Hans Forbrich Blog

Getting users involved - interesting concept

2009-12-22T13:18:00.002-07:00

I just attended the second open web conference about the proposed direction of the Certify capability and UI in MOS.

Again, I was the only non-Oracle attendee.

Sad.

MOS: Taxonomy

2009-12-20T16:46:00.002-07:00

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. A chapter in the Oracle 10g Portal class discusses taxonomy when dealing with Portal organization. (I always recommend organizations who are serious about classification to hire a librarian to lead any taxonomy project.)

Since starting with the My Oracle Support, I have not felt very comfortable with the navigation. Admittedly, part of this is habit - once I'd figured it out, I'd been satisfied with the Metalink navigation style and requirements. But switching navigation styles should not have bothered me so much, and I've been struggling with 'why does MOS feel cumbersome?'

(I've discussed some of this repeatedly, and covered a few reasons. These are a few of my favorite things

Flash - form before function;
Flash - performance;
Flash - proprietary, security risk, banned from some customer sites;
non-standard UI - no back button, no 'open new window' on articles
... )

Today's topic is 'consistency in classification'. And this is probably going to be the most controversial topic of the entire MOS-related group of blogs. I hope this one will generate some discussion!

What is there?

MOS uses different classifications in different areas. This would not be so bad, if I could understand why they are different. "Knowledge" tab has a "Browse Knowledge" region (which seems overly complicated); "Patches" has a different classification scheme to select patches; "Certify" has an other.

"Browse Knowledge" was obviously sponsored by the Applications division of Oracle. At the top level, it classifies "AIA, JD Edwards Enterprise, JDE World, Siebel, Peoplesoft, E-Biz, More Applications, Middleware, Database, Linux/VM, Services, Support, Tools/Training, Doc, and Japanese KB". With all the dynamic changing of shapes and entries in other areas of MOS, I think I'd be happier if I could suppress those areas that have no interest for me.

"Patches" go by "Product or Family" which has a list of approximately 1400 entries of which you can select one or more.

"Certify" is undergoing change. But so far, they have invented "Product Line, Product Family, Product Area, Product, Product Release, Product Version" which seems to be some form of hierarchy. (In fairness, they acknowledge this needs to change. Hopefully some others will join us on Tuesday AM for the discussion about what should/could change.)

My thoughts

I have a chart that I use to help Oracle customers understand Oracle products. It's a bit dated, but basically it summarizes my thinking, which is that Oracle has 3 product areas

Services
Technology
Applications

Services to me are

Consulting (Tech Consulting, Apps Consulting, Upgrade Services, Partner Services)
Training (Oracle University, Knowledge Center, Oracle Academy, Certifications, CertView)
Support (Premier, Advanced, MOS-F, MOS-H, OSS)

Technology includes the following

Management Infrastructure: Oracle Server, RDB , Times Ten, Berkeley, (MySQL)
Middleware Infrastructure: WLS, OC4J, Tuxedo, TopLink,
Manipulation: Tools (SQL Developer, JDeveloper, Forms, Reports, etc.), AIA
Movement: Warehouse Builder, Data Integrator, Golden Gate, ESB, Queue
Consolidation: Portal, WebCenter
Collaboration: Collaboration Suite, Beehive
Control: SOA and all it's components, Registry, ESB, Web Services
System Infrastructure: OEL, OracleVM, OSS, Grid, ASM, OSB, Exadata, (Solaris)
Security: Single Sign On, Identity Management, OVD, OID
Intelligence: Discoverer, Reports, BI Beans, BI Publisher, BI Suite EE, ...
Management: Enterprise Manager, Grid Control, Packs (other than those included above)

and I often group the above into

Infrastructure (System, Data Management, Middleware, Security)
Development (Tools)
Coordination (Consolidation, Collaboration, Control, Intelligence)
Management (Grid Control)

Applications (something I try not to get involved in - as Tech above has enough areas to amuse me):

I acknowledge that the above is simply a list of the products from the referenced site, and that another meaningful classification is by business area (Supply Chain, Financials. HR, etc.) or by Industry.

Where am I going with this?

As an engineer and technologist, I drill into support requirements by product. "My 'product x, version y' is having the following problem."

My first thought is that the Knowledge Browser, Patch, and Certify should allow me to filter by area of interest.

That implies that I could set a global filter (which I think is the purpose of 'Power View') which would allow me to include one or more of the three areas. Within each of those areas, I would have product lines (as given above), product families, product, product edition, and product version.

A good taxonomy

A good taxonomy has 3 characteristics that I can identify:

It is designed by someone independent of the stakeholders, but with input by stakeholders
It is created over a number of years
It is NOT rigid - as things change, it will evolve.

That first one is perhaps the most surprising. My experience indicates that if the stakeholders try to provide classification, the job will never get done since too many people have a vested and personal interest. Hire a librarian - they know how to classify AND how to keep us in line. :-)

So perhaps

Perhaps more important than using a taxonomy based on what I describe, there needs to be a visual 'tree' that people could pull up while in MOS that would show whatever taxonomy Oracle intends to use.

(I note that there is not a single occurrence of a visual expandable-folder-like tree in the entire MOS UI that I can find. Anyone?)

And that taxonomy needs to be used consistently across all the tabs, areas, regions, communities, etc. With flexibility allowing changes - but with discussion and warnings when things are to change.

MOS Certify: An offer and an opportunity

2009-12-18T08:42:00.006-07:00

I wrote my first program in 1969 and have been using computers a lot since that first program. I've developed a bunch of habits, viewpoints and stodgy? ideas about how to interact with computers.

As a result, I am very vocal about the shortcomings of the new My Oracle Support interface.

I'm also a member of Toastmasters International. (AC-S.) A base philosophy in TMI is "feedback is important (even critical), and feedback needs to be constructive". As a result, I try to provide feedback that identifies positive things, things for improvement (including why), and how to improve.

Certify

I was planning on tackling MOS Certify this weekend. It's an important tool in the Professional's toolkit. But it ain't working quite right.

Timing is interesting - on Tuesday, I noticed the folk developing the Certify screens invited us to give feedback on proposed changes. So I signed up for the Thursday afternoon conference call.

To my major disappointment, I was the only customer on the call. At least 1/2 dozen people from Oracle were there, but no other customer.

A lot of my colleagues have whinged about MOS and about certify, but NOT ONE showed up to the opportunity to provide feedback.

COWARDS ?!? (Probably not - but as a community, I bet we going to hide behind a hundred and one excuses.)

To be fair, I just barely stumbled on the announcement.

As I've often said, the UI style in MOS seems geared toward teaching me to ignore information - Alerts that don't alert; News that becomes Olds; and multiple steps to accomplishing simple things like "the click on Community tab to get the opportunity to click on a button to get to a separate tab/browser on which we click to get to the discussion", training people to rush through - and past announcements.

