Optimizing Oracle Performance

by Jeffrey Holt, Cary Millsap, Jeff Holt

Book Overview

Oracle system performance inefficiencies often go undetected for months or even years--even under intense scrutiny--because traditional Oracle performance analysis methods and tools are fundamentally flawed. They're unreliable and inefficient. Oracle DBAs and developers are all too familiar with the outlay of time and resources, blown budgets, missed deadlines, and marginally effective performance fiddling that is commonplace with traditional methods...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 059600527X
• ISBN13: 9780596005276
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.8" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent performance book

I purchased this book and did not open it for about 4 months. After reading the first 25 pages or so I became motivated to read more and finish it. It took me about 2 weeks to read through the entire book. The author does a really good job of detailing how to use Oracle tracing to troubleshoot performance related issues. With no shortage of Oracle performance tuning books this is definitely one of the better ones. This book must be one of the best performance related books because you can read it cover to cover. The book is packed with detail so you will reread several pages a few times, kind of like being in college and spending a couple of hours reviewing a couple of pages out of Calculus book. If you are at all serious about becoming better at Oracle tuning this is a great book to read.

Uncommon Sense

Are you really reading this review because you haven't read this yet? Maybe, like me, you are just gloating. This is a once-in-a-decade read. It went like this. Read the book. Had the epiphany. Then, as instructed read "The Goal". Epiphany II. The book presents an optimization method, derived from "first principles". The method is exemplified in sufficient detail (albeit with simplifications) for the reader to implement. Perhaps most importantly, it is presented in a manner that stimulates the reader on to further inquiry. With a little imagination (and this book does enourage you to use your imagination) the underlying philosophy can be extended to just about any other task you find yourself doing in the data centre. Lucky for us that the target audience is restricted to those people interested in optimizing Oracle performance or the cat would really be out of the bag.

Leading edge

It's surprising how often people say things without knowing what they're talking about. That's a good, short description of almost everything that's been said about Oracle tuning over the last 15 years.Surprisingly, the facts about tuning Oracle are pretty simple. Most of the results you will achieve come from doing one thing -- tuning individual SQL statements.The author of this book is one of the few Oracle experts around, and he has created a product called HOTSOS, which is essentially an enhanced version of TKPROF. At times this book reads like the world's best infomercial, designed to promote the author's product.Still, 99% of Oracle professionals will benefit from this book, even if you don't buy the author's product. It explains very clearly how to DIAGNOSE Oracle performance problems, and it shows an entire approach to tuning that's invaluable.By the way, there's absolutely no need to know calculus or any other advanced math to understand this book. This rumor apparently got started by some blowhard, pretending to be an expert, but mainly interested in self promotion and telling the world, "I know calculus!" In fact, anyone with basic knowledge of SQL could understand this book and benefit from it.

Revolutionary

If you want a quick checklist of whats wrong with your Oracle systems - do not buy this book. If you want validation of your existing tuning techniques - so not buy this book. If you want to be told what to do without thinking - do not buy this book. If on the other hand you are fed up with received wisdom that does not work, you recognize that performance tuning is a valuable skill for your business and you wish to learn an effective scientific and repeatable approach to improving the performance of your business systems, don't just buy this book but live it. Cary and Jeff take a rigorous, scientific approach to performance tuning that is especially suited to Oracle systems and by both formal proof and real world example show that the mystery of Oracle performance is controllable by you. The only downside comes from explaining to your boss that the thousands you spent on automated performance tools were wasted.A word about the Math. 2/3 of the book has no math at all in it. The remainder of the book was perfectly understandable to this reader, whose academic background is Economics and Philosophy not maths or computer science. Don't be put off by the idea that the book has equations, a competent High School student can follow the relevant mathematical arguments.

This is an Oracle classic....

In a style that will be appreciated by the beginner, intermediate and advanced DBA/Developer, Cary and Jeff introduce the reader to the world of the Oracle wait interface. This book has depth, the contents are full of meat, and it's not a rehash of every other Oracle book published in the last 10 years. In these pages is something for everyone. Cary introduces the wait interface, and how it can be used for tuning. The book presents the topic in a clear and concise fashion. The book is full of detail such as concise information on the internal workings of Oracle trace files and how to use them to your advantage when tuning your Oracle database. They demonstrate the power of the 10046 event and it's potential.Putting all of this together into a performance tuning method he calls Method-R, they lead us from tuning by guess work into a world of facts and using accurate measures to generate appropriate tuning responses.This book IS required reading for any DBA who wants to be elevated to the level of a tuning deity. I've already dog eared a goodly number of pages!