University Seminars

Full-Day University Seminars
Sunday, April 13, 2008

U1: Zen and the Art of Database Tuning
Michael Ault, Quest Software
In this seminar, the attendee will be shown many SQL and Database tuning techniques. From proper table and partitioning design through the proper selection of indexes for a specific database and SQL type to database and OS specific including RAC will be covered. Demonstrations will accompany the lecture to illustrate the techniques covered.

U3: Putting Oracle Database 11g to Work – Oracle Database 11g New Features
Robert Freeman, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
This action packed, seminar will introduce the attendee to some of the many new features in Oracle Database 11g. Should you upgrade to 11g? Learn what you need to know about the new and enhanced features which include: administration features, backup/recovery features, security features, performance-related features, and BI/DW features. Bring your wireless capable laptops to connect to a provided database/schema (or you can use your own) and execute some provided lab exercises, giving you valuable hands-on experience with 11g.

U4: Implementing RAC
Ashok Singh, FASTENAL
Real Application Cluster (RAC) is the obvious choice while implementing a high availability solution for any critical business application. More sites are embracing this technology resulting into the additional skills required by any administrator to address the challenges of a clustered database. This seminar will serve as a jump start for any Oracle DBA who is willing to support such an installation. The speaker will discuss in detail about ASM, monitoring performance, tuning/backup/recovery using RMAN and other significant issues while dealing with a clustered database.

U6: Oracle Database 10g Streams: Data Replication
Kirtikumar Desphande, Idearc Media
Oracle9i Database Release 2 introduced Oracle Streams as a simplified solution for Information Sharing. Oracle Database 10g includes several enhancements to Oracle Streams. Using Oracle Streams you can propagate data, transactions, user defined events and messages in a stream of information within a database, or from one database to another. Oracle Streams offers more flexibility than other replication solutions in capturing, propagating and applying the information to other databases or applications. In this session, you will learn all about Oracle Streams architecture, configuration, administration and monitoring. Once configured and managed properly Oracle Streams can be very efficient and effective method for replicating data. I will share with you the tricks and tips from my experience with Oracle Database 10g Streams that would help you implement Oracle Streams with ease. An elaborate demonstration will show how Streams replication works.

U7: High Availability RMAN and Data Guard in 11g
Tim Quinlan, TLQ Consulting
This seminar will address the topic of achieving high availability using Oracle's Recovery Manager (RMAN) and Data Guard products in Oracle Database 10gR2 and Oracle Database 11g. Many new features have been added to both RMAN and Data Guard in 11g and this seminar will visit them all. Along with new features and functionality we will discuss the architecture, configuration, performance, integrity and management using these tools. This is a fast-paced seminar intended for any DBA who is starting to work RMAN and Data Guard.

U8:  Oracle Database Security in a Nutshell
Daniel Liu, Oracle USA
In this Seminar, the students will learn how they can use Oracle database features to meet the security and compliance requirements of their organization. The current regulatory environment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPPA, the UK Data Protection Act, and others requires better security at the database level. The session provides suggested architectures for common problems. It covers the following security features of the database: auditing, column and file encryption, virtual private database, label security, enterprise user security, and more.

U9: Linux Administration for Developers and DBAs, An Introduction to Working and Living
John Garmany, ProxITec
Many DBAs find themselves living in a Linux environment. Even if you are not responsible for maintaining the server it is important to know how the OS works. This seminar focuses on explaining what you need to know if you find yourself supporting Oracle on Linux. It is not an OCP or RHCE level course (that would take a couple of weeks in class) but rather a general overview of what you need to know to get Oracle running on Linux and keeping it running. Starting with an explanation of what Linux is and where you can get it, followed by a quick install discussion, focusing on the Oracle environment. The actual install is not performed in class as most of us have watched computers copy files.

The second section delves into how Linux works, how the OS and components start and how to get the OS to start and stop our applications. Getting Oracle to run is only part of the problem and as such, we will discuss other applications available to allow us to send alerts by email, transfer files to another server or our window computers, and some of the many programming languages available. An important section is securing the server using the SSH application. Finally, we will go into living with Linux, a discussion on OS and Oracle monitoring and maintenance. The final section will discuss what to do when things go wrong and where to start your troubleshooting.

U11: The Best of Tom Kyte
Tom Kyte, Oracle Corporation
Attend this seminar to hear Tom discuss the following topics: binding, materialized views/caching, indexing and storage. In the bindings part of this seminar, Tom will briefly overview why it is extremely important with regards to performance, scalability, and even security. The focus will be practical, with many examples and hard numbers you can use in your day-to-day work. In the materialized views/caching portion, Tom will explore what a materialized view is, how they work, when you might use them, and various useful 'techniques' you need to know in order to make the most of them. Next you will learn about indexing, you will learn about what considerations you want to be thinking of when coming up with your indexing scheme. Also covered will be the physical structures underlying each discussed index type. Finally, Tom will touch on storage techniques. Techniques such as clustering, index organized storage, partitioning and compression will be investigated.

