Optimizing Oracle Performance
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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 of Oracle performance tuning. In this crucial book, Cary Millsap, former VP of Oracle's System Performance Group, clearly and concisely explains how to use Oracle's response time statistics to diagnose and repair performance problems. Cary also shows how "queueing theory" can be applied to response time statistics to predict the impact of upgrades and other system changes. Optimizing Oracle Performance eliminates the time-consuming, trial-and-error guesswork inherent in most conventional approaches to tuning. You can determine exactly where a system's performance problem is, and with equal importance, where it is not, in just a few minutes--even if the problem is several years old. Optimizing Oracle Performance cuts a path through the complexity of current tuning methods, and streamlines an approach that focuses on optimization techniques that any DBA can use quickly and successfully to make noticeable--even dramatic--improvements. For example, the one thing database users care most about is response time. Naturally, DBAs focus much of their time and effort towards improving response time. But it is entirely too easy to spend hundreds of hours to improve important system metrics such as hit ratios, average latencies, and wait times, only to find users are unable to perceive the difference. And an expensive hardware upgrade may not help either. It doesn't have to be that way. Technological advances have added impact, efficiency, measurability, predictive capacity, reliability, speed, and practicality to the science of Oracle performance optimization. Optimizing Oracle Performance shows you how to slash the frustration and expense associated with unraveling the true root cause of any type of performance problem, and reliably predict future performance. The price of this essential book will be paid back in hours saved the first time its methods are used.
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
5 ratings
Excellent performance book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
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
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
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
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
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
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
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....
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
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!
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