos covering
the Internet of Things, Java ME, Oracle
Java Embedded, and Java SE.
bit.ly/1kexe6Z
How Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance
Lowers Backup Risk and Cost
Oracle Vice President Steve Zivanic
explains how Oracle ZFS Storage
Appliances including the new Oracle ZFS
Storage Appliance ZS3-BA help reduce
backup and recovery risks and cost.
bit.ly/1gtwTRj
How to Upgrade Oracles SPARC
T5-4 Server Processor
Watch this step-by-step animation to
learn how to upgrade a SPARC T5-4
server from a one-processor to a four-
processor configuration.
bit.ly/1mRX9X6
How to Upgrade Oracles SPARC
T5-8 Server Processor
Follow the steps for upgrading a SPARC
T5-8 server from a four-processor to an
eight-processor configuration in this ani-
mation, which covers preparing the new
processor modules, removing the processor
filler modules, installing the new processor
modules, and more.
bit.ly/1j9JoQF
DOWNLOADS
Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0
Release 3.0 of Oracle NoSQL Database
offers developers an enhanced NoSQL
solution for building high-performance,
next-generation applications providing
increased security, simplified data mod-
eling, secondary indexes, and multi-data-
center performance enhancement.
bit.ly/1kmj8lv
Oracle Database Migration
Assistant for Unicode 2.0
Oracle Database Migration Assistant for
Unicode 2.0, released in March 2014, sup-
ports the migration of Oracle Database 12c
pluggable databases to Unicode. Other
new features include enhanced bulk
cleansing features with pattern-based
replacement to resolve certain classes of
data convertibility issues and improved
conversion error-handling mechanisms.
bit.ly/1kez1ZT
JULY/AUGUST 2014 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
Oracle Extends Cloud with Database and Storage Cloud Services
Oracle has announced two new Oracle Cloud
services, Oracle Database Backup Cloud
Service and Oracle Storage Cloud Service.
Oracle Database Backup Cloud Service
provides a scalable, low-cost Oracle
Database cloud backup solution and is
tightly integrated with Oracle Recovery
Manager (Oracle RMAN), allowing cus-
tomers to use familiar Oracle RMAN
commands for performing backup and
recovery operations between on-premises
databases and Oracle Cloud. Oracle Storage
Cloud Service enables organizations to
securely store, access, and manage data in
the cloud. Oracle Storage Cloud Service is
API-compatible with OpenStack Swift and
provides access to data through REST and
Java APIs.
Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance X4-2: Turnkey Solution for Cloud
Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance X4-2,
the newest release of Oracle Virtual
Compute Appliance, is a wire-once engi-
neered system that comes fully assembled
and ready to run pro-
duction workloads with
minimal software-
defined configuration.
Oracle Virtual
Compute Appliance
is a turnkey solution
for flexible private
cloud platforms that
can be used with
Oracle Enterprise
Manager 12c to
deploy cloud services
Oracle Configure, Price, and Quote Cloud Advances On-the-Go Sales
With the latest release of Oracle Configure,
Price, and Quote Cloud (Oracle CPQ Cloud),
sales professionals and partners can now
access the entire Oracle CPQ suite via
mobile tablets from anywhere, anytime, and
stay productive while on the go.
Oracle CPQ Cloud streamlines the sales
process from inquiry to order by enabling
sales staff and partners to generate sales
quotes, orders, and proposals quickly and
accuratelyfrom anywhere, on any device.
New enhancements include formula man-
To remain competitive in todays highly
connected business environment, organiza-
tions are increasingly adopting and building
new cloud-based solutions. There is also a
huge push to migrate existing on-premises
workloads to the public cloud and support
portability between on-premises and cloud
environments, says Chris Pinkham, senior
vice president of cloud product develop-
ment at Oracle. To help customers achieve
these goals, Oracle has further expanded
its comprehensive set of enterprise-grade
infrastructure cloud services. The new
services are based on open standards,
integrated to work together seamlessly, and
designed to support full portability between
on-premises and cloud environments.
oracle.com/cloud
ranging from infrastructure as a service to
database as a service with features such
as automated provisioning, elasticity, and
cloud governance.
The Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance
exemplifies Oracles unique ability to
engineer hardware and software together,
providing a superior solution thats easy
to deploy and use without requiring
major infrastructure changes, says Wim
Coekaerts, senior vice president of Linux and
virtualization at Oracle. This engineered
system can significantly cut provisioning
time and offers investment protection by
allowing customers to mix server genera-
tions in the same rack.
bit.ly/S2KlR2
agement, enabling administrators to create
complex pricing and discounting calcula-
tions in a drag-and-drop interface without
scripting or advanced rules.
Oracle CPQ Cloud helps improve cus-
tomer satisfaction and sales efficiency,
says Ken Volpe, senior vice president of
Oracle product development. Its integra-
tion into Oracle CX Cloud enables sales
teams to sell more and sell faster, from lead
to order and service through renewal.
bit.ly/1iuQiLo

Oracle Identity Management 11g Release 2 Adds Advanced Security
Features for Cloud and Mobile Devices
The recently updated Oracle Identity
Management 11g Release 2 includes
enhancements that enable organizations
to extend consistent access policies and
controls beyond enterprise applications
and systems to cloud-based systems and
mobile devices.
Key new features and functionality in the
latest release include
Oracle Mobile Security Suite. Secures cor-
porate applications and data on personal
devices and delivers a consistent user
experience across channels by extending
identity services such as fraud detec-
tion, user registration, and self-service
password management to customer and
employee digital interactions.
Cloud access portal. Extends the range of
enterprise single sign-on beyond Microsoft
Windows desktops and enables users to
have single-sign-on access to software-as-
a-service applications from a simple and
personalized launch pad, available on any
device, tablet, or workstation.
Oracle Mobile Authenticator. Provides
Oracle Marketing Cloud Adds Manufacturing Cloud Service
The latest addition to Oracle Marketing
Cloud, Oracle Eloqua for Manufacturing
Cloud Service is a flexible and scalable
cloud-based solution designed to help
manufacturing organizations deliver per-
sonalized experiences to customers and
prospects while improving marketing out-
comes and efficiency.
The new solution introduces industry-
specific capabilities that enhance targeting
and segmentation, increase engagement,
improve measurement, and produce
actionable reporting. With a full view of
the buyers journey, insights into customer
demand signals, and integrated business
intelligence reporting, marketers in global
manufacturing organizations are able to
drive demand and improve the quality of
leads that are passed to sales.
Oracle Eloqua for Manufacturing Cloud
Service includes product registration capa-
bilities that help deliver efficient product
I-HUA CHEN
maintenance and subscription renewals,
and it provides intuitive templates and
a mobile application to simplify strong
authentication, replacing corporate-
issued hardware tokens at a fraction of
the cost.
Expanded support for OAuth. Supports
two- and three-legged OAuth as well as
more-complex use cases of obtaining
consent from a user before a third-party
consumer application can access informa-
tion on a service providers application site.
With the latest release of Oracle
Identity Management 11g Release 2, Oracle
is providing organizations with the most
advanced and comprehensive identity
management platform, says Amit Jasuja,
senior vice president of identity manage-
ment and security at Oracle. As a result,
organizations can realize the full poten-
tial of cloud and
mobile applications
while helping to
ensure that valu-
able company data
remains secure.
bit.ly/1pHvJVT
workflows that help marketers quickly and
efficiently create and extend channel rela-
tionships. Campaign tasks are automated
and personalized across print, e-mail, web,
and telemarketing channels.
Manufacturing organizations want to
improve engagement with customers and
prospects across digital channels so that
they can gain better visibility into their sales
pipeline and grow their businesses, says
Steve Miranda, executive vice president for
Oracle Applications development. With
capabilities developed specifically for man-
ufacturers including prebuilt templates and
leading business intelligence, Oracle Eloqua
for Manufacturing Cloud Service helps man-
ufacturers improve marketing effectiveness
and drive revenue.
bit.ly/1h7ygPZ
For more about Oracle Marketing Cloud,
the modern marketing solution that inte-
grates cross-channel, content, and social
marketing with data management for the
enterprise, visit bit.ly/1vcuRZQ.
BRIEFS 11
MySQL 5.7 Available Now
A new development milestone release
for MySQL 5.7, available now, extends the
performance, scalability, and reliability of
MySQL and adds enhanced management
capabilities. Available for download in the
MySQL Developer Zone, the milestone
release delivers improvements in replication,
security, and instrumentation, resulting
in significantly higher performance and
improved manageability over MySQL 5.6.
The latest MySQL 5.7 development
milestone release delivers enhanced per-
formance and management features to the
MySQL community, says Tomas Ulin, vice
president of MySQL engineering at Oracle.
By encouraging ongoing community par-
ticipation and following the release early,
release often model, we help shorten the
feedback-to-delivery cycle and allow users
to get faster access to improved product
capabilities and quality.
bit.ly/1mRYb5z
NetBeans IDE 8.0 Delivers
Comprehensive Java 8 Support
NetBeans IDE 8.0, available now, allows
developers to make efficient use of the
latest features in Java Platform, Standard
Edition 8 (Java SE 8) by quickly identifying
and converting code to new Java language
constructs, such as Lambda expressions and
Java SE 8 Compact Profiles. The new release
also further extends HTML5 support by
adding new features for common JavaScript
frameworks and introduces new tools for
popular Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
frameworks such as PrimeFaces.
Additional enhancements include Oracle
Java SE Embedded 8 support for deploying,
running, debugging, and profiling Java SE
applications on an embedded device directly
from the NetBeans IDE and support for the
new Java Micro Edition 8 (Java ME 8) specifi-
cation and Oracle Java ME Embedded 8.
Java SE 8 represents a major advance-
ment for the Java community, says Chris
Tonas, vice president of mobility and devel-
opment tools at Oracle. NetBeans IDE
8.0 ensures that Java developers have the
advanced tooling to support their adoption
of this new technology.
netbeans.org
ORACLE MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2014
12 BRIEFS
Oracle Fusion Innovation Management Joins Oracle SCM Portfolio
Oracle Fusion Innovation Management,
a new product value chain solution in the
Oracle Supply Chain Management port-
folio of applications, provides companies
with a systematic approach for capturing,
selecting, and investing in the right
product ideas and managing their product
portfolios. The new solution enables
bottom-up innovation so all stakeholders
can participate in the product invention
and definition processes, with simulta-
neous top-down financial impact analysis
and strategic-fit visibility to the key port-
folio owners during and post investment
decision. It also enables organizations
to define and manage different product
development projects in the context of
their overall product portfolio.
Oracle Fusion Innovation Management
New Release of Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Improves
Procure-to-Pay Processes and Talent Management
Oracle has announced Release 11.1.1.8.1 of
Oracle Business Intelligence Applications,
which includes prebuilt connectors
between Oracle Procurement and Spend
Analytics and Oracles JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne and adds a new talent
profile analytics module.
Built on Oracle Business Intelligence
Foundation Suite, Oracle Business
Intelligence Applications enable organi-
zations to easily extend their business
intelligence (BI) footprint or build custom
Oracle Sales Cloud Provides Anywhere, Anytime Access
By giving sales reps a continuous and sim-
plified experience on both desktop and
mobile devices, even when in a discon-
nected mode, the latest release of Oracle
Sales Cloud offers anywhere, anytime access
designed to achieve fast and wide user
adoption. The latest release helps sales reps
focus on the deals with the highest likeli-
hood of closing and increases the predict-
ability of achieving sales targets by deliv-
ering real-time predictive analytics on both
desktop and mobile devices.
Oracle Sales Cloud also helps customers
preserve their existing IT investments and
establish an easy path to the cloud by facili-
JULY/AUGUST 2014 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
integrates with Oracles Agile Product
Lifecycle Management, helping to stream-
line the process of moving concepts along to
detailed design, development, and release
to manufacturing while maintaining full vis-
ibility into project status.
By providing a highly usable but system-
atic approach to managing product innova-
tion, Oracle Fusion Innovation Management
can accelerate the transformation of the
best ideas into profitable products and
deliver against your corporate product
innovation strategy,
says Jon Chorley,
group vice president
of Oracles supply
chain management
product strategy.
bit.ly/1mRXV6E
BI applications to meet specific analytics
needs for line-of-business managers
and executives.
Oracle Business Intelligence
Applications provide a critical platform for
unlocking and analyzing enterprise-level and
business-level insights, says Paul Rodwick,
vice president of product management at
Oracle, with the latest updates reducing the
time and complexity to achieve a competi-
tive advantage through data.
bit.ly/1qnCZa1
tating integration from on-premises sales
force automation systems such as Oracles
Siebel Customer Relationship Management
and Oracle E-Business Suite applications.
The enhancements to Oracle Sales
Cloud reinforce Oracles commitment to
deliver simple and smart sales automation
solutions, says Siva Sundaresan, group
vice president for Oracle Sales Cloud. With
the latest release, Oracle Sales Cloud offers
sales teams a simple design, more intelli-
gence, and greater mobility to help optimize
customer interactions, increase sales effec-
tiveness and efficiency, and drive revenue.
bit.ly/1hIJkHd
OpenStack Support for Oracle
Linux and Oracle VM
Oracle has introduced a technology preview
of an OpenStack distribution that allows
Oracle Linux and Oracle VM users to work
with the open source cloud software, pro-
viding customers with additional choices
and interoperability while taking advantage
of the efficiency, performance, scalability,
and security of Oracle Linux and Oracle VM.
The distribution is delivered as part of the
Oracle Linux and Oracle VM Premier Support
offerings, at no additional cost.
Oracle is working closely with the
OpenStack community across many areas,
says Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president
of Linux and virtualization at Oracle. Oracle
will continue to help deliver OpenStack
capabilities to enable our customers to more
efficiently deploy, manage, and support
their large Oracle data center deployments.
bit.ly/1iZVDPK
Fujitsu and Oracle Enhance
Fujitsu M10 Servers
Fujitsu and Oracle have announced world-
wide availability of enhanced Fujitsu M10-1,
M10-4, and M10-4S servers equipped with
the new SPARC64 X+ processor, which has 16
cores and runs at speeds up to 3.7 GHz.
The new Fujitsu M10-4S server sup-
ports mixed SPARC64 X and X+ chassis in a
single system, and the modular design and
physical partition dynamic reconfiguration
feature allow the Fujitsu M10-4S to grow by
adding processors, memory, and I/O with
virtually no downtime.
The enhanced Fujitsu M10 servers
offer a new option for customers seeking
mission-critical computing solutions, says
Oracle Chief Corporate Architect Edward
Screven. Oracle and Fujitsus strong col-
laboration furthers Oracles commitment to
help customers accelerate their businesses
by engineering hardware and software to
I-HUA CHEN
achieve extreme performance.
bit.ly/1j9KLP4
14
Big Data Integration
As NoSQL technology evolves, Oracle NoSQL
Database 3.0 adds features and gets more involved
in big data strategies and deployments.
F ollowing the announcement of Oracle
NoSQL Database 3.0, Oracle Magazine
sat down with Dave Segleau, director of
product management at Oracle, to talk
about the state of NoSQL, NoSQL use
cases, and key features in Oracle NoSQL
Database 3.0. Listen to the podcast at
oracle.com/magcasts.
Oracle Magazine: What is the role of NoSQL
in the enterprise today?
Segleau: NoSQL is part of the big data
umbrella of technologies, and it plays a
role in the architecture and deployment
of big data solutions. NoSQL provides a
cost-effective, high-performance, hori-
zontally scalable database platform for
very simple structured and semistructured
data and simple operations at volume.
Enterprises are adopting NoSQL databases
because they offer very flexible application
developercentric data models and more-
efficient operations for simple data struc-
tures, which means that enterprises can
increase revenue by providing new types of
applications and services, as well as lower
their overall IT costs.
Oracle Magazine: How does NoSQL comple-
ment other information technologies
including the relational database?
Segleau: NoSQL was not designed as a
general-purpose database engine, but
rather it was designed to address a specific
set of data management challenges. As
such, its really a component within any
enterprise data management solution. It
complements Apache Hadoop and Hadoops
distributed data processing by providing
an equally distributed low-latency data-
base platform for fast indexed data access
directly from the MapReduce processes
within Hadoop.
It complements relational databases by
July/August 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Dave Segleau, Director of Product Management, Oracle
providing a horizontally scalable high-speed
database with relaxed transaction semantics
specifically designed for high-volume, high-
velocity distributed operations. This often
results in NoSQL being used to create new
applications or capture new data sets, or in
some cases, to offload some of the data and
operations from relational databases. NoSQL
databases are never deployed in an isolated
data management solution. Every one of our
Oracle NoSQL Database customers deploys a
combination of NoSQL, relational databases,
and Hadoop together, using the technology
thats the best tool for the job at hand.
Oracle Magazine: How are organizations
using Oracle NoSQL Database today?
Segleau: Based on the customers weve
talked to who have adopted Oracle NoSQL
Database, I can summarize the use cases
into three basic types. First, we see a lot of
companies using Oracle NoSQL Database
for what I call web scale personalization
and transactional applications. We often
see these kinds of applications in cus-
tomer service and customer self-service.
Industries for this kind of application
include financial services, insurance, adver-
tising, marketing, online catalogs, social
media, and e-retail.
The second use case that we see often
is Oracle NoSQL Database being used for
real-time event processing, and we typi-
cally see applications in fraud prevention,
medical monitoring, factory automation,
quality-of-service monitoring, and geo
location tracking.
And the third use case we often see is
Oracle NoSQL Database being used for
time-series data management. We typically
see applications within financial services
for managing stock and trading information
as well as within utilities, oil and gas, and
manufacturing for capturing sensor data.
Oracle Magazine: What types of processes
and what other technologies are typically
involved in these use cases?
Segleau: The technologies involved largely
depend on the functionality thats being
implemented. In every case weve seen,
there is definitely a relational database such
as Oracle Database and a data warehouse
in close proximity and, in fact, integrated
with the data in the NoSQL databases.
In many cases, especially with web scale
personalization and time-series data
management, Hadoop and MapReduce are
also used to provide batch processing and
simple summary statistics on the enormous
amounts of data that are becoming available.
We also often see middleware technolo-
gies integrated as part of a NoSQL-based
solution. In particular, we see products such
as Oracle Event Processing and Oracle Real-
Rex Rystedt
Time Decisions software used to process
and manage real-time events as well as

caching products such as Oracle Coherence
to cache both relational and nonrelational
data in the same application cache grid.
Oracle Magazine: Oracle recently
announced a new release of Oracle NoSQL
DatabaseOracle NoSQL Database 3.0.
Tell us about the key features of this release
and how it is enabling better big data pro-
cesses and results.
Segleau: Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0
was released in early April 2014, and it
includes some really interesting new
features. The release includes a new
table-based data model with support for
secondary indexes, and it also includes
support for secondary data centers, which
were calling zones, as well as the first set of
features around security.
Oracle Magazine: Tell us more about the
new table data model and secondary
indexes features.
Segleau: To facilitate adoption of NoSQL
technology, its important to make it avail-
able in a way thats familiar to our customers
and application developers. In that vein,
Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0 adds a table-
based data model, which allows developers
to more easily represent their data and build
applications more quickly. Its a flexible data
model implemented using JSON [JavaScript
Object Notation] structures, for storage as
well as for table evolution.
Along with the introduction of tables,
Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0 adds secondary
indexes, which can be built on any combi-
nation of fields within a given record. The
secondary indexes are colocated with the
primary data on each shard in the Oracle
NoSQL Database. The advantage of this
is that reads and writes on the secondary
index are very, very fast because theyre
colocated with the primary record within the
same shard. Additionally, the indexes are
transactionally consistent and secondary
index scans are automatically parallelized
across the shards. This results in a highly
efficient and scalable indexing scheme,
which application developers can then take
advantage of to meet the requirements of
their high-volume, low-latency queries.
Oracle Magazine: Tell us more about the new
secondary data centers feature.
Segleau: Oracle NoSQL Database introduced
Enterprises are adopting NoSQL
databases because they offer very flexible
application developercentric data models
and more-efficient operations for simple
data structures.
support for data centers in Release 2.1,
allowing enterprises to allocate resources,
essentially storage nodes, across data
centers with automatic replication and
failover between the different resources.
Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0 adds secondary
data centers, which were now calling zones.
Secondary zones allow enterprises to define
remote data centers, which participate in
global distribution via automatic asynchro-
nous replication.
So not only is Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0
replicating the data, but the secondary
data centers feature also enables applica-
tions to define queries and workloads to be
executed only on specific secondary zones.
Using the feature, applications can run spe-
cific workloads such as batch processing or
reporting against secondary zones rather
than impact the throughput and low-latency
queries that are being executed within the
primary zone. This combination of capabili-
ties enables enterprises to ensure continuity
through global disaster recovery planning
and to manage query and application load
balancing across and between primary and
secondary zones.
Oracle Magazine: Tell us more about the new
security features enabled in the new Oracle
NoSQL Database release.
Segleau: Oracle NoSQL Database adds SSL
[Secure Sockets Layer] encryption over the
wire for both client/server and server-to-
server communications, and it adds an
operating-system-independent, cluster-
wide password-based user authentication.
Passwords can be stored in a secure, obfus-
cated trust store or within the Oracle wallet.
These two capabilities enable enterprises to
provide greater protection from unauthor-
ized access to sensitive data, as well as to
protect from network intrusions.
Oracle Magazine: How have NoSQL and
Oracle NoSQL Database evolved, and what
Interview By Tom Haunert 15
are the business and technology challenges
for NoSQL going forward?
Segleau: The primary change that weve
seen is that applications have moved from
being science experiments to production
deployments of mission-critical technology.
This impacts the NoSQL technology industry
in a couple of ways. First of all, the decision-
makers have changed; its no longer just the
application developers who are choosing
which NoSQL product to use. Enterprise IT
departments are becoming important influ-
encers in choosing which NoSQL technology
vendors to partner with.
The second change is a shift in product
focus. In the early years of NoSQL, the tech-
nology and feature focus was extremely
developer-centric; it was all about feeds and
speeds. But over the past year or so, security
and system administrationespecially of
large, complex production deployments
has taken center stage. This evolution also
affects the features that are included in
Oracle NoSQL Database. This evolution
in product focus emphasizes the need to
provide integration with the overall existing
Oracle IT technology, as well as to provide
simple and automated administration capa-
bilities that address the IT concerns around
critical functions like disaster recovery,
security, and global data integrity.
I think that the challenge for businesses
is to identify technology partners, not just
products, that share an integrated enterprise-
centric view of how NoSQL extends their
existing IT infrastructure.
Next Steps
LEARN more about Oracle NoSQL Database
oracle.com/goto/nosql
LISTEN to the podcast
oracle.com/magcasts
oracle magazine July/August 2014
16 Book Beat
Oracle PL/SQL Performance Tuning
Tips & Techniques
By Michael Rosenblum and
Paul Dorsey
Oracle Press
oraclepressbooks.com
Oracle PL/SQL
Performance Tuning Tips
& Techniques is a hands-
on intermediate guide for developers and
programmers wanting to achieve results
by deploying the latest and best methods
for improving overall speed, reliability,
and security. Readers will learn expert
performance-tuning methods that draw
on decades of professional experience.
A number of real-world examples are
included in the book.
Predictive Analytics Using Oracle
Data Miner: Develop and Use
Data Mining Models in ODM, SQL,
and PL/SQL
By Brendan Tierney
Oracle Press
oraclepressbooks.com
This essential how-to
guide is written for data
scientists, data miners,
data analysts, Oracle
developers, and database administrators.
Predictive Analytics Using Oracle Data Miner
shows how to build and apply advanced
data mining models and perform data
mining tasks in SQL and PL/SQL. The book
includes guidance on how to migrate data
mining models from a test environment to
a production environment.
Oracle ADF Enterprise Application
DevelopmentMade Simple,
Second Edition
By Sten E. Vesterli
Packt
packtpub.com
Updated for the latest
release, Oracle ADF
Enterprise Application
DevelopmentMade
Simple, Second Edition explains how to
optimize Oracle Application Development
Framework 12c (Oracle ADF 12c) tech-
nology. Readers will walk through a devel-
opment project from proof of concept
through development and deployment. The
book demonstrates support tools for source
control and issue tracking and explains
application security. It also dives into spe-
cialty topics such as skinning, customiza-
tion, and internationalization.
Look for other Oracle books at
bit.ly/oraclebookstore
JULY/AUGUST 2014 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
Partners Earn Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized Status
Two Oracle partners have earned Oracle mentation services; enterprise IT services;
PartnerNetwork Specialized status for their and expertise in banking, financial services,
solutions. To achieve Oracle PartnerNetwork and supply chain technology.
Specialized status, Oracle partners are Black & Veatch, an Oracle Gold
required to meet a stringent set of require- Partner, achieved Oracle PartnerNetwork
ments that are based on the needs and prior- Specialized status for Oracle Utilities
ities of the customer and partner community. Customer Care and Billing. Black & Veatch
Aurionpro, an Oracle Platinum Partner, provides technology solutions for natural
achieved Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized gas, electric, and water utilities.
status for Oracle Access Management Suite aurionpro.com
Plus 11g. Aurionpro delivers Oracle imple- bv.com
Seven Partners Earn Oracle Exadata Optimized Status
Seven Oracle partners have achieved Oracle location intelligence.
Exadata Optimized status for their solu- Mformation
tions. Oracle Exadata Optimized status Software
is part of the Oracle Exastack Optimized Technologies, an
program, through which Oracle partners Oracle Gold Partner,
can develop, test, and tune their applica- achieved the status
tions on Oracle Exadata Database Machine, for Mformation
Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Service Manager.
Exalytics In-Memory Machine, and Oracle Mformation is a
SuperCluster engineered systems. global provider of
Flex Software Systems Closed Joint Stock solutions for man-
Company, an Oracle Platinum Partner, aging wirelessly con-
achieved Oracle Exadata Optimized for its nected devices.
Core System FXL 2 and Va-Bank FXL 2 auto- Model N, an
mated banking systems. Oracle Gold Partner,
LG CNS, an Oracle Platinum Partner, announced that its
achieved the status for its Smart ENA 1.0 Model N Revenue Management 5.5.1 and
solution. Smart ENA 1.0 is a pattern analysis 5.6.2 earned Oracle Exadata Optimized
solution that provides early fraud detection. status. Model N revenue management solu-
Calypso Technology, an Oracle Gold tions are designed to enable companies to
Partner and integrated capital markets align pricing, contract development and
platform provider, announced that Calypso administration, and payment of trade incen-
version 14 has achieved Oracle Exadata tives and government reimbursements.
Optimized status. SmartSoft, a Cardtek Group company
JDS Uniphase, an and an Oracle Gold Partner, announced
Oracle Gold Partner, that its OCEAN international payment
achieved Oracle processing system earned Oracle Exadata
Exadata Optimized Optimized status. OCEAN is a solution for
status for its credit card, debit card, point-of-sale/
ariesoGEO. merchant management, and ATM manage-
ariesoGEO is an ment for banks, financial institutions, pro-
enterprise geoloca- cessors, and retailers.
tion solution that flexsoft.com
collects, analyzes, lgcns.com
and geolocates calypso.com
details from every jdsu.com
customer call or mformation.com
data connection modeln.com
to create a store of smartsoftww.com

ORACLE CLOUD MARKETPLACE
Oracle Cloud Marketplace features partner
solutions that leverage Oracle Cloud plat-
form services and Oracle software-as-a-
service applications. It provides a place for
Oracle Cloud customers to easily browse,
evaluate, and buy applications developed
by registered Oracle partners. Three Oracle
partners have recently released solutions to
the marketplace.
Oracle Gold Partner Five9: The Five9
Virtual Contact Center solution for Oracle
Service Cloud delivers automatic computer
telephony integration screen pops; soft-
phone capabilities such as click-to-dial;
and an intuitive single-screen interface to
create exceptional customer experiences,
increase agent productivity, and deliver
tangible business results.
International Turnkey Systems Group Earns Oracle Exadata Ready and
Oracle Exalogic Ready Status
Oracle Platinum Partner International
Turnkey Systems has announced that ETHIX
Financial Solutions achieved Oracle Exadata
Ready and Oracle Exalogic Ready status,
demonstrating that these solutions are sup-
ported and ready to run on Oracle Exadata
Cubus AG Announces Oracle Exadata Ready, Oracle Database Ready,
and Oracle VM Ready Status
Oracle Gold Partner Cubus AG has earned
Oracle Exadata Ready, Oracle Database
Ready, and Oracle VM Ready status for
Outperform. Cubus Outperform is an Oracle
Two Partners Earn Oracle Validated Integration with Oracles
PeopleSoft Campus Solutions
Two partners have earned Oracle Validated
Integration, demonstrating that their soft-
ware products complement and integrate
with Oracles PeopleSoft Campus Solutions.
Oracle Gold Partner Higher One earned
Oracle Validated Integration between
Higher One Disbursement Services and
PeopleSoft Campus
Solutions 9.0. Higher
One provides finan-
cial services tools
to US college and
I-HUA CHEN
university campuses
for activities such as
Oracle Silver Partner Badgeville:
Badgevilles Behavior Platform for Oracle
Sales Cloud provides gamification tech-
nology to help drive customer loyalty and
employee performance. Through game,
reputation, and social mechanics the solu-
tion motivates desired behaviors.
Oracle Silver Partner Mindmatrix:
Mindmatrix Revenue Growth Platform
is integrated with Oracle Sales Cloud and
features asset management, enablement
of both direct and channel sales, and mar-
keting automation functionality.
five9.com
badgeville.com
mindmatrix.net
and Oracle Exalogic. ETHIX provides multi-
channel corporate and retail products and
services in Islamic finance and investment,
including core banking, trade finance, online
banking, and more.
its.ws
Essbasebased enterprise planning, per-
formance management, and business intel-
ligence solution.
cubus.eu
payment and refund processing and data
analytics and management.
Oracle Gold Partner InFlight earned
Oracle Validated Integration between
InFlight and PeopleSoft Campus Solutions,
to deliver a student-friendly system
accessible from desktop, laptop, and
mobile devices. InFlight develops integra-
tion technology that allows its clients
to extract maximum value from their
line-of-business and learning manage-
ment systems.
higherone.com
inflightintegration.com
PARTNER NEWS 17
Two Partners Earn Oracle
Exadata Optimized and Oracle
SuperCluster Optimized Status
Two partners have earned Oracle Exadata
Optimized and Oracle SuperCluster
Optimized status for solutions that have
been tested and tuned with those engi-
neered systems.
Oracle Diamond Partner Infosys
announced that its Finacle Core Banking
solution, part of the Finacle-Infosys
ePlatform, achieved Oracle Exadata
Optimized and Oracle SuperCluster
Optimized status. Finacle Core Banking is
a web-based, centralized, customer-
centric, fully integrated, multilingual,
multicurrency solution for retail, corporate,
and trade finance banking.
Oracle Gold Partner Temenos
UK reported that WealthManager13
achieved Oracle Exadata Optimized and
Oracle SuperCluster Optimized status.
WealthManager is an integrated wealth
management platform.
infosys.com
temenos.com
cVidya Achieves Oracle
SuperCluster Optimized Status
Oracle Gold Partner cVidya announced
that FraudView has achieved Oracle
SuperCluster Optimized status. FraudView
prevents, detects, and investigates current
and future threats from across business
lines and services.
cvidya.com
Asseco SEE Teknoloji Earns
Oracle Exadata Optimized and
Oracle Exalogic Optimized Status
Oracle Platinum Partner Asseco SEE
Teknoloji A.S.s InACT solution has earned
Oracle Exadata Optimized and Oracle
Exalogic Optimized status, demonstrating
that it has been tested and tuned to run
with Oracle Exadata Database Machine and
Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. InACT is a
deterministic-scenario-based system that
monitors customer and merchant transac-
tions and creates fraud and anti-money-
laundering alerts.
asseco-see.com.tr
ORACLE MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2014
 YOUR DESTINATION FOR ORACLE AND JAVA EXPERTISE
Written by leading technology professionals, Oracle Press books offer the most definitive,
complete, and up-to-date coverage of Oracle products and technologies available.

Oracle PL/SQL Performance

Tuning Tips & Techniques
Michael Rosenblum, Paul Dorsey
Best practices for maximizing
overall system speed, reliability,
and security

Oracle Database 12c

PL/SQL Programming
Michael McLaughlin
Develop, debug, and administer
robust database programs

Predictive Analytics
Using Oracle Data Miner
Brendan Tierney
Develop and deploy next-generation
predictive analytics applications

Master Competitive
Analytics with Oracle Endeca
Information Discovery
Helen Sun, William Smith
Automatically organize information for
search, discovery, and analysis

Available in print and eBook formats

www.OraclePressBooks.com @OraclePress OraclePress

 Community Bulletin Happenings in Oracle Technology Network BY ROLAND SMART 19

Nominations Are Open for Oracle ACE Associate

Theres a new way to get involved in
the Oracle ACE program: become an
Oracle ACE Associate.
The Oracle ACE program highlights excellence within the global
Oracle community by recognizing individuals who have demon-
strated both technical proficiency and strong credentials as com-
munity enthusiasts and advocates. Participation benefits include
access to exclusive speaking and networking opportunities at Oracle
events and third-party conferences.
The Oracle ACE program recently welcomed its first Oracle ACE
Associates, who join a thriving community of more than 420 Oracle
ACE Directors and Oracle ACEs. Download an Oracle ACE Associate
nomination form at bit.ly/ace-associate-info.

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for the Oracle Solaris and
Linux operating systems.
These tools help application
developers achieve the best
performance on Oracles
newest SPARC T-Series
and SPARC Enterprise
M-Series servers, Fujitsus
M10 servers, and Intel-
based servers. Download
the Oracle Solaris Studio
12.4 beta release (SPARC,
x86, and Linux versions are
available) at bit.ly/solaris-
studio-12p4.

JAVA 8 LAUNCH VIDEOS ON DEMAND

More than 9,000 Java community members attended the Java 8 launch event to mark
the latest iteration of the largest open standardsbased, community-driven platform.
In case you missed it, you can watch the full event replay at bit.ly/java8-resources.
On this page, you can also view videos on the newest tools and features in Java SE 8,
Java SE Embedded 8, and Java ME 8. And for those looking to dig deeper, check out the
expert tutorials on topics ranging from using lambda expressions to developing modular
I-HUA CHEN

service-enabled applications.

Roland Smart is vice president of social and community marketing at Oracle.

