Background I have written many blog posts detailing how to run containerised Oracle database workloads using Docker, Podman and Kubernetes on a Mac. But we now have another new exciting, simpler and potentially faster option. At WWDC 2025, Apple announced its containerisation framework platform. Apple’s Containerisation framework runs each Linux container inside its own lightweight virtual machine (VM), providing hardware-level isolation instead of relying on traditional namespace-based container runtimes, such as…

YouTube video by Ron Ekins

Background Following the recent announcement by Oracle on the de-support, and deprecation of the Oracle ASM Filter Driver (ASMFD). See Note: Oracle Automatic Storage Management Filter Driver (ASMFD) (Doc ID 2806979.1) I am starting to more interest in the use of Oracle ASMLib v3.1 for long term Oracle support, and also for the io_uring, and Thin Provisioning features. For those, who want to read-up on the Oracle ASMLIB v3.1, I have already written a blog post detailing how to…

Introduction Following the recent announcement of the deprecation and desupport of the Oracle ASM Filer Driver (ASMFD), and the release of a new version of the Oracle ASMLib for Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM). It's the perfect time to revisit ASMLib and write a blog on how to download, install, and configure the ASM library on Oracle Linux 9.

Introduction I recently had the pleasure of delivering a presentation at Kscope25 by ODTUG in Dallas, demonstrating an Oracle Database 23ai running on Kubernetes using Oracle Kubernetes Engine (OKE) in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) all driven from my MacBook. After my session I was asked 'Is it was possible to run Oracle Database 23ai on Kubernetes on a MacBook, if you don't have access to an on-premises or Cloud Kubernetes environment ?

I recently had the pleasure of delivering a presentation on Kubernetes and the Oracle Kubernetes Engine (OKE) to the All India Oracle User Group (AIOUG). A question which was raised by an attendee was 'Can I learn Kubernetes without using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) OKE or other Cloud service?' Well the answer is yes, and this blog post I will share how to use…

Learn how to run Oracle Database 23ai Free on ARM based MacBooks with Podman

In this short post I will share how to run the latest Oracle 23ai (23.7.0.25.01) ARM container image on a MacBook with Podman. In this Blog post I will walkthrough the following steps: Configure Podman Download the Oracle Database 23ai Free image Create Podman data volume Create Podman secret Start Oracle 23ai database using Podman. Check Oracle Alert log file.

Introduction I recently had the opportunity to spend some time learning all about the Workato orchestration platform. After completing the Workato training paths and certifications I decided it was time to take my new found knowledge out for a spin. In the short video at the end of this post I will demonstrate how a Workato recipe can be used to orchestrate the refresh of multiple test Oracle Databases by calling an Ansible playbook, utilising Oracle scripts and Pure Storage REST APIs all from a Slack prompt.

What is a Lost Write ? A Lost Write, is as the name implies a database write which is lost, that is, the database writes a data block to the storage platform, receives an acknowledgment back from the storage but it was never actually persisted to disk or flash storage. There are a number of reasons why Lost Writes can occur, and the root cause can be extremely hard to diagnose.

I was recently asked Does a Pure Storage FlashArray include empty, unused Oracle Database space within its data reduction calculation ?. As I am sure many others may have had the same question, I thought it would make a good topic for a blog post, so here we go. FlashArray Data Reduction From the FlashArray User Guide we can read the following definition: