My initial goal was simply to create a test ASM environment on my PC running Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 and Oracle Database 11.2.0.2. The first step was easy…download and install Grid Infrastructure 11.2.0.1. This went without a problem until I ran the ASM Configuration Assistant (asmca) and realized that ASM couldn’t see any available [...]

As with any DBA my days are filled with what seem to be unrelated tasks to the profession - writing reports, attending meetings, installing releases, planning capacity, answering alerts, patching binaries and  running upgrades.  It is easy to forget three things I should be focusing on as a remote DBA:

Security
Availability
Performance

Some aspects of these core [...]

In the Oracle RDBMS, one of the most frequently misunderstood concepts I see in doing remote database administration, is the role and importance of redo.

Sooner or later, every DBA will need to address how to manage storage capacity in their databases. Nearly every database needs more storage as time goes on, and without attention, the database will fill up, and new data/inserts can’t happen. It’s been my experience that bad space mangement is the root cause of a high [...]

Over the years of experience with Oracle databases, there is one feature, far more than any others, that has proved itself again and again in the real world; I speak of course, of the Oracle Physical Standby feature.