Oracle Magazine
Oracle Magazine-Nov/Dec. 1998
The headline articles for the Nov/Dec 1998 edition of Oracle Magazine were on building web based applications and thin client computing. A large part of the magazine was dedicated to these topics. This was a bumper edition with a total of 152 pages of content.
Other articles included:
- There was a few articles on using Oracle 8i, including how to use Java in the Database, the Internet File System, Intermedia and Data Warehousing. Oracle 8i comes with over 150 new features
- There was a couple of articles on the Millennium Bug and how to approach such projects. There was also some advice for organisations who would have to look at how to deal with the introduction of the Euro currency in Europe.
- There was a section for articles on new product announcements from Oracle partners, including Quest, Nextek, Maxager, ObjectShare, Constellar (Warehouse Builder), Prism, DataMetrics, IQ Software, Eventus, DataMirror, Precise, Saville, DataShark, J-Database Exchange, Andataco, GeoMedia
- Oracle makes available Oracle 8i and the Application Server on a Linux platform for the first time.
- With Oracle 8i we have a number of ways of managing our constraints, including:
- Deferrable integrity constraints
- Non unique indexes for primary key and unique constraints
- Immediate constraint enabling
- Detecting lock and waiting transactions was always a task that consumed a lot of time for a DBA. A number of scripts was given to help you identify these and to resolve these problems.
- For allow of Oracle Certified DBAs out there. There was an article promoting the OCP DBA program and Exam. Some hints and tips about the exam were given, along with some practice questions.
- Plus there was 12 pages on adverts at the back of the magazine.
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review Oracle Magazine- July/August 1998
The headline articles for the July/August1998 edition of Oracle Magazine were on designing, developing and delivering Data Marts using the Oracle Database and related tools. The main article looks at the different phases of developing a data mart in 90 days.
One of the key messages in these articles is to keep focused on the business problem and that the technology part is very minor in this. This message is still vey key to the analytics and big data world, keep focused on the business problem.
Other articles included:
- Oracle ships JDeveloper Suite. It included App Builder for Java, Oracle Application Server 4.0, Oracle 8 Database Server, Symantec’s Visual Page HTML editor, and a one year developer’s membership in the Oracle Technology Network. Yes there used to be a cost to be a member of OTN!!!.
- Oracle We Developer Suite wins the PC Magazine Editor Choice award. The suite comes with full development licences for Designer/2000 Release 2.1, including object extensions, Developer/2000 Release 2.1, Oracle App Builder for Java, Oracle Application Server 3.0, Oracle Database Server (releases 7 and 8) and the Oracle Web Development Kit
- Oracle Support announce plans to give read only access, via the web, to its Bug database.
- There was an advert for TOAD when it was still freeware and provided by ToadSoft.
- Security management for Oracle 8, has been increasing in importance over the past few years. For all those people who have some security responsibilities, here are some key elements for database security: System security, Data security, User security, Password management and System auditing. Security is more than just providing a Firewall.
- Building Message-based apps with Oracle 8’s Advanced Queuing, involves 5 main steps, including:
- Start the server’s AQ background process
- Create a database user account to manage queues
- Create a user-defined type for application messages
- Create a queue table and a corresponding queue of the user defined message type
- Build the application to enqueue and dequeue messages of the user defined message type
- For the DBAs there was an article on Fast Full Index Scan, how to enable it and gives a number of examples of the hints including the index_fss.
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review of Oracle Magazine-March/April 1998
The headline articles for the March/April 1998 edition of Oracle Magazine were on how the role of the DBA is increasing in importance, managing databases globally, how the DBA is an important strategic partner in an organisation. Oracle is being used by a number of health organisations including Norway’s national hospital system, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah and Neuroclinical Trials Center.
Other articles included:
- Oracle Applications 11was due for release during the first half of 1998 and has a number of key features including, Universal Access, Globalized Finance, Project Manufacturing and Flow Manufacturing.
