Oracle: Top 10 Strategies for Oracle Database Performance (Part 3)
by Guy Harrison

This article is the third in a four-part series based on Oracle database performance strategies detailed in Guy's new book, Oracle Performance Survival Guide. In this installment, Guy covers strategies that optimize the lower levels of database processing, such as contention for locks and latches and the optimization of I/O. [Read full article] CONTEST: WIN A COPY OF GUY'S NEW BOOK! Visit Toad World and complete a brief survey on Oracle trends to be entered to win one of five copies of Guy’s new book!

DB2: Assuring Data Integrity in DB2
by Craig S. Mullins

DB2 provides mechanisms to automatically enforce and maintain the integrity of data as it is added to, and modified within DB2 tables. The simplest form of data integrity enforcement available to DB2 is with data typing. By choosing the appropriate data types, DB2 will force columns to contain only the proper form of data (e.g., character, numeric, date, etc.). Of course, DB2 offers more sophisticated forms of ensuring data integrity, too. Features such as referential integrity, check constraints, triggers, validation routines, and edit procedures all can be used to ensure the integrity of DB2 data. [Read full article]

Software Development Tips & Techniques: Create a Security Risk Assessment for your Project
by Tom Mochal

Security is an important part of the design of a solution, and it involves more than just setting up passwords. The solution must first be evaluated to determine the people that will need access and the types of things that they should be allowed to do. For the most part, the security design must ensure that those people can have access to perform those functions. However, other people must be prohibited from accessing the solution, and other functions must be prohibited. [Read full article]

New Column! The Confident Technical Leader: Focusing on Results
by John Weathington

Your primary job as a leader is to get results. Deceptive in its simplicity, it truly forms the foundation of your leadership scorecard—whether it’s explicitly stated or not. Everyone in the organization, your leadership, your peers, and even your own team, is judging you by your ability to get things done. But what kinds of things should you be getting done? That can be answered in any number of ways which can make life as a leader confusing. Is it a happy team? Is it your ability to sell your ideas? Let me simplify it for you—the only results that matter are the results you’re getting for your internal customers. [Read full article]

Which of the following statements about the DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE procedure are correct?

1. There are three overloadings of this program, so that PUT_LINE can display strings, numbers and dates.
2. You can pass to, and display the value of, a Boolean expression with this procedure.
3. You can use this procedure to display the value of any expression that can be converted implicitly to a string.
4. You can pass a UTL_FILE file handle to this procedure and it will display the contents of the file.

Please send your responses along with your name, city and country to Puzzler@toadworld.com by April 16, 2010. We will randomly select four winners who submit the correct answer, and each winner will receive a Toad World t-shirt!

MARCH'S PUZZLER ANSWER: [Review March's Puzzler]

Answer: C. This view contains the following columns:

Winners of March's Puzzler:

• Vladimir Alferov from Germany
• Barry Karsh from USA
• Brian Nyman from USA
• Arne Suverein from Netherlands

Predicting Oracle Performance Issues
by Guy Harrison

This paper discusses two main categories of Oracle performance problems that we want to predict:

1. SQL statements that are degrading (increasing in response time and resource consumption) and that will, if not tuned, eventually overload the system and cause service-level issues;
2. Database bottlenecks that occur when demand on the database exceeds configured capacity; these bottlenecks can manifest themselves as lock contention, I/O degradation and so on.

See how you can detect these performance problems ahead of time, ensuring business continuity and reducing the cost of database-driven performance "brown outs".

Searching for the Right Oracle IDE? An examination of Toad for Oracle's value over other Oracle IDEs
by Jeff Smith

This technical brief details the importance of specific functionality to look for when utilizing an Oracle IDE. It describes the value that Toad for Oracle delivers in terms of:

• General IDE features
• SQL query writing
• PL/SQL development
• Testing

The Secret to Massively Productive Teradata Professionals
by John Weathington

If you work with Teradata databases, you could lose more than just productivity without the right SQL tools. According to John Weathington, President and CEO of Excellent Management Systems, Inc., you could also lose hundreds of thousands of dollars due to inefficient processes.

In this new paper, Mr. Weathington explains why Toad for Data Analysts is the ideal solution for Teradata professionals, and how the tool helps organizations save time and money through productivity and efficiency gains.

Do you have a paper or article that you'd like to share? Maybe a favorite utility or snippet of code? Have you found an ingenious way to use a feature in Toad? Send them to us at Feedback@toadworld.com.

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