ORACLE MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2014
20
Building Bridges
Organizational silos thwarting IT architecture goals?
Put away the sledgehammer.
A t a local Oracle user group event, I
spotted a familiar face. What are you
working on? I asked him.
For the next several minutes, I heard
about an infrastructure modernization
project he and his team were involved in.
In general, the project was on track and
proceeding with limited aspirin consump-
tion. But there was one headache-inducing
issue that posed an obstacle to the projects
overall success: the company this person
works for has five separate development
teams, and among those teams there isnt a
great deal of cooperation.
So yes, another conversation about silos.
Organizational silos are the bane of
effective IT architecture. The goal of that
architecture, of course, is to consolidate
resources, reduce complexity, and better
align IT with the business. Ironically, the last
of those three goals may have provided the
foundation for some silos.
The tighter alignment of IT with the busi-
ness can take on the qualities of a badly
tailored suitso tight that it can impede
the agility of the overall organization. From
within a silo, that constriction may not be
apparent, however. In fact, inside the silo,
things may be quite comfortable, and the
people enjoying that comfort may have little
incentive for change.
One step toward changing the silo mind-
set, then, is understanding what makes silos
so appealing.
We need to acknowledge the existence
of silo thinking, says Oracle ACE Director
Hajo Normann, a service-oriented architec-
ture (SOA) and business process manage-
ment expert with Accenture. I would go
even further and say we need to embrace it.
According to Normann, the silo can be
a congenial place, where people may enjoy
a sense of freedom and creativity, or at
least familiarity. Working outside the per-
CONNECT:
July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Inside the silo,
things may be quite
comfortable, and
the people enjoying
that comfort may
have little incentive
for change.
ceived protection of the silo can present an
imposing alternative that itself is thought
to be a restrictive, rule-bound environment.
That perception is not entirely without basis.
On the other hand, a centrally governed
software factory relies on standards, shared
best practices, and strict conventions for
names and design choices, says Normann.
So we are facing a dilemma. We are
doomed if we just demonize the silo.
Rather than tearing down silos, the better
strategy is to focus on building bridges
between them.
One should work across organizational
boundaries looking for commonalities and
seeking ways to identify win-win opportuni-
ties, advises Oracle Enterprise Architect
Eric Stephens. Dont let the org chart
hinder your collaboration.
To that end, Oracle ACE Manuel
Rosa, business manager for SOA at Link
Consulting, suggests approaching the issue
from an information perspective. We need
to identify how we can define a common
modelthe basic functional and business
concepts that usually cross different silos,
Rosa advises.
From there, its a matter of finding ways
to leverage that information so that one silo
sees the advantages of connecting to other
silos. Find a way to highlight the benefits
of such cooperation between silos, Rosa
blogs.oracle.com/archbeat facebook.com/brhubart
Architect By Bob Rhubart
says. Put reward mechanisms in place
to promote synergies and the reuse of
information and assets, and define struc-
tured procedures and processes that can
guarantee long-term cooperation without
adding disruption.
Of course, if any of this were easy, you
wouldnt have read this far. The need to
evolve beyond silos is clear, but its also
something that you, as an architect, arent
likely to accomplish on your own.
If organizational leaders want to foster
more cross-silo collaboration, incentives
need to be aligned that encourage folks to
work together, Stephens emphasizes. And
thats going to require the involvement of
those who are in a position to enact organi-
zational changes.
This fight should be backed up by the
highest levels of the management hier-
archy, confirms Normann.
Bridging those silos might be a long slog.
But somebodys got to do it.
Bob Rhubart
(bob.rhubart@oracle.com)
is manager of the
architect community
on Oracle Technology
Network, the host of the
Oracle Technology Network ArchBeat podcast
series, and the author of the ArchBeat blog
(blogs.oracle.com/archbeat).
Next Steps
READ
The Architect as Salesperson
bit.ly/1qzdMG1
The Most Important IT Career Skill
bit.ly/Q78swP
Architects, Leadership, and Influence
bit.ly/RiJc7N
twitter.com/brhubart linkedin.com/in/bobrhubart

Close Encounters
Three peers extol the virtues of in-person classes and conferences.
Dominic Delmolino
Company: Agilex Technologies, a technology
solution provider serving the national security,
healthcare, and public sectors
Job title/description: Vice president of data
architecture and engineering, responsible for
reviewing and supporting Agilex projects at
customer locations
Location: Chantilly, Virginia
Oracle credentials: Oracle Exadata Certified
Implementation Specialist, with 24 years of
experience using Oracle products
Whats your favorite technique on the
job? Its deconstructing data processing
routines, whether in PL/SQL or SQL,
and refactoring them into simpler, more
efficient workflows.
Which new features in Oracle Database are
you currently finding most valuable? I always
like to see whats being added to SQL, and
how it can be used to solve harder and harder
problems. Analytic functions and recursive
SQL are particularly valuable. And obviously
the new container database architecture in
Oracle Database 12c will be very usefulboth
from a security and self-service perspective.
Whats been your favorite Oracle technology
conference experience? I could name any
ODTUG eventtheyre all great. I think its
important for DBAs and developers to talk
to each other, and ODTUG really tries to
facilitate that. I also enjoy networking with
colleagues through a local Meetup group
that I chair called Agile Data Experts DC. Its
a monthly gathering of Washington DC data
management professionals where we talk
about tips, tools, and techniques for agile
data management.
Learn more about the Oracle ACE program at oracle.com/technetwork/community/oracle-ace.
Enrique Orbegozo
Company: Self-employed
Job title/description: Independent Oracle
consultant, responsible for database upgrade
and migration, database and application tuning,
incident resolution, and design and configuration
of high-availability solutions
Location: Lima, Peru
Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified
Professional DBA (on several releases including
Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Database 11g),
with 19 years of experience using Oracle products
What role has Oracle University [OU] played
in your career? In 1996 one of my first
employers sent me from Peru to Orlando,
Florida, to take an Oracle7 performance
tuning workshop, and I learned a lot. After
that I took the complete set of courses for
Oracle8 to gain my first Oracle Certified
Professional credential. Ten years later I
became an OU instructor, which allowed me
to share my knowledge and experience with
a new generation of DBAs.
What advice do you have about getting into
database development? Its a fact of life
that things wont always work as expected
or documented, so take notes on what you
do to solve any problems you encounter and by Syed Jaffar Hussain, Tariq Farooq, Riyaj
publish those notes on your blog. This will
help you to remember those solutions, and
it will help others who are experiencing the
same or similar problems.
What green practices do you use in your DBA
work? I try to work remotely when possible.
I also recommend server consolidation,
replacing older energy-hungry servers with
fewer less-energy-demanding ones.
Peer-To-Peer by Blair Campbell 21
Osama Mustafa Hussein
Company: Gurus Solutions, a software solution
provider
Job title/description: Senior Oracle DBA,
responsible for database performance, integrity,
security, and backup and recovery
Location: Amman, Jordan
Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified
Professional (Oracle Forms Developer, Oracle
Advanced PL/SQL Developer, Oracle Solaris
10 System Administrator, Oracle Database
10g, Oracle Database 11g) and Oracle Linux
Implementation Specialist, with more than 7
years of experience using Oracle products
Whats your favorite Oracle technology or
solution area? Oracle Fusion Middleware
because it includes Oracle technologies that
can help any company build end-to-end
solutions. I like that it is a fully integrated
family of products that can be delivered into
different layers, with each layer offering a dif-
ferent experience. Whether youre focused on
integration, automating processes, security,
or compliance, Oracle Fusion Middleware has
something for everyone.
Whats your go-to Oracle reference book? I
have lots of Oracle books and most of them
are great. Id have to say Expert Oracle RAC 12c
Shamsudeen, and Kai Yu, and Expert Oracle
Enterprise Manager 12c by Kellyn PotVin and
several coauthors [both Apress, 2013].
Whats been your favorite Oracle technology
conference experience? It was this past
December at Tech13, the UKOUG [UK Oracle
User Group] conference. I finally got to meet
many of my online friends and colleagues in
person, and we had an amazing time.
oracle magazine July/august 2014
ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

Delivering
at the Speed
of Business
Today, companies need to manage huge amounts of data to develop
insights and actionable, valuable informationand to enable business
decision makers to operate with solid information and better foresight.
At the same time, they need to process this growing volume of data
faster than ever in order to stay ahead of the competition and a
constantly changing business environment. In an increasingly real-time
business world, the speed and quality of information are both key.
These trends are putting a strain on traditional IT biggest technology advancement for SPARC servers in
infrastructures, as companies look for better ways to more than a decade.
provide enterprise applications and analytics to the The Fujitsu M10 servers are built on the advanced
business and pursue initiatives such as big data and SPARC64 X processor and now the new SPARC64 X+
data center consolidation. It is becoming clear that processor. These processors include Software-on-Chip
incremental modifcations are not enough to keep up. technology created through the close collaboration
IT groups need innovative approaches that will enable of Fujitsu and Oracle. Software-on-Chip moves some
them to reshape the infrastructure to provide the routines from software programs to the circuitry of
performance and scalability needed to keep up with the chip, increasing the speed of those routines. The
the ever-evolving demands of the business. current Fujitsu M10 hardware and Oracle Solaris 11
software work together with this feature, and with
A Leap Forward in Servers Oracle Database 12c plus patch, companies may
The Fujitsu M10 server line is designed to be at the see an increase in performance of up to 25%, due to
heart of that type of infrastructure. Drawing on Fujitsus Software-on-Chip.
heritage of supercomputingand its deep partnership The Fujitsu M10 also uses an in-memory pro-
with Oracle that is focused on SPARC and mission- cessing concept, which means that data is accessed
critical business computingthis server line offers the within memory in just nano-seconds, rather than the
milliseconds needed for traditional
access to storage and disks. Here
again, hardware and software can
work closely together for a signif-
cant increase in performance.
The Fujitsu M10 includes other
innovative technologies that help
drive high performance. For exam-
ple, Fujitsus advanced High Speed
Interconnect transmission technology
is used to connect CPUs, resulting in
a very fast 14.5 Gbps transmission
rate. In addition, a unique Liquid
Loop Cooling mechanism can cool hot
spots effectively, allowing compo-
nents such as the CPU and memory
to be located more closely to one
another. This close placement and
resulting compute density has helped
the Fujitsu M10 achieve one-ffth
lower memory latency, compared to
previous servers.

The Payoff in Performance

Together, these various Fujitsu
technologies add up to dramatic
increases in performance. In the frst
six months following its release, the
Fujitsu M10 set 14 world records in
industry standard benchmark tests,
including CPU-specifc tests, such
as SPEC CPU, and application-level
tests, such as Java and SAP.
A look at a few of these
benchmarks illustrates the level of
performance improvement offered
by these servers: For example, in
the SPECint_rate2006 benchmark,
which looks at CPU performance and
throughput, the Fujitsu M10 server
provided twice the performance of
the previous record-holding server.
And in the STREAM Triad benchmark,
which looks at memory access and
throughput, it was fve times faster
than the previous record holder.
The SPECjbb2013 bench-
mark is designed to measure Java
application performance including
response performance, which is
essential for real-time processing.
Fujitsu M10 with a 16-CPU confgu-
ration achieved the worlds highest
performance on both critical-jOP-
S(Java Operations Per Second) and
max-jOPS.
The servers ability to deliver
high performance has been
demonstrated outside the lab in real
world usage, as well. For example,
a telecom company that used the
Fujitsu M10 in a server consolidation
effort achieved a 3X improvement
in performance. And a printing
company that migrated from a
UNIX platform to the Fujitsu server
saw a 2X improvement in response
time and a 3X improvement in
batch processing time. [See sidebar,
Power for Global Expansion.]
Since its release,
the Fujitsu M10 has
set 14 world records
in industry standard
benchmark tests.
Providing an
Agile IT Foundation
Business does not hold still,
and that means that IT needs to
constantly adjust and adapt to
requirements that can change
quicklyand often, unpredictably.
Typically, this means expanding
the infrastructure in step with
business growth, and doing so
cost-effectively.
The Fujitsu M10 addresses
this need with its innovative core
ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

activation feature. The SPARC64 X and the SPARC64 X+ CPU
have 16 cores. When a company purchases a lower-end
Fujitsu M10-1 with one CPU, all 16 physical CPU cores are
already included in the box. They can be activated and
paid for on an as-needed basis, making it easy to quickly
scale from 2 to 16 cores in increments of two, without
having to add any hardware. This core activation concept
applies across the Fujitsu M10 product line, up to the
largest 64-CPU modular models. In short, core activation
may allow companies to license only what they need at
the core level, and keep computing power in step with
changing demandsan approach that is highly cost-
effective.
Working hand-in-hand with core activation, the
Fujitsu M10 provides
equipment that is using power but not contributing to
the bottom line.
In addition to high performance and fexibility, the
Fujitsu M10 server design builds on Fujitsus history of
providing mainframe-class reliability, availability and
serviceability technology. Its architecture includes many
features that help ensure that business operations are not
interrupted and unscheduled downtime is not required to
deal with failing hardware or software components. For
example, redundant interconnect paths help minimize
the risk of errors and data corruption. Predictive self-
healing capabilities enable the operating system to work
with the server hardware to predict component failures
and minimize the impact of issues before they affect the
systems operation.

The Fujitsu M10 building block capabilities Fujitsu will keep delivering more with its Fujitsu M10
that enable simple, server line. This means continuing to expand Software-
allows companies modular scalability. For on-Chip capabilities and providing features that further
to keep computing example, if a company increase reliability, availability and serviceability. It also
reaches the capacity means working with Oracle on innovative approaches
power in step with limits with all 64 CPU to big data and other enterprise computing needs
changing demands. cores of a Fujitsu M10-4S and giving customers the technologies they need to be
activated, it can quickly agile and responsive to successfully pursue todays fast-
add a second 2- or 4-socket box to the frst without moving business opportunities.
interrupting the system, and then grow that new box
through the core activation process, as needed. This For More Information
can be continued up to a maximum confguration of To fnd out more about the Fujitsu M10 server, please
16 boxes with 1,024 active cores and 32 terabytes of see these related documents:
memory. Accelerate and Consolidate the Data Center
With these features, the Fujitsu M10 servers provide Consolidate with Fujitsu M10 Servers
tremendous fexibility and expandability. This enables Accelerate Database Performance with
the IT organization to not only optimize its investment Fujitsu M10 Servers
when it frst implements the system, but to keep
Please visit our web site to view the full DNP case study.
optimizing it over time. It essentially provides a pay
as you go modeland helps avoid the all-too-common Additional information about the Fujitsu M10 server line
problem of having to overbuy and ending up with can be found at www.fujitsu.com/sparc.

SPEC (The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation), SPECint and SPECjbb are registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corpora-
tion(SPEC) in the US and other countries.Details and the latest information of this benchmark can be found at www.spec.org. Published as SPARC M10.
Fujitsu M10 is sold as SPARC M10 by Fujitsu in Japan. Fujitsu M10 and SPARC M10 are identical products.

World-record SPECint_rate2006 result: Comparison based upon SPECint_rate2006 result except Supercomputers: 23,800 on a SPARC M10-4S server with 64
SPARC64 X (3.0 GHz) processors, Oracle Solaris 11.1, Oracle Solaris Studio 12.3, 1/13 Platform Specifc Enhancement. Details and the latest information on this
benchmark can be found at www.spec.org.

World-record STREAM result: Comparison based upon STREAM Triad result except Supercomputers: 4,002 GB/s on a SPARC M10-4S server with 64 SPARC64 X
(3.0 GHz) processors. Details and the latest information on this benchmark can be found at www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/.

World-record SPECjbb2013 results: 16 CPU confguration: 308,936 max-jOPS and 168,127 critical-jOPS on a SPARC M10-4S server with 16 SPARC64 X (3.0 GHz)
processors, Oracle Solaris 11.1 SRU 6.4, Java HotSpot 64-Bit Server VM, version 1.7.0_17. 4 CPU confguration: 83,909 max-jOPS and 50,562 critical-jOPS on
a SPARC M10-4S server with 4 SPARC64 X (3.0 GHz) processors, Oracle Solaris 11.1 SRU 6.4, Java HotSpot 64-Bit Server VM, version 1.7.0_17. Details and the
latest information on this benchmark can be found at www.spec.org.
 Power for
Global Expansion
D
ai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) is one of the
worlds largest printing companies, but its business
extends over a wide variety of felds, including
Information Communication (e.g. publication printings
and digital signage), Lifestyle and Industrial Supplies
(e.g. packaging and lifestyle materials) and Electronics
(e.g. display components and electronic devices). DNP
has been actively expanding globally and now has 26
sales locations and 13 manufacturing plants around the
world. The processing for DNP exports is done primarily
through its central overseas business system. The previous
system had been constructed based on HP-UX, but it had
Tomoyasu Nagata Kazuo Kurosawa Shohei Yamashita
limitations in terms of expandability. For this reason,
DNP elected to replace the system using Fujitsu M10
servers.
DNP needed a high performance system that could handle
increases in the amount of overseas business job data
and additional users, and evaluated multiple vendors.
We had been paying close attention to information about
new, high-performance servers and [Fujitsu M10s] high-
performance, based on supercomputer technology, was a
step above conventional servers, says Tomoyasu Nagata,
Section Head of the Overseas System Section at DNP. We
confrmed the fgures backing Fujitsu M10 and it quickly
became a very suitable candidate.
The fnal selection was done by DNP Information Systems
Co., Ltd., which manages information systems for the
DNP Group. Mr. Kazuo Kurosawa, Department Head at
DNP Information Systems, stated, Our role is to provide a
stable service for information
systems, from planning
and design to construction,
operation, and maintenance.
When we investigated
Fujitsu M10, the key points
considered were not just its
high performance, but its operational stability inherited
from mainframe reliability, the fact that it embraces the
future potential and long-term support of Oracle Solaris,
and its compatibility with Oracle Database. Specifcally
when combined with Oracle Database 11g, Fujitsu
M10-1 is able to deliver one-stop-
shop support for our business and
signifcantly reduce maintenance
costs.
For the new system confguration,
Fujitsu M10-1 was used as the core
database server. Fujitsu M10 and
Fujitsu made sure system construction
could be completed in a short amount
of time, says Mr. Shohei Yamashita,
Third Work System Dept., Work System
Headquarters, DNP Information
Systems. The database server works in conjunction with
the application server and the backup server. Furthermore,
Fujitsus one-stop-shop support delivers a quicker
resolution in the event of any issues.
After installation, the databases response performance
doubled. Batch processing performance has tripled, thus
greatly reducing overall processing time. Total opera-
tional costs have been cut by nearly 35%, with software
maintenance costs kept down, and operational effciency
increased by installing a backup server.
Regarding future prospects, Mr. Nagata says, Were
planning to add more functionality leveraging CPU Core
Activation, which will allow us to fexibly expand the
system as needed. With this function, we can scale up
when our business is ready while keeping initial costs
down. We look forward to working with Fujitsu as they
continue to support us through leading-edge solutions
like Fujitsu M10 technology for big data processing.
SUCCESS ON
SPARC
The latest SPARC chips and
systems are at the center of better
business processes.
BY PHILIP J. GILL

S erver consolidation projects are designed

to cut costs and improve data center
performance, but companies deploying
Oracles SPARC servers, including the SPARC
T5 and SPARC M6 servers, are getting
additional benefits as well. Whether its a
hardware refresh or a complete revamp of IT
infrastructure, these companies are finding
that this new generation of SPARC servers
combined with the power and dependability of
the Oracle Solaris operating systemreduces
operating costs; improves business operations;
expands capacity; adds capability; and, in one
case at least, even recruits top IT talent.
Art Credit
28
Seamless Reliability
No matter how they are deliveredairwaves, cable, or satellite
broadcast television services demand 24/7 operations that operate
reliably and seamlessly, at the touch of a button or the flick of a
switch. With a subscriber base of more than 15 million households,
Mumbai, Indiabased Tata Sky is the leading provider of satellite-
based, direct-to-home broadcast television services in India.
We offer a wide variety of television services, from standard-
definition and high-definition channels to video-on-demand,
mobile TV, movies, and personal video recordersboth standard
and high definitionas well as interactive content including games,
educational applications, and more, says N. Ravishanker, chief
information officer at Tata Sky, a joint venture between Indian con-
glomerate Tata Group and the US-based mass-media firm STAR TV.
In 2012, Ravishanker explains, the firm was looking to add both
capacity and capability to better serve its growing customer base.
There is excellent opportunity for growth in this market, especially
since there is so much churn in cable television, he says. Since
this is a commodity product, we face challenges similar to every B2C
According to N. Ravishanker, chief information officer at Tata Sky, SPARC systems have improved performance, cut costs, simplified operations, and improved
reliability and availability for Tata Skys core business-critical applications.
July/August 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
With the new SPARC systems,
some applications run up to
10 times faster.
N. Ravishanker, Chief Information Officer, Tata Sky
[business-to-consumer] organization in scalability and reliability.
We needed a hardware refresh that added capacity to support
our growing subscriber base, says Ravishanker. We also needed to
set up a disaster recovery [DR] site to maintain the 24/7 reliability
and availability our customers have come to expect.
Tata Sky has been using SPARC servers running the Oracle Solaris
operating system since the companys inceptionit opened for
business in 2006 with SPARC-based Sun Fire E20K serversand it
looked to new SPARC servers to upgrade and enhance its IT infra-
structure, beginning in 2012 with new SPARC Enterprise M9000
and SPARC T4 servers from Oracle and continuing in 2013 with
Oracles next-generation SPARC T5 and SPARC M5 servers.
Namas Bhojani
 29

Multithreaded

Under their metal exteriors, Oracles next-
generation SPARC T5 and SPARC M6 servers look
alike, sharing common components, terabytes
of memory and storage, and more. What distin-
guishes one from the other is how they are put
together, and that, in turn, is a matter of scale.
The two systems were designed to handle
the same tasks, but with different design
approaches, says Renato Ribeiro, director of
product management for SPARC systems at
Oracle. SPARC T5 servers scale up to consider-
able capacity, while using a fraction of a server
rack. The SPARC M6 server supports four times
the capacity of the largest SPARC T5 system.
The design and capacity of the SPARC M6
server delivers additional benefits. SPARC M6
servers include more component redundancy
and therefore greater availability and serviceabil-
ity, says Ribeiro. As a result, you can consoli-
date more applications and deploy more virtual
machines, while achieving better performance
through the highly scalable design.
The design differences between SPARC T5
and SPARC M6 servers are obvious in the way the
systems can be configured. The SPARC T5 system
begins with a blade server with a single processor
and 256 GB of memory and tops out with a server
with 8 processors and 4 TB of memory.
The SPARC M6, introduced in September 2013,
picks up where the SPARC T5 leaves off, and is
Oracles newest, most powerful, and most scal-
able SPARC server to date. The top-of-the-line
SPARC M6-32 has up to 32 12-core 3.6 MHz SPARC
processors and up to 32 TB of main memory. Each
of those SPARC chips has 12 corestwice the
number of cores as its predecessor, the SPARC
M5and each core can run 8 threads simultane-
ously, allowing for 3,072 threads running in the
top-of-the line systems 384 cores. The SPARC
M6-32 offers enough power to run the largest,
most demanding applications in use today, all in-
memory, says Ribeiro.
The new SPARC T5 and SPARC M6 also run
counter to the conventional wisdom about large-
scale multiprocessor systemsthey offer near-
linear pricing from a two-processor SPARC T5-2
server to the 32-processor, multiterabyte SPARC
M6-32 server. Although they scale to a very high
number of processors and many terabytes of
memory, users dont pay a premium for that per-
formance on the bigger package, Ribeiro says.

According to Ravishanker, these systems have improved perfor- T5 and SPARC M6 systems have so much power and capability that
mance, cut costs, simplified operations, and improved reliability businesses today will typically carve these servers up into multiple
and availability for the companys core business-critical applica- virtual machines and deploy multiple different applications on a
tions, including its billing, smartcard management, electronic single system. Users not only get much higher performance, they
voucher distribution, and online customer ordering systems. get better return on their investment.
With the new SPARC systems, some applications run up to
10 times faster, he says. An application that ran at 4 seconds Where Credit Is Due
per transaction now performs at 0.4 seconds per transaction, Performance is important in all industriesand all economies. Turkey
and that provides near-instantaneous response times to our has a rapidly growing private sector whose growth is fueled in large
customers online requests, such as ordering movies or new part by the availability of consumer credit.
television channels. Although credit card penetration is high
The company also has established its in Turkey, the demand for consumer credit
first DR site, located in the city of Pune, snapshots continues to grow, explains Sinan zer,
India. With the new data center, should Tata Sky executive vice president of infrastructure
we experience a full-scale shutdown at our tatasky.com operations and security at Yapi Kredi Bank.
Location: Mumbai, India
primary production site, we can be back up Yapi Kredi was founded in 1944 as Turkeys
Industry: Media and entertainment
and running in less than 90 minutes, says Employees: 1,500 first private bank. It is the nations fourth-
Ravishanker. Powered by our new SPARC Oracle products: SPARC T4-2 and SPARC largest private bank and was the first to
servers, the disaster recovery site provides T4-4 servers; SPARC T5-2 and SPARC introduce consumer credit cards in 1991.
our customers with greater service reli- T5-4 servers; SPARC M5-32 server; SPARC To keep up with demand, Yapi Kredi
Enterprise M9000; Oracle Solaris 11 with
ability and availability. is currently migrating its credit card pro-
Oracle Solaris Zones Preflight System
We slashed operating costs 20 percent, Checker; Oracle Solaris Cluster (for high cessing from legacy mainframes and non-
including licensing, reduced data center floor availability); Oracle Database 11g; Oracle SPARC UNIX servers, consolidating that
space requirements, improved energy effi- Real Application Clusters; Oracle Enterprise workload on larger, more-powerful, and
ciency, and consolidated 61 legacy systems at Manager; Oracle VM 3.0; Siebel Customer cost-effective SPARC T5 series servers from
Relationship Management; Oracle Active
no additional cost, thanks to SPARCs built-in Oracle running the Oracle Solaris 10 oper-
Data Guard; Oracle Advanced Customer
advanced virtualization technologies and Support Services ating system and Oracle VM 3.0.
linear scalability, Ravishanker continues. Were consolidating our legacy servers
We have been able to do all this and main- Yapi Kredi onto new SPARC T5 servers, using virtual-
tain service levels with less staff. yapikredi.com.tr ization to bring 80 hosts down to 50 hosts
Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Such an array of benefits is common running on 10 machines, says zer. When
Industry: Financial services
among companies deploying SPARC T5 and Employees: 14,865 were finished, 65 percent of all our pro-
SPARC M6 servers, says Masood Heydari, Oracle products: SPARC T5-4, SPARC cessing will be done on SPARC servers.
senior vice president of SPARC systems for T4-4, SPARC T4-2, and SPARC T4-1 servers; These SPARC systems will be running
the systems group at Oracle. SPARC Enterprise M9000; Oracle Solaris 10; not just consumer credit card operations
Oracle Database 11g and Oracle Database 10g;
Organizations used to map one applica- but also retail banking, merchant card and
Oracle GoldenGate; Oracle Internet Directory
tion to one server, explains Heydari. SPARC banking, risk management, treasury, and

oracle magazine July/August 2014

Server consolidation onto SPARC servers has reduced the number of physical servers and virtual hosts at Yapi Kredi. Were consolidating our legacy servers
onto new SPARC T5 servers, using virtualization to bring 80 hosts down to 50 hosts running on 10 machines, says Sinan zer (left), executive vice president of
infrastructure operations and security at Yapi Kredi Bank.

other core banking services, zer notes. More to Come

Yapi Kredi chose SPARC systems because it has been committed
to the SPARC architecture and Oracle Solaris, the leading enterprise
UNIX operating system, for some time. The bank has been using
Oracle Solaris for 15 years, says zer. Years ago, we moved many of
our core banking applications to Oracle Solaris.
When the current SPARC T5 server project is completed later
this year, the bank expects significant savings. The new SPARC
systems offer one-third lower maintenance costs compared to the
mainframes they are replacing, says zer. Electricity costs will
decrease to less than a quarter of current costs, and so will our
cooling costs. Because of this and other cost savings, we expect a
payback period of less than two years.
System-Engineered
Yapi Kredis IT overhaul isnt done yet; there are more SPARC
systems to come.
Later this year, we will be installing a SPARC M6-32 server that
will be used to move the rest of our core banking applications to
SPARC and Oracle Solaris, says zer. We are also rewriting those
applications on the Java platform. Once that is done, all of our core
applications will be running on SPARC and Oracle Solaris.
Besides the cost, reliability, and performance benefits, zer says
Yapi Kredis use of open platforms, SPARC servers, and Oracle Solaris
has an added advantage: It helps the bank attract top IT talent.
Its getting very hard to find sufficient talent for mainframes,
says zer. The younger generation only wants to work with the
latest technologythat means systems such as SPARC and
Oracle Solaris.

In April 2014, Oracle introduced data center or cloud environment.

Oracle Solaris 11.2, an enterprise
cloud platform that integrates a full
OpenStack distribution, software-
defined networking (SDN), cluster-
ing, and virtualization in a proven
enterprise-class operating system.
OpenStack functionality in
Oracle Solaris 11.2 environments
supports a standard self-service
environment for sharing and
managing compute, network, and
storage resources, and it enables
Oracle Solaris Zones provide zero-
overhead virtual environments,
and kernel zones deliver OS inde- Philip J. Gill is a San Diego, Californiabased freelance writer and editor.
pendence and isolation.
John Fowler, executive vice
president for systems at Oracle,
Next Steps
notes, By engineering the OS, vir-
tualization, SDN, and OpenStack LEARN more about
together, Oracle Solaris 11.2 SPARC servers
provides a complete cloud plat- oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc
form, for simple, efficient, secure,
Oracle Solaris
compliant, and open enterprise
oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11
Ali Kabas/Getty Images

the rapid deployment of virtual cloud deployments. Its designed

machines. Application-driven to help customers accelerate their Oracle Optimized Solutions
SDN, from application to storage, businesses and capitalize on the oracle.com/us/solutions/oos
ensures that service-level agree- potential of cloud computing OpenStack
ments are maintained within a while reducing cost. bit.ly/1hbVSsH

July/August 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

2.6x Better
Performance
IBMs Power7+ AIX Oracles SPARC T5

Performance: Performance:
10,902 27,843

Server Cost: Server Cost:

$805,000 $299,000

Industry Standard Java Middleware

SPECjEnterprise2010 Performance Benchmark

SPEC and the benchmark name SPECjEnterprise are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.
Virtualized results on spec.org as of 5/21/2013 for application and database on one 8-chip server. SPARC T5-8, 27,843.57 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS, pricing on
oracle.com; IBM Power 780, 10,902.30 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS, pricing on ibm.com. Server cost excludes storage and software. Details: oracle.com/sparc-t5.
Copyright 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 National Geographic Education supports the
mission of the National Geographic Society to
TOGETHER ORACLE AND inspire people to care about the planet by
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EDUCATION ARE creating compelling educational materials for
young people and the adults who teach them.

Leading the Way NG Education provides unique learning

experiences to educators and advocates for
improved education in geography, the
in Ocean Education environmental sciences, and other disciplines
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and Marine Research With support from Oracle, National Geographic
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Support our work today.

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 Java Developer ORACLE ADF By Frank Nimphius 33

Oracle Application Development Framework, Oracle Jdeveloper

Region Extreme:
Multi-Task-Flow Binding
Render an unknown number of task flows in page or
dashboard regions.

O racle Application Development

Framework (Oracle ADF) regions
display the contents of bounded task flows
in designated areas on a page. Each region
uses a special binding configurationthe
task flow bindingin the Executables
section of the parent pages PageDef.xml
file to populate the region content with data
from the Oracle ADF binding layer.
In use cases such as analytic dash-
boards, the contents of an unknown
number of task flows must be displayed
as regions at runtime. However, Oracle
ADF regions cannot be created at runtime.
Multi-task-flow binding in Oracle JDeveloper
11g Release 2 and Oracle JDeveloper 12c
addresses this limitation. Using a hands-on
exercise, this article shows developers how
to use multi-task-flow binding in Oracle
ADF applications. Parts of the sample
application have been prebuilt to give you
a head start. In addition to performing
the hands-on steps, you can learn more by
examining the source files.
To begin, download the sample applica-
tion at bit.ly/1lZ4nXw and unzip the o44adf-
2197040.zip file to a local folder on your
computer. Do not use spaces in the folder
name. Ensure that youre using the studio
edition of Oracle JDeveloper 12c (12.1.2.0.0)
or later, available as a free download on
Oracle Technology Network.
with a bounded task flow. The task flow
binding contains a static reference
to the bounded task flow to be exposed in
the region.
Dynamic regions also use a dedicated
task flow binding, which uses a property
reference to a managed bean in view scope
to provide the task flow reference infor-
mation. The managed bean is accessible
from Java code and through expression
language (EL). The task flow reference
returned by the managed bean property
can be changed at runtime for the region
to display the contents of different task
flows sequentially.
In multi-task-flow binding, the multi
TaskFlow binding element provides the
region component model for multiple
Oracle ADF region instances that are
created at runtime with the af:forEach
loop tag of the Oracle ADF Faces feature
of Oracle ADF. Each region obtains its
bounded task flow configuration reference
from a managed bean. As with dynamic
regions, the content of the managed
bean can be changed at runtime, thereby
enabling the display at runtime of an
unknown-at-design-time number of task
flows in regions. The region binding is
appropriate for uses such as dashboards
that display varying numbers of bounded
task flows on a page.
Sample Application Overview
The sample application is a dynamic dash-
board that displays information for depart-
ments the user selects, as shown in Figure 1.
Each department is exposed in a region with
a read-only view shown first. An Edit button
navigates the bounded task flow associated
with each region to an edit page so the user
can change the department data.
The user selects which departments
to display on the dashboard by using the
select-many checkboxes on the right-hand
side and clicking the Update Dashboard
button. The Reset Dashboard button sets
the dashboard to the none-selected state
and shows a single panel with instructions
for the user.
The application uses Oracle ADF adap-
tive bindings to create multiple instances of

Static, Dynamic, Multiple

The multi-task-flow binding feature is a
combination of the static and dynamic
task-flow-binding types used in Oracle
JDeveloper to associate region content with
the Oracle ADF binding layer and lifecycle.
A static region uses a dedicated task flow
binding added to the PageDef.xml file of the
parent page to associate the region content Figure 1: Sample application

oracle magazine July/august 2014

34 Oracle adf
a bounded task flow that share the Oracle
ADF data control with the parent view for
best performance. With this technique, the
sample application can use a single task
flow definition to simulate an unknown
number of Oracle ADF regions to be dis-
played in an Oracle ADF view.
Sample Application Architecture
Figure 2 illustrates the architecture of
the sample application. A managed bean
instance holds a list of bounded task flow
configurations that specify the number of
region instances and the department infor-
mation to display. The bounded task flow
takes two input parameters and creates a
new view object instance on the server to
display the department data, identified by
department ID.
The Home.jsf file contains a panel
dashboard component that shows a vari-
able list of Oracle ADF regions based
on the configuration in the managed bean.
The page accesses the task flow definition
in the bean indirectly through the multi-
task-flow binding added to the Oracle ADF
pages binding file, the PageDef.xml file.
An af:forEach iterator on the page refer-
ences the task flow binding and creates
an instance of af:region for each task
flow configuration.
Getting Ready
The RegionExtreme workspace in the sample
application download contains a completed
Oracle ADF Business Components model
(Oracle ADF Business Components is a
feature of Oracle ADF) and a view-controller
project with prebuilt artifacts such as
managed beans, page fragments, and a
bounded task flow.
To prepare this workspace for your envi-
ronment, you must configure the database
connection that the workspace is dependent
on to access your HR database schema:
1. In Oracle JDeveloper, select File -> Open,
and navigate to the directory containing
the unpacked zip file content.
2. Open the oramag070814/
RegionExtreme folder, and select the
RegionExtrem.jws file. Click Open to load
the workspace.
3. Select Window -> Database
July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Managed bean
Home.jsf
af:forEach
af:region
Figure 2: Sample application architecture
-> Databases, and expand the
RegionExtreme node to display the con-
tained hrconn node.
4. Right-click hrconn, and select Properties
from the menu. Edit the database con-
nection information to work with your
setup. Test the changes, and click OK
when the connection succeeds.
Next, start the Oracle WebLogic Server
instance thats integrated with Oracle
JDeveloper, by selecting Run -> Start
Server Instance.
If you are running the integrated Oracle
WebLogic Server for the first time, a Create
Default Domain dialog box will open. Create
a password for the default Oracle WebLogic
Server domain. To ensure that the inte-
grated Oracle WebLogic Server listens for
the localhost and the IP address of your
computer, do not select an address from
Listen Address.
Click OK to save the changes and
to create and configure the default
domain for Oracle ADF. Oracle
WebLogic Server creates a default
domain and then starts the server.
Wait for the IntegratedWebLogicServer
started. message on the Running:
IntegratedWebLogicServer panel before
proceeding to the steps in the next section.
Creating the Bounded Task Flow
The sample application uses a single param-
eterized bounded task flow to populate
all region instances with different data
content. For this technique to work cor-
rectly, the Oracle ADF bindings used in the
Holds configuration Bounded task flow
instances
Re
ad st
a sk
flo
wi
ns t
an c
es
Oracle ADF binding (PageDef)
Provides task flow Multi-task-flow binding
definitions
task flow must be made configurable with
the adaptive bindings technique:
5. With the RegionExtreme workspace
open in Oracle JDeveloper, click the
Applications tab.
6. Expand the ViewController -> Web
Content -> WEB-INF -> btf node, and
double-click the departments-flow.xml
file to open the task flow diagram.
7. On the Applications tab, expand
the Data Controls panel and its
AppModuleDataControl node.
8. Drag the createNewDepartmentVO
Instance() method entry onto the task
flow diagram editor.
9. In the Edit Action Binding dialog box,
enter #{pageFlowScope.departments
TaskFlowBean.departmentsId} as the
departmentId value and #{pageFlow
Scope.departmentsTaskFlowBean
.voinstance} as the instanceName
value. Click OK. A new method activity is
created for you.
10. Choose Window -> Components to open
the Components window.
11. Drag the View activity from the
Components section of the Components
window onto the diagram editor. Change
the name of the view activity from view1
to Browse.
12. Repeat step 11, but this time name the
view activity Edit.
13. In sequence, click Control Flow Case in
the Components window, the method
call activity in the diagram, and the
Browse view activity in the diagram
to create a navigation case. Keep the

