Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.

1) New Features in the Administrator's Gui de 1)Oracle Restart improves database availability by automatically restarting the database after a failure. 2)Edition-based redefinition enables application developers and DBAs to upgrade an application with little or no application down time. 3)Database Smart Flash Cache 4)The Automatic Segment Advisor can now return a recommendation to use OLTP comp ression for a table. http://datawarehouse4u.info/OLTP-vs-OLAP.html 5)Deferred segment creation When creating a nonpartitioned heap-organized table in a locally managed tablesp ace, table segment creation is deferred until the first row is inserted. 6)Oracle Database File System The Oracle Database File System creates a standard file system interface on top of files and directories that are stored in database tables. 7)Oracle Scheduler enhancements 8)Database Resource Manager Enhancements 9)New SQL command syntax for specifying table compression for direct load operat ions only or for all (OLTP) operations. 10)The Flash Recovery Area is renamed to Fast Recovery Area 11)Archive logging now supports up to 30 standby databases 12)IP version 6 is now supported 13)Redo logs can now be stored on disk drives with a sector size of 4K bytes wit hout performance degradation. 14)The Enterprise Manager Support Workbench, a component of the fault diagnosabi lity infrastructure, now supports investigating, reporting, and resolving critic al errors in Oracle Automatic Storage Management instances.

Role of DBA A database administrator's responsibilities can include the following tasks: ?Installing and upgrading the Oracle Database server and application tools ?Allocating system storage and planning future storage requirements for the data base system ?Creating primary database storage structures (tablespaces) after application de velopers have designed an application ?Creating primary objects (tables, views, indexes) once application developers h

ave designed an application ?Modifying the database structure, as necessary, from information given by appli cation developers ?Enrolling users and maintaining system security ?Ensuring compliance with Oracle license agreements ?Controlling and monitoring user access to the database ?Monitoring and optimizing the performance of the database ?Planning for backup and recovery of database information ?Maintaining archived data on tape ?Backing up and restoring the database ?Contacting Oracle for technical support

Checking Your Current Release Number COL PRODUCT FORMAT A40 COL VERSION FORMAT A15 COL STATUS FORMAT A15 SELECT * FROM PRODUCT_COMPONENT_VERSION; Selecting an Authentication Method for Database Administrators

In addition to normal data dictionary authentication, the following methods are available for authenticating database administrators with the SYSDBA or SYSOPER privilege: ?Operating system (OS) authentication ?Password files ?Strong authentication with a network-based authentication service, such as Orac le Internet Directory 1.Find all users who have been granted the SYSDBA privilege. SELECT USERNAME FROM V$PWFILE_USERS WHERE USERNAME != 'SYS' AND SYSDBA='TRUE'; Specifying Oracle Managed Files at Database Creation You can minimize the number of clauses and parameters that you specify in your C REATE DATABASE statement by using the Oracle Managed Files feature. You do this by specifying either a directory or Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) disk group in which your files are created and managed by Oracle Database.

Supporting Bigfile Tablespaces During Database Creation Oracle Database simplifies management of tablespaces and enables support for ult ra-large databases by letting you create bigfile tablespaces. Bigfile tablespace s can contain only one file, but that file can have up to 4G blocks. The maximum number of datafiles in an Oracle Database is limited (usually to 64K files). Th erefore, bigfile tablespaces can significantly enhance the storage capacity of a n Oracle Database. SELECT PROPERTY_VALUE FROM DATABASE_PROPERTIES WHERE PROPERTY_NAME = 'DEFAULT_TBS_TYPE'; SELECT * FROM V$TIMEZONE_NAMES; Specifying FORCE LOGGING Mode Some data definition language statements (such as CREATE TABLE) allow the NOLOGG ING clause, which causes some database operations not to generate redo records i n the database redo log. The NOLOGGING setting can speed up operations that can be easily recovered outside of the database recovery mechanisms, but it can nega tively affect media recovery and standby databases. Fast Recovery Area with the following initialization parameters: DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE In an Oracle RAC environment, the settings for these two parameters must be the same on all instances. You cannot enable these parameters if you have set values for the LOG_ARCHIVE_DE ST and LOG_ARCHIVE_DUPLEX_DEST parameters. You must disable those parameters bef

