Ron Ekins' – Oracle Technology, DevOps and Kubernetes Blog
A technical resource for Data Professionals
Introduction In this Blog, I will share how you we can secure Oracle RMAN backups written to an Everpure FlashBlade File System using a Python script to automate a REST API call to perform a File System Snapshot. A FlashBlade snapshot is immutable, this means that any files including Oracle Recovery Manger (RMAN) backups written to a... Continue Reading →
Introduction For many, reading an Oracle Automatic Workload Repository (AWR) report is a daunting task, a seeming combination of alchemy and magic. But what if AI could help us analyse database and storage performance, identify bottlenecks and obtain actionable recommendations ? Create AWR Report The first step is to create or obtain an Oracle AWR... Continue Reading →
With the generally availability of on-premises Oracle AI Database 26ai imminent, I thought it was a good time to revisit a topic I played with earlier with Oracle 23ai. Oracle AI Database 26ai If you want to follow along with this blog post, and have yet to install Oracle AI Database 26ai, you may want... Continue Reading →
Background I have written many blog posts detailing how to run containerised Oracle database workloads using Docker, Podman and Kubernetes on a Mac. But we now have another new exciting, simpler and potentially faster option. At WWDC 2025, Apple announced its containerisation framework platform. Apple’s Containerisation framework runs each Linux container inside its own lightweight virtual machine... Continue Reading →
Introduction Following the recent announcement of the deprecation and desupport of the Oracle ASM Filer Driver (ASMFD), and the release of a new version of the Oracle ASMLib for Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM). It's the perfect time to revisit ASMLib and write a blog on how to download, install, and configure the ASM library... Continue Reading →
In this short post I will share how to run the latest Oracle 23ai (23.7.0.25.01) ARM container image on a MacBook with Podman. In this Blog post I will walkthrough the following steps: Configure Podman Download the Oracle Database 23ai Free image Create Podman data volume Create Podman secret Start Oracle 23ai database using Podman. Check Oracle... Continue Reading →
Introduction I recently had the opportunity to spend some time learning all about the Workato orchestration platform. After completing the Workato training paths and certifications I decided it was time to take my new found knowledge out for a spin. In the short video at the end of this post I will demonstrate how a... Continue Reading →
I was recently asked Does a Pure Storage FlashArray include empty, unused Oracle Database space within its data reduction calculation ?. As I am sure many others may have had the same question, I thought it would make a good topic for a blog post, so here we go. FlashArray Data Reduction From the FlashArray... Continue Reading →
Background As a long time fan of the Oracle ASM Filer Driver, one of the major benefits for Oracle ASM Filter Driver (AFD) is AFD Filtering. AFD can ensure writes are only performed by trusted and registered Oracle processes, blocking potentially damaging writes that would have otherwise resulted in data corruption. Unfortunately, a recent Linux... Continue Reading →
Background Ok, what is the Oracle ASM Filter Driver ? The Oracle ASM Filter Driver (Oracle ASMFD) is an Oracle provided Linux kernel module that resides in the IO path of the Oracle ASM disks. Oracle ASMFD provides a number of advantages over the use of ASMLIB and UDEV managed volumes, these include: storage protection... Continue Reading →