default name for the navigation case.
14. Create a navigation case from the Browse
view to the Edit view, and enter edit as
the name of the navigation case.
15. Create a navigation case from the Edit
view activity to the Browse view activity,
and name it return.
16. Save your work.
What you just did: The method call activity
you created references a method in the
Oracle ADF Business Components applica-
tion module that creates new instances
of the DepartmentsView view object. The
name of the new instance is saved in a pre-
built managed bean property. At runtime,
the navigation cases you created are used to
navigate between the department read-only
view and the editable form.
17. In the task flow diagram editor, double-
click the Browse view activity to open the
Create ADF Page Fragment dialog box.
18. Click the magnifying glass icon next to
the Directory field.
19. In the Choose Directory dialog box, click
the Create new subdirectory icon next
to the Location field and create a new
btf folder under the public_html folder.
Under the btf folder you just created,
create a departments folder. Click Select.
20. Ensure that the Facelets and Create Blank
Page options are selected in the Create
ADF Page Fragment dialog box, and click
OK to create the new page fragment.
21. With the Browse page open in the visual
editor, expand the Data Controls panel
on the Applications tab and click the
allDepartments collection.
22. Drag the allDepartments collection to the
page, and drop it as an Oracle ADF Form.
23. In the Create Form dialog box, click the
Read-Only Form and Submit checkboxes
to create a read-only form and a button
(which youll configure next) for navi-
gating to the editable page. Click OK.
24. Click Submit in the visual editor, and
choose Window -> Properties.
25. In the Properties inspector, change the
Text property value to Edit and select
edit as the value of the Action property.
26. Click the Bindings tab at the bottom of
the visual editor. In the bindings editor,
select allDepartmentsIterator in the
Executables section.
27. In the Properties inspector, change the
value of the Binds property to ${page
FlowScope.departmentsTaskFlow
Bean.voinstance}. Do not be con-
cerned that a border now surrounds the
Binds field.
28. Save your work.
What you just did: You created a read-only
view to display department data in the
regions. Because the sample application
uses a single bounded task flow definition
to display department information for mul-
tiple regions, you used adaptive binding in
the allDepartmentsIterator to dynamically
determine which ViewObject instance to
query data from.
29. Click the departments-flow.xml tab
to switch back to the task flow
diagram editor.
30. Double-click the Edit view activity, and
use the magnifying glass icon next to the
Directory field to select the departments
folder in public_html/btf. Click Select,
and then click OK.
31. Drag the allDepartments collection from
the Applications tabs Data Controls
panel to the page, and drop it on the Edit
page as an ADF Form.
32. In the Create Form dialog box, click the
ADF Input Text w/Label value next to
the DepartmentId value binding entry
and change it to ADF Output Text w/
Label. Then click the Submit checkbox
and OK.
33. Click Submit in the visual editor
for the Edit page, and choose
Window -> Structure.
34. Right-click Submit in the Structure
window, and choose Surround With.
35. In the Surround With dialog box, select
Panel Group Layout and click OK.
36. In the Structure window, right-click
af:panelGroupLayout and select Insert
Inside Panel Group -> Spacer.
37. Repeat step 36, except select Button
instead of Spacer.
38. In the visual editor, click the Submit
button and change its Action property
to #{backingBeanScope.edit
DepartmentBacking.onSubmit} in the
Properties inspector.
39. Click the button 1 button. Using the
Properties inspector, change the Text
35
attribute to Cancel, the Action attribute
to return, and the Immediate attribute
to true.
40. Save your work.
41. Select the Bindings tab at the bottom of
the visual editor for the Edit page.
42. In the bindings editor, select
allDepartmentsIterator in the
Executables section.
43. In the Properties inspector, change the
value of the Binds property to ${page
FlowScope.departmentsTaskFlow
Bean.voinstance}.
44. Save your work, and close all open page
tabs. The bounded task flow is complete.
What you just did: You created an Oracle
ADF bound input form in which users can
edit department information in a region at
runtime. The DepartmentId field in the form
is configured to be read-only, and the Submit
button action property references a prebuilt
managed bean method to commit data
changes before returning to the browse page.
The Cancel button uses immediate=true
so the Oracle ADF model is not updated with
any changed data when the button is clicked.
Like the browse page, the edit page uses
adaptive binding to connect to the server-
side ViewObject instance.
Creating the Multi-Task-Flow
Binding
Now create and configure the multi-task-
flow binding:
45. On the Applications tab, double-click
the Home.jsf file in the ViewController
-> Web Content -> utf node to open the
page in the visual editor.
46. Click the Bindings tab at the bottom of
the visual editor.
47. In the binding editor, click the green plus
(+) icon in the Executables header.
48. In the Insert Item dialog box, change the
selection from Generic Bindings to ADF
Task Flow Bindings.
49. Select the multiTaskFlow item, and
click OK.
50. In the Insert multiTaskFlow dialog box,
add mtb1 as the value of the id attribute
and ${viewScope.multiTaskFlowList
Bean.multiTaskFlowBindings} as the
value of the taskFlowList attribute. (You
must use these exact values for the con-
oracle magazine July/august 2014
36 Oracle adf
figuration to work with the prebuilt code
the workspace uses.) Click OK.
51. Save your work.
What you just did: You created and config-
ured the multi-task-flow binding in the ADF
PageDef file of the Home.jsf page. The task
flow binding references the multiTaskFlow-
Bindings property in the multiTaskFlowList
Bean managed bean to obtain the list of task
flows to render in regions.
The managed bean reference is required
immediately when the page renders, which
is why the EL expression used starts with a $
character instead of the # deferral prefix.
The referenced managed bean is defined
in the MultiTaskFlowListBean.java file,
located in the oramag.sample.seven.eight
.fourteen.view.utf.beans package hier-
archy in the ViewController -> Application
Sources folder. The managed bean class is
documented with Java comments to help
you understand how the multi-task-flow
binding implementation works and how
EL can be used in Java to provide individual
input parameters for each task flow.
Building the Region Dashboard
Next (with the help of prebuilt code seg-
ments), add an af:forEach component that
adds the task flow binding instances defined
in the multi-task-flow binding as regions to
the Home.jsf page:
52. On the Applications tab, double-click
the forEachCodeSnippet.txt file in
the ViewController -> Web Content ->
utf node.
53. Select all of the files contents (Ctrl+A),
and copy them to the clipboard (Ctrl+C).
54. Switch back to the Home.jsf page, and
click the Source tab at the bottom of
the editor window to show the page in
source view.
55. Select Window -> Structure to open the
structure panel if its not already open.
56. On the Structure panel, expand
the f:view -> af:document -> af:form ->
af:pageTemplate -> f:facet >
center node.
57. Select af:panelDashBoard.
58. In the page source, change
(without using copy/paste) the
af:panelDashBoard component defini-
tion (now highlighted) from
July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
<af:panelDashboard id="pd1"
rowHeight="150px" />
to
<af:panelDashboard id="pd1"
rowHeight="150px">
</af:panelDashboard>
59. Click between the opening and closing
tags of the af:panelDashboard compo-
nent, and paste (Ctrl+V) the code from
the clipboard.
60. Right-click in the source window, and
choose Reformat to improve the code
alignment.
Note: The af:panelDashBoard component
expects af:panelBox or af:region as its
child components. Because af:forEach is
used to create the panelBox instances at
runtime, you see that Oracle JDeveloper
flags the af:forEach tag as an error.
However, this is a false positive in the inte-
grated development environment (IDE). It
is not considered an error at runtime, and
you can ignore it.
61. Close all tabs, and save your work.
What you just did: You added a prebuilt
code snippet to the panel dashboard com-
ponent on the Home.jsf page that reads
the number and definitions of task flows
to display in a region from the multi-task-
flow binding you configured earlier. In
addition, the code you pasted contains
a panel box that is shown whenever no
department is selected for display as a
region on the dashboard.
Running the Application
62. On the Applications tab, navigate to
ViewController -> Web Content ->
WEB-INF and double-click the adfc-
config.xml file.
63. In the task flow diagram, right-click the
Home view activity and choose Run. (You
must run the page from the adfc-config
.xml filenot from the Applications
tabso that the task flow context is set
when the page displays.)
64. When the page displays in your browser,
use the checkboxes on the right to
select the departments to display on the
dashboard. Click the Update Dashboard
button to update the dashboard view,
and try out the other dashboard features.
Conclusion
Dynamic regions are a frequent user
requirement. Oracle JDeveloper 11g
Release 2 and Oracle JDeveloper 12c address
this requirement with multi-task-flow
binding. This article showed how to add
dynamic bindings for a dynamic dashboard
that uses a single bounded task flow to
render an unlimited number of regions, with
each region sharing the Oracle ADF data
control scope for best performance.
Task flows in regions execute sequentially.
When you use the multi-task-flow binding
feature, minimize the number of flows added
to a page. Each task flow comes with a per-
formance overhead determined by the data
query and the initialization tasks it performs.
Also note that when an application
uses dynamic regions, users might switch
between bounded task flows while task
flows have pending transactions. The risks
associated with premature termination
of bounded task flows through dynamic
regions and how to handle such a case are
documented in the Oracle ADF Task Flow
Transaction Fundamentals white paper
(see Next Steps).
Frank Nimphius is a senior principal product
manager for Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF.
He is a coauthor of Oracle Fusion Developer
Guide: Building Rich Internet Applications with
Oracle ADF Business Components and Oracle
ADF Faces (McGraw-Hill, 2010).
Next Steps
DOWNLOAD
Oracle JDeveloper 12c
bit.ly/KDqHjA
the sample application for this article
bit.ly/1lZ4nXw
READ more about Oracle ADF
oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/adf
Using Task Flows as Regions
bit.ly/1onhggq
Towards Ultra-Reusability for ADF - Adaptive
Bindings
bit.ly/1mPPoBY
Oracle ADF Task Flow Transaction
Fundamentals
bit.ly/1jAmuCM
A Template with Behavior
bit.ly/1lqjZST
 DBA
Oracle database 12c
Managing Expressly
Manage Oracle Database with Oracle Enterprise Manager
Database Express, a built-in browser-based graphical tool.
H ow do you administer Oracle Database?
Command-line tools such as SQL*Plus
may be all you need in many situations, but
you may also find a graphical tool useful in
some cases, such as for displaying perfor-
mance statistics.
Oracle Database 12c includes a built-in
graphical management tool called Oracle
Enterprise Manager Database Express. Its
a web-based tool you can launch from any
web browser, and no operating-system-level
installation is required. Oracle Enterprise
Manager Database Express is extremely
lightweight and easily configurable, and in
this article, you will learn how to configure
and use it to perform your daily DBA chores.
Setup
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database
Express is installed and configured with the
database, but additional configuration may
be required if your database uses nondefault
values for parameters. Here are the manual
steps for configuring Oracle Enterprise
Manager Database Express.
1. To check the port number for the data-
base listener, enter lsnrctl status at
the command line and look for the string
(PORT= in the output.
2. The default port for the database listener
is 1521. If the database listener listens on
a different portsay, 1526you must
set the local_listener database param-
eter with the following SQL:
SQL> alter system set local_
listener='(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL=TCP)
(HOST=localhost)(PORT=1526))';
3. Oracle Enterprise Manager Database
Express is web-based, so it needs
a web server. Oracle XML Database
(Oracle XML DB) functionality in Oracle
Database 12c provides a lightweight
built-in web server. To use the Oracle
XML DB web server for Oracle Enterprise
Manager Database Express, make sure
the DISPATCHERS parameter of the
database instance includes the entry for
the Oracle XML DB service:
SQL> show parameter dispatchers
NAME TYPE VALUE
can use a different port number for the
Dispatchers string (PROTOCOL=TCP)
(SERVICE=ANN1XDB)
4. If the DISPATCHERS parameter is not set,
include the following line in the param-
eter file:
dispatchers="(PROTOCOL=TCP)
(SERVICE=<sid>XDB)"
and restart the instance. Note that <SID>
is the ORACLE_SID. Replace <SID> with
the ORACLE_SID value for your instance.
5. To confirm that the Oracle XML DB con-
figuration is working, as well as to get
the port number of the listener, execute
the following SQL:
select dbms_xdb_config.gethttpsport()
from dual;
authentication. Enter a database username
DBMS_XDB_CONFIG.GETHTTPSPORT()
database username. This is different from
5500
6. From the output, you know that the
Oracle XML DB listener is listening on
port number 5500. In this case, you
can launch Oracle Enterprise Manager
Database Express from any web browser
by typing the following URL:
https://<servername>:5500/em
manageability By Arup Nanda 37
Replace <servername> with the name of
your database host. For example, if your
host is named prolin1.proligence.com,
enter the URL as
https://prolin1.proligence.com:5500/em
7. If the port number is not defined or
your organizational policies do not
allow that specific port number, you
listener for Oracle Enterprise Manager
Database Express. To use port number
5501, for example, set the new port
number as follows:
begin
dbms_xdb_config.sethttpsport(5501);
end;
The Oracle XML DB listener for Oracle
Enterprise Manager Database Express
is now configured for port 5501. You
can launch Oracle Enterprise Manager
Database Express from any web browser
by entering the URL as
https://prolin1.proligence.com:5501/em
The first screen of Oracle Enterprise
Manager Database Express asks you for
and password. Remember, you need a
the standalone version of Oracle Enterprise
Manager Cloud Control (formerly known as
Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control),
where you enter a username from the
Oracle Enterprise Manager repositorynot
Oracle Database.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database
Express comes with two predefined roles
EM_EXPRESS_ALL and EM_EXPRESS_
BASIC. The Oracle Database DBA role is
oracle magazine July/august 2014
38 manageability

already granted these two Oracle Enterprise
Manager Database Express roles, so any
user with a DBA role will not need to be
granted these Oracle Enterprise Manager
Database Express roles explicitly.
control files for the database, the size and
number of records in different sections of
the control file, and more.
The next menu itemSecurityenables
you to perform database-security-related
activities, such as managing users and roles.
It displays three submenus:
Users. Click this item to see the list of users
and details such as status (active, locked,
or password expired), default tablespace,

Database Home Page

Enter a valid database username and pass-
word to see the database home page, as
shown in Figure 1. The main menuright
below the Oracle Enterprise Manager
Database Express 12c bannerdisplays five
items. The first is the database name and the
version, which is ANN1 and 12.1.0.1.0 in this
case. From any other screen, click this item to
return to the database home page.
The next menu itemConfiguration
displays four submenus:
Initialization Parameters. Click this item to
display and edit initialization parameters Figure 1: Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express home page
and their descriptions.
Memory. Click this item to see memory
allocations, including system global area
(SGA) and program global area (PGA).
Database Features Usage. Click this item
to see database features, their descrip-
tions, and when they were used. (High-
water-mark analysis is also available
through this item.)
Current Database Properties. Click this
item to see properties such as the character
set and the time zone of the database.
The next menu itemStoragedisplays
five submenus:
Tablespace. Click this item to see the list
of tablespaces, datafiles, their sizes, and
Figure 2: Performance Hub
the free space inside them. (You can also
create and alter existing tablespaces here.)
Undo Management. Click this item to
see how the undo mechanism is working
in your database. (Two of the very useful
graphically represented undo-related
metrics here are the rate of generation and
the space used.)
Redo Log Groups. Click this item to see
the online redo log files for the database.
(It also enables you to add, drop, and alter
redo log groups.)
Archive Logs. Click this item to see the list
of archived logs, when they were created,
the system change number (SCN) of the
changes contained in them, and more.
Control Files. Click this item to see the Figure 3: Activity, as shown in Performance Hub

July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 39

when they were created, and expiration ties of the active sessions. These are all ID shows the breakdown of the wait classes
dates for passwords. (This item also enables active displaysthat is, if you move your for that activity. Place your cursor over the
you to alter users and create new ones.) cursor over a part of the diagram, you will colored bar, and a pop-up box will show the
Roles. Click this item to create, alter, and see the name and the value of the metric name and the value of the metric.
display database roles. it represents and the time it was collected. In the chart in Figure 4, you can clearly
Profiles. Click this item to create, alter, and You can go back as far into the past as data see that the first SQL ID4sjngb1tsayy9is
display database profiles. (Profiles enable is available in the Automatic Workload responsible for most of the activity in the
you to control how long the user session Repository feature of Oracle Database. database. Your next diagnostic step is to
is allowed to remain active, control how It is easier to see the power of these find out why that SQL statement is so active.
many invalid login attempts are permitted charts and graphs by examining them in the Click the 4sjngb1tsayy9 SQL ID to get the
before the account is locked, define the context of a real problem. Suppose you are details on that SQL statement. That brings
function to enforce the complexity of the investigating the cause of a database perfor- up the SQL Details screen shown in Figure 4.
password, and so on.) mance problem. From the time picker, you Click the Execution Statistics tab.
can see that there is a spike at 7:10:00 p.m., The SQL Details screen includes two
Performance as shown in Figure 3. From the main menu, types of output. At the top, in the Plans area,
The last menu item is Performance. (Note choose Performance and then from the tabs you can see the impact of the SQL state-
that you need to license the extra-cost below the time picker, click Activity, which ment represented through various metrics,
Oracle Diagnostics Pack to use this menu shows total activity and the associated including the database time, the number of
item.) I will devote more attention to it here, wait classes. The section at the bottom left I/O requests, the rows returned, the number
because this is an item you will likely spend shows the SQL statements with the highest of times the statement was parsed, and so
a lot of time on. activity. The colored bar next to each SQL on. If the SQL statement has had different
The Performance menu item includes
two submenus. Lets take the first one
Performance Hubwhich displays a screen
similar to the one shown in Figure 2. The
topmost graph, called the time picker, shows
the average active sessions across various
points in time.
You can drag the shadow box across the
graph to focus on the activities in a par-
ticular time period. The information below
the graph will change to reflect the activi-
ties in that period. The various color bands
represent different activitiesblue for user
I/O, green for CPU, and so on. Place your
cursor above a color band. A pop-up text
box displays the metric that this bar rep-
resents and its value. A camera icon on the
graph (at around 07:00 p.m. in Figure 2) Figure 4: SQL Details screen
indicates that an Automatic Database
Diagnostic Monitor task was run at that
time automatically (Automatic Database
Diagnostic Monitor is a feature of Oracle
Database). If you place your cursor above
that icon, you will see the task ID, which
enables you to check the details of that
Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor
task later. You can check the details on that
task in the ADDM tab on the screen shown
in Figure 2.
The four boxes below the time picker are
self-explanatory: the load average of the
database host, memory, I/O, and the activi- Figure 5: SQL Tuning Advisor

