Database Technology Trends

Dobler Consulting, a leader in Sybase, Oracle and SQL Server database support services and Sybase (an SAP Company) system integration services for Fortune 500 companies as well as Small and Midsize Business (SMB) in the United States, seeks an individual with sales experience in the software and/or IT consulting services sales spaces for an Account Executive position for our customers in the Southeast region. Specific industry sales experience (Software/Database Systems/IT Consulting Services) a must. Managed Services related sales experience a major plus. This is full-time position.

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After all these bad news about the economy and how businesses struggling to stay afloat, a lifeline was offered courtesy of ActiveBase, the latest addition to the product line of Dobler Consulting. After forming a strategic channel partnership with Silos-Connect Technologies, the US Distributor for ActiveBase software, we are ready to introduce ActiveBase to the US market.

Please read the latest press release from Silos-Connect regarding the software stimulus package:

SOFTWARE STIMULUS PACKAGE

The Recession is Real…It is Ugly…and Ugly it will be for the foreseeable future!

IT budgets have been slashed, staff has been reduced, and there is more work than ever! All of the focus is on market sectors and companies that are “too large to fail“.

That is why we have created this Software Stimulus Package. We are offering one of our break-through technologies at no charge! This way, you can put in a new tool and not have to worry about budget! Especially at a time when you need more tools just to keep up!

ActiveBase SQL Expert for Oracle can be downloaded and used on an unlimited basis, at absolutely no cost.

ActiveBase SQL Expert, the newest module of the ActiveBase Suite, helps the DBA and SQL developer by automating the process of finding the right Oracle Hint, for a given SQL statement. The “right Hint” is the one that, when added to the original SQL statement, produces the lowest result (shortest elapsed time or the least CPU or I/O). Oracle Hints change the way Oracle executes queries, without changing the source code or the database. This is especially powerful when running proprietary applications where you don’t have access to the source code.

Finding the right Hint using existing current methods is an iterative and highly-time consuming process, and is simply not feasible. Often times, you may find a “good” solution, but not always the “best”. A statement with a cost of 175, will run certainly better with a cost of 142, but it would run even better than that with a cost of 125. Wouldn’t you rather know that you got the best alternative, rather than just a good one?

Through its simple graphic interface, ActiveBase SQL Expert completely automates the process and guarantees the best alternative, without any extra effort!

1. Identify: Select un-tuned SQL requests from the Oracle SGA using the ‘Hotspot’ viewer, or a flat file that you create from either source code, or another application monitor.
2. Set benchmark options: Set the number of alternatives to execute, total benchmark time, automatic canceling, session and parallel degree settings, etc.
3. Analyze: Find different alternatives (SQL + ‘Hints’) generating multiple unique execution plans.
4. Run Benchmark: Execute the alternatives against a database to find the best result.
5. Analyze results: Using the automatically generated, detailed benchmark audit trail with a color-coded summary view quickly identify the best improvement.

What’s the catch? This is a legitimate question, one I would ask myself. The answer is, there is no catch, unless you consider an occasional pop-up that describes the other ActiveBase modules to pique your interest.

Get Your Own Stimulus Package

For more information, or to schedule an installation or demo, please contact me:
Tony Cannizzo | President
Silos-Connect Technologies
404 580 3451
tony@silos-connect.com

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There are 2 major database vendors working on their next big version of their database engines. Microsoft and Oracle are getting ready to release their best database system yet. Well, in the near future at least. Nevertheless here are some preliminary infos that leaked from the development teams.

Microsoft SQL Server 2010

Just last year in August we were introduced to SQL Server 2008, which finally brought us backup compression and data compression amongst many other new features. Many SQL Server customers are still recovering from the SQL Server 2005 migration and find it difficult to keep up with this breath taking speed of new releases.

So what’s new in SQL Server 2010?

It will build on the data warehouse improvement of SQL Server 2008 and adds even more support for multi terabyte databases.

The main focus of SQL Server 2010 will be on “managed self services”. Self tuning will be achieved by interpreting the Dynamic Management Views (DMV). Is this the death of the DBA? Not at all, it will redefine the skills and duties of a DBA in the day to day operations. But then again, let’s see if and how this works.

Emphasis on policies is another big change. Many policies are already available since SQL Server 2005, but in SQL Server 2010 they will be enforced by default.

The last improvement is focused on better email integration and integration into the Web 2.0 environment. Imagine; SQL Server goes Twitter.

After all, these are preliminary information available through some rumor mills and a little bit from the Microsoft website. One thing is for sure, with the release of SharePoint 2010 (beta available now), SQL Server 2010 will become even more important.

I’m pretty sure that there will be more information available soon.

Oracle 12g

Yes, you heard right. Oracle 12g is around the corner. There is not much information available on this new release. The only detail that leaked so far is that Oracle 12g won’t support raw filesystems anymore. This is bad news for RAC environments. The OCR and the voting disk relay on raw filesystems via CFS like OCFS.

The word is that ASM will step in and close the gap in 12g. Also, more emphasis on NFS will be placed as well.

Other than that, there’s not much information regarding functionality enhancements available. As soon as I get more details I will post it.

Sybase is not in the radar to release yet another major release in the near future. The focus is on synchronizing the ASE 15.0.3 release with the Sybase ASE CE (Cluster Edition) version. There is also a new project that will replace Sybase Central with a web based management tool. The ASE (standard and cluster edition) is already available.

Sybase just released a couple of major new releases in their product line, Sybase IQ 15, Sybase Replication Server 15 and Sybase ASE Cluster Edition mid last year. There are new major releases in planning, but not released in the near future like Microsoft and Oracle. That’s at least to my knowledge. One thing is remarkable with Sybase; they had the best quarter in Q1 of 2009 and I can’t wait to get the results for Q2.

One thing is always interesting to observe. This constant competition and the need to outperform drive these vendors to constantly push the envelope and we as the consumer will get better, faster and cheaper products.

The downside is that we have to constantly upgrade our systems. Over time this creates enormous strains on IT staff and budgeting. It seems that the pace of new major database releases has picked up noticable and it remains up to the IT managers to make the right call at the right time. The current cutting in staff and budgets is no help either.

Database vendors are packing more and more value added features into their systems to gain more customers and sell their product. Hopefully we will see a speedy recovery of the economy to enable these companies to bring back staff and put all these great features to work soon.

Thanks,

Peter Dobler