Oracle database Performance Tuning FAQ

Contents
• 1 Why and when should one tune?
• 2 Where should the tuning effort be directed?
• 3 What tools/utilities does Oracle provide to assist with performance tuning?
• 4 When is cost based optimization triggered?
• 5 How can one optimize %XYZ% queries?
• 6 Where can one find I/O statistics per table?
• 7 My query was fine last week and now it is slow. Why?
• 8 Does Oracle use my index or not?
• 9 Why is Oracle not using the damn index?
• 10 When should one rebuild an index?
• 11 How does one tune Oracle Wait event XYZ?
• 12 What is the difference between DBFile Sequential and Scattered Reads?

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Why and when should one tune?
One of the biggest responsibilities of a DBA is to ensure that the Oracle database is tuned properly.
The Oracle RDBMS is highly tunable and allows the database to be monitored and adjusted to
increase its performance.

One should do performance tuning for the following reasons:

• The speed of computing might be wasting valuable human time (users waiting for response);
• Enable your system to keep-up with the speed business is conducted; and
• Optimize hardware usage to save money (companies are spending millions on hardware).

Although this site is not overly concerned with hardware issues, one needs to remember than you
cannot tune a Buick into a Ferrari.

Where the tuning effort should be directed?

Consider the following areas for tuning. The order in which steps are listed needs to be maintained
to prevent tuning side effects. For example, it is no good increasing the buffer cache if you can
reduce I/O by rewriting a SQL statement.

• Database Design (if it's not too late):

Poor system performance usually results from a poor database design. One should generally
normalize to the 3NF. Selective denormalization can provide valuable performance
improvements. When designing, always keep the "data access path" in mind. Also look at
proper data partitioning, data replication, aggregation tables for decision support systems,
etc.

• Application Tuning:

Experience showed that approximately 80% of all Oracle system performance problems are
resolved by coding optimal SQL. Also consider proper scheduling of batch tasks after peak
working hours.

• Memory Tuning:

Properly size your database buffers (shared_pool, buffer cache, log buffer, etc) by looking at
your wait events, buffer hit ratios, system swapping and paging, etc. You may also want to
pin large objects into memory to prevent frequent reloads.

• Disk I/O Tuning:

Database files needs to be properly sized and placed to provide maximum disk subsystem
throughput. Also look for frequent disk sorts, full table scans, missing indexes, row
chaining, data fragmentation, etc.

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 • Eliminate Database Contention:

Study database locks, latches and wait events carefully and eliminate where possible.

• Tune the Operating System:

Monitor and tune operating system CPU, I/O and memory utilization. For more information,
read the related Oracle FAQ dealing with your specific operating system.

What tools/utilities does Oracle provide to assist with

performance tuning?
Oracle provide the following tools/ utilities to assist with performance monitoring and tuning:

• ADDM (Automated Database Diagnostics Monitor) introduced in Oracle 10g

• TKProf
• Statspack
• Oracle Enterprise Manager - Tuning Pack (cost option)
• Old UTLBSTAT.SQL and UTLESTAT.SQL - Begin and end stats monitoring

When is cost based optimization triggered?

It's important to have statistics on all tables for the CBO (Cost Based Optimizer) to work correctly.
If one table involved in a statement does not have statistics, and optimizer dynamic sampling isn't
performed, Oracle has to revert to rule-based optimization for that statement. So you really want for
all tables to have statistics right away; it won't help much to just have the larger tables analyzed.

Generally, the CBO can change the execution plan when you:

• Change statistics of objects by doing an ANALYZE;

• Change some initialization parameters (for example: hash_join_enabled, sort_area_size,
db_file_multiblock_read_count).

How can one optimize %XYZ% queries?

It is possible to improve %XYZ% (wildcard search) queries by forcing the optimizer to scan all the
entries from the index instead of the table. This can be done by specifying hints.

If the index is physically smaller than the table (which is usually the case) it will take less time to
scan the entire index than to scan the entire table.

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Where can one find I/O statistics per table?
The STATSPACK and UTLESTAT reports show I/O per tablespace. However, they do not show
which tables in the tablespace has the most I/O operations.

The $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catio.sql script creates a sample_io procedure and table to

gather the required information. After executing the procedure, one can do a simple SELECT *
FROM io_per_object; to extract the required information.

For more details, look at the header comments in the catio.sql script.

My query was fine last week and now it is slow. Why?

The likely cause of this is because the execution plan has changed. Generate a current explain plan
of the offending query and compare it to a previous one that was taken when the query was
performing well. Usually the previous plan is not available.

Some factors that can cause a plan to change are:

• Which tables are currently analyzed? Were they previously analyzed? (ie. Was the query
using RBO and now CBO?)
• Has OPTIMIZER_MODE been changed in INIT<SID>.ORA?
• Has the DEGREE of parallelism been defined/changed on any table?
• Have the tables been re-analyzed? Were the tables analyzed using estimate or compute? If
estimate, what percentage was used?
• Have the statistics changed?
• Has the SPFILE/ INIT<SID>.ORA parameter DB_FILE_MULTIBLOCK_READ_COUNT
been changed?
• Has the INIT<SID>.ORA parameter SORT_AREA_SIZE been changed?
• Have any other INIT<SID>.ORA parameters been changed?

