#C15LV

Top 10 Oracle database

tuning tips
Session ID#: 442

Guy Harrison,
Executive Director, Information Mgt R&D,
Dell Software Group
@guyharrison

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Top 10 Oracle
database tuning tips

Guy Harrison,
Executive Director, Information Mgt
R&D,
Dell Software Group

Introductions

Web:
guyharrison.net
Email: guy.harrison@software.dell.com
Twitter: @guyharrison

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Dell and Quest a brief history

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But Seriously

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The top 10

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Be methodical and
empirical

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Hint 1: Methodical and Empirical tuning

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Hint 1: Methodical and Empirical tuning

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Basics of a database request

1. Application send an SQL request

to the database server

Application
Result sets
Return codes

SQL

2. Server compiles the SQL and

prepares for execution

Database Server
Request
Blocks

Return
blocks

3. Server looks for data in memory

first

Server Memory
Request
Blocks

Return
blocks

IO subsystem

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4. If the data is not in memory,

server reads from disk

The 4 layers in database performance

1. Tune SQL and application code to

reduce the logical demand

Application
Result sets
Return codes

SQL

2. Eliminate contention points and

bottlenecks

RDBMS code
Request
Blocks

Return
blocks

3. Configure Memory to avoid as much

IO as possible

Server Memory
Request
Blocks

Return
blocks

IO subsystem

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4. Tune disk IO system to reduce

waits for IO

Whats wrong with the

donkey?

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Measurement

Standard SQL views

AWR reports
DB control/Cloud control
Toad/Spotlight other 3rd party
tools
A single query can tell you a
lot

http
://guyharrison.net/OPSGSam
ples/Ch03/timeModelSimple.
sql

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Database design

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Database design

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3NF is mostly Dont Repeat Yourself (DRY)

We dont want to repeat the student

name every time they take a new test
We dont want to repeat the test_name
for every student that takes it
We dont want the repeating group of
answers

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Also, we might not know how many

questions there will be in future tests

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3NF version

Students take tests

Tests have questions
Students taking tests provide answers

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Dont go to far!
In this example the designer pulled
address into a separate table and city,
country into another table.
Its correct in theory, but it means that
every time we want an employees
address we have to join three tables.
It would have been better to have just
one table

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Logical to Physical: Subtypes

Customers are people too

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Subtypes

Its usually better to put all the data in one table, or have two tables for each subtype
Having a supertype table and two subtype tables means you always have to join
tables

Probably dont
want to do this

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Denormalization

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Index Wisely

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Indexes

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Concatenated index effectiveness

last,first,birthyear,id

last,first,BirthYear

last+first name

last name

The more columns in the

index the less IO it takes
to resolve a query using
all the columns
The order of the
columns affects how the
index can be used

If the index has all the

columns, dont need to
touch the table at all

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None
0

1459
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
Logical IO

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SELECT cust_id
FROM sh.customers c
WHERE cust_first_name = 'Connor'
AND cust_last_name = 'Bishop'
AND cust_year_of_birth = 1976;

Index overhead

7
6

14,285

12,727

Number of indexes

Indexes speed up
queries, but make
DML (insert, update,
Delete) slower

16,316

This chart shows how

inserts slow down as
more and more
indexes are added

10,719

8,691

Deleting a row with

lots of indexes is
particularly expensive

6,671

1 (PK only)1,191
0

5,000

10,000

15,000

Logical reads required

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20,000

Index or FTS?
1000

100

Elaspe d Tim e (s )

10

Break even points

Full Scan no caching

Index sorted data, no caching
Index unsorted, cached data

1
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Pct of table acces se d

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Full Table scan, cached data

70
80
90

100

Application code

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Database coding guidelines

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Parse overhead

Its easy enough in most programming languages to create a new SQL every time
you execute the query:

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Better to use the same SQL with different

arguments:
Prepare the statement once, then execute many times with
different arguments
Using bind variables

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Reduction in parse (SQL Compile) time

Bind Variables

No Bind variables

200

400

600
Parse Time

1,000 executions of the code on

preceding two slides in Oracle

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800
Other

1000

1200

1400

Designing transactions

There are two ways to design transaction locking

Pessimistic works best if you think someone else is going to grab your row before
youre finished
Optimistic works best if you thing no one else will grab the row

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Reduce Network traffic

Round trips to the database can add a lot of overhead

Two ways to reduce round trips:

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Use the Array interface in your program code