(Has anyone noticed how BUSY the My Oracle Support Community Dashboard page is? Nothing can be suppressed, all has equal importance except the Spotlight which is 1) not relevant to me, and 2) has constantly distracted me from Announcements.)

For these kinds of announcements, perhaps MOS should

- have a 'news' region on the relevant pages (Knowledge Browser, Patch, Certify)
- make sure that region contains only timely news
- get involved in the OTN community
- perhaps have a "MOS Announcements" forum in Community (if run by them ...)
- or make important announcements in "Community Feedback and Suggestions" forum
- put it on the Sign-On page, instead of the "Why Flash is good for you" message
and
- update the related MOSC Dashboard Announcement that is correct (since info is updated)

Offer

To make a long story short, Oracle is redesigning the Certify screen. They presented a variation, based on the 'Browse Knowledge' region on the Knowledge tab.

(I am not enamored of that 'Browse Knowledge' technique - it is not intuitive for me. But I'm willing to admit, that may be my problem, not MOS. I'll tackle that in another blog on 'MOS: Taxonomy', hopefully this weekend.)

The MOS team offered to listen. And indeed did listen to my individual voice. And while I do appreciate the chance at performing solo to a captive audience, my stage roles are usually part of an opera chorus, adding one voice amongst many.

Opportunity

There will be another opportunity to provide feedback. On Tuesday 22 December 2009, 8AM PST (11:00 AM Eastern; 5:00 PM CET)

Details available using the following steps:

1. Go to the "MOS Community" page

Log in to MOS (Flash)
Click on Communities
Click on the button
Go to the new tab or browser

2. On the MOSC Main Page (Dashboard) GO to the "Using My Oracle Support All Communities Discussion"

In the "My Communities" region (upper left), scroll to "My Oracle Support" category
Click on "Using My Oracle Support" discussion selector
On the center area, find and expand the "Using My Oracle Support All Communities Discussion" region
Click on the "UPDATE: Focus group to review Certify redesign - Two sessions December 17 and December 22" discussion

(And the above steps are supposed to be intuitive, right??)

Since this is hidden behind a Flash wall, the above link may not be an actual or useful link (sigh!). If I get permission from the MOS team, I'll post a link or the actual dial-in information.

This is our opportunity to provide design and usability input. I hope that someone besides me attends on Tuesday.

Dashboard - getting closer ... updated 3x

2009-12-09T06:19:00.005-07:00

I note this morning that the MOS dashboard 'Site Alert' that leads me to the migration FAQ has been dropped.

Thank you. It is appreciated. (update: I think...)

Two more things to do about Site Alerts:

Allow user to reduce the number of lines for the site alert, or allow it to be collapsed unless these is new information, or make it optional;
Select alerts based on user language settings so that only useful alerts (ones the user can understand) are displayed.

This is going to be a long process if we end up at 2-3 weeks per region ...

-----------
Update: The "Migration of Classic MetaLink Users to My Oracle Support: Top Frequently Asked Questions" site alert is back. On SupportHTML I see a date of Nov 18th.

Update 2: The foreign language entry no longer shows up on either Flash or ADF version.

I hope they are not just fooling me. I'll leave this for a week to determine whether this is indeed a step forward.

Update 3: 2009 12 13 - the foreign language info is back.

Why is the Back Button not used?

2009-12-13T19:10:00.004-07:00

One of the worst practices I see in developer-land is the need to reinvent the wheel. It costs money to create a duplicate of existing functionality, and it costs even more money to maintain that code.

Browsers are equipped with a Back button. This button has a known function.

MOS designers have created a system that is not compatible with this basic functionality. As a result, they need to implement a duplicate of that functionality all over the place in F-MOS. They decided to use a link and Bread Crumbs, rather than a button.

Unfortunately, the Back link is not on all pages or regions. So far the 'back' link is only visible in My Oracle Support Communities, and then only inconsistently.

Numerous examples abound. Too many to count. So I'll limit myself to one per tab.

1) Dashboard: Site Alert region: "Migration of Classic MetaLink Users to My Oracle Support: Top Frequently Asked Questions"

Click on the link, and we go to a new region "Dashboard > Alert Detail".

No 'Back' functionality. No 'Back' link. Browser 'Back' button does something but the result is not a change in display.

User is forced to use the Bread Crumbs to go back.

(There are two additional failures in implementation with this as wall:

Useless detail, it tells you to click on another link to get to a document;
Page title is 'PAGE_TITLE_NEWS' which is neither accurate nor useful.

But these failures will be discussed in more detail elsewhere.)

2) Knowledge Home: Knowledge Articles (Filtered for Oracle Internet Directory): Recently Updated: (first article)

Click on the article title, the 'Articles' region snaps to take over the page to provide

a scrollable 'article titles' area (30% of the screen, not re-sizable) and
the current article are (70%)

No 'go back' link. Browser 'Back' button does something but the result is not a change in display. User is forced to use the Bread Crumbs to go back.

(Three big 'Thank You' notes to the development team:

The region snaps to the new configuration. Very crisp and very much appreciated;
Page title gives the article number; and
Ability to open the article in a new browser page/tab after it is displayed.

So there are some positives, in spite of all of my grumbling.)

3) Service Requests Home: Service Request: click on any request

While you can move to next/previous SR and even select from a cute pop-up 'select list', you can not move back to the previous page/region/window.

(Inconsistently, it is not possible to open the current SR in a new browser window/tab; the SR page is very 'busy'; and the current SR # is not displayed in the browser title bar.)

All you can do is use the Bread Crumbs to go back to the SR Home.

4) Patches and Updates tab

Once you set up a search, you go to a 'list of patches' page with no Back capability. Selecting a patch causes the page to slither to a new shape (as compared to the crisp 'snap' in the Knowedge Browser articles) and again you need to use the Bread Crumbs to to back to the Patch home.

5) Community tab

Let's just say this us a wasted tab. No need for a Back button, because you don't go anywhere.

Click on the tab and you get to a static page with a button and some text which tells you to click on the button (and promises that the button will bring you to the Nirvana of moderated community support.) Click on the button and you get a new browser window/tab anyway. So 'Back' is not required.

6) More ...

The More > Systems 'tab' is a duplicate of the regions I suppressed on the Dashboard.

The More > Certifications 'tab' (should be where the Community 'tab' resides) is worthy of it's own discussion.

The More > Reports 'tab' is probably useful in a larger organization. The reports do not have 'back' functionality other than Bread Crumbs.

The More > Collector 'tab' is a functional duplicate of the Nag screen advertisement I finally got suppressed on the Dashboard. It invites me to download the collector and learn all about it. (Why this is not relegated to a Help topic, or Knowledge Article remains a mystery.)

The More > Settings 'tab' is designed is a way that it does not need the Back functionality. This is the first case in the entire system that seems to have been thought out from that perspective.