What do you think the plan should be? Run the query with hints to see if this produces the required
performance.

Does Oracle use my index or not?

One can use the index monitoring feature to check if indexes are used by an application or not.
When the MONITORING USAGE property is set for an index, one can query the v$object_usage to
see if the index is being used or not. Here is an example:

SQL> CREATE TABLE t1 (c1 NUMBER);

Table created.

SQL> CREATE INDEX t1_idx ON t1(c1);

Index created.

SQL> ALTER INDEX t1_idx MONITORING USAGE;

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Index altered.

SQL>
SQL> SELECT table_name, index_name, monitoring, used FROM v$object_usage;
TABLE_NAME INDEX_NAME MON USE
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --- ---
T1 T1_IDX YES NO

SQL> SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE c1 = 1;

no rows selected

SQL> SELECT table_name, index_name, monitoring, used FROM v$object_usage;

TABLE_NAME INDEX_NAME MON USE
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --- ---
T1 T1_IDX YES YES

To reset the values in the v$object_usage view, disable index monitoring and re-enable it:

ALTER INDEX indexname NOMONITORING USAGE;

ALTER INDEX indexname MONITORING USAGE;

Why is Oracle not using the damn index?

This problem normally only arises when the query plan is being generated by the Cost Based
Optimizer (CBO). The usual cause is because the CBO calculates that executing a Full Table Scan
would be faster than accessing the table via the index. Fundamental things that can be checked are:

• USER_TAB_COLUMNS.NUM_DISTINCT - This column defines the number of distinct

values the column holds.
• USER_TABLES.NUM_ROWS - If NUM_DISTINCT = NUM_ROWS then using an index
would be preferable to doing a FULL TABLE SCAN. As the NUM_DISTINCT decreases,
the cost of using an index increase thereby making the index less desirable.
• USER_INDEXES.CLUSTERING_FACTOR - This defines how ordered the rows are in the
index. If CLUSTERING_FACTOR approaches the number of blocks in the table, the rows
are ordered. If it approaches the number of rows in the table, the rows are randomly ordered.
In such a case, it is unlikely that index entries in the same leaf block will point to rows in the
same data blocks.
• Decrease the INIT<SID>.ORA parameter DB_FILE_MULTIBLOCK_READ_COUNT - A
higher value will make the cost of a FULL TABLE SCAN cheaper.

Remember that you MUST supply the leading column of an index, for the index to be used (unless
you use a FAST FULL SCAN or SKIP SCANNING).

There are many other factors that affect the cost, but sometimes the above can help to show why an
index is not being used by the CBO. If from checking the above you still feel that the query should
be using an index, try specifying an index hint. Obtain an explain plan of the query either using
TKPROF with TIMED_STATISTICS, so that one can see the CPU utilization, or with
AUTOTRACE to see the statistics. Compare this to the explain plan when not using an index.

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When should one rebuild an index?
You can run the ANALYZE INDEX <index> VALIDATE STRUCTURE command on the affected
indexes - each invocation of this command creates a single row in the INDEX_STATS view. This
row is overwritten by the next ANALYZE INDEX command, so copy the contents of the view into
a local table after each ANALYZE. The 'badness' of the index can then be judged by the ratio of
'DEL_LF_ROWS' to 'LF_ROWS'.

How does one tune Oracle Wait event XYZ?

Here are some of the wait events from V$SESSION_WAIT and V$SYSTEM_EVENT views:

• db file sequential read: Tune SQL to do less I/O. Make sure all objects are analyzed.
Redistribute I/O across disks.
• buffer busy waits: Increase DB_CACHE_SIZE (DB_BLOCK_BUFFERS prior to 9i)/
Analyze contention from SYS.V$BH
• log buffer space: Increase LOG_BUFFER parameter or move log files to faster disks

What is the difference between DBFile Sequential and

Scattered Reads?
Both "db file sequential read" and "db file scattered read" events signify time waited for I/O read
requests to complete. Time is reported in 100's of a second for Oracle 8i releases and below, and
1000's of a second for Oracle 9i and above. Most people confuse these events with each other as
they think of how data is read from disk. Instead they should think of how data is read into the SGA
buffer cache.

db file sequential read:

A sequential read operation reads data into contiguous memory (usually a single-block read with
p3=1, but can be multiple blocks). Single block I/Os are usually the result of using indexes. This
event is also used for rebuilding the controlfile and reading datafile headers (P2=1). In general, this
event is indicative of disk contention on index reads.

db file scattered read:

Similar to db file sequential reads, except that the session is reading multiple data blocks and
scatters them into different discontinuous buffers in the SGA. This statistic is NORMALLY
indicating disk contention on full table scans. Rarely, data from full table scans could be fitted into a
contiguous buffer area, these waits would then show up as sequential reads instead of scattered
reads.

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The following query shows average wait time for sequential versus scattered reads:

prompt "AVERAGE WAIT TIME FOR READ REQUESTS"

select a.average_wait "SEQ READ", b.average_wait "SCAT READ"
from sys.v_$system_event a, sys.v_$system_event b
where a.event = 'db file sequential read'
and b.event = 'db file scattered read';