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Everything our consultants learn while running databases for customers: Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB and Delphix. Expect hands-on posts about installation, day-to-day administration, backup and recovery, performance tuning, replication and upgrades.

SQL Server 2025 CU5: max lock manager cache memory (%): what I could reproduce and what I could not

Cumulative Update 5 for SQL Server 2025 was released on May 20, 2026 (build 17.0.4045.5). Seven entries in the KB, mostly fixes. One of them is not a fix: it is a new server configuration option, max lock manager cache memory (%). Reference: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/servicing/sql/sql-server-2025/cumulative-update/kb5084896-cu5 I built a lab on CU5 and on later builds up to CU9 and I spent… 

GoldenGate 26ai automatic schema evolution: creating missing tables during an initial load

For as long as I have used GoldenGate, an initial load had one prerequisite: the target tables must already exist. Data Pump takes care of it between two Oracle databases. For anything else, you write the CREATE TABLE statements yourself, with the datatypes you choose, or choose another initial load method. The Automatic Schema Evolution feature launched in GoldenGate 26ai… 

AI problems are database problems

Introduction When discussing agentic AI, we spend a lot of time on the model. Which one should we use? How much context does it support? Can it choose the right tool? These are useful questions. But from a my perspective, there are a few others I would ask quite early. Where does the agent store its state? Who can access… 

AI agents on sensitive data: what PostgreSQL can enforce, and what it can’t

Every useful database content, document behind an internal AI agent names someone, a company, server names,… A relationship manager might ask “what did this client complain about last quarter?”, an operations engineer might ask “what happened on this server last month?”, and the answer sits in notes, emails and incident tickets, CRMs and ERPs data, full of client names, staff… 

SOUG Day October 2026

What a great and interesting day I could spent today at the SOUG Day which took place at the SIX ConventionPoint in Zurich. Thanks to the whole SOUG team for the great organization and to all the speakers for the interesting sessions. Oracle Database Mission-critical Technologies by Ashish Ray (Oracle) In his presentation, Ashish definitively confirmed that the new driver… 

AI meets OEM, let’s test Oracle AI Database Assistant

I have been recently blogging on how I have setup Oracle Enterprise Manager 24ai lab, installed an agent and finally configured Oracle AI Database Assistant. It’s time for me to test it now. Product evolution AI integration in Oracle Enterprise Manager 24ai was quite evolving rapidly. In a nutshell Oracle AI Database Assistant will help me interacting with OEM with… 

Deleting GoldenGate trail files via the REST API (OGG-30375)

When automating your GoldenGate deployments, or tearing down a test environment, handling trail files is important. In fact, deleting an extract or a replicat does not delete the trail files it was writing to or reading from. It leaves the trail resource itself behind too, causing confusion (or worse) later. Indeed, a fresh extract writing to the same trail name/path… 

Archiving Oracle databases with SIARD Suite

One of our customers needed to archive a 4T Oracle database. Several options have been chosen, one of them being archiving the data to SIARD format using SIARD Suite from Swiss Federal Archives. This blog posts explains the basics: what SIARD Suite is, how it works, and examples in command line mode. Meeting SIARD Suite SIARD Suite is software developed… 

Deleting an Oracle 12c DB Home on a Recent ODA

The Context In the context of Oracle Database Aplliances, you might need to remove an old Oracle Database Home (For instance 12c), while the ODA is already on a recent patch level. For instance in my case : In an ODA patching operation, the appliance was already running 19.26 patchlevel On Oracle Linux 8.10, while an unused Oracle Database 12.2…