---

Why do I care? Because this lack of functionality is costing me AND Oracle money both now and in the future.

Me - because it uses a non-standard technique that requires me to stop and think about the peculiar variant for each screen. Time is money.

Oracle - because each peculiar variant needed to be designed and coded, and needs to be maintained. And eventually that will cut into the profits (and share price), or will be passed on to the customer (me) in increased Support fees.

MOS UI and Patches

2009-12-10T22:18:00.003-07:00

The Dashboard no longer bothers me that much. In the Flash version I can almost get rid of everything. In the ADF version the regions are pretty much static BUT the News and Alert entries include a date so I can consciously but moderately quickly tell which is NEWs.

It is time to spread out and look at some of the other 'designed or not' areas in the UI. Some of these I have already reported either inside the MOS Community or with Richard Miller on his blog. I'll create 'one blog per irritation' so I can track them. :-)

My criteria for irritation is pretty simple: anything that interferes with my problem resolution time. In other words: IF it requires extra bytes, or extra keystrokes, or extra scrolling, or extra concentration to refocus because of 'cuteness', I'll report it. (An example of the last: the window that slides on - distracting me through movement - to tell me what I just did ... and refuses to go away unless I tell it to hide.)

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So on to the title story: Patches and the UI

I'm pretty happy that they did not break the old Metalink Patch capability (yet). It's stoopid slow, and I suspect that is caused by the process which seems to be reading the original HTML page and translating and re-rendering it in JSPX. (Why do something once if we can do it twice using 5x the CPU?)

But it works, and that is a major plus.

On the other hand, the Patch stuff in the Flash area is almost amusing, in a sad sort of way.

Patch Reviews

First thing to note is that users can write reviews of patches.

And when you look at a patch, you will see those reviews whether you like it or not. It does not matter whether you are getting that patch for the first time, or the 20th time - you WILL wait until the reviews are loaded. And 15-20% of your page will be used to display those (zero or more) reviews.

Apparently getting customer peer reviews is so important that other customers can not even opt-out.

Patch Tab Regions

There are 5 regions available for the Patch tab.

1) The 'Patch Plan' region seems to be an ad for Patch Plans. There does not seem to be any configuration possibility, so in reality this seems to be just another of the many different (and inconsistent) forms of 'knowledge article' available. A waste of space, but one we can suppress. (Just need to remember that is is a waste of space.)

Why not stay consistent with the Knowledge Article concept or with the Help system, I wonder? (-1)

2) The 'Patching Quick Links' region provides two links of interest to me: "Advanced Classic Patch Search" (found in the E-Business Suite area) actually points to the old 'Advanced' search page, and "Latest Patchsets" points to the old 'Quick Links and Latest Patchsets' page. Both of these very quickly pop up a new browser window (or tab) and work just like the old Metalink version

Score a BIG +1 for this!

3) The 'Patch Related Activity' region tracks the history of which ones I viewed, downloaded, reviewed, and which ones I've marked as 'Favorite'.

(I wonder whether a 'favorite patch' is just like a 'favorite teddy bear' I also note in another section that I can have 'Favorite Bugs'. Perhaps these favorites are something I can cuddle up with? But I digress, just some fun with words.)

It's nice to see Big Brother in action, keeping a history of my moves and telling me about it. I do see some hope for this region and think in the future it may become useful.

Score a modest sized +1

4) The 'Patch Recommendations' region is the most amusing for me. It is only useful if the collector is running.

I've set up the collector to run against a Dell Precision 490 2x dual-core, 2GB RAM, Windows 2003 SE (32 bit, fully patched) Personal Edition 11.1.0.6 patched to 11.1.0.7

I've started discussions with the Support folk to understand the recommendations. Suffice it to say that (as Matt Glover in MOS Communities said) MOS is a 'work in progress'.

Good idea, when they get it working. No points yet.

5) The 'Patch Search' region should be the most useful for the way I work. It runs in two ways: by patch number; and by using a set of filters to help get a list.

The search by patch number works. You enter the patch number (or a comma separated list) and optionally qualify by platform and/or language, and click 'Search'. (Note that hitting "Enter" is not good enough - you MUST use the mouse!) That takes you to the patch list page - a region that takes over the whole Flash area (even if there are no results).

There is no 'Back' functionality. The browser 'Back' button is inoperative, and the region does not have one. You need to use the "Chicken Track" (aka Bread Crumbs) navigator links at the top left corner of the page to 'go to a previous page'.

But it works. +1 (a very small +1 because of the lack of 'Enter' key and lack of 'Back')

The search by filter capability needs improvement.

To be 'fair', that filter capability was added in very short order and under extreme pressure after we were forced to move to MOS, so there is obviously opportunity for improvement - or perhaps just opportunity for basic design. (To be 'unfair', this is basic functionality that should have been made available and thoroughly tested before the transition. -1)

We start with a comma-separated Product entry. There is a list of values - by my calculations that list contains 1332 entries. We can type the product name (RDBMS Server) and the system will use a 'typomatic' technique to narrow the search in the list. (A big +1)

Then we MUST enter the release number. So for RDBMS Server we get 45 entries displayed in groups of 13 per page and we can select the ones we want. Although this is a similar action to the Product entry, this time we get check boxes and no typomatic. (-1 for inconsistency)

But the real pain is that list of 45 entries is sorted in ascending order and the currently supported releases are on the last page only. (-1 for dramatically slowing me down.)

Then we select one of more platforms - using the same technique as the Release. (+1 for a modest amount of consistency)

Optionally, and available only by clicking the funny (+), you can filter by additional criteria (classification such as security, legislative), by type (patch, set), by target (database, SOA, etc)

This one gets to me in the following areas:

I'm struggling why an RDBMS patch would be required for a SOA or OC4J target;
Not sure why PSU and CPU are not separate, selectable Types;
I really dislike being forced to switch between mouse (change fields, select) and keyboard.

And when the selection is complete and I hit Search, the resulting page (which may contain 0 entries, or even an error message) has not usable 'Back' functionality. However, I can call us a selection editor to refine my search.

If I get a list of patches, I can click on one of them.

The page rearranges it's shape: 20% is given to the list of (1) patches; 15% is given to the mandatory review (or "be the first to write a review") area; and the remaining area is for Patch Description. (My preference would have been a separate browser window/tab for the patch, and make the review area optional. A very simple rearrangement would put the Readme, Download and Platform selection in the main area.)

The 'Readme' opens a new browser window. (+1)

Clicking on the bug description replaces the patch search window (which took over the page, no longer a region) with the knowledge browser window which has NO easy way of going back. (-1)

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Bottom line is that the Patch Search functionality, like a lot of MOS, seems to have been created using a 'look Mom, no hands' thought process.

In this regard, I really agree with kathryn's comment on Chris' blog at http://blogs.oracle.com/support, where she says "This should NOT happen. We should NOT have to email you to discuss and see what can be done about each and every error...We PAY you for a product that works..not to be the testers on a Beta product."

