In nature, animals only puff themselves up when they feel threatened. This phenomenon is called Deception.
While there are valid situations to exaggerate to make a point, ask yourself who you feel threatened by before you do. If the answer is “no one”, stick to the facts, or you may end up needing to defend your claims.
For a solution architecture to be of utmost value it must address the target business capabilities in a manner that is maintainable, extensible and scalable. Solution Architectures follow unstated core drivers that influence the focus of the approach. The most common of these drivers are (in order): Initial Cost, Vendor Capability, Total Cost and Business Capabilities. These drivers are not mutually exclusive, and the key driver will be what each of the other drivers are weighed against in the solution. Each driver has value to the project and the enterprise as a whole.
In my opinion, Business Capabilities is the best key driver to have. Business Capabilities are what support growth and sustainability and contribute the most to the enterprise. The other drivers should not be completely sacrificed, but when they are given priority the result is frequently a gap between actual need and provided solution. They are driven by agendas that are secondary to the overall enterprise needs and better kept in the corresponding secondary priority.
This is not to say that every business capability requested by an individual or group is valuable to the enterprise as a whole. The business capabilities to focus energy and resources on need to be carefully chosen by the business, and once identified as a core need of the enterprise should take its place as the key driver.
Takes me forever to find this StackExchange post every time I need it, so I’m copying it here for ease of reference:
With a Linux Guest run this:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/bigemptyfile bs=4096k
sudo rm -rf /bigemptyfile
With a Windows Guest, download SDelete from Sysinternals and run this:
sdelete –z
modifyhd command with the --compact option:
With a Linux Host run this:
vboxmanage modifyhd /path/to/thedisk.vdi --compact
With a Windows Host run this:
VBoxManage.exe modifyhd c:pathtothedisk.vdi --compact
With a Mac Host run this:
VBoxManage modifyhd /path/to/thedisk.vdi --compact
This reduces the vdi size.
The documentation uses OEM to do this, something that Oracle XE does not have. Has a non-DBA, I find installing Oracle EE tedious. Thanks to waslleysouza.com.br, I was able to find the right script to execute with XE. For the DB-disabled like myself, here are the full steps to do this on a Linux host:
if either is blank:
# set ORACLE_SID=XE (or your service id) # set ORACLE_HOME= (Eg: C:oraclexeapporacleproduct10.2.0server)
i.e.,
# /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/bin/sqlplus / as sysdba
CREATE USER [csuser] IDENTIFIED BY [password] DEFAULT TABLESPACE users TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp; GRANT CREATE session, CREATE table, CREATE view TO [csuser]; GRANT UNLIMITED TABLESPACE TO [csuser]; COMMIT;