Introduction As a DBA, data modeling is part of the job; working with developers, reviewing table design, implementing proper constraints and much more. In an earlier post about performance tuning, I talk about some practical steps that can be taken to fix performance problems. However, sometimes those problems could be “self-inflicted” and I ended that
Updated 24th September 2026 A Brief Primer: Constraints Constraints are database objects that help enforce business rules and ensure data integrity. They are typically defined on tables and their columns. They include: I talk a lot more about constraints in a previous post: about database constraints. What are Constraint States? In Oracle, it is possible
It’s patching season once again, and as a good oracle technologists I patch my environments to ensure security, fix bugs and enjoy new features. Additionally, Oracle provides us the autoupgrade utility which helps simplify the patching process. In my earlier post about using autoupgrade for my very first time, I downloaded autoupgrade and used it
Autoupgrade Patching: Cycling Between Oracle Homes Read More »
Introduction For a 30+ year old language, SQL is doing pretty good in terms of its relevance and usefulness. It can solve a lot of problems, even a lot of the problems people believe require a traditional programming language. The legendary Tom Kyte, when asked in an interview about the most underutilized feature of the
Brief Primer: Locks, Blocks and Transactions In an earlier post, I talked about locks and transaction concurrency. A lock is a mechanism used by Oracle to restrict access to a shared resource. Also, in another post, the importance of indexing foreign key columns, I explore how these locks on child tables can lead to blocking.
Introduction Calendar functions, introduced in 23.26.1, provide us with the ability to format dates into standard year/quarter/month/week/day text for these calendars: Each formatted calendar function returns a VARCHAR2 value representing the input date at a particular level of the calendar hierarchy. In this post, I will discuss the Calendar type functions and how to use
Calendar Functions and Date Dims in Oracle Database 26ai Read More »
Introduction DML WAIT[NOWAIT], introduced in 23.26.2.0.0, helps to specify how long a DML statement should wait to acquire a lock before rolling back the DML statement and returning session control to the user. The general syntax is: You can specify whether to wait forever, not at all or for n seconds, milliseconds or microseconds. The
Introduction In a relational database, defining constraints can help ensure data integrity, improve data consistency, enhance SQL query performance, and, in the case of foreign keys, ensure referential integrity. I talk a lot more about constraints in a previous post about database constraints. In a separate post, I also talk about locks and transaction concurrency
With the release of Oracle Database 23.26.2.0.0, A new join syntax JOIN TO ONE has been introduced. It’s meant to simplify the FROM clause and prevent duplicates that may arise from join conditions. This post explores this new feature and explains how it can be of help when writing SQL queries.
Imagine that at your local superstore(Walmart, Target, etc.), when you got to the parking lot, you had to get a number and wait till you got called to proceed into the store to do your shopping(however long that takes) and then leave, consequently freeing up space for the next person to come in. This sounds
