Expert Oracle Exadata - Parent Directory

INTRODUCTIONIn January of 2011, the X2 platform was beginning to show up at customer sites. Enkitec againdecided to invest in the technology, and we became the proud parents of an X2-2 quarter rack. Actually,we decided to upgrade our existing V2 quarter rack to a half rack with X2 components. This seemed like agood way to learn about doing upgrades and to see if there would be any problems mixing componentsfrom the two versions (there weren’t). This brings me to an important point.A Moving TargetLike most new software, Exadata has evolved rapidly since its introduction in late 2009. The changeshave included significant new functionality. In fact, one of the most difficult parts of this project hasbeen keeping up with the changes. Several chapters underwent multiple revisions because of changes inbehavior introduced while we were writing the material. The last version we have attempted to cover inthis book is database version 11.2.0.2 with bundle patch 6 and cellsrv version 11.2.2.3.2. Note that therehave been many patches over the last two years and that there are many possible combinations ofdatabase version, patch level, and cellsrv versions. So if you are observing some different behavior thanwe have documented, this is a potential cause. Nevertheless, we welcome your feedback and will behappy to address any inconsistencies that you find. In fact, this book has been available as part ofApress’s Alpha program, which allows readers to download early drafts of the material. Participants inthis program have provided quite a bit of feedback during the writing and editing process. We are verythankful for that feedback and somewhat surprised at the detailed information many of you provided.Thanks to the Unofficial EditorsWe have had a great deal of support from a number of people on this project. Having our officialtechnical reviewer actually writing bits that were destined to end up in the book was a little weird. Insuch a case, who reviews the reviewer’s writing? Fortunately, Arup Nanda volunteered early in theproject to be an unofficial editor. So in addition to the authors reviewing each other’s stuff, and Kevinreviewing our chapters, Arup read and commented on everything, including Kevin’s comments. Inaddition, many of the Oak Table Network members gave us feedback on various chapters throughoutthe process. Most notably, Frits Hoogland and Peter Bach provided valuable input.When the book was added to Apress’s Alpha Program, we gained a whole new set of reviewers.Several people gave us feedback based on the early versions of chapters that were published in thisformat. Thanks to all of you who asked us questions and helped us clarify our thoughts on specificissues. In particular, Tyler Muth at Oracle took a very active interest in the project and provided us withvery detailed feedback. He was also instrumental in helping to connect us with other resources insideOracle, such as Sue Lee, who provided a very detailed review of the Resource Management chapter.Finally I’d like to thank the technical team at Enkitec. There were many who helped us keep ontrack and helped pick up the slack while Randy and I were working on this project (instead of doing ourreal jobs). The list of people who helped is pretty long, so I won’t call everyone by name. If you work atEnkitec and you have been involved with the Exadata work over the last couple of years, you havecontributed to this book. I would like to specifically thank Tim Fox, who generated a lot of the graphicsfor us in spite of the fact that he had numerous other irons in the fire, including his own book project.We also owe Andy Colvin a very special thanks as a major contributor to the project. He wasinstrumental in several capacities. First, he was primarily responsible for maintaining our testenvironment, including upgrading and patching the platform so that we could test the newest featuresand changes as they became available. Second, he helped us hold down the fort with our customers whoxx