The Monday morning report: four hours of MySQL replica lag

Four hours of lag on a MySQL replica in a logistics system. How we diagnosed it, why Seconds_Behind_Master lies, and what actually fixed it.

The ticket said 'update MySQL and shut down the service'

A real MySQL 8.0.34→8.0.45 patching workflow: broken views blocking mysqldump, GTID warnings, replica role check, and RPM upgrade order on RHEL 8.

Research on millions of legal documents: how Oracle Text changed response times

Three triggers, a nightly job, and 1,247 orphaned policies: Oracle 26ai Assertions explained

Oracle 26ai introduces CREATE ASSERTION, the cross-table declarative constraint SQL-92 promised for decades. Syntax, comparison with triggers, and real insurance use cases.

Swap at 100% on InnoDB Cluster: when join_buffer_size multiplies the problem

The lunch break that delayed go-live: Data Governance in the DWH

A lunch conversation about what a technically ready Data Warehouse still lacks: data ownership, quality framework, GDPR, TDE on Oracle 19c.

The lunch break that delayed go-live: Data Governance in the DWH

A lunch conversation about what a technically ready Data Warehouse still lacks: data ownership, quality framework, GDPR, TDE on Oracle 19c.

Three data marts, three truths about sales: the bus matrix as common ground

Kimball bus matrix to align isolated data marts: conformed dimensions, business processes and comparable sales. Real insurance group case.

DWH Partitioning: When 3 Years of Data Weigh Too Much

Range partitioning on an 800-million-row fact table: from 12-minute quarterly queries to 40 seconds. Monthly implementation, exchange and local indexes.

Ragged hierarchies: when the client has no parent and the group has no grandparent

Ragged hierarchy in the data warehouse: balancing unbalanced trees with the self-parenting technique. Correct drill-down on customers and groups.

SCD Type 2: the history the business didn't know it needed

SCD Type 2 in the data warehouse: historicising dimensions with surrogate keys and validity dates. Real case: a customer dimension that evolves over time.

Wrong grain: when the fact table can't answer the right questions

Data warehouse: fact table grain determines which questions you can answer. Common mistakes in granularity and their impact on the dimensional model.

5 rules I've seen work in project teams that hold

Project management: 5 rules observed in teams that hold under pressure. Psychological safety, bus factor, outcome vs output, knowledge transfer.

AI Manager and Project Management: when artificial intelligence enters the project

AI Manager: the professional role that governs the impact of artificial intelligence on architectures, processes and people. Reflections from 30 years in IT.

Payment at 60-90-120 days: the Italian normality that doesn't exist in Europe

60-90-120 day payment terms in Italian IT consulting: comparison with European rules. DSO, EU directive 2011/7 and strategies for IT freelancers.

Bike vs Car in Rome: the morning that opened my eyes

Commuting in Rome: electric Brompton vs car. 18 minutes vs 50, €35 of parking saved per day. The sustainable mobility choice from a practical view.

Smart working in IT consulting: the numbers nobody wants to look at

Smart working in IT consulting: economic and strategic analysis of remote work. Real numbers, KPIs, presenteeism and productivity compared to in-office.

When chaos becomes method: AI and GitHub to manage a project nobody wanted to touch

Project management with AI and GitHub: turning a chaotic project into a measurable workflow with issue tracking, code review and artificial intelligence.

Three triggers, a nightly job, and 1,247 orphaned policies: Oracle 26ai Assertions explained

Oracle 26ai introduces CREATE ASSERTION, the cross-table declarative constraint SQL-92 promised for decades. Syntax, comparison with triggers, and real insurance use cases.

ORA-00205 at three in the morning: understanding Oracle critical files before you need to

Step-by-step diagnosis of ORA-00205 during a night emergency: MOUNT phase, control file, SPFILE, redo log. A practical method for on-call Oracle DBAs.

Oracle 19c, 21c, 23ai, 26ai: the silent rewrite of value domains

Seven years of Oracle seen through enumerations: from 19c CHECK to 23ai SQL Domains, all the way to 26ai Assertions. An insurance migration story.

Enumerations in Oracle: twenty years of workarounds, and the road that opened up with 23ai

Oracle never had a native ENUM. CHECK constraints, lookup tables and SQL Domains 23ai: three roads, a real banking case, and what's coming with 26ai.

Oracle from On-Premises to Cloud: Strategy, Planning and Cutover

Oracle 19c on-premises to OCI migration: 2 TB with RAC and Data Guard. BYOL licensing, Data Pump, overnight cutover — real chronicle.

Oracle on Linux: the kernel parameters nobody configures

Oracle 19c on Linux: kernel tuning for real performance. Huge Pages, THP, swappiness, I/O scheduler, ulimit — before and after numbers.

ENUM in PostgreSQL: when the choice pays off, and when it bites back

PostgreSQL ENUM vs CHECK vs lookup table: ALTER TYPE ADD VALUE is metadata-cheap, dropping a value costs a migration. Three paths, one real telco case.

When an index does more harm than good: cleaning PostgreSQL waste

PostgreSQL: how to find and drop unused indexes with pg_stat_user_indexes. Real case: a table with 15 indexes, 8 of them never used.

pg_stat_statements: the first thing to install on any PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL pg_stat_statements: the first query diagnostics extension to install. Find the three queries consuming 80% of database resources.

VACUUM and autovacuum: why PostgreSQL needs someone to clean up

PostgreSQL VACUUM and autovacuum: bloat diagnosis on a 200 GB database, reading pg_stat_user_tables and tuning without disabling anything.

Roles and Users in PostgreSQL: Why Everything Is (Only) a ROLE

PostgreSQL ROLE: users and roles are the same object. Mental model, GRANT, NOINHERIT and how to build a truly maintainable read-only account.

When a LIKE '%value%' Slows Everything Down: A Real PostgreSQL Optimization Case

PostgreSQL optimization: LIKE '%value%' causes full scan. Using pg_trgm and GIN index to turn a wildcard search into a fast lookup. Real case.

The ticket said 'update MySQL and shut down the service'

A real MySQL 8.0.34→8.0.45 patching workflow: broken views blocking mysqldump, GTID warnings, replica role check, and RPM upgrade order on RHEL 8.

Swap at 100% on InnoDB Cluster: when join_buffer_size multiplies the problem

ENUM in MySQL: when it makes your day, and when it ruins your week

MySQL ENUM vs CHECK constraint vs lookup table: three ways to model an enumeration. Pros, cons and real case of a shipment tracking system.

Before upgrading MySQL: the numbers the customer actually asks for — and how to find them

MySQL 8.0 pre-upgrade assessment: measuring sizes, growth, backup and restore times with information_schema. Real numbers to plan maintenance window.

mysqldump vs mysqlpump vs mydumper: the backup that keeps you up at night

MySQL backup tools compared: mysqldump vs mydumper vs mysqlpump on a 60 GB database. Real dump and restore times, parallelism and architectural choice.

Binary logs in MySQL: what they are, how to manage them, and when you can delete them

MySQL binary log: management, retention and point-in-time recovery. Real case of a server with disk at 95% and 180 GB of binlogs in six months.