Longer Means Longer

No matter what your religion is and what methodology you practice, this sentence is true for ever “longer means more time than normal” :)
I would like to dedicate this particular phrase to “Oracle SOA Suite” installation process on two different OS platforms. It sounds sophisticated, but who cares, dedication is still dedication.

I heard about a new SOA Suite 11.1.1.5 release of a version previously, and moreover, I had to check one issue with the Oracle Human Workflow engine (the SOA Suite component). So, the time for a new (renew) SOA installation has come :)

This time, as usual, I have started from making/copying the OS background. Here I don't have a full stop thinking process. The answer is rather standard: “VirtualBox+Ubuntu”.

There are many references “how to install particular SOA Suite on a particular platform”, so it is easy to find it on the Internet (BTW, it is a good practice to have the installation guide, or some white-paper called “step-by-step” that helps to avoid stupid mistakes).
Nevertheless, an interesting part of this story has begun at a place where I have never thought before it could, or more precisely, with installation of “Oracle XE DB Universe” (BTW, the recommended DB version for small deployment instances). It took me (as never before) an hour to make it stable. I will repeat that sentence: “the whole long hour”, and only after that I was able to move to the main SOA Suite installation steps (WebLogic, RCU, etc.) An interesting (thriller) story continues. After those SOA installation steps, my virtualbox has started to throw errors suddenly “Read-only file system”.

I have spent the next hour with this unstable virtualbox (it had the virtual disk error, etc.). Anyway, the result is that I have decided to give up and to switch to an old package of mine which is still worth trying to use when I get nervous: “Vmware Player and Windows 2003 Server”.

Oh yes, .... Windows :)

And then, based on Oracle recommended “Quick Start Guide for SOA Suite”, I took a very quick tour with SOA installation on Windows. It went without a single error, and it took me … not more that an hour.

Resume (2h>1h)
Longer means longer, no matter what your OS religion is :) When time is an issue, there is no time for religion :)

So, the very last recommendation:
“When you have to install some proof of concept platform for just one test and you are not sure about the installation process, make use of Windows OS. It has more users so it should be tested widely. Shorter means shorter, popular solutions has more testers :)”

And what about production environment?
Hmmm, the answer is simple: "it depends" or in other words: "make a new decision" ;)

RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and Workrave

One day, as usual, I was reading some post on the Internet. Oddly, I felt that my eyes started to be sore. This is certainly nothing serious to worry about, but I guess that it may be the impact of, e.g. very long autumn and winter reading nights. Nevertheless, I thought it was the high time I started thinking about something that would help my eyes to stay in a good condition.
Despite anything that is said about a good health condition, I think that eyes are one of the most important 'tools' of an IT specialist that are used in a very intensive mode. OK, other organs are also important too and they can have strain injury, or more precisely: 'Repetitive Strain Injury' but eyes must work harder than, e.g. hands ;)
Thus, I started to search for a particular application that would help me to organize my workspace automatically and would not be too much annoying. The googling result, or in other words '… and the Oscar goes to...', is Workrave.
Having completed a very quick installation with 'Umbutu Software Center', a new software was ready for use.

Some extra information.
Before you start using it, you could set the option for your specific needs. I have changed only 'Micro-break' and 'Rest break' options (see below):

I have turned off the 'Daily limit' because I don't want to have such a limitation yet ;)

The result?

Now, when I work on my laptop, after each ten minutes I see this picture which is a little bit annoying:

Seeing it, I close my tired eyes and I think about grass, green grass ;)

Ubuntu plus SQL Developer

I'm not going to initiate endless, historical discussion about the superiority of the operating systems; I'm just stating the fact that my personal number one here is Ubuntu and the rest of its family, e.g. Mint.

I can make an analogical statement about databases. My personal number one here is Oracle DB and no matter how tolerant I am, I will always interpret DB solutions through the Oracle DB perspective.

So, after such a short introduction here, I have my final, personal, yet simple operational environment of the system: Ubuntu + Oracle DB.

Before going inside the Oracle DB, I recommend expanding standard DB user interface with a more powerful command-line tool called: “GQLPlus”. The difference between GQLPlus and SQL*Plus is command-line editing and history, plus table-name and column-name completion. But before installing GQLPlus, a piece of information. It crashes quite often in my environment so, before you get angry with me for this tool recommendation, you could try a free of charge Oracle Sql Developer tool. According to its java-based engine, the tool is not the performance leader but according to its economical efficiency, it is still worth using.

The SQL Developer installation may be a little bit tricky (java home etc.) so for more instructions about smooth installation on Ubuntu see here: "Oracle SQL Developer on Ubuntu".