oracle magazine July/august 2014

40 manageability

execution plans, Oracle Enterprise Manager

Database Express will grab the plans from
all the sourcesthe cursor cache, the
Automatic Workload Repository, and so on
and will display the statistics for all execu-
tion plans, one per line. The icon in the first
columnlabeled Sourceshows the source
of the information on the execution plan.
Displaying details on all plans is very useful if
you have seen different performance charac-
teristics for the same SQL statement.
A very important metricBuffer Figure 6: Specific details of the recommendations
Gets, which shows the number of buffers
fetchedis shown in the last column. This
number in my example is 16,808a signifi-
cantly large number, which probably explains
why this SQL statement had so much impact
on performance. To understand why this
SQL statement had so many buffer gets, Figure 7: Oracle RAC database home page
look at the bottom part of the screen, in
the Plan Details area, where the execution
plan of the SQL statement is shown. Each
step in the plan includes statistics such as
the estimated number of rows and bytes,
shown both as values and graphically. Note
the HASH JOIN stepthe Estimated Bytes
value shows 18,447 petabytes! This is just an
estimate; it may not be accurate, but it does Figure 8: Multitenant database home page
give you an idea of the amount of data this
SQL statement will fetch. Because the data is for tuning. The blue area in the vertical different after the SQL profile is applied,
stored in buffers, the SQL statement fetches bar shows the count of SQL statements click the value for that SQL statement in the
a large number of buffersexplaining the where SQL Tuning Advisor has no findings, bottom box, Top SQL Statements, in the Id
large buffer gets metric for this SQL. meaning that there are no tuning recom- column. The details of the plan changes will
mendations. If the green area in the vertical appear, as shown in Figure 6. The tabs show
SQL Tuning Advisor bar shows the count of SQL statements Original Plan for the SQL statement and
Do you want to see if this SQL can be tuned to where SQL Tuning Advisor reported findings, Plan Using SQL Profilethe modified plan.
improve its performance? Oracle Enterprise it means that there are tuning recommen- But the screen displays more than the modi-
Manager Database Express can help you do dations. Recommendations might include fied plan. It also showsgraphically and as
that. Click the Tune SQL button at the top implementing a SQL profile or restructuring valuesthe estimated operation cost and
of the SQL Details screen, just below the (rewriting) the SQL. The last box shows the the rows and bytes of data at each step of
menu bar, to bring up the SQL Tuning Advisor possible savings in database time if you the execution plan. The display helps you
feature of Oracle Database. (You can also implement the SQL profile suggested by SQL visualize the step with the biggest perfor-
invoke it from the main menu bar from the Tuning Advisor. The magnitude of the poten- mance impact and how that changes from
Performance tab by choosing the SQL Tuning tial savings will help you decide whether the the original to the modified plan.
Advisor submenu.) Clicking Tune SQL creates recommendations are worth exploring. Happy with the modified plan? Just click
a task that may take some time to complete. While you mull over the displayed poten- the Implement button at the top of the
When it completes, you will be presented tial savings resulting from implementation screen. It will implement the SQL profile for
with a screen that displays the results of the of the SQL profile suggested by SQL Tuning that SQL statement, and the modified plan
tuning effort, as shown in Figure 5. Advisor, you will naturally be curious to will be in effect. Dont like the plan? Well, no
The findings are shown in boxes toward learn how SQL Tuning Advisor computed the harm done. The SQL profile is only a sugges-
the right of the screen. The first box, SQL savings. The SQL profile does not change tion by SQL Tuning Advisor; its not imple-
Examined Count, shows a bar chart of the SQL; it changes only the execution plan. mentedunless you click Implementand
the number of SQL statements examined If you want to learn how the plan will be can be ignored. Repeat this SQL Tuning

July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 41

Advisor review for all of your high-impact
SQL statements.
With Oracle Enterprise Manager Database
Express and SQL Tuning Advisor, you can
not only identify the high-impact SQL state-
ments; you can also get recommendations
on improving their performance quickly and
compare the effectiveness of the suggestions
with the originalall with just a few clicks.
Express Compatibility
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express
also works with Oracle Real Application
Clusters (Oracle RAC) databases. The
Database home page, similar to the screen
shown in Figure 7, shows all the database
instances and details of each, such as the
host the instance runs on, how long the
instance has been up, and so on. A very
useful display is the graphical representation
of the CPU, memory, and active sessions on
each of the instances. A visual examination
of the display can quickly reveal whether the mance issues and use SQL Tuning Advisor to
instances are equally loaded or skewed. improve database performance.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database
Express also works on Oracle Multitenant
databases. The database home page shows Arup Nanda (arup@
the details of the multitenant container proligence.com) has
database (CDB). However, the Performance been an Oracle DBA
panel at the right has a tab labeled PDBs since 1993, handling
that shows the pluggable databases (PDBs) all aspects of database
running on the CDB, as shown in Figure 8. administration, from
The Performance bar chart shows the divi- performance tuning to security and disaster
sion of various PDBs, differentiated by mul- recovery. He was Oracle Magazines DBA of the
tiple colors. Year in 2003 and received an Oracle Excellence
Award for Technologist of the Year in 2012.
Conclusion
Next Steps
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express
provides Oracle Database 12c DBAs an out-of-
LEARN more about
the-box graphical interface for common data- Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express
base management tasks. This article explored Oracle Database 2 Day DBA 12c Release 1 (12.1)
bit.ly/1lBKmow
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express
features, described basic tasks, and demon- DOWNLOAD Oracle Database 12c
bit.ly/1czAk2I
strated how to troubleshoot common perfor-

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oracle magazine July/august 2014

 Database Application Developer PL/SQL By Steven Feuerstein 43

Oracle Database

The Joy of Low-Hanging Fruit

Are you using BULK COLLECT and FORALL for bulk
processing yet?

T he following is based on true events. The

names have been changed to protect
people and intellectual property.
value of the primary key to the next sequen-
tial value is an Oracle Database 12c feature;
in Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and earlier, meme_id
em_mentions_seq.NEXTVAL
PRIMARY KEY,
INTEGER
I recently spent a few days with a team you would use a trigger to achieve the same REFERENCES
of developers at extremememe.info, an up- result. The em_memes_setup.sql script em_memes (meme_id),
and-coming Web 3.0 paradigm-shifter that includes this code.) source_name VARCHAR2 (100),
analyzes internet memes, tracks them to source_details CLOB,
their source, andbest of allpredicts new CREATE TABLE em_memes occurred_on DATE
and future memes. ( )
The developers at extremememe.info are meme_id INTEGER /
very knowledgeable about Oracle Database DEFAULT
and PL/SQL, but as is the case with many em_memes_seq.NEXTVAL Meme mentions are loaded from many
other developers, they have little time to PRIMARY KEY, different sources, and extremememe.info
explore new technology features. They meme_name VARCHAR2 (1000) relies on a staging table to collect data from
struggle to keep up with the demands of UNIQUE, all sources:
their users, and even when they know about discovered_on DATE,
some great new feature, it can be a chal- meme_status VARCHAR2 (100) CREATE TABLE em_incoming
lenge to convince management to commit ) (
the resources to apply those features to / meme_name VARCHAR2 (1000),
stable production code. source_name VARCHAR2 (100),
We interspersed training on PL/SQL The meme_status value can be VIRAL, occurred_on DATE,
techniques with reviews of their code and, DORMANT, HOAX, and so on. mention_details CLOB
in the process, came across a program that extremememe.info has a table for all the )
runs in a daily batch process and updates mentions of, or references to, a meme: /
the status of all the memes. Unfortunately,
as extremememe.infos data volumes grew, CREATE SEQUENCE em_mentions_seq The developers at extremememe.info
the process was taking longer and longer, / also use the following em_memes_pkg
approaching 23 hours. Given how uncom- package to log errors and to perform some
fortably close that was to a full day, we CREATE TABLE em_mentions critical proprietary computations, based
decided to take a closer look. ( on the content of those tables:
mention_id INTEGER
On Closer Inspection DEFAULT CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE em_memes_pkg
The meme update process uses the fol-
lowing three tables: em_memes, em_ em_memes_pkg.incoming_t This is a nested table type that contains rows of data from the em_incoming table.

mentions, and em_incoming. (You can
create these tables by using the emmemes_
setup.sql script in the download for this
article, at bit.ly/QntyHo). Note that the
columns of these tables have been simpli-
fied for the purposes of this article.
The developers at extremememe.info
use the em_memes table for all the memes
I-Hua Chen
em_memes_pkg.mentions_t
em_memes_pkg.meme_ids_t
em_memes_pkg.log_error
em_memes_pkg.unpacked_incoming
em_memes_pkg.reset_meme_status
This is a nested table type that contains rows of data from the em_mentions table.
This is a nested table type that contains primary keys from the em_memes table.
This is a generic (and typical) error-logging mechanism. Defined as an autonomous
transaction, it writes out the basic error information available from the DBMS_
UTILITY functions (and more) to a log table and then commits just that insert.
This is a function that converts a row of incoming data (whose mention details column
is an XML document that holds the different formats of source information) into a
record that can be inserted into the em_mentions table.
The heart and soul of the extremememe.info proprietary process, this procedure

of which they are aware and whose status analyzes the contents of the mentions table and ascertains the status of the meme.

they track. (Note that setting the default Table 1: em_memes_pkg elements and descriptions

oracle magazine July/august 2014

44 PL/SQL

IS (between SQL and PL/SQL) and consequently
TYPE incoming_t IS TABLE OF greatly slows the performance of the code.
em_incoming%ROWTYPE; Fortunately, this classic antipattern has a
classic, well-defined solution: use BULK
TYPE mentions_t IS TABLE OF COLLECT and FORALL to switch from row-by-
em_mentions%ROWTYPE; row processing to bulk processing.
The presence of this antipattern was also
a source of delight for me. The developers
needed to improve the performance of the
procedure significantly. That would have
been very hard to do if they had already
taken full advantage of SQL and PL/SQL

TYPE meme_ids_t IS TABLE OF Code Listing 1: Meme status updater, version 1

em_memes.meme_id%TYPE;

1 CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE em_update_status

PROCEDURE log_error ( 2 IS
error_code_in 3 CURSOR incoming_cur
4 IS
IN INTEGER DEFAULT SQLCODE,
5 SELECT * FROM em_incoming;
error_msg_in 6
IN VARCHAR2 7 l_mention em_mentions%ROWTYPE;
8 l_status em_memes.meme_status%TYPE;
DEFAULT
9 BEGIN
DBMS_UTILITY.format_error_stack); 10 FOR incoming_r IN incoming_cur
11 LOOP
12 BEGIN
FUNCTION unpacked_incoming (
13 SAVEPOINT new_transaction;
incoming_in IN 14
em_incoming%ROWTYPE) 15 l_mention := em_memes_pkg.unpacked_incoming (incoming_r);
16
RETURN em_mentions%ROWTYPE;
17 INSERT INTO em_mentions (meme_id,
18 source_name,
PROCEDURE reset_meme_status ( 19 source_details,
20 occurred_on)
meme_id_in IN
21 VALUES (l_mention.meme_id,
em_memes.meme_id%TYPE, 22 l_mention.source_name,
new_status_out OUT 23 l_mention.source_details,
24 l_mention.occurred_on);
em_memes.meme_status%TYPE);
25
END; 26 em_memes_pkg.reset_meme_status (l_mention.meme_id,
/ 27 l_status);
28
29 IF l_status IS NOT NULL
For space reasons, I will not provide the 30 THEN
package body code for em_memes_pkg, but 31 UPDATE em_memes
32 SET meme_status = l_status
Table 1 lists what the elements in the speci- 33 WHERE meme_id = l_mention.meme_id;
fication provide. 34 END IF;
Listing 1 shows the code for the status 35 EXCEPTION
36 WHEN OTHERS
update process in the em_update_status 37 THEN
procedure. (Listing 1 is available as em_ 38 em_memes_pkg.log_error;
update_status_old.sql in the download for 39 ROLLBACK TO new_transaction;
40 END;
this article at bit.ly/QntyHo.) Descriptions 41 END LOOP;
of the key parts of the em_update _status 42 END;
package appear at the end of Listing 1.
Line(s) Description
I was dismayed when I saw extremememe
10 For each row in the staging table (em_incoming)
.infos implementation of em_memes_pkg
.reset_meme_status, because I found in that 12, 40 Put the entire body of the loop inside its own nested block so that any exception can be trapped and logged.

procedure a cursor FOR loop that contained 13
two nonquery data manipulation language 15
(DML) statements. That is a classic anti- 1724
pattern, a general pattern of coding that
2627
should be avoided. It should be avoided
2934
because the inserts and updates are changing
the tables on a row-by-row basis, which 3539
maximizes the number of context switches
Set a savepoint for this new transaction.
Convert the incoming row to a record that can be inserted into the em_mentions table.
Insert a single row into the em_mentions table.
Compute the new status for the meme, based on the new mention.
If the status isnt NULL, update the em_memes table with that status.
If anything goes wrong, log the error and then erase the effects of the insert and/or the update by rolling back to
the savepoint.

July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine


performance optimization features. Because
they had not done so, they were looking at a
procedure full of low-hanging fruit. That is,
they were looking at the possibility of solving
their problem with a relatively straight
forward change to their existing code.
Code Review Identifies a Logic Flaw
I shared my dismay and delight with the
extremememe.info developer team. They
were excited about the potential improve-
ments and were eager to get started. Then I
noticed something odd about the algorithm
theyd presented. A brief Q&A session soon
clarified matters:
Can the table of incoming data contain
more than one reference to the same meme?
Heads nodded vigorously. They told me
that the more viral the behavior of a meme,
the more mentions there would be. In the
case of some very popular memes, the daily
incoming could contain millions of refer-
ences to the same meme. That led directly
to my second question:
Then why are you updating the meme
status after each insert of a mention?
Now eyebrows shot up and heads were
turned. Wow, said one developer. Oh. My.
Gosh. said another.
The team lead turned to me. We never
thought of that before. Weve been doing
an enormous amount of unnecessary
processing. Thats kind of embarrassing.
It sure helps to have a fresh pair of eyes
looking at our code.
Yes, it does. Never underestimate the
Phase 1: BULK COLLECT from table(s) to collection
Relational
Table
Relational
Table
Phase 3: FORALL from collection to table(s)
Figure 1: Bulk processing phases
power of your brain to hide the obvious from
you. Once youve spent a lot of time writing
or working with a program, you dont really
see the code anymore. You see what you
think the code should be. When someone
else looks at it, they come at it without any
preconceived notions and perceive very dif-
ferent aspects of the program.
If youre the only one whos ever looked
at your code, you can be certain it contains
bugs and perhaps even substantial algo-
rithm errors.
Members of the extremememe.info
developer team quickly agreed that the
statuses of the memes should be updated
only after all mentions were inserted.
Furthermore, only those memes with new
mentions should be updated.
In the remainder of this article, I
show you the end result of the rewrite of
extremememe.infos em_memes_pkg
.reset_meme_status procedure into a
program that runs significantly faster and
made it possible for data volumes to grow
substantially while still allowing the batch
process to be finished in a single day. My
stevenfeuersteinonplsql.blogspot.com blog
expands on this article to take you through
those changes in a step-by-step process.
On Switching to Bulk Processing
Although row-by-row processing can be
unacceptably slow for large volumes of data,
it offers a significant advantage for execu-
tion of nonquery DML: it is easy to define
and manage a transaction.
Phase 2: Modify contents of collection
according to requirements
45
Take the Challenge
Each PL/SQL article offers a quiz to test your
knowledge of the information provided in it.
The quiz appears below and also at PL/SQL
Challenge (plsqlchallenge.com), a website that
offers online quizzes on the PL/SQL language
as well as SQL, Oracle Application Express,
database design, and deductive logic.
Here is your quiz for this article:
Which of the following statements about
BULK COLLECT and FORALL are correct?
a. System global area (SGA) is the only type
of memory affected by a switch from row-by-
row processing to bulk processing.
b. You can use BULK COLLECT only with non-
dynamic queries.
c. You can have only one nonquery DML state-
ment inside a FORALL statement.
d. If you want to make sure the SQL engine at
least attempts to execute every DML state-
ment generated by FORALL, add the SAVE
EXCEPTIONS clause.
In the reset_meme_status procedure, the
transaction consists of two DML processes:
1. Insert a row into the mentions table.
2. Update the memes table.
A quick glance at the original procedure
code in Listing 1 shows that these two pro-
cesses go together: if the insert fails, the
update wont execute. If the update fails,
the insert will be rolled back. And in either
case, the error will be logged and pro-
cessing will continue.
With the switch to bulk processing,
the procedure moves from a row-by-
row approach to a phased approach. For
reset_meme_status, this means that the
procedure will perform all the inserts first
and then execute all the updates.
Generally, you can think of bulk pro-
cessing as having three distinct phases:
Phase 1: Populate the collections that
will drive the FORALL processing. This is
usually done with a BULK COLLECT query.
Phase 2: Modify the contents of the col-
lections as needed to prepare them for
Phase 3.
Phase 3: Execute the FORALL statement to
push the data into the table(s).
Figure 1 shows these three phases.
In the real world, life is complicated and
there are always exceptions. Sometimes
you will not need Phase 1, because the col-
lections are already filled and being passed
to your program, and sometimes you can
skip Phase 2, because the collection is
oracle magazine July/august 2014
46 PL/SQL

ready to go, to be used immediately in the With all that in mind, lets now imple- IS
FORALL statement. ment the get_next_set_of_incoming BEGIN
procedure (called in the new em_update_ FETCH incoming_cur
The Bulk Processing Implementation status procedure). The get_next_set_ BULK COLLECT INTO incoming_out
The code in Listing 2 is the rewrite of the of_incoming procedure passes back a LIMIT bulk_collect_limit_in;
too slow em_update_status procedure. collection of incoming records; BULK END;
This new version takes advantage of nested COLLECT will improve the performance,
procedures (procedures declared within and the LIMIT parameter will help control First, note that I use the NOCOPY hint in
another procedure or function). The code PGA consumption: my parameter definition. By using NOCOPY,
for these nested proceduresget_next_ Im asking Oracle Database to not make a
set_of_incoming, unpack_and_record_ PROCEDURE get_next_set_of_incoming ( local copy of my collection inside the proce-
mentions, and reset_meme_statusesis incoming_out dure. The result will be lower PGA consump-
presented and analyzed later in this article. OUT NOCOPY em_memes_pkg.incoming_t) tion and improved performance.
Descriptions of the key parts of the revised
em_update _status package appear at the Code Listing 2: Meme status updater, version 2
end of Listing 2.
Now lets take a closer look at each of the
1 CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE em_update_status (
nested procedures, correlating each of these 2 bulk_collect_limit_in IN PLS_INTEGER DEFAULT 100)
with the phases I described earlier. 3 IS
4 bulk_errors EXCEPTION;
Phase 1: Get incoming rows. When youre
5 PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT (bulk_errors, -24381);
switching to BULK COLLECT to fetch data, 6
there are a few key guidelines to keep in mind: 7 CURSOR incoming_cur
8 IS
You can use BULK COLLECT with static
9 SELECT * FROM em_incoming;
SELECT statements (SELECT BULK 10
COLLECT INTO and FETCH BULK COLLECT 11 l_incoming em_memes_pkg.incoming_t;
12
INTO) and dynamic queries (EXECUTE
13 l_affected_meme_ids em_memes_pkg.meme_ids_t;
IMMEDIATE BULK COLLECT INTO). 14 := em_memes_pkg.meme_ids_t ();
If your original code contains a cursor 15
16 PROCEDURE get_next_set_of_incoming ....
FOR loop that fetches many rows (thou-
17 PROCEDURE unpack_and_record_mentions ....
sands and higher) but the loop body does 18 PROCEDURE reset_meme_statuses ....
not have any nonquery DML (inserts, 19
20 BEGIN
updates, deletes), you probably do not
21 OPEN incoming_cur;
need to switch to BULK COLLECT. The 22
PL/SQL compiler automatically optimizes 23 LOOP
24 get_next_set_of_incoming (l_incoming);
cursor FOR loops to return 100 rows with
25 EXIT WHEN l_incoming.COUNT = 0;
each fetch. 26
BULK COLLECT and FORALL work with 27 unpack_and_record_mentions (l_incoming, l_affected_meme_ids);
28 END LOOP;
PL/SQL collectionsarraylike structures.
29
These collections consume process global 30 CLOSE incoming_cur;
area (PGA) memory, which is allocated 31
32 reset_meme_statuses (l_affected_meme_ids);
per session. It is possible for sessions to
33 END;
run out of memory and return the ORA-
04030: out of process memory error. Line(s) Description
The best way to manage memory in bulk 2 BULK COLLECT returns multiple rows with each fetch. This parameter controls the number of rows fetched.
processing is to use the LIMIT clause with 45 Because the original procedure traps exceptions, logs the errors, and continues processing, use SAVE
BULK COLLECT. EXCEPTIONS in the FORALL statements and include an exception handler for ORA-24381.

