In this issue:

• A Great Primer On Using Dynamic SQL Within PL/SQL
• Hot Topic: Veritas Cluster Server
• More Oracle Resources at Your Fingertips
• IOUG-A Live! Comes to Orlando
• Oracle Gurus On Call

Oracle gave us the ability to generate dynamic SQL inside of PL/SQL programs way back in Oracle 7.1 when the dbms_sql built-in was introduced. Native dynamic SQL is now a standard feature of Oracle 8i, making dynamic SQL inside of PL/SQL simpler to use, faster at runtime, and more powerful.

PL/SQL guru Steven Feuerstein recently published a three-article series discussing native dynamic SQL in Oracle 8i. These articles succinctly cover when, why, and how to use this great feature. Several code samples are provided as well. You can read Steven’s articles in the print version of Oracle Magazine or online at:

1. http://www.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/00-nov/index.html?o60sql.html
2. http://www.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/01-jan/index.html?o11sql.html
3. http://www.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/01-mar/index.html?o21sql.html

Hot Topic: Veritas Cluster Server

At last month’s in-house DBA Roundtable, the Database Specialists team was treated to a guest speaker. Chris Lawson shared his knowledge and experience implementing and using Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) to minimize server downtime. Although not without its snags, Chris reported that VCS is far simpler to implement than multimaster replication or Oracle Parallel Server.

Chris originally gave this presentation at the February meeting of the Northern California Oracle Users Group. You can visit their website to download the PowerPoint presentation at http://www.nocoug.org/presentations.htm.

More Oracle Resources at Your Fingertips

Are you always on the lookout for additional Oracle resources online? So are we! We thought we’d point out a few noteworthy websites that you might want check out.

• Underground Oracle FAQs - http://www.orafaq.com
• LazyDBA.com - http://www.lazydba.com
• Oracle Publishing - http://www.oracle.com/oramag
• Database Specialists, Inc. - http://www.dbspecialists.com

IOUG-A Live! Comes to Orlando

Orlando is the place to be next month for the very technically focused IOUG-A Live! 2001 conference. This International Oracle Users Group conference with over 300 sessions takes place from April 29 to May 3 at the Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin hotels. If you register before March 30, you can take $200 off your registration fees. Don’t miss your opportunity to spend a week in Orlando and come home with a wealth of new information (and maybe a tan?).

To learn more about this exciting learning opportunity, visit the IOUG-A website at http://www.ioug.org.

Oracle Gurus On Call

If information is critical to your business, you need database experts who know every facet of database administration--from database design and architecture to administration and performance tuning. Database Specialists’ consultants are experts with a broad variety of skills and experience related to Oracle. We can provide Oracle expertise for your projects two to five days a week. We also have services for short-term solutions such as performance tuning, database design review, and backup and recovery strategy development. We’d love to answer any questions you may have about putting our knowledge to work for you. Call us at 415/344-0500.