Oracle Performance Tuning 101

by Gaja Vaidyanatha, John Kostelac, Kirtikumar Deshpande

Book Overview

Tuning Oracle databases or Oracle Performance Management (OPM) is what database administrators (DBAs) do to help the database run optimally. With the increase in e-commerce and deployment of databases... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072131454
• ISBN13: 9780072131451
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 1.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A Magnanimous and Bold Work every DBA needs to read !!!

Oracle Performance Tuning 101 will change everyDBAs thinking about how to diagnoseand solve database performance problems ina way which the DBA can understand what is reallygoing on behind the scenes. It is not aboutblack magic or hocus pocus Cache Hit Ratioswhich do NOT explain the underlying behavior of why the database is waiting and exactlywhat is it waiting on. This Book helps youunderstand how to find that wait information,what it means, and some suggestions on howto deal with it.When I first read Chapter 2 of this book,I remembered saying "WOW ... a new era is hereon how to track down bottlenecks in the Oracledatabase, without scratching your head wondering whythe database wont go faster after we gotsome hit ratio percentage back to 99%+".As Gaja, Kirti and John have so eloquentlypointed out, tuning is mostly about finding whatis competing for the Oracle blocks. In theend, this is causing the wait events and more than likely all tracks lead back to expensivelogical I/O and underlying poorly written SQL. For those that have been advocating spending tens of thousands on new hardware or increasing the shared pool ( which actually could cause adverse behavior ) to fix performance issues, YOU needto buy this book and read it. Then YOU need toread it a second time as you would a college text.Every Oracle DBA and every person who hasever wrote a book on Oracle Performance Tuning,should also read and adhere to the principlesof this book when attacking slowness in thesystem/database. Oracle Performance Tuning 101, Statspack and 10046 event data has helped me find and resolve every Oracle Performance problem I have come across since I changed my way of thinking on how to attack Oracleperformance problems. A Fantastic and Bold Work !!!!! Great Job Gaja,Kirti and John. Your efforts are to be highly commended in the Oracle world.

This book is a must for anybody who deals with tuning oracle

An excellent book every Oracle shop should have. It is hard to find a book that at the same time is so rich in technical details, so easy to read, with so many cool and illustrative analogies (e.g. pctfree/pctused comparison to a restaurant), and with a fine human touch. The book has five parts plus Appendices. Part One established the groundwork for the remaining of the book. This is the first book that bases its approach and treats in full Oracle wait event tuning, as opposed to long traditional ratio-based tuning. Part Two deals with Application tuning: optimizers, statistics, access paths. Part Three is devoted to Instance and Database tuning: shared pool, buffer cache, redo log buffer tuning, as well as physical layout tuning: optimal block selection, avoiding fragmentation, partitioning. Part Four is called Specialized Tuning where parallel query and contention tuning are analyzed. Finally Part Five is devoted to "Environment Tuning", i.e. tuning of the OS (few flavors of unix and NT are separately treated) and, as far as I know, the most detailed coverage of RAID in any oracle book. The book is very easy to read, written very clearly and with a lot of humor. Every chapter starts with a related "myth" - a common knowledge that is either false, or not completely true, and ends with an "In a Nutshell" recap of the chapter. The book itself ends with a recap chapter, which in short reviews the whole tuning methodology (yet the RAID tables might have been omitted from this recap). The book has short queries that are illustrating the text, which are not difficult to retype, so the lack of a CD with the code from the book is not a disadvantage. Talking of queries, few more here and there would not hurt. I am not sure whether this is really a beginner ("101") book. Beginners will definitely find valuable stuff there, but for a full enjoyment in the book, and for getting the full benefit from it, I think that experience is very beneficial. A book is fun to read, and it is packed with technical details, interesting observations, and practical advises. It is the first book that fully deals with new emerging oracle tuning methodology: wait events based tuning. It is worth reading every page, and not just flipping through.

Finally understand performance tuning

utlbstat/utlestat.It's an interview question. What tool can you use for performance tuning. Everybody says utlbstat/utlestat (or more recently statspack!)However, the sad truth 99% of DBAs look at the stats produced like a dog who has just been shown a card trick.This book is amazing. Tuning now becomes your second language. Finally, you understand how to tune as a science and not as an art. Finally you can say to people "There isn't a performance problem" ,or otherwise, pinpoint where the problem is, if there is one - AND have complete statistical proof to back you up.I'm ashamed to say that I was a haphazzard thought-he-knew-how-to-tune-maybe DBA to an actual tuning expert. By tuning expert I mean actually knowing how to *prove* to clients where the performance problem is.Also, the book is annoyingly well written and funny. It feels like it's written by one of your buddies. Sometimes Oracle press produces gems, and this is certainly one of them.

Best book I read on Oracle Performance Tuning

The best book I read on Oracle tuning. Not only it cuts through the DBA myths and folklore, but lays the foundation on the new concept, Wait Events. It is a relatively new concept, and is miles ahead of old style tuning techniques. I used these concepts and they work like a charm. I love this book and would highly recommend to anyone who want to dig into Oracle performance tuning.

tuning: the magic is back

You'll laugh, you'll cry but most importantly you'll learn!a field tested method for tuning an ORACLE database explained and detailed. follow the method to a better preforming database.having spent the time tuning databases for the past 10 years, this book gives the basics of wait state tuning in a form easy to understand and easy to apply. written by people who have actually done this in the field with management looking over their shoulders!;-)Gaja and Kirti lead you through the minefield of database tuning with grace, humor and knowledge. a must have for DBAs of all levels.