Oracle: OFA Part 4

Dear Readers,

My name is Franz Devantier, creator of this blog.  I am an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP DBA 11g) Security DBA.  I will be sharing with you the basic duties of an Oracle DBA, and also some of the undocumented, and not so well known tasks. 

OFA – Optimal Flexible Architecture

(Part 4, User Profiles & Zero Maintenance Administration)

An Oracle database user’s profile, should do three things for them:

1. Assign environment variables, so that the users shell can execute Oracle programs like SQL*Plus.
2. Assign a default instance name, to enable the user to connect to the database easily.
3. Execute the profile or environment file, that sets up the users profile, so that the user has all the access that is needed.

  

Ensure that oraenv, coraenv, and dbhome are in a neutral location, instead of $ORACLE_HOME/bin or %ORACLE_HOME%\bin

A location like for example: /var/opt/bin

By keeping these three files separate of the Oracle software home directory, you remove dependence on Oracle versions from your login profiles.

A user may go ahead and assign additional variables into the profile, to facilitate ease of use of the system.  A user can connect to different users by simply invoking .oraenv and giving an alternative SID, when promoted to.  In windows you can set the ORACLE_SID=<sid>, in order to achieve a similar effect.  However you will need to set your environment variables in windows for the correct results.

Zero Maintenance Administration

Once you have the scheduler running exports, datapumps, rman backups, and moving things to tape devices; the daily maintenance becomes a lot less.  However in the case of cold backups, if you don’t update the backup program with the latest file systems to backup, you will not end up with a complete database backup, and your backups will be invalidated.

Having a tried and proven program for doing health checks on the database, and those parts of the server that are directly influenced is important.  You need to be able to pick up small changes and add these changes into any automated programs, like backups.

Having a routine of planned maintenance on a regular basis can help to prevent you from putting your face solidly in the mud.

Make sure that all your references to directory structures are dynamically generated, and not hard coded into your scripts.  Hard coded scripts tend to die, with the smallest infrastructure change that is introduced.

OFA Standard 6:  It must be possible to add or move login home directories without having to revise programs that refer to them.

• Refer to explicit path names, only in files such as /etc/passwd and oratab.
• Refer to group memberships only in /etc/group
• Hard coded references to a files path name in a login home directory, must be identified and modified.
• Group memberships should never be recorded in administrative programs, because the group membership can be referenced in /etc/group

Franz Devantier,

Need a database health check?

devantierf@gmail.com

Income stabilizer (win-win opportunity)

Join the carefully selected and tested cash-flow generating program below to potentially create a long-term residual or annuity type income enhancer for yourself.

Traffic Wave - Free Report:  The report will give you all the information you need to start making a nice long-term residual income stream for yourself.