OCM 12c preparation: documentation

The OCM exam advice says: Be prepared to use the non-searchable documentation during the exam, to help you with correct syntax. I’ve checked that I can find quickly the documentation related with each topic listed. Here it is As in the previous posts, I write that before taking the exam, from only the list of topics, and I may be completely wrong. You are not supposed to go to documentation for every topic during the exam or you will probably be short on time. There are a lot of things we can do directly because it’s things we do in our daily job life. For the exam, remember to use the right tools and that may be different from what you use in real life. For example, in your job you may do everything from command line because you have the syntax on your procedure documents, or from a quick Google search. At the exam, you may favor the tools that have enough online help, checkboxes or autocompletion.

Anyway, if there are some points where you have a doubt and still have time to open documentation, it’s good to know where to find syntax or examples to copy/paste.

General Database and Network Administration, and Backup Strategy

Create and manage pluggable databases

Database Administration Administrator’s Guide Part VI Managing a Multitenant Environment 38 Creating and Removing PDBs with SQL*Plus There are many alternatives depending on the tools: sqlplus, sqldev, dbca, OEM, etc.

Create and manage users, roles, and privileges

Security Security Guide Part I Managing User Authentication and Authorization 2 Managing Security for Oracle Database Users Creation of a Common User or a Local User 4 Configuring Privilege and Role Authorization Managing Commonly and Locally Granted Privileges Here the main 12c thing is about common or local roles / privileges / grants, etc.

Configure the network environment to allow connections to multiple databases

Database Administration Network Management Net Services Administrator’s Guide 8 Configuring Naming Methods Configuring the Local Naming Method Rather than checking syntax from doc, we can use netca, netmgr, and samples files

Protect the database from loss of data due to any kind of failure

High Availability Backup and Recovery Database Backup and Recovery User’s Guide 9 Backing Up the Database Backing Up Database Files with RMAN Backup the database, the spfile, the controlfile, etc…

Create and manage database configuration files

Database Administration SQL Language Reference 11 SQL Statements: ALTER LIBRARY to ALTER SYSTEM ALTER SYSTEM I suppose it’s about instance parameters here, that can be set at CDB or PDB levels

Data and Performance Management

Modify materialized views

Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Data Warehousing Guide Part II Optimizing Data Warehouses 5 Basic Materialized Views Refresh Options 7 Refreshing Materialized Views Fast Refresh 8 Synchronous Refresh There are a lot of things we can do on Materialized views… Fast Refresh and Query Rewrite are the main features that may need us to modify them

Create a plugged-in tablespace by using the transportable tablespace feature

Database Administration Database Administrator’s Guide 15 Transporting Data Transporting Tablespaces Between Databases In 12c we can transport a whole database or pluggable database with impdp FULL=Y. It’s good to know that RMAN can convert between endianness.

Create partitioned tables

Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence VLDB and Partitioning Guide 3 Partitioning for Availability, Manageability, and Performance The 12c new feature is: Creating Interval-Reference Partitioned Tables

Configure the database to retrieve all previous versions of the table rows

Application Development Database Development Guide Part IV Advanced Topics for Application Developers 16 Using Oracle Flashback Technology Using Flashback Data Archive There are other ways to find previous versions (flashback query, restore table, etc)

Configure the Resource Manager

Database Administration Database Administrator’s Guide 27 Managing Resources with Oracle Database Resource Manager Creating a Simple Resource Plan In 12c Resource Manager has more possibilites, at CDB and PDB levels

Tune SQL statements

Performance SQL Tuning Guide Part VIII Automatic SQL Tuning 20 Analyzing SQL with SQL Tuning Advisor Running SQL Tuning Advisor On Demand This topic is a large one…

Perform real application testing

Database Administration Database Testing Guide Part II Database Replay RAT is quite straightforward in OEM.

Create SQL Plan baselines

Performance SQL Tuning Guide 23 Managing SQL Plan Baselines Loading SQL Plan Baselines There are several ways to create SQL Plan baselines: capture, load, etc.

Data Guard

Create a physical standby database

High Availability Data Guard Concepts and Administration 3 Creating a Physical Standby Database E Creating a Standby Database with Recovery Manager Using the DUPLICATE Command to Create a Standby Database OEM can be a nice alternative here even if I never use it to create physical standby in production (prefer command line – easier to put in documentation that lot of screenshots)

Make the standby database available for testing, Restore the standby database to its normal function

High Availability Data Guard Concepts and Administration 10 Managing Physical and Snapshot Standby Databases 10.7 Managing a Snapshot Standby Database

Configure fast start failover

High Availability Data Guard Broker 4.8 Managing Fast-Start Failover 5 Switchover and Failover Operations 5.5 Fast-Start Failover 5.5.2 Enabling Fast-Start Failover

Grid Infrastructure and Real Application Clusters

Install Oracle Grid Infrastructure Configure Oracle Flex ASM Create ASM disk groups Create and manage an ASM instance Create ACFS Start, stop, configure, and administer Oracle Grid Infrastructure Install the Oracle Database 12c software Create RAC databases Configure services

I’ll not detail all points for the GI / RAC for 3 reasons

• the first step involves installation, and while installation is running you have time to search for the right documents
• In my opinion, there is enough information in the GUI (installer, asmca) or command line help (asmcmd, crsctl, srvctl)
• from the topics, it looks like common operations we do on RAC databases. If you don’t use RAC at work, try to practice on your laptop: http://www.oracleracsig.org/racattack/

All documentation is under ‘Clustering’ or ‘Grid Computing’ section