Paper accepted for ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2009

Someone out there likes me, and I'll need to find out who. But the good news is that I get to share with the community some 'lessons learned' and case studies related to OWB. My paper was an early accptance to the ODTUG 2009 Kaleidoscope conference, and I am grateful for that. The list of people already accepted is quite an accomplished group. I sincerely hope that OWB 11gR2 is released and available by that point in time, as I will then get to discuss those new features along with 11gR1/1ogR2. Although the case study aspect will not be possible for 11gR2 since it is only in beta.

So come on out to ODTUG's 2009 confernece and find out how OWB can be put to some serious use...after all, we won the 2008 Oracle Partner of the Year Titan Award in Business Intelligence and OWB was a HUGE part of that.

Grants, Grants, and More Grants - WITH GRANT OPTION

ORA 01720 grant option does not exist for....

Simple mistake, but easy to fall into.

User_A creates a view called AV. This view accesses some of User_A's objects but also accesses one of User_B's tables too (table name is BT). No problem, User_A had been granted select on that table (BT) from User_B:

(as User_B) GRANT SELECT ON USER_B.BT TO USER_A

Now, however, User_A wants to grant select on that view, AV to a third user...User_C.
Even if User_C had also been granted select on User_B.BT table, USER_A would not be able to simply say:

(as User_A) GRANT SELECT ON USER_A.AV TO USER_C

instead you'll see:

ORA 01720 grant option does not exist

What this means is that USER_A tried to grant access to one of USER_B's tables to USER_C through the view AV. Even though USER_C had been directly granted select on USER_B.BT from USER_B itself, you'll still see the above error message.

Only the schema that owns the object can grant privileges to that object unless the 'with grant option' is included in the command. The 'with grant option' allows you to give the user that receives the grant (with the grant option) the ability to grant that same privilege to other users too. In a way, it is like giving a bit of your authority on one of your own objects to another trusted schema. Here is an example of the use of the with grant option:

(As USER_B) GRANT SELECT ON USER_B.BT TO USER_A WITH GRANT OPTION

What this did was it allowed USER_A to then grant USER_C select access to USER_B.BT table. It ALSO indirectly allows USER_A to grant select on USER_B.BT table through the view, USER_A.AV.

You can now perform the following with no problems:

(as User_A) GRANT SELECT ON USER_A.AV TO USER_C

Oracle Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu Linux, and more Linux

So I've been building a few Virtual Machines using Oracle VM as well as VMWare using different distros of Linux to see the major fuss between them all. Seems everyone has a favorite.

At least from an Install point of view, Ubuntu was easily smoother, however OEL offered many more installation and configuring options to start right away. This I liked. I have to be honest, I could care less how pretty and customizable Ubntu seems to be if OEL can run Oracle software better in any way. I'll keep posting anything that I find to be a deal breaker for me. I am just looking for the best of breed to build out my many testbeds for all the configurations of the Oracle stack I'll need. I am sure many of you out there are in the same boat!

Oracle Open World, Titan Awards, Piocon, Events, and more...

Well, we did it again! My company won the Titan award for the second year in a row. Actually both years was technically a Business Intelligence solution, but the project that won in 2007 was not using as many BI pieces as was possible, so we won the Health Care Industry Solution award. However, for 2008, we utilized so much BI it was crazy. Custom developed methods, out-of-the box functionality, you name it. And, as Antonio Romero (one of the OWB product managers) happens to ponder in the OWB blog below about the ROI.... let's just say it was so far beyond expectations that everyone was shocked in a good way.

but a preview at Oracle's OWB blog: link
and a preview at our home: link

The bottom line is this. We know DW, we know BI, and we know the real business that needs to happen behind the scenes to implement a solution that is adopted and widely used to help a company. Piocon now has 2 big reasons to boast that we're the premier provider of Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing solutions for 2 years in a row.

My Wordle

Just figured I would mention what this blog's wordle looks like:


And bigger: