University Sessions
University Sessions are four-hour, in-depth sessions on a specific topic offered on Tuesday, February 12 from 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. for an extra fee of $125 for people not attending Training Days, and $112.50 for people attending the conference. Below are descriptions of the sessions offered:
Bradley Brown, TUSC |
Application Development—APEX |
Room 104/106
In this half-day session, you'll learn to use Apex
from concept to delivery to support. We'll start with an existing database
(i.e. an Excel spreadsheet) and build a real world application from
the ground up. A number of Apex applications will be demonstrated
and discussed in detail. You’ll see how far these applications
were taken to solve real world problems. This session will discuss
and demonstrate the applications’ functional requirements, how
the applications were extended, the net results and cost savings.
Apex is a declarative Web-based application development and deployment
environment. It's a powerful and easy way to quickly develop
a database-centric Web application. You can install Apex on your
own machines or run in a hosted environment on Oracle's site. All
development (construction of pages) is done through the browser interface.
You can use the SQL Workshop and the Data Workshop to run SQL and add
data to your environment. This easy-to-use tool will impress
you in no time at all!
Once everyone has the Apex foundations under their belt,
we’ll
press the pedal to the metal and dig into the real power of Apex and
its comprehensive functionality. Numerous advanced tips and techniques
will be covered in this presentation. These topics include: pop-up
windows, complex searches, document management, indexing and searching, “tool
tip” or hints, email links, page 0, help text, background jobs, “add
to my calendar” feature, saving contacts (VCF), sending mass
emails, and more.
Carol Dacko, University of Michigan |
Database Administration - DBA |
Room 102
Attendees will be equipped to customize their statistics collection with a better understanding of DBMS_STATS. They will have a better understanding of the type of testing they may want to conduct to optimize statistic collection for their particular applications. With DBMS_XPLAN participants will be able to utilize a package to format their explain plans with greater ease and with much more information. With Oracle 10g and 11g, more information is exposed through the various functions that will improve the attendee’s ability to understand the cost based optimizer’s decisions regarding access paths and join criteria.
Robert Freeman, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints |
Database Administration - DBA |
Room 111/113
This fast-paced university session will introduce you to RMAN, Oracle Databases backup and recovery tool. The principle goal of this session is to demystify RMAN, demonstrating to the attendee how easy it really is to use. In this session you will learn how to configure your database to use RMAN. You will then learn how to backup and recover your database. Finally, you will learn how to produce reports in RMAN.
Peter Koletzke and Duncan
Mills, |
Application Development - Forms/Reports |
Room 107/109
These days, development shops have been mandated to develop new applications using Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE, formerly J2EE) Web technologies. This can prove to be challenging for traditional Oracle Forms and PL/SQL developers because the main Java EE languages and the style of development are very different from Forms and PL/SQL. With JDeveloper 10.1.3, Oracle offers a tool that helps Forms and PL/SQL developers transition more easily than ever to Java EE Web development. Its declarative and visual development environment rivals that of Oracle Forms, yet it creates standard Java EE code that can be deployed on any Java EE server such as Oracle Application Server. However, JDeveloper is so flexible that developers often need help in determining which path to follow when developing their applications. This University session, taught by the authors of the Oracle Press book Oracle JDeveloper 10g for Forms & PL/SQL Developers, guides attendees in one of these paths. This path provides a development experience as close to Forms as possible, ADF Business Components, JSF, and ADF Faces, the technology stack that Oracle is using to create Fusion Applications—the next generation of Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite). This seminar explains how to create code with Fusion techniques using Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) in JDeveloper. Topics discussed include ADF Business Components for accessing the database; JavaServer Faces (JSF) and ADF Faces for the user interface, Java EE architectures, converting Forms applications to Java EE, ADF Model and Bindings, and database-centric development. Attendees of this course will receive a copy of the Oracle Press book Oracle JDeveloper 10g for Forms & PL/SQL Developers. This book will be provided free of charge by Oracle Technology Network to attendees of this course.
Thomas Kyte, Oracle Corporation |
Application Development - PL/SQL |
Room 108/110/112
This presentation will briefly overview why proper binding of SQL is extremely important with regards to performance, scalability, and even security but will quickly move into topics such as:
Do I always want to bind? (Surprisingly, the answer is no.)
What is bind variable peeking? Is it good or evil in disguise or a bit of both?
So the developers don't bind is cursor_sharing=force/similar appropriate system wide? (Emphasis will be on the reasons why setting cursor sharing at the instance level is not such a good idea.)
What is the real difference between cursor_sharing=force/similar and which should we use under what circumstances?
The presentation will be practical, with many examples and hard numbers you can use in your day-to-day work. The presentation has been updated to include a description of how Oracle behaves in releases 8i to 11g. Additionally, the presenter will describe common SQL techniques he has encountered and utilizes day to day to tune query performance. Features such as scalar subqueries, using rownum (yes, to 'tune'), analytics, some hints and more will be demonstrated. Emphasis will be on when they work (where the 'trick' applies) as well as when they don't work and where they do not apply. Care will be taken to show these not as a "top ten things to do" but rather techniques to keep in mind when looking at problems in general.
Jonathan Lewis, JL Computer Consultancy |
Database Administration - Performance Tuning |
Room 103/105
There are many ways of identifying the root causes of performance problems in Oracle—and they all have their own costs and benefits. In this University Session, we examine the fundamental principles of trouble-shooting: what causes problems and what we should be looking for. After a brief tour of some dynamic performance views and a quick look at a couple of trace events, we move into Statspack (and the related AWR) to discuss how best to use it. After discussing basic implementation and configuration, we start to learn about interpreting the reports. Inevitably, though, we can only begin to list some of the symptoms that might be revealed by the wealth of information that can be derived from the data collected by Statspack (AWR) and the pages of the standard report. After attending this session, you will be able to take advantage of the diagnostic information that Oracle supplies and know which strategy to adopt to get maximum information for minimum cost.