Database under fire

This post does not discuss mutexes or latches. I wrote it under the impression of recent escalation due to database corruption.

This was Oracle 10.2.0.4 database on HP-UX. Database files underwent recurrent corruption. Most commonly blocks were corrupted in system and undo tablespaces. This resulted in corrupted dictionary tables and indexes. Neither db_block_checking/db_block_checksum nor installation of latest PSU and OS patches helped. SCNs showed that these dictionary blocks were not changed for years. It looks likes some program other than DBWR overwrites the blocks. Corruptions caused downtimes to restore and recover datafiles.

Hotsos Symposium 2012

Week ago I was back home from the 10th Hotsos Symposium, the best performance dedicated Oracle conference in the world.

This was rare opportunity to see extraordinary presentations and discuss advanced Oracle topics. Inspired by Jonathan Lewis new book Oracle Core: Essential Internals for DBAs and Developers book I was happy to attend his Training Day.

I was lucky to speak at this jubilee Symposium about mutex internals and mutex contention.
Many thanks to the Hotsos team for this great conference.