ore setting up the Fast Recovery Area. You can instead set values for the LOG_AR CHIVE_DEST_n parameters. The LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1 parameter is implicitly set to p oint to the Fast Recovery Area if a local archiving location has not been config ured and LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1 value has not been set. Specifying Database Block Sizes DB_BLOCK_SIZE Initialization Parameter The most commonly used block size should be picked as the standard block size. I n many cases, this is the only block size that you must specify. Typically, DB_B LOCK_SIZE is set to either 4K or 8K. If you do not set a value for this paramete r, then the default data block size is operating system specific, which is gener ally adequate. DOMAIN parameter, which is optional, indicates the domain (logical location) wit hin a network structure. The combination of the settings for these two parameter s must form a database name that is unique within a network.

For example, to create a database with a global database name of test.us.example .com, edit the parameters of the new parameter file as follows: DB_NAME = test DB_DOMAIN = us.example.com To specify a DDL lock timeout, use the DDL_LOCK_TIMEOUT parameter. The permissib le range of values for DDL_LOCK_TIMEOUT is 0 to 1,000,000. The default is 0. UNDO_MANAGEMENT Initialization Parameter The UNDO_MANAGEMENT initialization parameter determines whether an instance star ts in automatic undo management mode, which stores undo in an undo tablespace. S et this parameter to AUTO to enable automatic undo management mode. Beginning wi th Release 11g, AUTO is the default if the parameter is omitted or is null. About The COMPATIBLE Initialization Parameter The COMPATIBLE initialization parameter enables or disables the use of features in the database that affect file format on disk. For example, if you create an O racle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) database, but specify COMPATIBLE=10.0.0 in t he initialization parameter file, then features that require 11.2 compatibility generate an error if you try to use them. Such a database is said to be at the 1 0.0.0 compatibility level.

SHOW PARAMETERS SHOW SPPARAMETERS V$PARAMETER V$SYSTEM_PARAMETER Creating a Secure External Password Store For large-scale deployments where applications use password credentials to conne ct to databases, it is possible to store such credentials in a client-side Oracl e wallet. An Oracle wallet is a secure software container that is used to store authentication and signing credentials. Quiescing a Database

Occasionally you might want to put a database in a state that allows only DBA tr ansactions, queries, fetches, or PL/SQL statements. Such a state is referred to as a quiesced state, in the sense that no ongoing non-DBA transactions, queries, fetches, or PL/SQL statements are running in the system. The following statement restores the database to normal operation: ALTER SYSTEM UNQUIESCE; Viewing the Quiesce State of an Instance You can query the ACTIVE_STATE column of the V$INSTANCE view to see the current state of an instance. The column values has one of these values: ?NORMAL: Normal unquiesced state. ?QUIESCING: Being quiesced, but some non-DBA sessions are still active. ?QUIESCED: Quiesced; no non-DBA sessions are active or allowed. Configure your Oracle database with the Oracle Restart feature to automatically restart the database, the listener, and other Oracle components after a hardware or software failure or whenever your database host computer restarts. Oracle Restart is used in standalone server (non-clustered) environments only. F or Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) environments, the functionality to automatically restart components is provided by Oracle Clusterware. About Starting and Stopping Oracle Restart The CRSCTL utility starts and stops Oracle Restart. You can also use the CRSCTL utility to enable or disable Oracle high availability services. Oracle Restart u ses Oracle high availability services to start and stop automatically the compon ents managed by Oracle Restart. Managing Planned Outages For repairs, upgrades, and changes that require you to shut down the primary dat abase, Oracle Restart provides interfaces that disable and enable services to mi nimize service disruption to application users. Using Oracle Data Guard Broker w ith Oracle Restart allows a coordinated failover of the database service from th e primary to the standby for the duration of the planned outage. Once you comple te the operation, you can return the service to normal operation.