- Oracle’s Industry Applications division recently introduced new products including Oracle Public Budgeting, Oracle Sector Grants Management and the Oracle Energy Upstream solution .
- 5 ways DBA’s can be strategic partners: Proactive systems management, systems design, change management, performance tuning and security.
- Steve Lemme, DBA/systems manager for Motorola lists the following tasks for DBAs to keep them busy
- Daily Duties : At a minimum monitor
- Oracle ALERT file logs
- Systems resources
- Backups
- Archive logs
- Error logs
- Weekly Watch : Check free space including:
- Tablespaces
- Tables
- Indexes
- Clusters
- Monthly Monitoring : Do audits for fragmentation of :
- Indexes
- Clusters
- Tables
- Oracle Enterprise Toolkit comprises, Enterprise Manager, Diagnostics Pack, Tuning Pack and Management Pack.
- Kenny Smith looks at a day in the life of a DBA working from home using Oracle Enterprise Manager that included a Data Load, Change View, Create stored function, Add a new user, Fix a database link, Send a size report to director, Fix a production slowdown, Helped an application developer and Averted a production crisis.
- Migrating to Oracle 8: Quick Start on New Features:
- Knowledge Collection and Consolidation
- Learn about Oracle 8’s new features
- Get help from someone who has implemented Oracle 8
- Review the new features with your team
- Application Analysis for New Features
- Implement minor changes first
- Define the table partitioning strategy
- Define and indexing strategy
- Identify the tables you can index organise
- Database Design Analysis for New Features
- Define the new physical layout
- Define a partition maintenance strategy
- Migrate to partitions
- Backup and Recovery Strategy
- Review your current backup and recovery strategy
- Make as many tablespaces as possible read-only
- Define a multitiered backup strategy using SMR
- Make sure at least two independent restoration options exist
- Ensure that you can do the restoration in an adequate time period
- Define a plan for testing backup and recovery
- Kevin Loney has an article on the new format for ROWID in Oracle 8, what it is and how to use it
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review of Oracle Magazine–January/February 1998
The headline articles for the January/February 1998 edition of Oracle Magazine were on Electronic Commerce and include justification for building EC applications, creating online shops and what products Oracle has to support as aspects of an EC applications.
Other articles included:
- Oracle Product announcements included:
- Oracle InterOffice 4.1
- Oracle Lite 3.0 gets a Java facelift
- Oracle Gateways for MS SQL Server 8 and Sybase 8
- Oracle Applications Release 11 is coming soon
- Applications Desktop Integrator
- Application Server 3.1
- Oracle 8 on Sun Sets new World Record. TCP-C Benchmark with 51,871.62 tpmC at $134.36 per tpmC runing Oracle 8 on Sun Solaris 2.6 on a two node Sun Microsystems Ultra Enterprise 6000 cluster
- Marking the Mart Decision, looked at how using a Data Mart approach you can have a project delivered quicker (3 to 6 months) and a cost of $100,000. All this using the Oracle Data Mart Suite for Windows NT
- Securing transactions in Network Applications using Oracle’s Web Application Server to control security
- Digital Certificate Authentication
- Application Authorization
- Encryption
- Managing Unstructured data in Oracle 8. There ware some new data types including LOB, CLOB, BLOB and BFILE
- Making the most of Java looks at how you can use applets with Designer/2000 WebServer Generator
- A quick start guide on how to migrate to Oracle 8, included:
- Determining the Migration Strategy
- Ensure compatibility
- Identify invalid objects and lost statistics
- Eliminate language problems
- Take care of read-only tablespaces
- Know the point of no return
- Avoid large restores
- Defining Resource Requirements
- Define Personnel requirements
- Set the timing of the migration
- Determine space requirements
- Create an appropriate testing environment
- Determining Potential Problem Areas
- Review ROWIDs
- Avoid reserved words
- Eliminate obsolete init.ora parameters
- Identifying Verification Tests
- Develop the test strategy
- Do migration testing
- Perform minimal testing
- Do functional testing
- Do integration testing
- Do performance testing
- Do load-stress testing
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review of Oracle Magazine- November/December 1997
The headline articles for the November/December 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were focused on the Network Computing area, how it works, what framework to use, how the architecture works, how it supports the information management universe.
