Oracle for the MSSQL DBA, SQLPass 2012

1. ORACLE FOR THE
SQL SERVER DBA
KELLYN POT’VIN, SR. TECHNICAL CONSULTANT

2. ABOUT THE PRESENTER
• Oracle and MsSQL DBA for over twelve years.
• Oracle ACE
• Board of Directors for RMOUG, (Rocky Mountain Oracle
User Group)
• Database Track Committee for ODTUG’s, (Oracle
Developer Tools User Group) KSCOPE 2012
• Presenting this year at RMOUG, Miracle World,
(Denmark) KSCOPE, Oracle User Group’s Harmony,
(Finland) and other international conferences.
• Resides in Broomfield, CO.
• Honing skills at Enkitec, a Platinum Oracle Partner out of
Dallas, Tx.

3. “...GET NO RESPECT…”
• Oracle in comparison to SQL Server DBA’s in the
technical arena.
• Rarely do Oracle DBA’s have other technical
groups performing their tasks.
• Microsoft pushes the database platform for it’s
“ease of management.”
• “We won’t need your SQL Server skills, no [mission
critical] MsSQL databases here…”
• Only one position has kept that deal.

4. DIVERGENCE
• Oracle Marketshare?
• Oracle’s Latest Innovations?
• SQL Server’s Marketshare?
• SQL Server’s Latest Innovations?
• MySQL in the mix…

5. MULTI-PLATFORM
“A database is a database…”
• Must be able to adapt quickly.
• Must be open-minded.
• Must like challenges.
• Must be able to absorb a lot of information and
keep it well organized mentally.
• Must be open to finding the right platform/product
for the task/project.

6. WHAT IS THE SAME
• Both ACID Compliant, (atomicity, consistency,
isolation, durability).
• Extensive tuning options in both databases.
• OLTP and DSS/Warehouse features.
• Multiple Backup and Recovery level features.
• High Availability and stand-by
• Fully auditable, accountable and transactional
level recoverable.

7. VERY DIFFERENT
• System Databases and Temp Database- None in
Oracle.
• Oracle contains a SYSTEM schema, along with other
schemas that house important information vs.
having in separate database, i.e. SQL Server’s
System tablespaces.
• Temporary work is all performed in the TEMP
tablespace for Oracle, which does possess physical
files underneath, but no separate database.
• SQL Server’s transaction log and temp database
handles processing a bit differently than Oracle’s
temp tablespace, redo and undo.

8. THE INSTANCE
• INSTANCE
• Oracle- The core services, (i.e. memory structure and
background processes) that identifies the database. It is
not the database, but again, the background processes,
controlfiles and configuration, (initialization parameter file)
that will be used by the database. One instance per
database, unless a RAC, (Real Application Cluster.)
• SQL Server- An Instance allows more than one copy of the
SQL Server software to run at one time, each copy, also
known as an instance. This allows the DBA to run multiple
versions of SQL Server from one server, as well. For an
Oracle DBA, we would translate this more to the term
“Oracle Homes” instead of the term of “Instance”.

9. SQL SERVER MAIN

10. ORACLE DATABASE MAIN VIEW

11. ORACLE ARCHITECTURE

12. SQL SERVER CONFIGURATION

13. ORACLE INITIALIZATION PARAMETERS
• “Init” parameters are
required to (no)mount or
open a database, either
by:
• Text based, “pfile” or
parameter file.
• Naming convention
init<sid>.ora
• Bit-secure version, “spfile”
or secure parameter file.
• Naming convention
sp<sid>.ora

14. SQL SERVER DATABASE FILES

15. ORACLE DATAFILES

16. SQL SERVER FILEGROUPS

17. ORACLE TABLESPACES
Logical structure, datafiles underneath.

18. ORACLE CONTROLFILES

19. ORACLE REDO LOGS
• Redo logs are stored in “member groups” and each file within the
member group is referred to as a “member”.
• Each Member Group includes information about last SCN change, if
active, inactive and if archived.

20. ORACLE REDO LOG FILES
• Files are mirrored for security reasons.
• These files are REQUIRED to be moved for recovery and are archived
off, (archive logs…)
• Files are stored as part of groups and although .log is standard naming
convention .rdo is recommended.
• Can you suspect why the naming convention recommendation
change?

21. ORACLE ARCHIVE LOGS
• Once the Redo log is no longer Current, the archiver is able to archive
the redo log file off for recovery purposes.
• All archive logs contain a sequence, SCN change number and dates
of activity included in their information stored.

22. ORACLE UNDO
• Undo is required to “undo” or rollback changes. Either from a rollback
request, timeout, failure or recovery scenario.
• Automatic Undo tablespace, replaced Static, manually sized
“Rollback Segments” as of Oracle 9i.
• Automatic and easy to manage, (still many myths regarding this
feature.

23. SQL SERVER MULTI-LEVEL LOGINS

24. ORACLE USERS
• Users can be created within the database, use Windows
authentication or Oracle’s “Wallet”.

25. MONITORING SQL SERVER USERS
• Simple SP_WHO2 call.
• Shows running, sleeping and waiting.
• Database, login, user, SPID and if blocked.

26. MONITORING ORACLE ACTIVITY

27. ORACLE ASM
Oracle’s answer to reduce redundancy and give DBA’s more control
over storage, luns, placement and performance of database files.

28. COOL ORACLE ENTERPRISE MANAGER
FEATURES
Able to historically trace back activity in Oracle to a given “snapshot in
time”.
Data is aggregated, but can drill down to individual sessions and pull
information.

29. SQL SERVER LINKED SERVERS
Select * from loufin01.db1.dbo.table1 [GO]
User logging in from linked server privileges are links
privileges.

30. ORACLE DATABASE LINKS
Select * from schema.table1@dblinkname;
• Can be private or public.

31. SQL SERVER GRANTS/MAPPINGS

32. ORACLE GRANTS/PRIVILEGES
• System, Schema and Role Grants
• VPD, (replaces row level grants in Oracle.)

33. ORACLE SQL MONITOR, (11G)
SQL Identifier
Activity
Degree of Parallelism SQL Text
Duration
User Wait Event

34. ORACLE SCHEDULER
Oracle DBA’s Often do not use the Oracle Scheduler- Why?
• Scripting gives more control, (shell, perl, etc. with Cron in Linux/Unix)
• Scheduling time “inching”- Next execution based off completion
time, allows execution movement.
• Complicated command line syntax and dependencies.
• New to 10g, previous scheduler, DBA Jobs, was less efficient.

35. BACKUP AND RECOVERY
• Backups are performed by a Oracle supplied
product RMAN, (Recovery Manager)
• Extremely robust and flexible.
• Supports full, incremental, archive log backups..
• Can be used for duplicating, cloning and
dataguard, (standby)
• Can be configured through command line, scripts
and the Enterprise Manager.

36. REVIEW & QUESTIONS
• Oracle is a very robust RDBMS platform.
• Differences are many, but its main goal is the same as SQL Server.
• The goal to learning to be an Oracle DBA is to keep an open mind
and embrace that with added features, comes added management.
Thank you!