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The Foundation of Oracle Silver Bullets
While the automated features of
Oracle10g AMM, ASM, and automatic query re-write simplify the
role of the Oracle DBA, savvy Oracle10g DBAs can now leverage
other advanced Oracle 10g silver bullets to get super-fast
performance:
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Automated Workload Repository (AWR)
- The AWR is a critical component for database predictive
tools such as the dbms_advisor package. AWR allows the DBA
to run time-series reports of SQL access paths and
intelligently create the most efficient materialized views
for their database. The AWR provides a time-series component
of database tuning that is critical for the identification
of materialized views and holistic database tuning. The most
important database tracking with AWR includes tracking
large-table full-table scans, multi-block reads, hash joins,
and tracking RAM usage within the pga_aggregate_target
region.
-
Multiple Blocksizes - Multiple
blocksizes can greatly reduce logical and physical I/O for
objects that are accessed via range scans and Oracle objects
that are accessed via multi-block reads, full-table, or
full-index scans can be segregated into a larger blocksize
to reduce I/O.
-
STAR Query Optimization - The Oracle
10g STAR Query execution plan make it easy to make complex
queries run at super-fast speeds.
-
Multi-Level Partitioning of Tables
and Indexes - Oracle now has multi-level intelligent
partitioning methods that allow Oracle to store data in a
precise scheme. By controlling where data is stored on disk,
Oracle10g SQL can reduce the disk I/O required to service
any query.
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Asynchronous Change Data Capture -
Change Data Capture allows incremental extraction, so only
data that has changed can be extracted easily. For example,
if a database extracts data from an operational system on a
weekly basis, the database extracts only the data that has
changed since the last extraction. In other words, it only
takes the data that has been modified in the past seven
days.
-
Oracle Streams - Streams-based feed
mechanisms can capture the necessary data changes from the
operational database and send them to the destination
database. The use of redo information by the Streams Capture
process avoids unnecessary overhead on the production
database.
-
Read-Only Tablespaces - If a DBA has
a time-series database in which information eventually
becomes static, using tablespace partitions and marking the
older tablespaces as read-only can greatly improve
performance. When a tablespace is marked as read-only,
Oracle can bypass this read consistency mechanism, reducing
overhead and resulting in faster throughput.
-
Automatic Storage Management (ASM) -
This revolutionary new method for managing the disk I/O
subsystem removes the tedious and time consuming chore of
I/O load balancing and disk management. With Oracle10g ASM,
all disks can be logically clustered together into disk
groups, and data files can be spread across all devices
using the Oracle10g SAME (Stripe And Mirror Everywhere)
standard. By making the disk back-end a JBOD (Just a Bunch
of Disks), Oracle10g manages this critical aspect of the
database..
-
Advanced Data Buffer Management -
Using Oracle 10g’s multiple block sizes and KEEP pool,
database objects can be preassigned to separate data buffers
and ensure that the working set of frequently referenced
data is always cached. Small, frequently referenced
dimension tables should be cached using the Oracle 10g KEEP
pool.
These are just a few examples of the
silver bullets that will be presented in more detail later in
this book. The next area that requires attention is Oracle
emergency support and how holistic techniques can be used to
quickly repair an ailing Oracle database. |
