Chapter 9: Tuning the Database

Chapter 9: Tuning the Database

Overview

Anyone who has ever managed a database will at some time have been asked to tune the database. This chapter describes some of the techniques and tools that are available to tune an Oracle8 database. Since this a huge topic on which entire books have been devoted, please do not expect to find everything that you ever wanted to know about tuning a database. However, after reading this chapter the reader should have an appreciation of what is possible.

Tuning Strategy

Before you launch into tuning the database, take a step back for a moment to define your test strategy. This is a very important step, because otherwise you will spend far more time tuning than is necessary, possibly not achieving your goals.

The first step is to write down your tuning objectives. Examples of these could be:


	?	support a minimum of x transactions a second or minute


	?	report y must complete in less than z seconds or minutes


	?	support a specific number of concurrent users

When defining your objectives, it is extremely important to determine the minimum acceptance criteria. For example, suppose a report is currently taking 45 seconds to run and you would like that report to run in 5 seconds. If the first attempts at tuning improved the response time to 9 seconds, and it wasn't obvious how further improvements could be made, is nine seconds acceptable?

Everyone's objectives will vary. For instance, some...

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Chapter 9: Tuning the Database

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