Database Maintenance is a thankless job. It takes time, know-how, and concentration. And yet it's not on anyone's strategic initiatives list. In fact, any comments a DBA hears usually revolve around complaints from those impacted by scheduled downtime for implementing updates, or complaints about taking too many days deploying databases for development or other organizations say it is taking too long. Or worse yet, unplanned downtime caused by applications not responding after a database update goes live. This can impact business activity including negatively impacting revenue directly. And any DBA's nightmare is doing something or missing something that causes a security issue. The challenges continue to multiply with new on-premises and cloud deployment models supporting both private and public cloud implementations to mention a few.
Database Fleet Maintenance at Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco, Sept 15-19, 2019
Saurabh Jain will be presenting with Comcast as well as supporting hands-on labs (HOL) at Openworld this year. There are a number of manageability sessions you can follow, covering Oracle systems management tools, Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Management Cloud.
Oracle Openworld Systems Management keynote, sessions, hands-on labs, and more
Webcast: Next-Generation Database Patching: Oracle Enterprise Manager’s Fleet Maintenance
Automation is key
When I asked a friend of mine, what do you think about when it comes to managing database operations? Her stream-of-conscious answer was something like;
'Well, if you can automate it, that helps a lot. I try to automate as much as possible.'
I've been thinking about her answer, and a couple of points come to mind. First, the obvious point; automation makes a DBA more efficient. You aren't doing every step yourself, and you can actually get a lot done by automating with scripts for example. On top of that, automation means repeatable. You're taking out the human element of doing something the same every time, so once you get the process down, and you use automation to repeat the steps, the results are predictable. That minimizes the negatives of database maintenance quite a bit, and the developers of Oracle Enterprise Manager understand the advantage and have delivered advanced tools to improve a DBA's ability to scale themselves by doing more with automation, as well as improving their impact by avoiding errors from one-off manual steps.
Database Fleet Maintenance
When you consider database maintenance across your entire database estate, the advantages of automation are even more apparent. In a webcast I hosted with Saurabh Jain, Oracle principal product manager, Saurabh has worked on the development side, as well as working with many customers on implementing DBaaS private cloud. In our webcast, he shares how to use Enterprise Manager to manage your entire Fleet with more efficiency for the DBA, as well as quickly, to minimize disruption to critical systems, and finally, securely. You can replay the webcast here.
The Devil is in the Details
I knew Saurabh had deep expertise, and you'll hear it in the webcast. Additionally, he provides so many references and additional resources you can tell, he's been there, done that, so to speak.
Here's a partial list:
Oracle Blogs | Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Management Cloud Blog
An Oracle blog about Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Management Cloud with many deep dive how-to information as well as business and technology trends. You are here, now.
Discover how Oracle Enterprise Manager can help private and public cloud service providers deliver cloud services up to ten times faster.
Enterprise Manager Fleet Maintenance
Fleet Management / Life Cycle Management Guide (docs)
This is the actual product implementation documentation covering life cycle management.
Lifecycle Management Administrator's Guide
This chapter describes the procedure to standardize database environments by automatically patching and upgrading a large number of databases with minimal downtime.
Master Note Database Patching Using Fleet Maintenance DocID 2435251.1
Master Note for Database Patching Using Fleet Maintenance.
Advisor webcasts are great on getting Oracle to advise on many topics. Follow the selections to Enterprise Manager, especially prior webcasts tab
Advisor Webcasts> start at Enterprise Manager> click on Prior Webcasts >
Webcast: Next-Generation Database Patching: Oracle Enterprise Manager’s Fleet Maintenance
Experience across business development, product management, product marketing in computer hardware to cloud services.