Oracle Advanced Analytics Option in Oracle 12c

At Oracle Open World a few weeks ago there was a large number of presentations on Big Data and Analytics.  Most of these were marketing type presentations, with a couple of presentations on using R and how it can not be integrated into the Oracle Database 11.2.

In addition this these there was one presentation that focused on the Oracle Advanced Analytics (OAA) Option.

The Oracle Advanced Analytics Option covers the Oracle Data Mining features and the Oracle R Enterprise features in the Database.

The purpose of this blog post is to outline and summarise what was mentioned at these presentations, and will include what changes are/may be coming in the “Next Release” of the database i.e. Oracle 12c.

Health Warning: As with all the presentations at OOW that talked about what may be in or may be in the next release, there is not guarantee that the features will actually be in the release version of the database. Here is the slide that gives the Safe Harbor statement.

• 12c will come with R embedded into it. So there will be no need for any configurations.
• Oracle R client will come as part of the server install.
• Oracle R client will be able to use the Analytics functions that exist in the database.
• Will be able to run R code in the database.
• The database (12c) will be able to spawn multiple R engines.
• Will be able to emulate map-reduce style algorithms.
• There will be new PREDICTION function, replacing the existing (11g) functionality. This will combine a number of steps of building a model and applying it to the data to be scored into one function.  But we will still need the functionality of the existing PREDICTION function that is in 11g. So it will be interesting to see how this functionality will be kept in addition to the new functionality being proposed in 12c.
• Although the Oracle Data Miner tool will still exits and will have many new features. It was also referred to as the ‘OAA Workflow’.  So those this indicate a potential name change?  We will have to wait and see.
• Oracle Data Miner will come with a new additional graphing feature. This will be in addition to the Explore Node and will allow us to produce more typical attribute related graphs. From what I could see these would be similar to the type of box plot, scatter, bar chart, etc. graphs that you can get from R.
• There will be a number of new algorithms too, including a useful One Class Support Vector Machine. This can be used when we have a data set with just one class value. This algorithm will work out what records/cases are more important and others.
• There will be a new SQL node. This will allow us to write our own data transformation code.
• There will be a new node to allow the calling of R code.
• The tool also comes with a slightly modified layout and colour scheme.

Again, the points that I have given above are just my observations. They may or may not appear in 12c, or maybe I misunderstood what was being said.

It certainly looks like we will have a integrate analytics environment in 12c with full integration of R and the ODM in-database features.

Extracting the rules from an ODM Decision Tree model

One of the most interesting of important aspects of a Decision Model is that we as a user can get to see what rules the machine learning algorithm has generated for our data.

I’ve give a number of examples in various blog posts over the past few years on how to generate a number of classification models. An example of the workflow is below.

In the Class Build node we get four models being generated. These include a Generalised Linear Model, Support Vector Machine, Naive Bayes and a Decision Tree model.

We can explore the Decision Tree model by right clicking on the Class Build Node, selecting View Models and then the Decision Tree model, which will be labelled with a ‘DT’ in the name.

As we explore the nodes and branches of the Decision Tree we can see the rule that was generated for a node in the lower pane of the applications. So by clicking on each node we get a different rule appearing in this pane

Sometimes there is a need to extract this rules so that they can be presented to a number of different types of users, to explain to them what is going on.

How can we extract the Decision Tree rules?

To do this, you will need to complete the following steps:

• From the Models section of the Component Palette select the Model Details node.
• Click on the Workflow pane and the Model Details node will be created
• Connect the Class Build node to the Model Details node. To do this right click on the Class Build node and select Connect. Then move the mouse to the Model Details node and click. The two nodes should now be connected.
• Edit the Model Details node, uncheck the Auto Settings, select Model Type to be Decision Tree, Output to be Full Tree and all the columns.