Other articles included:
- The new features of Designer/2000 Release 2.0 included a new Design Editor, an updated Repository to capture more details about the application structure, rules and application logic and reusable module components.
- Object Database Designer for Object-Relational Databases is beta released with a production version in a few months
- Oracle’s Very Large Memory (VLM) capability on Windows NT raises the 2GB memory constraint imposed on applications running Windows NT. With VLM, Oracle can cache almost 8GB of database information in memory.
- Extending Oracle 8 with Objects looked at how to create nested tables, and creating object tables
- How to Create a Good Test Database gives some guidance on how to extract a referentially intact subset of data for testing a data warehouse with new reports, queries and programs.
- A Management Perspective on Handling a New Millennium gives a methodology to address the complete management and control issues. The had the following phases:
- Impact assessment
- Prechange analysis
- Compliance
- Retest and Integration
- Using Parallel Query to improve Windows NT Data Mart Performance
- The last section of the magazine had 10 pages of job adverts.
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review of Oracle Magazine–September/October 1997
The headline articles for the September/October 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were how to put your data warehouse on the web, how to build it, how it works, differences between a data mart and a data warehouse, how Delicato Vineyard and the US Environmental Protection Agency web enabled their data warehouse,
This was a bumper edition of Oracle Magazine. It had just over 150 pages of content. This is compared to the previous editions that have been +/- a few pages of 100.
Other articles included:
- There was a certain amount of repetition of announcements from the previous edition (a lot). I won’t repeat them here but check out the previous edition review.
- Extending Oracle 8 with Objects covered how to create and work with Object Types.
- How to setup and configure your Oracle Database hot standby, how to monitor it and what limitations to watch out for.
- Oracle Designer/2000 Administration: Tuning Tips and Techniques.
- The tips for the Repository included:
- Bring your system up to speed
- Re-create indexes and hash tables frequently
- Size the SGA Shared_Pool_Size and the DB_Block_Buffers
- Pin procedures to the SGA
- Size the tablespaces
- Re-create the repository through import/export
- Be aware of the impact of sharing objects across multiple application systems
- Tips for Client-side tuning:
- Use suggested settings for PC clients
- Install Designer/2000 client tools on a file server
- Tips for Network Tuning
- Configure SQL*Net
- Unlocking the value of test with Oracle ConText cartridge. CareerPath.com uses ConText to enable servers to quickly and efficiently search through hundreds of thousands of job vacancies quickly and relevant for the searchers entered details.
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review of Oracle Magazine–July/August 1997
The headline articles for the July/August 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were all focused on using Java, building applications, an interview with James osling using Java and the Oracle Database together and an outline of what Oracle sees as the future for Java.
Other articles included:
- There as a lot of product announcements (similar to the previous edition). These included:
- Developer/2000 Web Cartridge
- Enterprise JavaBeans for Integrated Business Solutions
- Oracle/CNN Launch
- Personal Oracle Lite 2.4 : Mobile RDBMS
- Oracle Replication Services Release 1.3: Bidirectional replication
- Oracle Projects 10.7 Suite of Applications
- Oracle Web Application Server 3.0 on HP-UX
- Oracle Discoverer 3.0
- Oracle GEMMS 4.1
- Data Mart solution for Windows NT
- Using the Network Computing Architecture (NCA) with Developer/2000 and Designer/2000. This covered how you can create components that you can mix and match, and plug into your applications. This involved using JDeveloper and the Developer/2000 Web Forms Cartridge to Deploy in Java.
- There was an article discussing how you can implement your applications in a distributed environment, on a phased basis.