Use stored procedures for complex interactions with the database

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Array fetch performance

40,000
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Array fetch size

Logical Reads

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Network round trips

120

140

Network stored procedures

A stored procedure is code stored in the database

If you have a transaction that goes back and forth to the database, consider a
stored procedure
ESPECIALLY if you are working across a slow network

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Optimize the
optimizer

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Table and index

Structure

Cardinality
Estimates

Object Statistics

DB parameters
And config

Optimizer inputs

IO and CPU
Estimates

Remember: Garbage In :
Garbage Out
The optimizer can only do a
good job if statistics are up to
date

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System Statistics

Cost estimate

Histograms

20,000
18,000
16,000
14,000
12,000
10,000
Number of rows

8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0

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Indexes are only good for getting

small amounts of the table
So it might be a good idea to use
an index to get New Zealand
customers, but not United
States
A histogram allows the optimizer
to understand how the data is
distributed and make the best
decision
Create histograms to correct bad
plans on skewed tables

Without a histogram

Number of rows
the estimated

Real number of
rows

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Optimizer
chooses not to
use an index

With a histogram

Optimizer
estimate is
correct

Optimizer
chooses to use an
index

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DBMS_STATS

GATHER_INDEX_STATS , GATHER_SCHEMA_STATS,
GATHER_TABLE_STATS

Basic statistics

method_opt

=> 'FOR ALL INDEXED COLUMNS SIZE AUTO'

Histograms

method_opt

=>

Multi-column extended statistics

'FOR ALL COLUMNS FOR COLUMNS (col1, col2)'

method_opt
=> 'FOR ALL COLUMNS FOR COLUMNS
(function(column)))'

Expression extended statistics

DBMS_STATS.gather_system_stats (
gathering_mode => 'NOWORKLOAD');

Non-workload system statistics

DBMS_STATS.gather_system_stats
(gathering_mode
=> 'INTERVAL',
interval
=> 60);

Workload system statistics

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Tune SQL and

PL/SQL

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Find them and tune them

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V$SQL is your friend

Also, V$SQL_PLAN,
V$SQL_PLAN_STATISTICS
Tkprof, session trace

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Now lets look at the

donkey

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Monitor and
manage contention

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Contention the proverbial bottleneck

Application
Demand for DB
services

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Contention for limited or

serialized resources causes
waits and or queuing

Apparent
demand at lower
layers is reduced

Types of contention

Locks
Usually locking problems
are due to application
locks (remember
optimistic locking)?

Sometimes internal locks

can cause problems.

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Latches and
Mutex

Buffer
contention

Latches are very light

weight locks that protect
memory instead of tables

When sessions have to

wait for a memory
buffer to become
available

Latches and mutex contention

Latches are like locks, but

instead of protecting table
rows, they protect memory
(buffers)

user

user

If two sessions try to access

the same area of memory,
then one will wait

Buffers

Instead of sleeping (like a

lock) they waiting session
will spin on the CPU for a
very short time
Latch problems may indicate
hot blocks
They might cause CPU drain
(because of spinning)

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user

Database
files

Free buffer waits

Write to
buffers
User

Buffers

Buffer
Waits
Read
from

When buffers are modified they

are called dirty DBWR writes to
disk

buffers

Read
from
disk

Database
Writer

Write
dirty
blocks
to disk
Database
files

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Database buffers improve

performance by caching data in
memory

When all the blocks are dirty

then sessions have to wait for the
buffers to be written before new
data can be read
This might mean that your DBWR
cant write to disk fast enough

Specific contention scenarios

Lock/Latch

Possible cause

Library cache mutex

Hard parsing no bind variables. Try

CURSOR_SHARING=SIMILAR

Library cache pin

PL/SQL package parsing and invalidations

Shared pool latch

Hard parsing and possibly excessive SGA resizing

Cache buffers chains

Hot blocks, very high logical read rates

Free Buffer waits

DBWR failing to keep up with block changes

Flashback buf free

Insufficient IO bandwidth for flashback area

Buffer busy

Hot blocks partitioning might help

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Optimize memory
to reduce IO

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Memory is primarily used to avoid IO

Buffer cache avoids IO to table/index

tablespaces
PGA avoids IO to temporary tablespace

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Temp tablespace IO can easily overwhelm

table/index IO

Multi-pass
Disk Sort

Single
Pass
Disk Sort

Memory
Sort
Table/Index IO

More Memory

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Available Memory

CPU Time

Temp Segment IO

Less Memory

Time

Automatic Memory Management

Introduced in 11g, AMM manages allocations between and
within PGA and SGA

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AMM can (rarely?) lead to thrashing or

starvation

ALWAYS set minimum values for key components of the SGA

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Tune IO last, but

tune it well

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IO Tuning

Disk IO is the slowest part of the database system, so its

critical to performance
FIRST:
Tune SQL and application
Remove contention
Allocate memory

Only when youve done that will your IO demand be

realistic. Then you can tune your IO

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Basics of IO tuning (magnetic disks)

The amount of IO you can support depends on the number of disks you have
Provide enough disks to support the amount of IO you need
even if that means the disks are not filled with data
Magnetics disks can do between 75-150 IO per second (IOPS) do the math!

SAS 15,000 rpm

SAS 10,000 rpm
SATA 10,000 rpm
SATA 7,200 rpm
0

20

40

60

80

100

IO/ps

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120

140

160

180

200

Disk Drive latency

100
90
80

Latency is the time taken to perform a

single IO

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Most disk drives can return an IO in 5-10 ms

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Faster if the disk has a memory cache

Disk latency increases with:

Throughput (best at 50-75% of maximum)

Disk fill (best at 50% capacity)

To get best performance disks should be

Sparsely populated
Under only moderate load

RAID 0+1 is the preferred configuration

Response Time (ms)

50
40
30
20
10
0
0

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

IO/second

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The more that things change....

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Disks are not getting faster

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SSD - Cheaper by the IO

SSD DDR-RAM 15
SSD PCI flash 25
SSD SATA Flash 80
Magnetic Disk

4,000
0

1,000

2,000

Seek time (us)

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3,000

4,000

5,000

But not by
the GB

10

12

10
10
2.9

2.3

2.2
8

7.4

1.7
1.3

$$/GB
1
$$/GB

2011

5.3
2013

2012

2014

3.2

0.35 2.9
0.28
2.2

2.3
1.7
0.21

0.1

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1.3
0.17

0.35

0.28

0.21

0.17

0.13
0.13

0
2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

HDD

68

2015

MLC SDD

SLC SSD

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$/IOP

$/GB

Tiered storage management

Random reads FusionIO

Table on SSD

Flash cache
IO
DB File IO
Other
CPU

121

SAS disk, flash cache

583

SAS disk, no flash cache

2,211

500

1000

Elapsed time (s)

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1500

2000

2500

Full table scans

Table on SSD

72

Flash cache doesnt

accelerate Full table scans
b/c scans use direct path
reads and flash cache only
accelerates buffered reads

SAS disk, flash cache

398

SAS disk, no flash cache

418

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Elasped time (s)

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Flash Cache IO
DB File IO
Other
CPU
Total

Disk Sorts temp tablespace SSD vs HDD

4000
3500
Multi-pass
Disk Sort

3000
2500
2000

Elapsed time (s)

1500
Single Pass
Disk Sort

1000
500
0

300

250

200

150

100

Sort Area Size

SAS based TTS
SSD based TTS
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50

Concurrent redo workload (x10)

Flash based redo log

1,637

331

1,681

Log File IO
Other
CPU
SAS based redo log

1,605

500

397

1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500

Elapsed time (s)

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1,944

Tune RAC

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RAC will scale well,

providing that.

a) The time taken to

transfer a block
across
Load is reasonably
well balanced
the
interconnect
across the
instances
in theiscluster
much less than the
time taken to read
The overhead of maintaining cluster
from disk
consistency does not dominate
overall response time

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Toad: your
companio
n in the
Big Data
revolution

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Dell In-Memory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise

Starter
Configuration

8 Node Cluster
R720- 4 Infrastructure Nodes
R720XD- 4 Data Nodes
Force10- S55
~176TB (disk raw space)
~1.5TB (raw memory)

Mid-Size Configuration
16 Node Cluster
R720- 4 Infrastructure Nodes
R720XD- 12 Data Nodes
Force10- S4810P
Force10- S55
~528TB (disk raw space)
~4.5 TB (raw memory)

Small Enterprise
Configuration

24 Node Cluster
R720- 4 Infrastructure Nodes
R720XD- 20 Data Nodes
~880TB (disk raw space)
~7.5 TB (raw memory)

Expansion Unit- R720XD-4 Data, Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub, Scale

in Blocks

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Dell appliances for any database

Dell provides appliances and reference
architectures specifically designed for:

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Oracle
SQL Server
HANA
SSD database acceleration
Large memory footprints

Dell Software Group

Thank you.

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