• Run the Model Details node. Right click on the node and select run. When complete you you will have the little green box with a tick mark, on the top right hand corner.
• To view the details produced, right click on the Model Details node and select View Data
• The rules for each node will now be displayed. You will need to scroll to the right of this pane to get to the rules and you will need to expand the columns for the rules to see the full details

My Presentations on Oracle Advanced Analytics Option

I’ve recently compiled my list of presentation on the Oracle Analytics Option. All these presentations are for a 45 minute period.

I have two versions of the presentation ‘How to do Data Mining in SQL & PL/SQL’, one is for 45 minutes and the second version is for 2 hour.

I have given most of these presentations at conferences or SIGS.

Let me know if you are interesting in having one of these presentations at your SIG or conference.

• Oracle Analytics Option - 12c New Features - available 2013
• Real-time prediction in SQL & Oracle Analytics Option - Using the 12c PREDICTION function - available 2013
• How to do Data Mining in SQL & PL/SQL
• From BIG Data to Small Data and Everything in Between
• Oracle R Enterprise : How to get started
• Oracle Analytics Option : R vs Oracle Data Mining
• Building Predictive Analysts into your Forms Applications
• Getting Real Business Value from OBIEE and Oracle Data Mining  (This is a cut down and merged version of the follow two presentations)
• Getting Real Business Value from OBIEE and Oracle Data Mining - Part 1 : The Oracle Data Miner part
• Getting Real Business Value from OBIEE and Oracle Data Mining - Part 2 : The OBIEE part
• How to Deploying and Using your Oracle Data Miner Models in Production
• Oracle Analytics Option 101
• From SQL Programmer to Data Scientist: evolving roles of an Oracle programmer
• Using an Oracle Oracle Data Mining Model in SQL & PL/SQL
• Getting Started with Oracle Data Mining
• You don't need a PhD to do Data Mining

Check out the ‘My Presentations’ page for updates on new presentations.

Review of Oracle Magazine-March/April 1998

The headline articles for the March/April 1998 edition of Oracle Magazine were on how the role of the DBA is increasing in importance, managing databases globally, how the DBA is an important strategic partner in an organisation. Oracle is being used by a number of health organisations including Norway’s national hospital system, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah and Neuroclinical Trials Center.

Other articles included:

• Oracle Applications 11was due for release during the first half of 1998 and has a number of key features including, Universal Access, Globalized Finance, Project Manufacturing and Flow Manufacturing.
• Oracle’s Industry Applications division recently introduced new products including Oracle Public Budgeting, Oracle Sector Grants Management and the Oracle Energy Upstream solution .
• 5 ways DBA’s can be strategic partners: Proactive systems management, systems design, change management, performance tuning and security.
• Steve Lemme, DBA/systems manager for Motorola lists the following tasks for DBAs to keep them busy
• Daily Duties : At a minimum monitor
• Oracle ALERT file logs
• Systems resources
• Backups
• Archive logs
• Error logs
• Weekly Watch : Check free space including:
• Tablespaces
• Tables
• Indexes
• Clusters
• Monthly Monitoring : Do audits for fragmentation of :
• Indexes
• Clusters
• Tables
• Oracle Enterprise Toolkit comprises, Enterprise Manager, Diagnostics Pack, Tuning Pack and Management Pack.
• Kenny Smith looks at a day in the life of a DBA working from home using Oracle Enterprise Manager that included a Data Load, Change View, Create stored function, Add a new user, Fix a database link, Send a size report to director, Fix a production slowdown, Helped an application developer and Averted a production crisis.
• Migrating to Oracle 8: Quick Start on New Features:
• Knowledge Collection and Consolidation
• Learn about Oracle 8’s new features
• Get help from someone who has implemented Oracle 8
• Review the new features with your team
• Application Analysis for New Features
• Implement minor changes first
• Define the table partitioning strategy
• Define and indexing strategy
• Identify the tables you can index organise
• Database Design Analysis for New Features
• Define the new physical layout
• Define a partition maintenance strategy
• Migrate to partitions
• Backup and Recovery Strategy
• Review your current backup and recovery strategy
• Make as many tablespaces as possible read-only
• Define a multitiered backup strategy using SMR
• Make sure at least two independent restoration options exist
• Ensure that you can do the restoration in an adequate time period
• Define a plan for testing backup and recovery
• Kevin Loney has an article on the new format for ROWID in Oracle 8, what it is and how to use it

To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.

My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.

Review of Oracle Magazine–January/February 1998

The headline articles for the January/February 1998 edition of Oracle Magazine were on Electronic Commerce and include justification for building EC applications, creating online shops and what products Oracle has to support as aspects of an EC applications.

Other articles included:

• Oracle Product announcements included:
• Oracle InterOffice 4.1
• Oracle Lite 3.0 gets a Java facelift
• Oracle Gateways for MS SQL Server 8 and Sybase 8
• Oracle Applications Release 11 is coming soon
• Applications Desktop Integrator
• Application Server 3.1
• Oracle 8 on Sun Sets new World Record. TCP-C Benchmark with 51,871.62 tpmC at $134.36 per tpmC runing Oracle 8 on Sun Solaris 2.6 on a two node Sun Microsystems Ultra Enterprise 6000 cluster
• Marking the Mart Decision, looked at how using a Data Mart approach you can have a project delivered quicker (3 to 6 months) and a cost of $100,000. All this using the Oracle Data Mart Suite for Windows NT
• Securing transactions in Network Applications using Oracle’s Web Application Server to control security
• Digital Certificate Authentication
• Application Authorization
• Encryption
• Managing Unstructured data in Oracle 8. There ware some new data types including LOB, CLOB, BLOB  and BFILE
• Making the most of Java looks at how you can use applets with Designer/2000 WebServer Generator
• A quick start guide on how to migrate to Oracle 8, included:
• Determining the Migration Strategy
• Ensure compatibility
• Identify invalid objects and lost statistics
• Eliminate language problems
• Take care of read-only tablespaces
• Know the point of no return
• Avoid large restores
• Defining Resource Requirements
• Define Personnel requirements
• Set the timing of the migration
• Determine space requirements
• Create an appropriate testing environment
• Determining Potential Problem Areas
• Review ROWIDs
• Avoid reserved words
• Eliminate obsolete init.ora parameters
• Identifying Verification Tests
• Develop the test strategy
• Do migration testing
• Perform minimal testing
• Do functional testing
• Do integration testing
• Do performance testing
• Do load-stress testing

To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.

My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.

Review of Oracle Magazine- November/December 1997

The headline articles for the November/December 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were focused on the Network Computing area, how it works, what framework to use, how the architecture works, how it supports the information management universe.

Other articles included:

• The new features of Designer/2000 Release 2.0 included a new Design Editor, an updated Repository to capture more details about the application structure, rules and application logic and reusable module components.
• Object Database Designer for Object-Relational Databases is beta released with a production version in a few months
• Oracle’s Very Large Memory (VLM) capability on Windows NT raises the 2GB memory constraint imposed on applications running Windows NT. With VLM, Oracle can cache almost 8GB of database information in memory.
• Extending Oracle 8 with Objects looked at how to create nested tables, and creating object tables
• How to Create a Good Test Database gives some guidance on how to extract a referentially intact subset of data for testing a data warehouse with new reports, queries and programs.
• A Management Perspective on Handling a New Millennium gives a methodology to address the complete management and control issues. The had the following phases:
• Impact assessment
• Prechange analysis
• Compliance
• Retest and Integration
• Using Parallel Query to improve Windows NT Data Mart Performance
• The last section of the magazine had 10 pages of job adverts.

To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.

My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.

AIB Presentation at Oracle Open World

Today AIB is presenting at Oracle Open World on using Real Application Testing, how they were able to consolidate their database environment and saved a lot of euros.

The was a good turnout and in the audience was the well known Tom Kyte from Oracle (asktom.oracle.com)

Review of Oracle Magazine–September/October 1997

The headline articles for the September/October 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were how to put your data warehouse on the web, how to build it, how it works, differences between a data mart and a data warehouse, how Delicato Vineyard and the US Environmental Protection Agency web enabled their data warehouse,

This was a bumper edition of Oracle Magazine. It had just over 150 pages of content. This is compared to the previous editions that have been +/- a few pages of 100.

Other articles included:

• There was a certain amount of repetition of announcements from the previous edition (a lot). I won’t repeat them here but check out the previous edition review.
• Extending Oracle 8 with Objects covered how to create and work with Object Types.
• How to setup and configure your Oracle Database hot standby, how to monitor it and what limitations to watch out for.
• Oracle Designer/2000 Administration: Tuning Tips and Techniques.
• The tips for the Repository included:
• Bring your system up to speed
• Re-create indexes and hash tables frequently
• Size the SGA Shared_Pool_Size and the DB_Block_Buffers
• Pin procedures to the SGA
• Size the tablespaces
• Re-create the repository through import/export
• Be aware of the impact of sharing objects across multiple application systems
• Tips for Client-side tuning:
• Use suggested settings for PC clients
• Install Designer/2000 client tools on a file server
• Tips for Network Tuning
• Configure SQL*Net
• Unlocking the value of test with Oracle ConText cartridge. CareerPath.com uses ConText to enable servers to quickly and efficiently search through hundreds of thousands of job vacancies quickly and relevant for the searchers entered details.

To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.

My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.

Review of Oracle Magazine–July/August 1997

The headline articles for the July/August 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were all focused on using Java, building applications, an interview with James osling using Java and the Oracle Database together and an outline of what Oracle sees as the future for Java.

Other articles included:

• There as a lot of product announcements (similar to the previous edition). These included:
• Developer/2000 Web Cartridge
• Enterprise JavaBeans for Integrated Business Solutions
• Oracle/CNN Launch
• Personal Oracle Lite 2.4 : Mobile RDBMS
• Oracle Replication Services Release 1.3: Bidirectional replication
• Oracle Projects 10.7 Suite of Applications
• Oracle Web Application Server 3.0 on HP-UX
• Oracle Discoverer 3.0
• Oracle GEMMS 4.1
• Data Mart solution for Windows NT
• Using the Network Computing Architecture (NCA) with Developer/2000 and Designer/2000. This covered how you can create components that you can mix and match, and plug into your applications. This involved using JDeveloper and the Developer/2000 Web Forms Cartridge to Deploy in Java.
• There was an article discussing how you can implement your applications in a distributed environment, on a phased basis.
• Steven Feuerstein writes planning your PL/SQL development to maximise your PL/SQL environment. He suggests that there are two specific steps for PL/SQL: 1 Consolidate access to the underlying database, and 2 Standardize exception handling and creating general utilities that can be reused. Best practices include:
• Make packages flexible and easy to use
• Overload the package to make the package smarter
• Modularize the package so it can be maintained and enhanced.
• Hide the package data
• Build multiple packages simultaneously
• Employing top-down design in PL/SQL
• Make the most of the PL/SQL language and features

To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.

My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.

OOW : Day by Day blog or Not

Today Sunday is the first full day for Oracle Open World. Although parts of it started on Saturday with the MySQL conference as was as a number of other briefing type session throughout the day and evening.

One thing that I will not be doing over the course of the next 5 days is to give a day by day account of the different sessions that I attended nor will I be giving updates on what was announced at OOW.

There will be plenty of announcements and there will be many thousands of people who will be tweeting, blogging and writing all kinds of articles about the these.

When the conference finishes up next Thursday I will take some time to write a blog post on what were the main announcements for me and in particular for the Oracle Analytics Option and suppose the whole area people call BIG Data.

The first IOUG BIG Data SIG meeting will be on Tuesday morning from 8:45-9:45, Moscone West, Level 3, Overlook 3.

The main presentation on the Oracle Advanced Analytics Option will be on Wednesday by Charlie Berger (Sr Director for Advanced Analytics). In addition to this presentation there will be a number around the whole ORE and BIG Data. This will rounded off by the Keynote on Thursday morning. Yes that is the morning after the big social event on Wednesday night with Kings of Leon and Peal Jam.

One thing that I will be doing each day will be posting a new review of old Oracle Magazine. So check in daily for those.

The next 5 days will be a bit manic as I try to gain learn lots. The problem here is that my interest span a number of areas. OK the main one is the Oracle Advanced Analytics and BIG Data, but I also have DBA and Developer skills/interests too.

Review of Oracle Magazine–May/June 1997

The headline articles for the May/June 1997 edition of Oracle Magazine were focused on the release of Oracle 8, with articles on the new features, how Boeing and Arizona Start University are using Oracle 8 to create a plane for the future, and some articles on using object technology in Oracle 8.

I remember back in 1994 Oracle bought an OODBMS company with the aim of ‘if you cannot beat them then buy them’. The Object Relation project of Sedona was born and the first of the deliverables from the project was in Oracle 8.

Other articles included:

• The key benefits of Oracle 8 Server (The Database of Network Computing) can be grouped under Scalable, Available, Object-Relational, Large Scale, Distributed, Secure and Evolutionary.
• The new features of Oracle 8 have been in new or better functionality for OLTP, Data Warehousing, Parallel Server, Object-Relational (code named Sodona), Partitioning, Backup and Recovery, Connectivity, Replication, NCA Framework and Migration.
• Oracle announces that they have licensed Borland Java tools and we now have the birth of JDeveloper and the world of ADF will come along many years later.
• The Industry Applications Division (IAD) of Oracle announce new applications and releases. These included: Oracle Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) 2.2, Oracle Government Financials, Oracle Energy 3.1, Oracle Clinical 3.1, Oracle Environmental 4.5 and Oracle Health and Safety 2.0.
• Kumaran Systems, releases a tool that will convert all your reports written in RPT (ReportWriter, which was very similar to PL/SQL) to Reports 2.5.  I really liked RPT. It was quick and you could do a lot with a few lines of code. Converting to Oracle Reports took a bit of getting used to. As a lot of the work you had to put into developing the report revolved you having to play with frames and anchoring box positions. Oh I still have the scares.
• Los Angeles County uses Oracle 7.1 to help it manage its environmental applications.
• How to defined and use Summary tables in your Oracle Data Warehouse.
• Oracle launches a new magazine for its users call Profit and is aimed at the CFO and CIO market.

To view the cover page and the table of contents click on the image at the top of this post or click here.

My Oracle Magazine Collection can be found here. You will find links to my blog posts on previous editions and a PDF for the very first Oracle Magazine from June 1987.

What to do with your Freebies from Oracle Open World

With 50,000+ people attending Oracle Open World (and associated other conferences) between 30th September and 4th October, and with over 400 exhibitors, there should lots of freebies available.

What do you do with all of these things like pens, pencils, notebooks, memory sticks, t-shirts, pen pots, stress balls, etc. ?

Do many of these items get given away as presents, gives to your colleagues, or at some point end up in the refuge collect, land fill or recycle centre ?

Why not give these items to primary and secondary schools in Africa?

Over the past couple of years I have been collecting some of these kind of things to send out to schools in Africa. What I try to do is to wait until I have enough items that can kit out students in a class with pens, pencils and notepads for a year.

There is no corporate sponsorship of this project that is called Tech Gear for the 3rd World.  I just ask for people to send me their spare items or old corporate items (due to rebranding etc.).  I look after identifying what schools to send the items too, packaging of the items and I pay for the shipping of the parcels to the schools.

So after visiting Oracle Open World you have suitcase full of stuff, or if you are an exhibitor and you have items left over, why not send them to Tech Gear for the 3rd World.

Click here for more details and postal details.