Hotsos Symposium 2011 - Day 3

Day 3 of Hotsos Symposium 2011 started off with Margaret Norman and "how to Set Up Stable Parallel Execution".



Karl Arao talked about "Mining the AWR Repository for Capacity Planning, Visualization and Other Real World Stuff".



Toon Koppelaars took us through "Triggers Considered Harmful, Considered Harmful".



Gary Propeck walked us through "The CBO's Look at Clusters, IOT's, Partitions, and Other Objects".



Maria Colgan taught us how to "Implement Best Practices for Extremem Performance with Oracle Data Warehousing".



Mark Farnham went through his "Physical Ordering of Data: Is It Ever Useful?"



Tanel Põder shot his way through "Troubleshooting the Most Complex Oracle Performance Problem I've Ever Seen".



Tom Kyte summed up this year's Sym with "Just in Time".



To the attendees, "thank you" for making this another great Sym! To the speakers, "thank you" for the informative presentations and networking opportunities you provide to the attendees. Special "thank you's" to our keynote speaker, Kerry Osborne, and Training Day instructor, Karen Morton.



Tomorrow...Karen Morton, all day, at Training Day. Can't wait!

Hotsos Symposium 2011 - Day 2

Today, Margaret Norman taught us about "Moving to 11g Statistics".



Doug Gault taught and entertained us with "Mining Oracle Application Express 4.0, Debug Data for Hidden Performance Trends".



Doug Burns had more on "Statistics for Partitioned Objects".



Friedrich Pfeiffer taught us "How (Not) to Do a Hardware Sizing for a Large Oracle Data Warehouse".



Wolfgang Breitling led us through his "Time Series Analysis for Statspack and AWR".



Riyaj Shamsudeen gave us "Advanced RAC Troubleshooting, Parts I and II".



Maria Colgan gave us the "Top Tips to Get Optimal SQL Execution All the Time".



Miladin Modravic gave us "Oracle Diagnostic Events in 11g".



Our buddy behind the camera, Dan Fink's topic was "Variance Analysis, Profiling, and Trending Using ASH and AWR".





Dr. Neil Gunther led us through "Brooks, Cooks, and Response Time Scalability".



Mahesh Vallampati made sure there was "Enough Blame to Go Around".



Alex Gorbachev taught us "Database I/O Performance: Measuring and Planning".



Tim Gorman gave us "Forensic Analysis Using AWR and ASH".



After all these great presentations, our attendees' brains were full, and they needed to let off a little steam at the Hotsos "Swamp Stomp". See below for how they cut loose.





























So, make plans now to attend next year. We promise you'll have a stompin' good time!

Hotsos Symposium 2011 Day 1

Ooooh, if you're not here, you missed out on a great Day 1 of Hotsos Symposium 2011. Cary Millsap helped us "Think Clearly about Performance".

Kerry Osborne took us back to mainframes and brought us forward to Exadata in his keynote address, entitled "Back to the Future".

Toon Koppelaars worked his hocus pocus to assist attendees in "Thinking Clearly with SQL".

The disco king, Stephan Haisley, gave a great presentation on "Oracle GoldenGate Performance".

There were so many other wonderful presentations by the lovely Gwen Shapira, Gerwin Hendriksen, Andy Zitelli, Andrey Nikolaev and Shan Nawaz. By the end of the day, the attendees were ready to cut loose at Netezza's "Awesome 80's Arcade".





If we could write a postcard to you, it'd say, "Wish you were here!"

Hotsos Symposium 2011 Speaker Spotlight - Gerwin Hendriksen

There's still time to sign up for Hotsos Symposium 2011. We'll take your registration right up until Monday morning! Go here to register!

Presentation Title: GAPP Improvements: a Method to Diagnose and Predict Performance in Complex Architectures

Presentation Abstract: This session demonstrates how to use "General Approach Performance Profiling" (GAPP) to profile end-user response times and predict performance in multi-tier architectures, regardless of complexity. This session focuses on recent improvements to the GAPP method that was introduced in 2008.

Business processes are influenced by many components like Web Servers, Portal Servers, Oracle Internet Directory Servers, Database Servers, Application Servers, etc. The power of GAPP is its ability to help you manage environments of arbitrary complexity, regardless of which technologies you've implemented.

The presentation will show results from actual customer experiences in SOA-based systems with more than three nodes. A live demo will show how easy it is to use GAPP to predict performance behaviors on a system using a load generator to create different scenarios.

Bio: Gerwin Hendriksen has been working with Oracle technologies for more than thirteen years. He started work as a DBA at a consulting company in the Netherlands. After this, he worked for five years for Oracle in the role of Advanced Resolution Engineer. In this role, he specialized in performance and high availability for the Oracle database and Oracle E-Business Suite. In his time at Oracle, he gave several training classes in different countries. Later Mr. Hendriksen joined IBM, and worked there for two years. At IBM, he worked as a Technical Consultant for several projects in different countries. He also gave training classes in the IBM JSC in Montpellier, and at several customer sites.

Currently, he is employed by IT-eye in the Netherlands, where he is working as a Technical Architect. He has given several presentations about Oracle database performance and Oracle E-Business Suite performance. He has also given presentations for the Oracle User Group Holland, at the HOTSOS Symposium 2008, at the DBA Symposium in Holland (Planboard), at Oracle Open World 2008, and at the HOTSOS Symposium 2009. During these last mentioned presentations, he presented on his newly developed performance method "GAPP". Gerwin is very busy with performance management, capacity planning, and E-Business Suite Performance.

We hope to see you there!

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!