Any collections populated by BULK 1113 Declare nested tables based on the packaged types to be used by the nested procedures.

COLLECT are either empty or filled sequen-
tially from index value 1. This means that
every index value between that returned by
the FIRST method (lowest defined index
value) and the LAST method (highest
defined index value) is defined.
1618 The nested procedures.
2132 The now small and very readable executable section. Heres the narrative version of the code:
Open the cursor that identifies all the incoming rows to be processed.
Get the next N rows of incoming data. Stop when the collection is empty.
Unpack each incoming row, and insert it into the mentions table. Add all IDs of memes that were
mentioned into the collection of affected memes.
After inserting all mentions, reset the statuses of only those memes that were affected.

July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 47

Next, because I already opened the Code Listing 3: Unpack and record mentions
cursor on line 21 of the new em_update_
status procedure, all I need to do in this 1 PROCEDURE unpack_and_record_mentions (
get_next_set_of_incoming procedure is 2 incoming_in IN em_memes_pkg.incoming_t,
3 affected_meme_ids_out IN OUT em_memes_pkg.meme_ids_t)
fetch. And I want to retrieve multiple rows
4 IS
with each fetch, so I put the keywords BULK 5 l_affected_this_time em_memes_pkg.meme_ids_t;
COLLECT in front of INTO and then provide 6 l_mentions em_memes_pkg.mentions_t := em_memes_pkg.meme_ids_t();
a collection after INTO. 7 l_status em_memes.meme_status%TYPE;
8
I then add the LIMIT clause, which tells 9 PROCEDURE add_to_affected_memes
Oracle Database to retrieve up to that 10 IS
number of rows with each FETCH. I could 11 BEGIN
12 affected_meme_ids_out :=
have provided a literal instead of a param-
13 affected_meme_ids_out
eter, as in 14 MULTISET UNION DISTINCT l_affected_this_time;
15 END;
16
LIMIT 100;
17 PROCEDURE record_errors
18 IS
In fact, 100 is a good default value. You 19 l_bad_index PLS_INTEGER;
get a nice boost in performance, and you 20 BEGIN
21 FOR indx IN 1 .. SQL%BULK_EXCEPTIONS.COUNT
dont consume enormous amounts of PGA. 22 LOOP
Yet I hesitate to hard-code the value. 23 l_bad_index := SQL%BULK_EXCEPTIONS (indx).ERROR_INDEX;
If over time this procedure needs to work 24
25 em_memes_pkg.log_error (
with more and more data, I may want to
26 error_code_in => SQL%BULK_EXCEPTIONS (indx).ERROR_CODE,
experiment with different limit values 27 error_msg_in => 'Unable to insert mention for incoming mention '
to see if I can coax more performance 28 || incoming_in (l_bad_index).meme_name
29 || '-'
out of the process without breaking the
30 || incoming_in (l_bad_index).source_name
PGA bank. 31 || '-'
By passing the limit value as a parameter, 32 || TO_CHAR (
33 incoming_in (l_bad_index).occurred_on,
I can change the value whenever I want
34 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'));
without having to recompile the code. 35 END LOOP;
OK, Ive got the next N rows of incoming 36 END;
data. Now its time to move them to the 37 BEGIN
38 l_mentions.EXTEND (incoming_in.COUNT);
em_mentions table. 39
Phases 2 and 3: Unpack and record 40 FOR indx IN 1 .. incoming_in.COUNT
mentions. With phased processing, you do 41 LOOP
42 l_mentions (indx) :=
not unpack a single row and then insert it
43 em_memes_pkg.unpacked_incoming (incoming_in (indx));
into a table. Instead, you unpack all the rows 44 END LOOP;
fetched and then push them all into a table 45
46 FORALL indx IN 1 .. l_mentions.COUNT SAVE EXCEPTIONS
by using FORALL. In this case, all the rows
47 INSERT INTO em_mentions (meme_id,
fetched by get_next_set_of_incoming will 48 source_name,
be unpacked and pushed into the em_ 49 source_details,
mentions table with FORALL. 50 occurred_on)
51 VALUES (l_mentions (indx).meme_id,
52 l_mentions (indx).source_name,
Answer to Last Issues Challenge 53 l_mentions (indx).source_details,
54 SYSDATE)
55 RETURNING meme_id
The PL/SQL Challenge quiz in last issues
56 BULK COLLECT INTO l_affected_this_time;
Writing SQL in Oracle Application Express
57
article offered different ways to implement
58 add_to_affected_memes;
thequery for an Oracle Application Express
59 EXCEPTION
interactive report so that it could return data
60 WHEN bulk_errors
from two different queries. Choices (b) and
61 THEN
(c) are correct: you can use a table function
62 add_to_affected_memes;
or, for simpler scenarios, a union of queries
63
that aremutually exclusive. You cannot,
64 record_errors;
however, use a dynamic query with an inter-
65 END;
active report, so choice (a) is incorrect.

oracle magazine July/august 2014

48 PL/SQL

also available in the Oracle-hosted online

Line(s) Description
article, presents descriptions of the signifi-
2 and 3 The next set of incoming rows is passed to the procedure, which passes back an updated list of all those
meme IDs that have received at least one mention. This collection will drive the final reset meme status step.
cant lines of code in Listing 4.

38 Start of the executable section: make room in the local nested table of mentions to hold all the
incoming data. So, Is It Faster?
It might be lots of fun to completely reorga-
4044 A classic Phase 2: for each of the incoming rows, convert it to the mentions format and load it into the
array. Notice the use of the same index value for the l_mentions collection as in the incoming_in collection. nize ones program in hopes of improving
Because incoming_in was populated with BULK COLLECT, it is either empty or filled sequentially from 1. performance, but we cant just assume that
4656 Time to push all that nicely prepared data into the em_mentions table with FORALL. Because the collection the resulting code actually does run quickly.
is sequentially filled from 1, use the simplest form for the FORALL header: The results the extremememe.info team
FORALL indx IN 1 .. l_mentions.COUNT and I found when we put together and ran a
test script (em_test.sql in the download for
If I used this form (very similar to a numeric FOR loop) and the collection had gaps (index values between
FIRST and LAST that are not defined), the procedure would fail with the ORA-22160: element at index [N] this article at bit.ly/QntyHo) were unam-
does not exist error. To avoid this problem, you can use INDICES OF or VALUES OF; the former is discussed biguous: the new em_update_status runs
in the Phases 2 and 3: Reset meme statuses section.
Next I use the RETURNING clause to capture the IDs of all mentioned memes. I need to use BULK between two and three times as fast as the
COLLECT for my RETURNING clause, because I am likely to insert more than one row and therefore will original procedure.
return more than one ID.
Not too shabby.
58 Call the add_to_affected_memes procedure. This is a procedure declared within the parent procedure. Its The Oracle-hosted online article concludes
implementation is very simple:
with an extremememe.info developer debrief.
9 PROCEDURE add_to_affected_memes A stevenfeuersteinonplsql.blogspot.com
10 IS
11 BEGIN blog post expands on this article to take you
12 affected_meme_ids_out := through the extremememe.info code changes
13 affected_meme_ids_out
14 MULTISET UNION DISTINCT l_affected_this_time; in a step-by-step process.
15 END;

It uses the MULTISET UNION operation to add the ID of the newly affected meme to the existing list of Steven Feuerstein
previously affected memes. By adding the DISTINCT keyword, I ensure that there will not be duplicates in the
resulting nested table. (steven.feuerstein@
oracle.com) is an
5964 Time to handle any errors during insertion into the em_mentions table. The WHEN clause references the
bulk_errors exception, which is declared at the top of the procedure. Within the handler, I call the add_to_ architect for Oracle,
affected_memes procedure. specializing in PL/SQL.
1736 The record_errors procedure iterates through the contents of SQL%BULK_EXCEPTIONS, a pseudocollection His books, including
of records that contains the index in the collection for which an error was returned by the SQL engine and the
error code. It is called a pseudocollection because it is only a partial implementation of an associative array;
Oracle PL/SQL Programming, and more
specifically, only the COUNT method is defined for this collection. than a thousand PL/SQL quizzes at PL/SQL
Table 2: unpack_and_record_mentions procedure line descriptions
Challenge (plsqlchallenge.com) provide in-depth
resources for PL/SQL developers.

Listing 3 shows the implementation of inserted that can be inserted. In the process,
Next Steps
the unpack_and_record_mentions pro- the unpack_and_record_mentions pro-
cedure. As you can see, it is much more cedure filled up the l_affected_meme_ids READ Oracle-hosted online article content
involved than the code required to fetch collection, so now its time to use that col- bit.ly/RryVWE
data. Thats because it contains an INSERT, lection to drive the second FORALL state- DOWNLOAD
which means that you have to pay a lot of ment, performing the updates against the Oracle Database 12c
bit.ly/fherki
attention to error processing. em_memes table.
scripts for this article
Table 2 includes descriptions of the In the original program, for each bit.ly/QntyHo
significant lines of code in Listing 3. These mention, the new meme status was TEST your PL/SQL knowledge
descriptions are out of order (not simply computed. If it was NULL, no update was plsqlchallenge.com
listed from the first to last lines), because performed. The new program will need READ more Feuerstein
I am again using nested subprograms to to incorporate these steps. The code for stevenfeuersteinonplsql.blogspot.com
bit.ly/omagplsql
improve readability. And that usually means reset_meme_statuses is shown in
READ more about
that you read from the bottom up: start with Listing 4, available in the Oracle-hosted Oracle Database 12c
the main executable section and then jump online article at bit.ly/RryVWE. oracle.com/database
to subprograms as needed. (The code in Listing 4 is also in the em_ BULK COLLECT and FORALL
Phases 2 and 3: Reset meme statuses. At update_status_new.sql file in the download bit.ly/12k0n8H
bit.ly/1onU8vi
this point, all meme mentions have been for this article at bit.ly/QntyHo). Table 3,

July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 Database Application Developer and DBA
Oracle Database
On Table Updates and
SQL Plan Baselines
Our technologist updates tables quickly via CTAS
and optimizes queries for evolution.
D ue to an application upgrade, we have
to change all the records in one of our
tables, based on new data supplied in a tem-
porary table. (That table exists just for the
upgrade; it is not a global temporary table.)
What is the best approach for accomplishing
this? The table has millions of records, and
we need to complete the upgrade as quickly
as possible.
This is a frequently asked question with
an answer that might surprise you. The best
way to update this table is not to update
it but, rather, to re-create it! Because this
is part of an application upgrade and the
application is scheduled to be offline during
the upgrade, re-creating the table will
almost certainly be the most efficient way
to accomplish this.
Rather than updating every row, which
would necessarily generate UNDO for every
modification and generate REDO for the
table modification as well as more UNDO,
simply use CREATE TABLE NEW_TABLE AS
SELECT (CTAS). Using this approach, you can
definitely skip all generated UNDO, and if
you choose, all REDO as well. Additionally,
instead of trying to maintain any and all
indexes on these modified columns during
the application update, simply create fresh
indexes after the CREATE TABLE process is
complete. If you were to update every row,
the index on these modified columns would
likely be at least twice as large as it needs to
be, so you would almost certainly want to
rebuild these indexes anyway.
So, your update steps are as follows:
1. CREATE TABLE NEW_TABLE AS SELECT
<join of old_table with the data to be
updated>. This may involve an outer
join if most, but not all, of the rows are
to be updated. (There might not be a
row in the stage table for every row in
the existing table.)
2. DROP TABLE OLD_TABLE. Get rid of the
existing table with the old data.
3. ALTER TABLE NEW_TABLE RENAME TO
OLD_TABLE.
4. CREATE INDEX. Re-create the indexes.
5. GRANT the appropriate privileges on
the table.
If you are in archivelog mode during
the application upgrade, consider using
the NOLOGGING clause to prevent REDO
from being generated. (But make sure
to disable NOLOGGING and back up the
database after the upgrade.) If you are in
noarchivelog mode, the CREATE TABLE
NEW_TABLE AS SELECT and CREATE INDEX
commands will not generate any REDO.
(And remember, they never create UNDO
for the CREATE TABLE or CREATE INDEX
commands.) Youll not only find this
CREATE TABLE AS SELECT approachusing
data definition language (DDL) instead of
data manipulation language (DML)to be
faster for large objects but, in addition, the
resulting segments will not be in need of a
reorganization, as they probably would be
after a MERGE/UPDATE operation.
To see this in action against a large
data set, I recommend that you look at the
four-part video series at bit.ly/1fXdD8L,
bit.ly/1idIpdK, bit.ly/1mO3dwL, and
bit.ly/1lIg7yO. These videos show the
loading, validating, and transforming (you
are interested in the transforming portion
most of all) of a large set of data with DDL
and compare that approach with trying to
use DML to do the same.
IF YOU CAN HINT IT, YOU CAN BASELINE IT
I recently had a problem with two SQL state-
ments performing semantically equivalent
queries but with very different runtimes.
Ask Tom by Tom Kyte 49
I think I narrowed the problem down to a
simple case where the optimizer is wildly off
in cardinality estimates. The statistics are up
to date and represent the actual data.
When I run the query with a subquery
(returning a single constant value) in the
WHERE clause, the query is excruciatingly
slowabout 350 seconds. If I evaluate
the subquery by hand (which takes some
milliseconds) and pass the return value as a
constant to the query, the query will run in
some millisecondswith a completely dif-
ferent plan.
The subquery is a simple MAX(...) query,
so why cant the optimizer use the same plan
or predict that a single value will be returned
and optimize the query?
[Editor's note: Listing 1 shows the example
table, a slow query and plan, and a faster
query and plan.]
What is the best way to achieve this faster
query plan without having to rewrite the
original query?
Although these two queries are semanti-
cally equivalent, they present very different
challenges to the optimizer. In the first
case, the optimizer will have to guess
at the value returned by the subquery,
because it has not yet executed the sub-
query. That is, the query
SQL> SELECT *
2 FROM t t1
3 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE'
4 AND t1.object_id > (SELECT
5 MAX(t2.object_id) - 500000
6 FROM t t2);
is very much like
SQL> SELECT *
2 FROM t t1
oracle magazine July/august 2014
50 Ask Tom

3 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE' Code Listing 1: Example table, slow query and plan, and faster query and plan
4 AND t1.object_id > ???;

Here is the setup for the example table:

The optimizer cannot see what the CREATE TABLE t AS SELECT * FROM all_objects;
constraint against OBJECT_ID will be, and ALTER TABLE t ADD CONSTRAINT t_id_pk PRIMARY KEY (object_id);
CREATE INDEX t_idx_id ON t(object_id);
it cannot see what value will ultimately be CREATE INDEX t_idx_type ON t(object_type);
plugged in there when the query executes. exec DBMS_STATS.GATHER_TABLE_STATS(user, 'T' );
Therefore, the optimizer will guess at the
Here is the slow query I would like to tune, along with its plan:
estimated cardinality. SQL> SELECT *
However, when you query with the 2 FROM t t1
construct 3 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE'
4 AND t1.object_id > (SELECT MAX(t2.object_id) - 500000 FROM t t2);
6115 rows selected.
SQL> SELECT *
2 FROM t t1 Execution Plan

3 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE'
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |
4 AND t1.object_id > 19975;
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 413 | 39235 |
| 1 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | T | 413 | 39235 |
the optimizer has a lot more information
| 2 | BITMAP CONVERSION TO ROWIDS | | | |
to work with. It knows approximately how | 3 | BITMAP AND | | | |
many rows will come back, due to the | 4 | BITMAP CONVERSION FROM ROWIDS| | | |
| 5 | SORT ORDER BY | | | |
predicate with constant values. So what
|* 6 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | T_IDX_ID | 8252 | |
you are dealing with is a query in which | 7 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 5 |
the optimizer will have a really hard time | 8 | INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX)| T_IDX_ID | 1 | 5 |
| 9 | BITMAP CONVERSION FROM ROWIDS| | | |
obtaining correct cardinality estimates
|* 10 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | T_IDX_TYPE | 8252 | |
at hard parse time and therefore stands a
good chance of not selecting the optimal
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
planat least for the first execution. The

question is, How can you fix this without
rewriting the code to use two queries and, 6 - access("T1"."OBJECT_ID"> (SELECT MAX("T2"."OBJECT_ID")-500000 FROM
"T" "T2"))
optimally, without using any hints in the
filter("T1"."OBJECT_ID"> (SELECT MAX("T2"."OBJECT_ID")-500000 FROM
production code? The answer is to tempo- "T" "T2"))
rarily use hints to get the plan you desire 10 - access("T1"."OBJECT_TYPE"='TABLE')

but then use the SQL Plan Management

Here is the query and the faster plan I would like it to use:
feature of Oracle Database and query plan SQL> SELECT MAX(t2.object_id) - 500000 FROM t t2;
baselines to implement the fix, removing
MAX(T2.OBJECT_ID)-500000
the need for hints in the production envi-

ronment and ensuring that you get the 19975
plan you want, unless and until the opti-
SQL> SELECT *
mizer discovers a better plan.
2 FROM t t1
The reason you do not want hints in your 3 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE' AND t1.object_id > 19975;
production code is that it is very difficult 6115 rows selected.

