Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Gary Propeck

We have yet another new speaker for you to enjoy at Hotsos Symposium 2011. Gary Propeck is one of our instructors, and he gets rave reviews! You'll definitely want to listen to his presentation. Register today!

Presentation Title: The CBO's Look at Clusters, IOTs, Partitions, and other Objects

Presentation Abstract: When we looked at the rules from the Oracle RBO, one could find individual rules for using various types of indexes and clusters. As Oracle began to phase out the RBO, noticeably absent were improvements or changes to the RBO to accommodate objects such as IOTs and partitions. To use such objects one is required to use the CBO. This presentation details the use of the 10053 CBO trace to compare the use of heap tables versus clusters, IOTs, and partitions. Items of interest will include gathering statistics at various granularities of partitions and examining their use via the 10053 CBO trace.

Biography: Gary has a Ph.D. In Physical Organic Chemistry, University of South Florida, 1984. In 1990, while working at a nuclear weapons facility, he began working with the Oracle Database in a chemistry laboratory environment. In 1995, Gary went to work for Oracle Education (now Oracle University) as an instructor. Gary taught the OU curricula for Database Administration, Tools (Forms, Reports, etc.), Oracle Application Server, and Languages (SQL, PL/SQL, and Java). During that time Gary made numerous presentations at events such as Open World and RMOUG Training Days.

In 2002, Gary went to work for Corporate Express as a DBA, gaining more experience working with the Oracle Database. In July, 2004, Gary decided to go back to teaching as an independent contractor, teaching much of the same curricula as before, while adding new courses such as OEM and Apex to his repertoire. 2009 brought Gary to Hotsos, as he began teaching as a contractor. In August, 2010, Gary started teaching as a Hotsos employee where he teaches the Performance Optimization curriculum.

To find out who else will be speaking at Hotsos Symposium 2011, please visit our speakers page. We hope to see you at Sym!

Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Friedrich Pfeiffer

Presentation Title: How (Not) to Do a Hardware Sizing for a Large Oracle Data Warehouse

Presentation Abstract: The implementation of large piece of new software, for example a data warehouse, often requires new, probably quite expensive hardware.

How to choose the right hardware to fulfill performance requirements? How many CPUs, which architecture, which storage ...? Simple questions, not so simple answers! Hardware vendors might happily sell you their biggest boxes. Software vendors might offer you a bunch of expensive "performance" options. However, neither might give you a guarantee for keeping the time window — at least at a stage of expansion below maximum. Do you know at all, how "performance" exactly is defined in the context of the new application?

At best, non-appropriate hardware is "only" oversized and eating up your budget. At worst, mandatory business or legal requirements cannot be fulfilled, resulting in project failure and serious trouble for the organization.

In our experience, a benchmark test adequately modeling production is the most cost-, time- and nerve-saving way to size and validate hardware. Anything else is almost a guarantee for trouble, desperate cries for "tuning", escalation meetings, budget overrun, and serious project delay.

The presentation summarizes our - good, bad and ugly - experiences with hardware sizing and benchmark tests done for large commercial banks in Europe and Asia in an Oracle-based data warehouse context. The focus is on how to design and execute the most efficient tests, which can give sufficient certainty in hardware selection for CIOs, project managers, and IT departments. Common sense and Method R are used, of course.

Biography:Since 2007, Dr. Pfeiffer has worked as an Oracle database specialist in software development for Fernbach-Software S.A., a mid-sized but globally operating firm, creating software for banks. Prior to that, Frederich worked in a similar role for Infor Global solutions, the world's third largest ERP software company. He has 20 years experience with relational databases, especially in performance optimization for Oracle 7.3-11.2, MS SQL Server 7-2008, and IBM DB/2 for iSeries (AS400).

So...are you ready to sign up for Hotsos Symposium 2011? No...well, come look at the list of speakers and topics to see what you'll be missing.

There's still time to register! Don't miss out!

Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Doug Gault

Presentation Title: Mining Oracle Application Express 4.0 Debug Data for Hidden Performance Trends

Abstract: One of the new features of Oracle Application Express 4.0 is the much improved debug information now stored in the dictionary views. Like before, it can help you diagnose problems during page rendering and processing. But did you know that it can also be used to track, monitor, and identify performance trends across your APEX application? Well, it can.

This session will introduce the idea of monitoring performance trending, the techniques and information necessary for you to mine the Oracle Application Express 4.0 debug data, and the pros and cons of using these methods in a production environment.

Bio: Doug Gault is a Director & Co-Founder at Sumneva, a world-class Oracle Application Express (APEX) consulting, training & solutions firm founded in 2010. He has been working with Oracle since 1988, starting with version 5.1B, SQL*Forms 2.0 and RPT/RPF. Since then he has focused his career on Oracle's development technologies, spending the last decade on web based technologies, and the last 5 years specifically on APEX.

Prior to co-founding Sumneva, Gault was Vice President of Sumner Technologies, which also focused on Oracle APEX consulting, training & solutions. Before that he served as the Product Development Director for Hotsos Enterprises, during which time he was the lead architect/developer and product manager for two commercial products written in exclusively in APEX. His 21 years of Oracle experience has taken him all over the world and involved him in some truly ground-breaking projects.

Gault has presented and participated in round table discussions at a number of conferences including Oracle OpenWorld, UKOUG and ODTUG's APEXposed. He holds an Associates Degree in Computer Science, and an honorary Master's Degree from The School of Hard Knocks, believing there is no replacement for hard earned experience.

Doug is one of our new speakers, and we guarantee you'll find him both informative and entertaining.

Sign up for Hotsos Symposium 2011 today!

Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Doug Burns

Presentation Title: Statistics on Partitioned Objects

Presentation Abstract: Optimal SQL execution plans are rooted in the quality of the statistics describing the underlying objects that are used by the Cost Based Optimizer. Statistics maintenance is a particular challenge on Data Warehouse systems holding large data volumes that support complex and flexible user reporting requirements. Such systems are likely to use partitioned tables and indexes to complicate the picture further.

This presentation is based on the problems encountered and solutions used during the implementation of several large DW systems running on Oracle 10.2 with different workload profiles and requirements and will discuss:

Core challenges and statistics fundamentals

• The quality/performance trade off


• Statistic levels on partitioned objects and how they are used


• Key DBMS_STATS parameters and defaults

Global Statistics

• Global and Approximate Global statistics


• Statistics aggregation scenarios and pitfalls

Alternative Strategies

• Setting statistics


• Copying statistics


• Dynamic Sampling

11g improvements

The presentation will discuss a variety of problems and bugs with the various approaches that should be avoided as well as offering guidelines to help you design the best statistics collection strategy for your requirements.

Biography: Doug Burns is an independent contractor who has 20 years of experience working with Oracle in a range of industries and applications. As well as presenting at a number of conferences, he has developed, taught, and edited performance-related courses for both Oracle UK and Learning Tree International. He is a member of The Oak Table Network. Doug is an Oracle Ace Director.

If you haven't signed up for Hotsos Symposium 2011 yet, visit out speaker list to see who will be here. You won't want to miss Sym this year!

If you have registered yet, spots are going fast! Sign up today!

Special Interest Group Meetings at Hotsos Symposium 2011

There will be two Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings on Sunday afternoon, March 6, 2011 before Hotsos Symposium 2011 kicks off. Both of these sessions are free and open to the general public as well as attendees. They're held in one of the meeting rooms at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Irving, TX, and signs pointing to the locations of the meetings will be posted.

The first session is the OAUG DB SIG, which will meet from 1:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. The topic is "Tips and Tricks of Upgrading an E-Business Suite 11i Application Database Version from 10g R2 to 11g R2 (11.2.0.2) Version". This session will be presented by Kaberi Nayak and Mark Farnham. It will be a technical presentation for Oracle Apps DBA's or Oracle DBA's, who support the Oracle E-Business Suite Application.

The second session is the Hotsos SIG, which will meet from 3:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. This year, our presentation title is "Performance Is for the Birds". We will show you how our customers are able to reduce performance bottlenecks on their Oracle E-business system. Since we would also like to expand this technology to non-EBS systems, we will conduct a requirements discussion where you get to provide input on a future release of this application. Some of our popular Education classes have been updated, and Ric Van Dyke will briefly discuss.

More information about Hotsos Symposium 2011 and Training Day can be found at our website.

We hope to see you there!

Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Dan Fink

Presentation Title: Variance Analysis, Profiling and Trending Using ASH and AWR Data

Presentation Abstract: Active Session History (ASH) and Automatic Workload Repository (AWR) are two powerful tools to help an organization diagnose performance issues. Though each tool comes with custom reports, they provide a limited view and only show single points in time. Using the data automatically gathered, you can write custom reports to examine trending, create alerts for known issues, and track changes to your systems. Dan reviews the ASH and AWR data structures and some of the nuances for reporting before moving into generating reports for activity and event trending, creating custom alerts for unusual activity, and comparing performance in light of system changes.

Biography: Daniel Fink is a Senior Consultant/DBA with Arisant. He started as a DBA on Oracle 7.0.16 running Parallel Server on OpenVMS and has experience on major Unix platforms and releases up to 11G. He is a member of the OakTable network, BAAG, and BAARF. He has presented on a wide variety of Oracle performance and diagnosis topics, including Developing A Disciplined Approach to Diagnosis, Oracle Performance for Developers, and Tracing Logical I/O.

If you haven't signed up for Hotsos Symposium 2011 yet, visit our speaker list to see who will be here. You won't want to miss Sym this year!

To sign up, please visit our registration page.

We hope to see you in March!

Hotsos Symposium 2010 Scrapbook Now Available

We've finished the scrapbook for Hotsos Symposium 2010. Check it out here:

Click here to view this photo book larger

Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Cary Millsap

Presentation Title: Thinking Clearly about Performance

Abstract:Creating high-performance as an attribute of complex software is an extremely difficult business for developers, technology administrators, architects, system analysts, and project managers. However, by understanding some fundamental principles, performance problem solving and prevention can be made far simpler and more reliable. This paper describes those principles, linking them together in a coherent journey covering the goals, the terms, the tools, and the decisions that you need to maximize your application's chance of having a long, productive, high-performance life. Examples in this paper touch upon Oracle experiences, but the scope of the paper is not restricted to Oracle products.

Biography: Cary Millsap is the founder and president of Method R Corporation. He is widely known in the Oracle community as a speaker, educator, consultant and writer. He is the author (with Jeff Holt) of Optimizing Oracle Performance (O'Reilly 2003). Cary is also co-author of Oracle Insights: Tales of the Oak Table.

Cary is one of the former founding partners of Hotsos and worked at Oracle for ten years. In the early 1990s, Cary created Oracle's OFA Standard, which became the default configuration standard for Oracle software installations worldwide. Cary is also a woodworker who builds and repairs furniture in his own shop. Follow Cary's blog at carymillsap.blogspot.com. Cary is also an Oracle Ace Director.

If you haven't signed up for Hotsos Symposium 2011 yet, visit our speaker list to see who will be here. You won't want to miss Sym this year!

To sign up, please visit our registration page.

We hope to see you in March!