Roels Blog

In REST you model the resources, not the actions. So you define a GET /apex/oow13/hr/employees instead of a GET /apex/oow13/GetAllEmployees . With REST you have six methods (with the most common associated database actions: GET (select), HEAD (select), OPTIONS (to get a list of methods supported by the resource), PUT (merge or update), DELETE (delete), POST (insert). You can manage the REST resources from either within SQL Developer or APEX. Within SQL Developer the resources are grouped into Modules (like PL/SQL packages) with a URI prefix (like /hr ) and within that Resource Templates. As an example you can define a GET request ( select * from emp where empno = :id ), then the URI Template of the resource will be something like employees/{id} . When you call the URL (like http://localhost:8888/apex/oow13/hr/employees/12345 ), this will result in a JSON string (or XML or CSV) containing the employee data of employee 12345. Within a query you can use "special" colum...

In APEX 5.0 a Tablet User Interface will be introduced. The idea is not that you will end up with three user interfaces (Desktop, Tablet and Mobile), but use te Tablet UI for desktop usage as well. You might even want to use the Tablet UI - as an common "average - for all devices. The plans are to include something like Themeroller into APEX 5.0. So you can 100% skin your application within APEX.  APEX 5 will include the jQuery Mobile features that are available on the moment that 5 ships. Because the current version of jQM (1.3) contains features as panels, reflow tables and column toggle (the current version of APEX ships version 1.2 - and "upgrading" to a higher version of jQM will not work for 100%). A new CSS Calender component will be available with more flexibility, so it supports drag and drop on mobile devices. jQM 1.4 will have some theme improvements: One theme (swatch A), a flat look, switching from icons to SVG - so the images will look better on high...

Oracle Real Application Security (RAS) applies security policies at the database layer. So those policies are applied to the data and is not relying on the security built in into an application (like VPD). Security is applied to direct connections. Policies are stored in an "Identity and Policy Store". As an example an employee can see some public information of other employees and all his own data. A manager can see all data of all his employees. So you need both column and row level security. To accomplish the row level security RAS uses "Data Realms". And privileges - like viewSSN and viewSalary - will be assigned to columns. Each Data Realm ha an associated ACL with grants. So a policy is a collection of Data Realms and associated ACLs.  A user is granted a role. A role is a combination of policies. And this works for all applications that access this data, either APEX, SQL*Plus or whatever. In APEX you have to create Authorization Schemes that query th...

Today the " Database as a Service " has been announced. Not to confuse with the " Database Platform as a Service " that was announced last year and is available since early this year. With the "platform" service, you get one schema within a database. With the "database" service, you get ... a database - either 11gR2 or 12cR1. And you have access to the operating system etc. So in fact you get your own VM with an Oracle database pre-installed. And within this service, there are three levels defined: 1. Basic - The DB instance is managed by yourself. 2. Managed - The DB instance is managed by Oracle. Backup and recovery, patching and upgrade, all taken care of. 3. Premium Managed - Like Managed, but in a RAC environment, so more highly available.  I haven't seen any SLA's yet - as you would especially in a Premium Managed Service. Prices are also still unclear. But it is offered on a monthly subscription basis.  The good news is...

Today the new In-Memory technique for the Oracle database has been introduced. This is not something like TimesTen(+) or so, but a new way of querying data. The concept is like this: All tables that are marked for keeping data in-memory, will be "stored" using both row and column format. The good old row format will be used for the regular OLTP systems, while the column format is used for queries. To speed up those queries, the column format will be held in-memory - and in-memory only. Only the row format goes to disk, just like nowadays.  To keep all data in sync, the in-memory data will be marked stale during a DML option that affects that data. Therefore the overhead added to DML statements is very small. Upon request the in-memory data will be updated.  This in-memory data, a.k.a. the "Column Store" is an optional component of the SGA. So you have to switch it on. And you can pick which tables, which partitions, which columns and whether you want it distrib...

Redwood Shores, Thursday September 19. 5:30 AM.  5:30 AM? So I must be in the "wrong" timezone.... Just like most European based Oracle ACE Directors in this hotel I woke up early. Not as early as some others - I noticed tweets from around 2:30 - but nevertheless early. After a decent flight with some sleep and a few movies we arrived at San Francisco airport yesterday around noon. We were already warned by the flight attendant about the long lines for immigration, but this wasn't quite what we expected: Usually the line starts somewhere in the big hall but this was about 200 metres before the hall! So expectations were set at a 3 hour waiting time ... After one hour we arrived in the hall and then it showed that half of the hall wasn't used for the queues - which is a good thing, because then there are less people in front of you as you night expected - but also half of the booths weren't used. And that was what caused the long delay in the first place. P...