All that's passing by...: January 2018

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

LsInventorySession failed: OracleHomeInventory gets null oracleHomeInfo

Problem:- While running opatch lsinventory, command fails with the below error:

Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.2.0.3.6

Oracle Home : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1

Central Inventory : /u01/app/oraInventory

from : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1/oraInst.loc

OPatch version : 11.2.0.3.6

OUI version : 11.2.0.4.0

Log file location : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2018-01-24_01-10-13AM_1.log

List of Homes on this system:

Inventory load failed... OPatch cannot load inventory for the given Oracle Home.

Possible causes are:

Oracle Home dir. path does not exist in Central Inventory

Oracle Home is a symbolic link

Oracle Home inventory is corrupted

LsInventorySession failed: OracleHomeInventory gets null oracleHomeInfo

OPatch failed with error code 73

Solution:-

cd $ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin

./attachHome.sh

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking swap space: must be greater than 500 MB. Actual 21183 MB Passed

The inventory pointer is located at /etc/oraInst.loc

The inventory is located at /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oraInventory

'AttachHome' was successful.

[oracle@amo02ch:/mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1/oui/bin ORA2CH] $ opatch lsinventory

Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 11.2.0.3.6

Oracle Home : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1

Central Inventory : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oraInventory

from : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1/oraInst.loc

OPatch version : 11.2.0.3.6

OUI version : 11.2.0.4.0

Log file location : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2018-01-24_01-12-40AM_1.log

Lsinventory Output file location : /mnt/san01ch/vd001_v001/u01/app/oracle/product/112040/db_1/cfgtoollogs/opatch/lsinv/lsinventory2018-01-24_01-12-40AM.txt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Installed Top-level Products (1):

Oracle Database 11g 11.2.0.4.0

There are 1 product(s) installed in this Oracle Home.

Interim patches (1) :

Patch 18522509 : applied on Wed Mar 11 16:34:12 PDT 2015

Unique Patch ID: 17604597

Patch description: "Database Patch Set Update : 11.2.0.4.3 (18522509)"

Created on 30 Jun 2014, 08:14:42 hrs PST8PDT

Sub-patch 18031668; "Database Patch Set Update : 11.2.0.4.2 (18031668)"

Sub-patch 17478514; "Database Patch Set Update : 11.2.0.4.1 (17478514)"

Bugs fixed:

17752995, 17288409, 16392068, 17205719, 17811429, 17767676, 17614227

17040764, 17381384, 17754782, 17726838, 13364795, 17311728, 17389192

17006570, 17612828, 17284817, 17441661, 13853126, 17721717, 13645875

18203837, 17390431, 16542886, 16992075, 16043574, 17446237, 16863422

14565184, 17071721, 17610798, 17468141, 17786518, 17375354, 17397545

18203838, 16956380, 17478145, 16360112, 17235750, 17394950, 13866822

17478514, 17027426, 12905058, 14338435, 16268425, 13944971, 18247991

14458214, 16929165, 17265217, 13498382, 17786278, 17227277, 17546973

14054676, 17088068, 16314254, 17016369, 14602788, 17443671, 16228604

16837842, 17332800, 17393683, 13951456, 16315398, 18744139, 17186905

16850630, 17437634, 19049453, 17883081, 15861775, 17296856, 18277454

16399083, 16855292, 18018515, 10136473, 16472716, 17050888, 17865671

17325413, 14010183, 18554871, 17080436, 16613964, 17761775, 16721594

17588480, 17551709, 17344412, 18681862, 15979965, 13609098, 18139690

17501491, 17239687, 17752121, 17602269, 18203835, 17297939, 17313525

16731148, 17811456, 14133975, 17600719, 17385178, 17571306, 16450169

17655634, 18094246, 17892268, 17165204, 17011832, 17648596, 16785708

17477958, 16180763, 16220077, 17465741, 17174582, 18522509, 16069901

16285691, 17323222, 18180390, 17393915, 16875449, 18096714, 17238511

17596908, 17811438, 17811447, 18031668, 16912439, 18061914, 17622427

17545847, 16943711, 17082359, 17346671, 18996843, 14852021, 17783588

16618694, 17672719, 17614134, 17341326, 17546761, 17716305

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OPatch succeeded.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Database Design thoughts : A personal non-academic perspective.

The benefits of any database model, be it relational or non-relational is

Data storage is efficient.
Data retrival is efficient.
Reporting is efficient
Data transformation into Information is easy and self documenting the business / process.

The first 3 benefits get a lot of focus while designing a database. In today's scenarios, implementations to achieve these benefits , are mainly managed by IT departments. The 4th benefit remains unspoken & expected to be outcome of the first three.

4th benefit requires equal , if not more focus during the design phase. It should be the starting point of designing. Product managers and DBAs need to sit down and dream a little bit about current and future scenarios. After they have a rough draft of things to come, security & legal teams' input comes next in line. There are many academic papers and thoughts.

However after seeing difficult and messy designing of databases, The designing considerations boil down to :-

What legal rules apply to the data being stored.
What is data entry point.
What is data exit point.
At what stage or condition should the data be removed completely from the database.
How to categorize data segments for security and privacy.
What personnel and roles should have direct access to data.
What will be data policy of the company and who will define the policy.

Each of the above , including legal, requires workflow with clear cut process in place.

These aspects of designing used to be DBA's responsibility but in changing times when the role of DBA's is diminishing to implementing data storage, retrieval and reporting efficiency , Product managers and Security teams' involvement increases considerably.

Implementation of what comes out of the 4th Benefit falls on the shoulders of IT departments. IT departments are at their best when it comes to choice of correct technology , machines and storage. They would also be able to analyze what type of database technology is best for the organization. Database technologies dictate datatypes, tables, columns, rows, roles, privileges and so on. Modularly designed database are low-maintenance. They also increase efficiency of developers who create in-house applications. Examples of modularity are:-

Authentication module
Authorization module
Sales module
Marketing module
Billing module
Decision making module (data warehouse module)
and so on...

another module 'Link module' would be needed to to implement efficient storage and retrieval of data. DFD should be also created and available as and when needed.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Preventive tasks : Avoid errors & issues while installing oracle 11gR2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 server(x86-64):-

Error/Issue No:-1 Packages "elfutils-libelf-devel-0.97" And "pdksh-5.2.14" Are Missing (PRVF-7532) (Doc ID 1454982.1)

Workaround:-
Once the software is copied/extracted under <path>/database, do the following:
1	Change directory to <path>/database/stage/cvu/cv/admin
2	Backup cvu_config
	% cp cvu_config backup_cvu_config
3	Edit cvu_config and change the following line:
	CV_ASSUME_DISTID=OEL4 TO CV_ASSUME_DISTID=OEL6
4	Save the updated cvu_config file
5	Install the 11.2.0.3 or 11.2.0.4 software using <path>/database/runInstaller
	cd <path>/database
6	./runInstaller

Error/Issue No:-2 error in invoking target 'agent nmhs' of make file ins_emagent.mk while installing Oracle 11.2.0.4 on Linux (Doc ID 2299494.1)

workaround:-
1	vi $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/lib/ins_emagent.mk
2	search for the line
	$(MK_EMAGENT_NMECTL)
3	Then replace the line with
	$(MK_EMAGENT_NMECTL) -lnnz11 and save the file
4	Then click “Retry” button to continue.