U13: PeopleSoft for the DBA: Performance Optimization
David Kurtz, Go-Faster Consultancy, Ltd.
This seminar examines how to obtain performance metrics from the PeopleSoft software, including the new Performance Monitor, and then how to use that information to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks. It goes on to demonstrate how to identify source code, and how to use database tuning techniques in the context of a PeopleSoft system.

U14: Deploying Oracle Identity Management - End to End
Matt Topper, IT Convergence
This hands-on lab will cover deployment of the Oracle Identity Management components giving a high level overview of how to install, deploy, and configure the new Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Identity Manager components.  We will discuss how to use these components to front end custom applications, Oracle Portal and Oracle Discoverer, giving an end to end look on identity and access management in real world situations

U15: Introduction to Oracle Data Warehousing
Scott Rappoport, SAR Consulting
This is a full day training class for Data Warehousing beginners and Oracle professionals wishing to gain an understanding into Data Warehousing concepts. Platform independent concepts related to design, loading (ETL) and presentation are given in the first half of the day. Lifecycle management topics will comlement the main focus on Data Warehousing theory and practice. The second half of the day will focus on ways to implement concepts in Oracle. Warehouse Builder, Business Intelligence EE, and Oracle Data Mining will be highlighted.

U16: Scaling to Infinity: Partitioning Data Warehouses in Oracle
Tim Gorman, Evergreen Database
This seminar is designed to conclusively justify one of most important technical decisions that can be made during the physical build of a data warehouse based on the Oracle RDBMS, regardless of size: whether or not to use partitioning. Using partitioning permits the full power of numerous advanced Oracle features to be brought to bear on the data warehouse, regardless of how large it grows or how busy it becomes in the future, which Mr Gorman characterizes as the "virtuous cycle". Not starting with partitioning, regardless of how humble the beginnings, can lead to a deadly embrace of unfortunate circumstances that can doom the project to eventual -- almost inevitable -- failure, which Mr Gorman characterizes as the "death spiral".

Half-Day University Seminars
Thursday, April 17, 2008

U20: Hands-on Security Policies
Suhas Upadhye, Fannie Mae
Escalating costs of containing fraudulent access to the personal-information related data in your company will eventually cut into your profits. Compliance requirements will leave you with no choice regarding postponing its implementation. Does Oracle have a secret solution that you have not-known or less-known so far? Welcome to the "Security Policy" approach that is getting popular and gaining a permanent place in the Corporate Security Framework handbooks. We will take a step-by-step approach to understanding the elements of the Virtual Private Database (VPD) approach -- especially focusing on its Security Policies.

U21: Core DBA to Apps DBA: What You Need to Know to Transition
John Kanagaraj, DB Soft, Inc.
Oracle DBAs are constantly tasked to manage new applications and environments, and none is more challenging than the Oracle E-Business Suite or “Apps 11i” as it better known. In many organizations, “core” Oracle DBAs are suddenly thrust into the “Apps” DBA role, without much training and even lesser experience. In other cases, DBAs want to add on this highly-marketable skill-set. In this seminar, we will help you transition from a core DBA to an Apps DBA. Beginning with a solid understanding of the architecture of the OracleApps environment, we will cover details of both Forms/Web OLTP and Concurrent (batch) processing as well as installation, configuring, patching, tuning and troubleshooting this complex application suite. Security, SOX and Best Practices will also be covered. We will end this with a look at the upcoming EBS R12 and Oracle Fusion architecture.

U22: Compliance from Test to Production
Michelle Malcher, Consultant
Compliance and security needs to be applied from end to end, from test to production. Policies and procedures have to be put into place to guarantee compliance, and without frameworks in place, verifying and auditing security is extremely difficult. This seminar will work through underlying policies to apply to database environments using SOX and ISO examples. Discussions of new tools available for test and development environments as well as practical examples of auditing system privileged users and preparing reports for audits. Real world implementations of procedures following security and compliance polices.

U23: Oracle Database 11g/10g New Features for Developers
John King, King Training Resources
New features of the Oracle Database 11g geared to developers will be discussed and demonstrated. Attendees will be introduced to the new and improved features of Oracle Databases 11g/10g that directly impact application development. Special emphasis is placed on features that can reduce development time, make development simpler, improve performance, or speed deployment. Specific topics include: New SQL statements, case/accent-insensitive query, regular expressions, expanded LOB storage, new data types (Binary XML, BINARY_FLOAT, BINARY_DOUBLE, SDO_GEORASTER), new Statistical functions, Model clause, recycle bin, XML support improvements, MERGE improvements, Object improvements, expanded Java capabilities, Regular Expression expansion, virtual columns, and PL/SQL improvements. Attendees will be better equipped to create new applications or modify existing applications to take full advantage of Oracle Databases 11g/10g.

U24: Oracle Database 11g: New Features for DBAs
Daniel Liu, Oracle USA
2007 marks 30 years of Oracle helping businesses and governments manage their most valuable asset—information. Daniel will introduce the new features in Oracle Database 11g. Those topics include: Real Application Testing, Automatic Diagnostic Repository, Flashback Data Archive, new compression algorithms, automatic SQL and memory tuning, new partitioning methods and more. The topics covered in this seminar are primary for the database administrators.