- Steven Feuerstein writes planning your PL/SQL development to maximise your PL/SQL environment. He suggests that there are two specific steps for PL/SQL: 1 Consolidate access to the underlying database, and 2 Standardize exception handling and creating general utilities that can be reused. Best practices include:
- Make packages flexible and easy to use
- Overload the package to make the package smarter
- Modularize the package so it can be maintained and enhanced.
- Hide the package data
- Build multiple packages simultaneously
- Employing top-down design in PL/SQL
- Make the most of the PL/SQL language and features
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review of Oracle Magazine–May/June 1997
The headline articles for the May/June 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were focused on the release of Oracle 8, with articles on the new features, how Boeing and Arizona Start University are using Oracle 8 to create a plane for the future, and some articles on using object technology in Oracle 8.
I remember back in 1994 Oracle bought an OODBMS company with the aim of ‘if you cannot beat them then buy them’. The Object Relation project of Sedona was born and the first of the deliverables from the project was in Oracle 8.
Other articles included:
- The key benefits of Oracle 8 Server (The Database of Network Computing) can be grouped under Scalable, Available, Object-Relational, Large Scale, Distributed, Secure and Evolutionary.
- The new features of Oracle 8 have been in new or better functionality for OLTP, Data Warehousing, Parallel Server, Object-Relational (code named Sodona), Partitioning, Backup and Recovery, Connectivity, Replication, NCA Framework and Migration.
- Oracle announces that they have licensed Borland Java tools and we now have the birth of JDeveloper and the world of ADF will come along many years later.
- The Industry Applications Division (IAD) of Oracle announce new applications and releases. These included: Oracle Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) 2.2, Oracle Government Financials, Oracle Energy 3.1, Oracle Clinical 3.1, Oracle Environmental 4.5 and Oracle Health and Safety 2.0.
- Kumaran Systems, releases a tool that will convert all your reports written in RPT (ReportWriter, which was very similar to PL/SQL) to Reports 2.5. I really liked RPT. It was quick and you could do a lot with a few lines of code. Converting to Oracle Reports took a bit of getting used to. As a lot of the work you had to put into developing the report revolved you having to play with frames and anchoring box positions. Oh I still have the scares.
- Los Angeles County uses Oracle 7.1 to help it manage its environmental applications.
- How to defined and use Summary tables in your Oracle Data Warehouse.
- Oracle launches a new magazine for its users call Profit and is aimed at the CFO and CIO market.
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Oracle Magazine Collection
Are you going to Oracle Open World & have old Oracle Magazines.
I’ve been working in the Oracle World for 20 years now. During that time I’ve been collecting the print editions of Oracle Magazine since 1992.
I have all the Oracle Magazines from 1998, but I’m missing some of the editions prior to 1998.
Can you help me complete my collection ? (I promise that you wont find them on ebay!!)
What I would really like to do is to have a print copy of every Oracle Magazine going back to the very first one in June 1987. To see the electronic version of the first edition, which was very kindly made available by Cary Milsap, click here. 
So in the run up to Oracle Open World could you have a look to see if you have any of my missing editions or any of the early editions. I can collect them off you are Oracle Open World.
If you have a look through my blog you will see that I’ve been posting a review of some of the early editions of Oracle Magazine. Ideally at some time in the future I will have a review of all the Oracle Magazines available.
Review Oracle Magazine–Sept/Oct 2006- 20th Anniversary
The Sept/Oct Oracle Magazine from 2006 was the 20th Anniversary edition.
The main articles were focused on Security, Unstructured Data, Using Ajax, Partitioning (this is a regular topic), Application Express and there was the regular articles from Tom Kyte and Steven Feuerstein
There was only one article focusing o the 20th Anniversary of Oracle Magazine, written by Jeff Spicer and gave a brief overview of how the magazine has progress and the main technologies. The highlights included
- Oracle Magazine emerged in 1987 from the original newsletter that was issued every quarter
- In the 1990’s the magazine grew in size and was primarily focus on how Oracle customer were using the products
- By the late 1990 the magazine evolved into have a number of distinct sections focusing on the wide range of products that Oracle now owned
- Then into the 2000 Oracle magazine stated to introduce more user focused features. With this we get more user group news and features on community members.