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Richard Miller's blog (http://blogs.oracle.com/supportportal) has 3 entries on

Gathering Feedback from Recent Usability Research and Studies
Actual User Feedback
Special Areas of Feedback: Content, Quality, and Performance

Interesting.

I hope he blogs about the design process as well. There is much to be learned from the Oracle experience.

All that said, I know that this will work out in the end. Heck of a price (alienating a significant chunk of the customer base - remembering the old adage "for every one that complains, 10 suffer in silence and even more leave") - but it'll get there.

MOS one week later, things are ???

2009-12-06T09:27:00.006-07:00

Over the past week I have opened a number of Service Requests around the UI and had a large number of discussions with Richard Miller on his blog at http://blogs.oracle.com/supportportal and I've installed the Collector for a dummy system.

First and foremost, they got rid of the duplicated News region on MY dashboard. Thanks for getting that resolved. Turns out (from Richard) this was a known problem - if a second copy of a mandatory region is placed on a page the whole page needs to be 'reset'. However, through the SR process, it only took several screen shots and many hours of SR to get that out of the way, including several "we can't reproduce it" cycles with the dev team.

Second, I note the system performance is improving. Consistency of availability is a totally different issue, but when I can get in, it feels a bit faster. (Unfortunately the speed is wasted by extraneous activity. More on that later.)

Third, I sacrificed one of my Personal Edition licenses to the OCM collector and got rid of the nag screen telling me how good life will be with the collector. This was a pretty straight forward process:

create a GMail account so that I can monitor if any spam is generated
create an Oracle SSO account for the GMail account
get that account added to my CSI
find a spare box and install Windows 2003 SE (planning on doing that anyway)
install 11gR1 Personal Edition (11.1.0.6 for Windows)
install latest Collector and configure it to tie to that new account

I do want to understand how to use this tool so I am looking at the stuff it'll do for me. I note that the 'recommendations' for my 11.1.0.6 did NOT include patching to 11.1.0.7. I also note that manually upgrading to 11.1.0.7 somehow disabled the collector for the database, although it runs for the other products. (Thus another opportunity for wasting more time helping support make me effective ...)

(I note the collector also does a nifty job of monitoring XE - but that is another story. It does recommend patches. LOL!)

On my main login I now have a fairly simple dashboard - no nag screen and no recommendations stuff. Since it is optional, I can get rid of it and I'll use that only on the ID that is supposed to monitor the activity. The stuff remaining on the dashboard is 'Site Alerts', the 'News' and the 'Info Message' window that slithers on.

The "Site Alerts" region

"Site Alerts" region has a subtitle "Upcoming Outages that affect My Oracle Support". I think that means it is important. It certainly is important for me.

That region is capable of displaying 4 lines of important messages and if they use all 4 it'll be a sad day for My Oracle Support.

In the mean time, they are wasting my eyeball space with 2 useless messages - "Classic MetaLink ユーザーのMy Oracle Supportへの移行: よくある質問" (can anyone translate that and tell me why it is important ... which outages does it tell me about?) and "Migration of Classic MetaLink Users to My Oracle Support: Top Frequently Asked Questions" (ditto - which outages does this tell me about????)

Both of those titles take me to a new page that repeats the title and presents a link to a new page. Clicking on those links opens a new browser page (or tab in a multi-tab capable browser).

My thinking for an Alert region is

if it is important, and I click in it ... TAKE ME TO THE INFORMATION;
on an Alert 'page', make sure it is important;
you have my login settings, so extract my language preferences (get 'em if needed);
remove it when it not needed; and
don't display it if it is 'informational'.

As it is, the above two information messages have been there for over a week and can not be suppressed. After a week, I find myself ignoring it ... it has become just more visual noise.

In other words, MOS designers are training me to ignore alerts. (Make important information available, and train the reader to ignore that information. Good idea, what?)

If they want to provide information messages, and other infrequently accessed but generally useful links (according to someone) I suggest they take a page from Enterprise Manager and create a static 'Related Links' page footer. Make it static instead of a region so it is handled very very very quickly.

The "News" region

I've written about this already, so all I will do is reiterate: if I've seen it before, it is not NEWs. NEWs is not mandatory except in the dreams of the writer. Even then I have a choice between CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBC, and so on. It is NOT Mandatory.

Either let me acknowledge that I have seen it, or make it totally optional.

Anyone respecting the time of the user community would make this optional. Or better yet - make access to the news available as a link in the static 'Related Links' footer.

As it stands, this is another case of training the user to ignore the information. (GUI designers should perhaps take a psych 101 course?)

The 'Info Message' window

I think someone suckered Larry into hiring the team that created Microsoft Clippy and assigned them to MOS.

We have a beautiful example. When you take an action affecting the look and feel of the portal, you are told that you took that action and then you have to acknowledge that you are told that you took that action.

I remove a region to my page.
I get a windows that slithers across the top right corner to tell me I removed a region.
And the only way to get rid of that message is to tell it to hide.

I am not sure whether the designers are at Sesame Street levels or whether they think their users are at that level.

Three distinct actions, two of which telling me what my eyes confirm. With apologies to the snakes around the world - yes, it slithers (like so many other regions in MOS) . (Snakes and MOS 'slither', military and good UIs 'snap'.)

If there is a reason for the extra activirty, such as help for the disabled, tell me how to set the parameter on the system saying that I am NOT in need of this.

The biggest difficulty with MOS

I am often called upon as an Oracle Trainer. I find myself standing in front of a class of JEE developers and explaining how and why to use JEE, SOA, ADF and other Oracle technologies.

The single biggest difficulty I have with MOS is that I have to give good reasons to give these (often hostile) professionals to use ADF. And with all the tools owned by Oracle - Oracle Support went outside and chose Adobe Flash.

Thanks Oracle Support for such a brilliant shot across the bow of my credibility. (And that of Frank Nimphius, Steve Muensch, and many others in the ADF blogroll of whom I stand in AWE.)

Ouch!

My Oracle Support is starting to perform

2009-11-22T18:50:00.003-07:00

Not sure whether this is due to the lighter weekend traffic, or significant changes in the programming, but I notice that My Oracle Support - Flash version - is considerably faster today.

If this is a permanent change, then I am duly impressed.

Some areas of the UI are also starting to become operational. For example, I find if I 'follow the rules' for getting certification info - filling in lots of drop down boxes to get a strong filter - the result is returned in a not-unreasonable amount of time.

That means there is hope that eventually the UI will become less irritating as well.

News! Is it really?

2009-11-18T18:48:00.003-07:00

Anyone who read my previous blog will realize I am not a fan of mandatory dashboards.

The main reason is that usually someone else gets to decide what information is good or important for me. Since I almost always work at the fringe of mainstream, usually in support and guidance of mainstream, what is important for me is rarely the same as what is important for mainstream administrators.

What makes me upset with mandatory dashboards is that some else is taking control of my time and my eyeballs. And usually for a reason that is not relevant, or indeed very useful.

Case in point: I logged on to My Oracle Support and was greeted by the Dashboard again. In addition to the non-removable 'offer' to teach me OCM and the duplicated and Mandatory regions of News that have not been updated with anything new in over a week, I now have a new Mandatory region added called 'Site Alerts'.

The new 'Site Alerts' region sports an attention-getting icon and a header saying it will tell me about upcoming outages for MOS. (Which is actually the kind of information I would call 'News'.)

And it has some content.

That content is a separate page that tells me to click on a link to get to another page to get some answers to Frequently Asked Questions about what to do if I had any issues with the migration.

Not, as far as I can tell, any advice about upcoming outages.

So now, when I want to get an answer in a hurry, I have the opportunity to wait for 4 regions to update (or at least bottleneck my download bandwidth) and divert my attention from my objective of solving a problem.

And I suspect that by the time they DO contain some important information, I will have been trained to ignore the content.

Come on guys - if you will not let me remove those regions, at least give me the opportunity to ack and hide the stuff that is is old. So that the important stuff you will tell me will not get buried.

In search of My Oracle Support - Part 2

2009-11-17T21:58:00.003-07:00

Continuing the search of the functionality of the new tool that Oracle Support has provided to the professional community, I think it's time to look at that Portal aspect of MOS. (In particular, I'm going to look at the dashboard.)

According to Wikipedia, "Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether."

I'll try to work with this definition for now ...

Consistent look and feel? - Yup
Access control? - Yup (sort-of)
Procedures for multiple apps and database? - It's so consistent that I can't tell whether there are multiple apps and databases.

So that implies that MOS is a Portal.

It is kind-a cute, especially the way a message window slides across the upper right corner to tell me that 'I actually did what you asked me to do - please tell me to go away'. (For example, "region x removed from page - undo, hide".) Reminds me of Clippy.

But hopefully that portal should help me do my job. So let's look at that 'job' part for a bit.

The way I see it, the portal needs to address several classes of users:

manager and administrator (the ones who pay the bill)
casual tech (the majority)
expert in a focus area (the bread and butter folk)

and there are 3 major modes of operation

proactive
casual (search for information)
reactive/crisis

It is extremely obvious that My Oracle Support is oriented toward Proactive support. Heck, the I can't get rid of the 'very important alert' nag screen on the Flash dashboard that tells me to install OCM so I can get this system to provide me with Proactive Support for my single user Personal Edition licenses. (Come on - that's a bit overkill, isn't it????)

So let's look at the combinations and what simply logging in shows me.

When I log in, I am immediately taken to a Dashboard. That Dashboard gives me News which I can not remove. (In fact, I have 2 occurrences of the News, neither one will disappear.)

By it's very definition, News is very important. It is new. It is supposed to distract me into paying attention. And I have seen the 'News' - a 'Welcome to the new Metalink users' several times a day for the past week. (I am already inured to the news, so truly new News will likely be ignored. Which is bad for News.)

And so I get the News (twice) at whatever the bandwidth requirement is to get the region and to get that very important information that I am likely never to consciously see in the future.

Combinations?

Proactive & Casual Manager

Get OCM working and they can configure their Dashboard to show the targets, the general health check, bugs, and so on. They can even get high priority 'knowledge articles' such as the 'ALERT: Oracle Database 11gR2 Support status and Alerts' (which says it is 'under construction' and tells me that '11g R2 is available')

The dashboard appears to be useful for this role. GREAT!

Reactive Manager

It's Crisis time. As a manager in crisis, my people have been entering SRs. I can get status of my critical Service Requests.

Not bad at all.

We're covering management fairly well in terms of functionality.

Performance will be an issue, as a manager needs to get that information very quickly. That somewhat implies that the manager is expected to keep the portal open pretty much during the day.

Given the attention span that a manager can afford to provide (other than one specifically charged with support), I'm not sure that the page will be open very long and refresh time is critical. Given that the same manager possibly also has BAM and other dashboards open, and I'm thinking we may have a collision of priorities. (It may also explain why managers need the fastest CPUs and newest machines.)

Hopefully those dashboard regions are JSR 268 compliant ...

Proactive & Casual Tech

Pretty much the same as a proactive manager. Possibly not responsible for a lot of systems but at least can see the articles, and peruse the news (again and again). Could have the SR summary available on the dashboard, IF this person actually creates SRs.

Not bad!

Reactive Tech

It's crisis time, and this tech is not an expert. There are possibly 1/2 dozen windows open, each with a 'wait for me to get all sorts of information across the net' timeout. And the boss is coming down the hall, looking for answers. Remember that OCM is probably running and this tech has already had the opportunity to review recommended patches. Unless the 'SR summary' region is available to monitor other SRs, calling for help (by opening a SR) is still several clicks away.

We need to switch to the Knowledge Tab or the SR tab before anything can be done. Ouch!

So, not quite so good for the regular tech. Again, the biggie here is 'how much time will this person have the portal open'? Most admin techs I know are busy researching, scripting, glancing at health checks, checking mail, and so on - outside of Support. Can that person afford to have a window dedicated to a support portal?

And this is assuming the technical person is in the admin area. One whole class of potential users is missing and that is the class of developers. Not quite sure what is available here at all to the developer.

Expert

So let's look at the last of my categories - the 'expert'.

This is a relatively small group in count, but remember that the expert is hired specifically for the ability to get things done fast and accurately. This is the person everyone else turns to as a walking/talking library. This is the person who is called upon when the proverbial fan gets dirty.

This person is the front line of support. If this person is worried, management and the others are probably frightened.

Proactive Expert

The proactive expert may want the dashboard for the occasional glance. (But probably already has other tools up and running, such as Grid Control, HP OpenView, or the like AND personalized scripts.) Total time spent on the dashboard in a week, probably 1 hour, 45 minutes of which is in configuring it.

Over time, the expert may learn to be comfortable with OCM and the dashboard for health checks. I'm just concerned about the overhead of the dashboard page, time to access it if it;s not open, and the duplication of effort.

Still, not a bad possibility.

Casual Expert

It is my belief that one of the things that creates experts is the drive to see new situations, learn and research.

If that is true, the expert, in casual mode, will be wanting to research in the knowledge base. I honestly do not see anything at all in the dashboard that will be useful at this time in the quest to learn more.

So for the expert in casual mode, the 'dashboard' is a wasted interception. (Unless he wants to see that old News again.)

Reactive Expert

And in reactive mode the expert is driven to research. The key here is getting to the information source as quickly as possible. That, as far as I can tell, is safely tucked away on the knowledge tab, a click plus 5 seconds of screen refresh away from login.