to correctly hint a query. To properly hint a

Execution Plan
query, you must fully, verbosely hint it. You
might discover in your testing environment | Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)|

that using hints A, B, and C achieves the
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 7198 | 667K| 102 (2)|
plan you want but that in production, after |* 1 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 7198 | 667K| 102 (2)|
statistics are gathered and the data has |* 2 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | T_IDX_TYPE | 8553 | | 6 (0)|

changed, or after a database upgrade, hints
A, B, and C may no longer do the job. Maybe Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
you didnt know you also needed hint D to

ensure that the optimizer would choose the

1 - filter("T1"."OBJECT_ID">19975)
plan you wanted, even though the query 2 - access("T1"."OBJECT_TYPE"='TABLE')
was working well by accident before. Or,

July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 51

maybe after a database upgrade, the opti- Code Listing 2: Getting a plan by using hints
mizer introduces a new query transforma-
tion/rewrite that invalidates your hint. SQL> SELECT /*+ first_rows(1) */ *
Ill demonstrate the shortest list of hints 2 FROM t t1
3 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE'
you would need to ensure that the above
4 AND t1.object_id > (SELECT MAX(t2.object_id) - 500000 FROM t t2);
query uses the plan you want, and youll see
that this list of hints is much longer than any Execution Plan

list of hints you would have coded yourself.
Plan hash value: 1289158178
Another reason to avoid putting
hints into the query and to use SQL Plan
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)
Management is that you enable the opti-

mizer to evolve your query plan over time. | 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | 97 | 4 (0)
That is, you wont freeze your query plan, |* 1 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 97 | 2 (0)
|* 2 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | T_IDX_TYPE | 1871 | | 1 (0)
and youll have the opportunity to use a
| 3 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 5 |
better plan in the future. If you fully hinted | 4 | INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX)| T_ID_PK | 1 | 5 | 2 (0)
the query, youd be stuck with whatever plan
you had today. See Baselines and Better
SQL> select /*+ opt_param( '_b_tree_bitmap_plans', 'FALSE' ) */ *
Plans at bit.ly/PWcxDU for a discussion of 2 FROM t t1
this query plan evolution. 3 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE'
4 AND t1.object_id > (SELECT MAX(t2.object_id) - 500000 FROM t t2);
Now lets see how to get the plan
you want and then how to use SQL Plan Execution Plan
Management to put that plan in place and
Plan hash value: 1289158178
have it be used transparently by your query.
In a testing environment, I discovered that
by using either the FIRST_ROWS(1) or the | Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)

OPT_PARAM( _b_tree_bitmap_plans,
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 94 | 9118 | 85 (0)
FALSE ) hint to disable the use of B-tree |* 1 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 94 | 9118 | 83 (0)
bitmap plans for this SQL statement, I get |* 2 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | T_IDX_TYPE | 1871 | | 6 (0)
| 3 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 5 |
the plan I want, as shown in Listing 2.
| 4 | INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX)| T_ID_PK | 1 | 5 | 2 (0)
Now, if I wanted to ensure that the
plan in Listing 2 is, in fact, the plan used
by default, I would need more than just a
FIRST_ROWS(1) or OPT_PARAM hint. In fact, provably better plan comes along? 8 end;
when I use DBMS_XPLAN to display not only First, I would capture a SQL plan baseline 9 /
the plans but also the full set of hints neces- for the existing querythe query with the 1
sary to reproduce this plan reliably, I see the bad plan. Why would I want to capture the
plan and the outline data in Listing 3. bad plan? To establish a SQL plan baseline for The database will still use that plan, but
As you can see in Listing 3, the full list this query (into which I will load the desired only because it is the only game in town
of hints in the outline data that you need plan), I need the plan baseline to exist before right now. So lets create something better:
is quite extensivefar beyond just the I can load the plan into it. I execute the code the first query plan in Listing 2the plan for
OPT_PARAM hint. I can assure you that in Listing 4 to create the baseline. the SELECT /*+ first_rows(1) */ * query.
properly hinting a query to repeatedly get That is my baseline, and that plan will be That is the plan I want. All I need to do
the same plan is much harder than it looks. used. But it isnt what I want. The next step is load that plan in place of the bad one, as
Also, I dont really want to freeze the plan is to disable that plan: shown in Listing 5, available in the Oracle-
forever, because future releases of Oracle hosted article at bit.ly/1hYmIyb.
Database will likely be able to rewrite the SQL> begin There are now two plans loaded for that
query or perform some optimization that 2 dbms_output.put_line( SQL statement: onethe bad planis
just doesnt exist yet, resulting in an even 3 dbms_spm.alter_sql_plan_baseline disabled; the otherthe good plan (even
better plan. Id like to be able to take advan- 4 ( sql_handle => though it is for a different query, it can
tage of future features, but if Ive hinted the 'SQL_e738c19a5191e8fd', work with this query)is enabled.
query, I wont be able to. 5 attribute_name => 'enabled', When I run the query again, as shown
So, what would the steps be to get the 6 attribute_value => 'NO' ) in Listing 6 (available in the Oracle-hosted
optimizer to choose the desired plan until a 7 ); article at bit.ly/1hYmIyb), I see that it used

oracle magazine July/august 2014

52 Ask Tom

Code Listing 3: Determining plan and outline info needed to make a better hinted plan the query plan baseline for my good plan.
With this baseline solution, there is
SQL> select * no permanent hintingand permanent
2 from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor (sql_id=>'4rg4kcxr83kup', hinting is much harder to set up and use
3 cursor_child_no => 0, format=>'+outline'));
than you think it is! Many hinted queries
PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT out there in production today may be
ticking time bombs.
SQL_ID 4rg4kcxr83kup, child number 0
And there are no upgrade issues with this

select /*+ opt_param( '_b_tree_bitmap_plans', 'FALSE' ) baseline solution. (You may have to com-
gather_plan_statistics */ * FROM t t1 WHERE t1.object_type = 'TABLE' pletely change all your hints after a database
AND t1.object_id > (SELECT MAX(t2.object_id) - 500000 FROM t t2)
upgrade as you add new query rewrites,
Plan hash value: 1289158178 access paths, and so on. With this baseline
solution, you wont.)

And, finally, if a better plan comes along,
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| Time |
youll be able to use it if you are using query
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 83 (100)| | plan evolution.
|* 1 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 91| 8827| 81 (0)| 00:00:01|
|* 2 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | T_IDX_TYPE| 1823| | 6 (0)| 00:00:01|
| 3 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1| 5| | |
| 4 | INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX)| T_ID_PK | 1| 5| 2 (0)| 00:00:01|
Tom Kyte is a database
evangelist in Oracles
Outline Data Server Technologies

division and has worked
/*+ for Oracle since 1993. He
BEGIN_OUTLINE_DATA is the author of Expert
IGNORE_OPTIM_EMBEDDED_HINTS
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ALL_ROWS
OUTLINE_LEAF(@"SEL$2")
OUTLINE_LEAF(@"SEL$1") Next Steps
INDEX_RS_ASC(@"SEL$1" "T1"@"SEL$1" ("T"."OBJECT_TYPE"))
PUSH_SUBQ(@"SEL$2")
INDEX(@"SEL$2" "T2"@"SEL$2" ("T"."OBJECT_ID")) ASK Tom
END_OUTLINE_DATA Tom Kyte answers your most difficult technology
*/ questions. Highlights from that forum appear in
this column.
asktom.oracle.com
Code Listing 4: Creating the baseline READ Oracle-hosted online article content
bit.ly/1hYmIyb
READ more Tom
SQL> begin
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2 dbms_output.put_line(
3 dbms_spm.load_plans_from_cursor_cache Expert Oracle Database Architecture
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5 ); DOWNLOAD Oracle Database 12c
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7 /
1 LEARN more about
Oracle Database 12c
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2 substr(sql_text,1,10)||'...'|| baselines
3 substr(sql_text,length(sql_text)-10) stext, Baselines and Better Plans
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7 'SELECT%FROM t t1%(SELECT MAX(t2.object_id) - 500000 FROM t t2)';
FOLLOW Oracle Database
SQL_HANDLE STEXT PLAN_NAME ENA on Twitter
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SQL_e738c19a5191e8fd SELECT * SQL_PLAN_fff61m98t3u7xda64b1bb YES on Facebook
... FROM t t2) facebook.com/oracledatabase

July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

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54
Learning Circle, Part 1
President Alyssa Johnson talks about OAUGs evolving
mission and commitment to innovation through community.
A s Alyssa Johnson takes over the reins
at Oracle Applications Users Group
(OAUG), she draws on more than 10 years of
user group participation to refine the com-
munitys mission of connection, education,
and innovation. Oracle Magazine recently sat
down with Johnson to talk about her history
with Oracle technology, the mission of OAUG,
and collaboration.
Oracle Magazine: How did you get started
with Oracle technology?
Johnson: I got started in technology almost
30 years ago in software development in
the scientific field. I took a break from that
part of my life to concentrate on family,
and when the time was right, I was very
fortunate to have the opportunity to go
back into technology. It was then that I first
focused on Oracle and on the functional
side of applications. I was part of a Release
12 team for Oracle E-Business Suite, and
we really invested a lot of time in under-
standing and implementing the many fea-
tures in Release 12, specifically around the
financials product family.
Oracle Magazine: And that eventually led
you to OAUG?
Johnson: Exactly. I began leading learning
sessions and regional workshops, which led
to giving presentations at COLLABORATE.
For me, it was about giving back to the OAUG
community, because when I first started
working in Oracle technology, I leveraged a lot
of the education that was provided by OAUG
through resources such as OAUG eLearning
and the Conference Paper Database.
I currently serve on the OAUG Board of
Directors, and I served as president-elect last
year. And because I worked very closely with
Margaret Wright [Johnsons predecessor], I
will be able to continue with the vision and
the strategy that she and the board had.
Oracle Magazine: Will you give a little per-
spective on that vision?
July/august 2014 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Alyssa Johnson, president of OAUG, talks about
enterprise technology, user groups, communication,
collaboration, and more.
Johnson: The mission of OAUG is to
enhance the return on investment in Oracle
Applications for its members by building a
global knowledgebase of information. We
do that through education and personal
development; through unique networking
opportunities; and through established
channels for communicating with and
advocating to Oracle, such as the OAUG
Customer Support Council.
As president, one of my focus areas is
finding innovative ways to improve the
benefits we currently provide. For example,
in the past our Conference Paper Database
has not been easy to use. But we just
released a version that is highly searchable
and easy to use.
Another area that Iand the entire
boardwant to focus on is increased
member involvement. We want to chal-
lenge each one of our members to be more
involved this year than last year. You dont
have to run for president of OAUG, but take
a look to see where your involvement helps
In the Field by carol hildebrand
you learn. If you didnt participate in any of
our OAUG eLearning events last year, join
us this year. Or read an article in our OAUG
Insight magazine. Or maybe youd like to
come to COLLABORATE. We want to better
communicate to our membership about
opportunities and encourage them to be
more involved.
Oracle Magazine: Speaking of
COLLABORATE, tell us about that event.
Johnson: COLLABORATE is interesting,
because the different user groups [OAUG;
Independent Oracle Users Group, or IOUG;
and Quest] have different needs. But at the
core, all the groups are still about member
education, facilitating networking, and
communicating with Oracle. I think there
were 1,900 COLLABORATE 2014 paper sub-
missions just for OAUG. After completing
the presentation selection process, there
were more than 1,400 sessions across all
three user groups. And with almost 200
partners involved, the exhibitor showcase
was fantastic.
One thing we did a little differently in
2014 was restructuring the Oracle Meet
the Experts session to give attendees the
opportunity to talk one-on-one with the
experts on certain topics. And we debuted
the new COLLABORATE mobile applica-
tion, which lets people network with fellow
attendees right on the app and search on
different and trending topics.
Carol Hildebrand writes about business,
sports, and technology from Wellesley,
Massachusetts.
Next Steps
JOIN OAUG
oaug.org
Paul S. Howell
FOLLOW OAUG on Twitter
twitter.com/OAUG1

Deploy Applications in
Different Environments
Organizations look to todays application server platforms to
run high-performance enterprise applications and services.
O racle Magazine spoke with Maureen
Fleming, vice president of business
process management and middleware
research programs at International Data
Corporation (IDC), about the latest innova-
tions in application server technology.
Oracle Magazine: What do organizations
look for in an application server platform?
Fleming: Most organizations today are
looking for a set of services that improve
the ease with which they can deploy
scalable, high-performance applica-
tions. Application servers such as Oracle
WebLogic Server can be purchased as part
of a suite with a broad set of additional
middleware capabilities such as distributed
data caching and identity management.
These additional services support mission-
critical application deployments.
Oracle Magazine: How are open source
and proprietary application servers being
used today?
Fleming: Some organizations are now
commingling open source application
servers and proprietary application servers,
especially for custom-developed applica-
tions. You can do some amazing things with
open source technology, such as using a
lightweight application server embedded in
a tablet or in highly distributed scenarios, in
addition to serving classic custom applica-
tions. When it comes to running packaged
applications, you have to make sure your
application server is certified to run those
applications in an optimal way. Its impor-
tant to pick an application server that is
recommended by the application vendor,
especially given the investments associated
with these applications.
Oracle Magazine: How are businesses using
application server technology to streamline
deployments and simplify maintenance?
A lot of things have
to come together
to build a cloud
application.
Fleming: Companies are virtualizing Java
server farms and standardizing management
across the farm. Rather than having one
application server or server cluster per appli-
cation, they are creating shared environments
to improve utilization. This permits admin-
istrators to spin up or tear down instances as
needed and troubleshoot issues across the
farm. Development teams can choose the
right application server while improving oper-
ational consistency and driving down costs.
On the low end or mobile end, companies
are starting to use lightweight platforms like
Raspberry Pi or even a tablet to serve appli-
cations. On the high end, they are turning to
engineered systems such as Oracle Exalogic.
Engineered systems offer a great deal of
scalability in a plug-and-play environment
that has been preconfigured to improve
speed and performance. They let you run
larger applications than youve been able
to run in the past, so you can dream bigger
about the type of application you want to
build without hitting prior logical limits.
Oracle Magazine: How are application servers
evolving in an era of cloud computing?
Fleming: Application servers are the least
mature of all the tiers of the cloud. For
example, SaaS [software as a service] plat-
forms predate the cloud as we know it today,
and some of these platforms are not con-
structed to work with leading application
server platforms.
A lot of things have to come together to
build a cloud application. This is motivating
Analysts Corner by DAVID BAUM 55
middleware vendors to build application plat-
form frameworks and services. Java-based
cloud application platforms are evolving
around standards that will drive some consis-
tency in how cloud applications can be built.
Oracle Magazine: What does the future hold
for application server technology?
Fleming: Event-driven design is becoming
more and more important with the growth
of the Internet of Things and as a way to take
advantage of the growing volumes of data
that can be harnessed for business value.
For example, new digital services are being
built using sensors embedded in industrial
and consumer products that transmit data
to a collector that aggregates and looks for
indications that something is going wrong.
This prompts a notification to an applica-
tion or backbone designed to manage the
response. The response may be executed on
a mobile device; it may be a task generated
by an existing application; it may be built
using BPM [business process management]
technology; or it may be a custom applica-
tion running on an application server or
cloud application platform.
David Baum (david@dbaumcomm.com) is
a freelance business writer based in Santa
Barbara, California.
IDC (idc.com) is a global provider of market
intelligence, advisory services, and events for
the information technology, telecommunications,
and consumer technology markets.
Next Steps
READ more about
Oracle WebLogic Server 12c
bit.ly/1kPVs9y
DOWNLOAD Oracle WebLogic Server
bit.ly/1kPVu19
oracle magazine July/august 2014
56
Time Capsule Flashbacks: Culture. Industry. Oracle. Oracle Magazine. BY RICH SCHWERIN

1956
1951 Tape Drive
The Remington Rand UNISERVO was the primary I/O
Hard Disk
The refrigerator-sized IBM 350 disk drive held 3.75 MB and
device on the UNIVAC I computer, and stored up to leased for US$3,200 a month. Inflation adjusted, thats
224 KB on a 1,200-foot-long metal tape. nearly US$28,000 todayor US$7,400 per MB.

1970s
Floppy Disks
Data storage in the 70s and into
the 80s? Floppy. From 8-inch to
5-inch to 3-inch, these disks
of thin, flexible magnetic storage
medium were state of the art. Just
ask your mom.

1999
2011

SD Cards
Initially 64 MB, the Secure
Digital (SD) memory card
2013
storage from SanDisk,
Matsushita, and Toshiba has
Extreme
been getting smaller in size Memory
and larger in capacity ever

2000
In a single rack, Oracles
since. (Todays MicroSD holds
Exadata Database
128 GB.)
Machine X4 supports
Storage from A to ZFS 88 TB of user data in
flasha capacity suffi-

USB Flash Drive Organizations are optimizing storage with

The first ThumbDrive
from Trek Technology
plugged into any USB port
tiered Sun flash, disk, and tape solutions
from Oracle and enabling unified storage
with the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance.
cient to hold the majority
of online transaction
processing databases in
flash memory.
REMINGTON RAND, WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

and offered a whopping 8

MB storage capacity. And
within just a few years,
thumb drives were making
fashion statements.
Sushi, anyone?
FROM 8-INCH FLOPPIES TO 88 TB IN
FLASH, tell us about your first storage,
YOUR TURN your ultimate storage, and where you
think storage will be in five years.
Visit Facebook/OracleMagazine and let
us know. bit.ly/orclmagfb

JULY/AUGUST 2014 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE

Oracle Cloud
Applications
HCM
Human Capital
Ca
Recruiting
Re ERP
Talent Financials
Procurement
CRM Projects
Sales
Supply Chain
Service
Service
vice
Marketing

More Enterprise SaaS Applications

Than Any Other Cloud Services Provider

Copyright 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.