- Tom Kyte joins with a regular column in 2000
- Back in 2006 Oracle magazine has a readership of nearly 1 million.
In the November/December 2011 Oracle Magazine, Tom Haunert give an brief history of Oracle Magazine, over its 25 year history
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Review of Oracle Magazine- January/February 1997
The January/February 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine was the “10th Anniversary Special Edition”. They were celebrating a little bit early as it should be the June/July edition, as the first Oracle Magazine was published in June 1987. This edition says that Oracle Magazine started in 1986. So there is a little bit of confusion on when Oracle Magazine started. Some people say Oracle Magazine started before the first edition, as there was a regular-ish newsletter for a couple of years before the June 1987 edition.
The January/February 1997 edition had its contents divided into two main sections. The first of these sections was on the typical articles you would find in Oracle Magazine and the other section was for a collection of articles for the 10th anniversary.
The articles for the main part of January/February 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine included:
- Oracle Spatial Data option was released providing a full-function geometry server.
- Developer/2000 for the Web gets released
- Discoverer 3.0 beta is released
- Objects in High Gear looks at object technology and how it is and can be used in our data and applications, with example applications for education and health.
The 10th Anniversary section articles included:
- Oracle Magazine editor, Leslie Steere, had an article called The Cure for Information Overload. In this article she listed 10 questions that can help you determine if you are from Information Overload Syndrome.
- Has your job become unsatisfying?
- Do you find yourself unable to make important decisions?
- Have you lost the ability to prioritize?
- Has your work performance been less than stellar lately?
- Have you caught yourself snapping at coworkers?
- Do you feel unreasonably anxious at business meetings?
- Have your sleep patterns changed for the worse?
- Are you drinking and eating more compulsively than usual?
- Are you experiencing problems in your important personal relationships?
- Are you physically ill more often than usual?
- Follow the Leaders article had short interviews with some of Oracle’s top executives on the past and future of Oracle. The executive included, Dirk Kabcenell, EVP Product Division Administration, Phil Wilson, SVP Human Resources, Ian Thacker, SVP Oracle UK, Thomas Theodores, VP Corporate Legal, randy Baker, SVP, Worldwide Customer Support and Nimish Mehta, SVP Industry Management.
- Ken Jacob, VP of Product Strategy talks about about his time at Oracle and his vision for the next 10 years. “What are we going to do over the next few years in online transaction processing? How are we going to incorporate object-based technologies, asynchronous messaging, and multitier architectures. What are we going to do to enhance the data-warehouse features? There’ll be some internal architecture restructuring of the system, but the basic foundation is strong. There is nothing that we need to catch up on, so our task is to just keep moving ahead into the future.”
- Sohaib Abbasi, SVP of Oracle Tools Division, who has been working in Oracle since 1982 and lead up the SQL*Forms development in 1984. He talks about the Oracle Development Tool.
- An early customer for Oracle was the particle research centre CERN. This article charts how CERN has used Oracle from version 2 to Oracle 8.
- Kevin Loney gives 10 scripts that every DBA needs for managing the database.
To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.
In my next blog post I will look at the 20th and 25th Anniversary editions of Oracle Magazine.
My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.
Peer-to-Peer in Oracle Magazine–September/October 2013
The latest edition of Oracle Magazine is now available online and can be viewed at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oramag/magazine/current-issue/index.html
I’ve been included in the Peer-to-Peer feature, along with two other Oracle ACEs. The Peer-to-Peer feature is a regular part in Oracle Magazine and typically gives a short profile of 3 Oracle ACEs or ACE Directors.
If you have subscribed to get a printed copy, we should be getting a copy of it in the post over the next couple of weeks.
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