Unless the expert is expected to have the portal open at all times. Perhaps in conjunction with the company portal. I wonder if that would be a good business case justification for dual monitor?

Conclusion

So far I can see the dashboard has it place. One place appears to be on the manager's desktop, open at all times. There are definitely some interesting aspects. (Although they appear to compete with Grid Control. Hmmm ...)

For me ... I'd prefer to have a few configuration tweaks: allow me to clean the dashboard totally (no region displayed at all), especially the old News and overkill alerts; let me select the page on which I land at opening - in my case, the Knowledge page.

I'm sure that when I grow up and have a few more systems to manage, or when I'm in a customer site that allows me to monitor the health of their systems, I'll find the various capabilities of the dashboard very useful.

Since I learned the trick of how to use, it the ideal Portal landing page has been the Oracle Tech Net page. Fast!

Definitely a first glance at the dashboard. As time goes on I'll need to review it again. But the next one - the MOS Knowledge tab ...

Totally aside, I have no idea why getting to the community pages requires 3 steps in Internet Explorer 7 & 8:

1) click on the MOS 'Community tab', which presents the 'welcome page' with a button;
2) click on the 'Go to community' button, after reading the 'welcome to the community' verbiage for the nth time;
3) click on the 'MOS Community' IE tab that is opened in response to the button.
(And then I click on the Discussions tab because the community opens on a totally static (and traffic heavy) welcome page which I've now read n-3 times.)

I have to admit, all this 'welcome' is very ... bandwidth intensive?

Single Sign On or Same Sign On?

2009-11-17T16:14:00.002-07:00

Just thinking aloud ... one of the things Oracle has introduced is 'userid consistency' across their applications. This is called 'SSO'.

I thought that SSO stood for 'Single Sign On', and the functionality is 'sign on once and use all applications'.

I am finding it actually means 'Same Sign On' and the functionality is 'log in to each of the the different applications one at time, using the same userid & password'. However, signing out does efficiently log me off all applications.

Still trying to get my head around the reason, and the benefit, of this. I'm sure it'll come to me.

In support of My Oracle Support? - Part 1

2009-11-15T09:31:00.005-07:00

I have previously written about issues with My Oracle Support. I still have issues and will probably always have issues, with the new system.

However, there is another side to the same story. It's a tool. It's a tool that has been made available to me. I strongly believe that a professional (counting myself in that set) I need to understand when, where and why the tools might benefit me.

So here starts my process of discovering the tool and understanding where it might help.

(Note to self - Next parts: MOS is a Portal but do we need portals?; MOS has a lot of functionality and is based on user feedback; MOS provides automation & who benefits?)

In support for MOS - part #1 of the learning process

I suspect the reason for Flash is similar to the JInitiator in the early Forms days.

We wanted rich functionality that was provided by Java in the client but no client (browser) consistently supported the JVM requirements. The first few iterations of JInitiator included complete (and excruciatingly slow) downloads and many many concerns about automatically downloaded software. Indeed, Oracle lost some Forms customers as a result of that.

As time went on the JInitiator download was split to download only the functionality required to accomplish the next task, if it was not there yet.

I see that Richard Miller's blog and Chris Wartiki's blog indicate they are looking at that change using Flash. (Having learned from history :-) the MOS team starts this after production.)

Back in the JInitiator hey-day, Oracle was constantly hammered by customers and competition as imposing non-standard, proprietary, software on the users. I often heard "it isn't Microsoft", "it is non-standard" as the reason for not allowing JInitiator. So people moved to Visual Basic, or some competitors, many of which have now disappeared. (Although underneath is was frequently "if it's Oracle we have this convenient excuse".)

So Flash is a non-proprietary (read non-Oracle) pseudo standard that should be acceptable to many users.

The next generation (HTML 5) is not available universally yet. (Hopefully the MOS Team will have designed to support the transition in the future.)

Indeed, one excuse for selecting Flash was to support the IE 6 users out there. (Better to support the rather large community that is stuck with non-compliant environments than to have a well-designed ADF environment for the future? It's about the numbers!)

The security issues that are found nearly daily are probably not as worrisome to many users as the benefit in user experience. Users seem to be complacent about security anyway, and there is a non-Flash alternative (http://supporthtml.oracle.com) for those of us who are squeamish.

In support of MOS, I think Flash addresses a significant part of the user community and probably addresses it well. I will be looking at that seriously, when I have lots of time.

And they have provided me an HTML alternative which limps along to satisfy my needs.

My Oracle Support survey

2009-11-13T20:45:00.004-07:00

schavali has the following excellent suggestion at http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=3902274#3902274

---------------------------

I would encourage all that are facing issues to provide feedback to Oracle in one or more of the following ways -

1. Use the "Contact Us" link in MOS (which creates a non-technical SR)
2. Respond to blog posts at the Support blog sites - http://blogs.oracle.com/support and http://blogs.oracle.com/supportportal
3. Respond to survey being run by Daniel Fink - http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/460968
4. If your organization has an Oracle Service Delivery Manager, pl send him/her an email requesting that your feedback be forwarded on to Support Management.

---------------------------

According to Richard Miller's response to me in the comments, those of us who do not use Flash are in the minority and the majority seem to be quite happy with the new MOS Web 2.0 user experience.

I would certainly encourage responding to the survey. (Daniel Fink's MOS survey)

My Oracle Support is Web 2.0

2009-11-13T09:59:00.002-07:00

My Oracle Support has been upgraded. There are pains in the upgrade.

The Oracle people are working very hard at getting over the pains. And they are blogging about it, much in the defense of the new system.

IN particular, Richard Millar writes a decent set of comments at http://blogs.oracle.com/supportportal/2009/10/part_three_-_-_special_areas_o.html

In the comments following the blog, he makes some very interesting statement about the technology and tech choices. Why Flash, for example.

Here is my response (also posted as a comment to his Blog - so let's keep the discussion over there ...):

You write that "Older ADF 10 and HTML DB are very limited (or impossible) for Web 2.0 type interactions (and if we can get past the production bugs, I think you might find these new features valuable!)."

There is a HUGE assumption about the way we work in that statement.

Web 2.0 has it's place. Even with Support.

But not all of us need, want, or can benefit from Web 2.0 The problem is that Web 2.0 makes assumptions about the way we want to, or need to, work. And that means the design team is pigeon-holing the user community.

Think of it this way - Web 1.0 is command line, web 2.0 is GUI. GUI is 'friendly'. Command line, once learned, is 'efficient'.

There is a significant amount that can be done with Web 1.0. And much of that can be done faster and at a MUCH lower costs to both your side and ours.

Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 can coexist, just as command line and GUI can coexist.

Red Pill, Blue Pill

2009-10-15T18:31:00.002-06:00

With acknowledgment to the writers of Matrix, parts of this Oracle Open World left me with the feeling that I could chose the Blue Pill and continue with 'life as we know it' or chose the Red Pill and wake up to a new reality.

