Gavin's Blog

I'm assuming those people still sticking with me and reading my Blog (with it's very sporadic nature of posting) are either full on dedicated DBA's, waiting for triumph or failure at the end of this little experiment of mine, or you put this feed in your blog feeder and every time you see an update from me, kick yourself for not getting rid of this blog from the list last time.. :-)

Either way, you're here and I've got you for a minute or two.

I have a question for you, doesn't matter which of the above reader you are:

When was the last time you challenged yourself?

Whether it was as big a challenge such as change of careers, or small, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator twice a week?

hmmm?

I like challenges, don't know why, they stress me out most of the time. I just did a google search on "challenge yourself", and found a blog post from a guy called Dwipal. His post on challenging yourself kinda explains it for me..

"...Short term challenges create a sense of tension in us, and when they are achieved, we feel happy. They also keep us busy and minds occupied until they are resolved...."


I don't think I would have lasted this long as a DBA if I was the type to accept a way of doing something and not change (how many DBA's do you know like that...).

Which leads me to the title of this blog :-) Another challenge!

There was an email blast from Oracle University this morning about the New Oracle Expert Program. A series of exams that recognize specialist DBA's. They include:

• Oracle Database 10g: Managing Oracle on Linux Certified Expert
• Oracle Database 10g: Real Application Clusters Administrator Certified Expert
• Oracle 11i Workflow Certified Expert
• Oracle 11i System Administrator Certified Expert
  

If you're thinking, "oh yay, another way for Oracle to get money from me..." , then I'm not sure why you're reading my blog.... that's not the point of the exams, or of this blog.

So anyway. Those that are like me, and enjoy a challenge, take a look. Those that don't want to give money to the Man, fine.. don't.


Let me know if you're interested or are planning to go for any of them. I'd like to hear how it goes, how you're going to get ready for it. Stuff like that.

Or, better yet, instead of me droning on about my lack of preparation for exam type stuff, someone write a blog entry for me on going for one of the exams... the trepidation leading up, the euphoria of thinking you know the answers, the nervous sweat you seem to break into as you press the "Finished" button....

Going off track again. I was reading in the AustralianIT News site about "Laptop Lock Down". (I get annoyed having to follow links in blogs, so to summarise it's about security of confidential data on laptops and mobile PCs/Blackberries...)

Being a Consultant, I have several clients across APAC, who would be kinda annoyed if I told them their technical design for their production eBusiness Suite is in some dodgy person's hands...

So I've started using this encrypted filesystem program TrueCrypt, which allows you to create an encrypted file and mount it as a filesystem when unlocked.

Awesome, it means when I get to a client, I mount the drive and all my stuff is there.

And if the laptop goes missing, I don't have to stress about client data falling into the wrong hands. As far as I know, it'd take a while to break through 256 bit AES encryption algorith with SHA-1 Hashing to boot.

Truecrypt is Open Source too which is cool.

OK, back on topic... OCM stuff.

Let's look at the environment which is used in the OCM exam.

Software Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 operating system, Oracle Database 10g 10.1.0.4, and Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control 10.1.0.3 are used during the exam.
• Participants can choose to work in either Linux and Oracle CLI or GUI environment when available during the exam.
• Candidates will also have access to a complete, non-searchable Oracle documentation set.
  

Time to blow the dust off the VMWare image I started creating.

Basically, I'm going to create an image which includes RHEL3 installed with no "Oracle-ization" done at all, but with all the rpms and Oracle software required to create the environment described above. With a separately staged Oracle Doco CD with the searching turned off.

Then, after each scenario, I can revert to the original snapshot, and start again.

The only issue is stuff like when RAC get's involved, that should be fun.

Anybody got any ideas for that one...apart from bouncing the nearest clients production RAC environment to run a test :-)