Surprisingly, the big announcements in database have very little to do with database. If anything, the core tech announcements around database have everything to do with backing off and letting the database do what it does best. In particular I'm talking about the directions I see both OracleVM and Oracle Clusterware heading.

Over the past month I've been looking at 11gR2 and starting to look at RAC in that version. On the surface, the story seems 'more of the same'. Bigger, better, badder RAC. Since Oracle9i I've been teaching and consulting on RAC, and the constant story I've spooled has been 'get the infrastructure right, pay attention to the clusterware because it'll make or break the RAC'.

With 11gR2, Oracle has been concentrating on the Clusterware to a level I've not seen before. Grid Plug and Play; Multiple Public Interface; SCAN; no need to highlight the Private IP - once they've been shaken out in the real work, I can tell "there are a few of my favorite things".

Between OracleVM 2.2, the directions for OracleVM 3.0, and Oracle Clusterware, it promises to be a very interesting year coming up.

(And this is from a database guy ...)

OracleVM - making my jaw drop

2009-10-13T22:09:00.005-06:00

Last night I went to the Oracle Open WorldLinux Installfest hosted by OTN and Todd Trichler. In part due to a mix-up in communications about where it was held, the turnout was disappointing underwhelming, however the session was taped and should be available to spool at some time.

Wim Coekaerts and several of the FOSS team were there giving some presentations and demos. This stuff got my attention!

First and foremost, OracleVM 2.2 is right around the corner. Apparently the code has been submitted to the delivery team and should be ready to download in the next few days. I've got some significant hardware that's been sitting semi-idle (only used for testing) for 4 months now waiting for this release. So, perhaps I'll be able to download when I return home this weekend.

Second was a demo of a new system packager. Drag and drop systems (WLS, DB, RAC, OHS, client, apps) into the GUI and get the builder template. I'm going to go over the video in detail when I get my hands on it - this is to dream for.

My jaw dropped, and my brains (such as they are) froze when they discussed a JavaVM / WebLogic Server effectively as a standalone DomU. The implications of this are staggering.

The OracleVM Management Pack looks like it will provide the complete OracleVM Manager functionality inside of the OEM Grid Control. The only hiccup I see is that we need to choose between OracleVM Manager and the Management Pack. I'm going to study this in detail in the very near future.

Wim sounds very very excited about the things VirtualIron will bring to OracleVM 3.0. No secrets were revealed, but there were a couple of sparkles in his eyes. My curiosity is definitely peaked. (Actually, you need to put that into context - he's probably the most laid-back person in all of Oracle)

There was a whole lot more, including confirmation that ACFS (ASM Cluster File System) and ocfs2 do not compete - ocfs2 is for files, acfs is for database/ASM. And interesting tidbits about the projects Linux kernel maintainers work on while working for Oracle.

It never fails to amaze me how much Oracle contributes to the FOSS. (And how much the FOSS community under-appreciates, and even fears, Oracle.)

In any case - 'cause I'll likely never get my hands on an Exadata-2 - so far the biggest solid (non-Apps) news for me out of Oracle Open World has been the Linux and OracleVM news.

*UPDATE* You can watch the Install Fest through Oracle's OnDemand Flash feed (http://www.oracle.com > click on the "Big Picture" > On Demand (in the Flash player) > scroll down to Install Fest) or go to
http://bit.ly/3f5Bhi

Oracle Support - Classic is no more, BUT ...

2009-10-13T21:29:00.002-06:00

... the HTML Options is now available!

Many of us who use Oracle Support have been warned for the past few months about the transition from Metalink Classic to the new Flash-based MyOracle Support.

There is a fairly extensive thread on the Community Forum of Oracle Forums about this, with quite a few of us expressing our disappointment that Oracle decided to use Flash. Although Flash has the potential for providing a richer user experience, many of us commented that the lack of performance and the fancy effects available were serious impediments to using Oracle Support.

Last week we were informed that Metalink Note / MyOracle Support Doc Id 841061.1 - Classic MetaLink and My Oracle Support Transition Information Page - was updated to include a section on "My Oracle Support HTML Option (for non-Flash Player Environments)".

In a nutshell, when I use a browser that does not have Flash (or in which Flash is disabled/blocked), pretty much all the original Metalink Classic capability seems to be retained - at least everything I needs stays. The missing part is the stuff that I am not allowed to use, by corporate policy, in any case.

I'd like to thank Oracle Support for listening.

When Others Then NULL

2009-10-11T16:54:00.002-06:00

Dan Morgan and I had a great chat at breakfast and then we jumped the bus from Moscone West to the Hilton where we saw Tom Kyte's keynote.

Assuming you work with Oracle database, are a developer of applications that store information in an Oracle database, or are in management for a company that has such developers, you have probably heard of Tom.

If you have not had the chance to listen to Tom, I strongly encourage you listen to one of his presentations. He has two types of presentations - technical details and philosophy. The tech details presentations are always interesting, but I now believe the philosophical ones are much more important.

This keynote was in that latter group.

Of the many nuggets Tom presented, the one I liked best was: design your application for production - keep security, performance and error handling in mind early. Indeed, trying to patch those on after the fact is rarely properly thought out.

As a specific example, when doing error handling avoid the exception block 'When Others Then NULL'. That exception block simply states

"If there is a problem, ignore it, and complete. Therefore any successful completion may be suspected of containing incorrect information. Therefore the reliability of the application is irrelevant."

That is not a nice way to treat your users ...

Oracle Open World - Again!

2009-10-11T16:42:00.002-06:00

Yippee. Oracle Open World again. I'm here in not-so-sunny San Francisco for Oracle Open World 2009. Over the next 4 days, I'll be attending sessions, getting together with friends and colleagues, and learning about a lot of new stuff.

Oracle Database 11g Release 2 has been available now for just over a month, and this OOW will surely get me up to speed on some of the new features. At the same time, Fusion Middleware 11g has also recently been made available and OOW will give me new ideas in that direction.

Stay tuned as I report - near real time - about the things I learn.

A new blogger on Oracle RAC & cluster

2009-09-23T18:58:00.002-06:00

Just highlighting that a colleague and co-instructor has started blogging about Oracle RAC and Oracle Clusterware, amongst other things. Eric has started posting 'How To' videos for 11gR2 at http://www.masterschema.com/

I've known Eric for a couple of years, and he has had a significant history as an OCP, and a loooong history with Linux. Pretty sharp guy when it comes to Linux, Apple, clustering and high availability technologies and RAC - I intend to follow his blogs carefully.

New test provider for Oracle Certification exams

2009-09-22T09:43:00.003-06:00

Oracle has recently announced that Pearson VUE will take care of the logistics for Oracle's Certification exams. (See http://education.oracle.com ... look at the Certification link on the left edge.)

Anyone who has had a Prometric ID needs to register with VUE before taking any new exams. This blog presents my experience in that registration process.

Sep 19, 2009 9:33 PM

Started my process today - new user to VUE. The objective is to create my account, but not schedule an exam.

Action: Go to http://www.vue.com - I want to create an account, closest button is perhaps 'Sign In'? Click on it.
Observation: Greeted with "What type of test have you taken in the past?" and a cluttered cascading list-of-values screen
(I'm not interested in taking a test yet - want to create an account!)

Action: Select IT / Oracle
Observation: Greeted with 'Oracle Certification Testing - Schedule an Exam" page. There is no 'create account' button on the 'Activity' page.

Action: Select 'My Account' ... perhaps that will have a 'create' step.
Observation: Greeted with "What type of exam are you wishing to change?" .. still no 'create account' link

Action: Select 'Proctored' exam (only link available other than same buttons from prev page that didn't appeal last time.)
Observation: Greeted with "Sign In" page, with a link for First time users to 'create a new web account'

Action: Select that link
Observation: Form to fill in, including 'Oracle Candidate ID'

Action: Fill in the blanks, assume Prometric ID is Oracle Candidate ID, click Next
Observation: 'Web Account will be emailed within 24 hours'

Action: we wait

Sep 22, 2009 8:55 AM
Observation: Email received at 06:23 with new username and temp password
- no choice to use a specific userid. Oh well, guess this one get written down!

Action: log in, forced change of password
- password strength is monitored. good thing I have a strong one in my standard rep

Concluding comments:

My first name, middle initial and last name (for printing in certificate) have been converted to lower case, with no opportunity to correct that. (I know I entered them in mixed case.) The personal profile page indicates that I must contact customer service to fix that. (LOL)

None of my test history is transferred. The page does indicate it is 'history of tests with Pearson VUE', so I'm not sure whether that matters yet.

This was a moderately painless 'first registration' with VUE. Just took a bit of time and patience.

Hope this helps others

Getting Oracle Software

2009-09-19T19:21:00.002-06:00

Where to get Oracle {product} software for { operating system }

Oracle makes most of their software available on the internet under one of several development licenses. This software is the same as you use in production. There are no time limits, and no functionality missing. What is usually missing is the ability to get support and patches.

PLEASE READ THE LICENSE TO WHICH YOU AGREE!

The software is available under either http://edelivery.oracle.com or http://download.oracle.com - follow the links for your favorite product and select the download for the operating system you want.

What about old versions, such as Oracle8i Database?

When Oracle stops supporting a product, they revoke the ability to download it. Then the only hope is to get a copy from Oracle Support (using your Support Identifier) or getting it from a friend. (Please note, I am not your friend when it comes to this! Don't bother asking.) I have seen copies available on eBay and other auction sites as well. In any case, you may have to pay for that. You may not be able to get it at all.

Occasionally Oracle maintains links to old software as part of a Metalink / MyOracleSupport document. For example, note 763603.1 links to the BEA WebLogic Server archive.

But be aware that old software will usually not work, or will not work well, on new operating systems. (Blog about that is coming.)

How about a new version for my platform? When will it be available?

Oracle recently released "Oracle Database 11g Release 2" and have made the Linux x86 and x86-64 available. As of today, it's not available for any other operating system.

There is a bit of a dilemma when it comes to releasing software for other operating systems. Part of that stems from customers wanting to be able to use the software. So Oracle needs to assign developers and testers to ensuring that the s/w is ready (sic).

Most Oracle employees are not allowed to discuss release dates. There are legal and Security Commission related reasons. Customers and partners who have access to release date information are usually under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and can not talk either. People without authorization could end up in court if they discuss release dates - so please don't ask.

Bottom line is that when it shows up in the Download area for your favorite operating system, there will be much rejoicing and you will likely see announcements in various forums.

Oracle release dates and end-of-life dates

2009-09-19T18:38:00.003-06:00

I note there are a lot of people asking for obsolete versions of Oracle, and some asking for dates of Oracle releases.

When was that version of Oracle x released? How much longer will it be supported?

To get information about what is currently supported, when it was initially released, and when it will become desupported or go into extended support, there is a great set of documents provided by Oracle Support on their website at http://www.oracle.com/us/support/index.htm (http://www.oracle.com > "Support" in top menu). Click on the Lifetime Support link and select the product area. (Database and App Server are in the 'Technical Products' doc.)

New policy on comments

2009-09-19T07:16:00.002-06:00

Comments in Asian languages have been appearing on my blog over the past months. Using Google translation indicates that these are spam, trojan or other unwanted or potentially nasty texts.

As a result, I have enabled moderation for the comments, and I will not accept any in languages other than English.

Sorry ...

Rehash of Oracle Networking

2009-09-12T16:47:00.003-06:00

It's that time again. A new crop of DBAs is trying to connect their app to their database. A quick overview that might help one or two of them:

You got your Database SERVER. It's isolated. The only way to get to it across the network is via a LISTENER. The listener listens on the network based on the rules in the LISTENER.ORA but those rules may be modified by the SQLNET.ORA

On the flip side

You got your application (Informatica, SQLPlus, TOAD, whatever). It wants to talk to the database. To do that it talks to the Oracle Networking (aka SQLNet) CLIENT. That is governed by the rules in the TNSNAMES.ORA (but those rules may be modified by the SQLNET.ORA)

If not Java and assuming TCP/IP, your CLIENT is told (by the app) to connect to "user/password@alias". It looks up 'alias' in the TNSNAMES.ORA to get 'host, port, database-service'. (Java/JDBC needs the same info, but in typical Java fashion, it's syntax is 'different'.)

- The host is the one where your database should be.
- The port is the TCP/IP port the listener is told to listen on (using LISTENER.ORA)
- The service represents the database the listener should know about, to which you want to connect

Possible Failures:

- CLIENT does not understand the alias (ORA-12154) ... bad entry in TNSNAMES.ORA - or DEFAULT_DOMAIN in SQLNET.ORA
- CLIENT can't find host (DNS issue?)
- CLIENT can't get to port (Firewall)
- CLIENT can't find LISTENER on port (ORA-12541) (listner not up; listener on a different port; listener.ora vs tnsnames.ora mismatch)
- LISTENER doesn't know what client is talking about (ORA-12514)
- - database is not up or has not been registered with Listener (check 'lsnrctl status')
- - Listener on an unexpected port (check DB init parameter 'LOCAL_LISTENER' - default=localhost:1521, compare to listener.ora)

Oh - and ORA-12560 means that the piece (client OR listener) can not verify it is on the network. Often means that the tnsnames.ora (client) or listener.ora (server) has a hostname or port problem. That may be due to DHCP (hostname) or firewall (port).

There are other reasons, of course. The Oracle Network Administration manual has a fantastic set of chapters for troubleshooting.