An Oracle 8i to 10g Upgrade

Case Study
Roger Schrag
Database Specialists,
Inc.
www.dbspecialists.com

Hotsos Performance
Symposium
March, 2005
1
 Today's Session
 The view from 30,000 feet:
– Our Oracle environment, upgrade strategy
– Impressions: upgrade process and compatibility
– Impressions: Oracle 10g in general
 In greater detail:
– Sizing the shared pool and SGA
– Optimizer statistics collection and accuracy
– Query optimization
– SQL Tuning Advisor
– Overhead 2
 Today’s Session
Goal: Help you plan for your own Oracle 10g upgrade.
 We will:
– Look at one company’s experience upgrading to 10g
– Discuss real-life experiences
– Provide data so you can draw your own conclusions
 We will not:
– Walk through the actual upgrade steps
– Make any judgments about Oracle 10g

3
 Always Remember
 Each Oracle system is unique and will have its
own challenges.
 Never take somebody else’s word on anything
when it comes to Oracle technology.
 In this session we are only relaying one
company’s experiences.
 The only way for you to know how your specific
system will fare on Oracle 10g is to try it—in a test
environment—and see.
4
 White Paper
 Contains additional topics and examples we won't
have time to discuss today
 Contains additional “supporting evidence” for
conclusions reached in today's session that we
won't have time to discuss or that won’t fit legibly
on a PowerPoint slide
– TKPROF reports, execution plans, AWR reports
 Download: www.dbspecialists.com/presentations

5
The View From 30,000 Feet
 Our Oracle environment
 Our upgrade strategy
 Impressions: upgrade process and compatibility
 Impressions: Oracle 10g in general

6
Our Oracle Environment
 Platform details:
– Oracle 8.1.7 Standard Edition 32 bit
– Sun Solaris 8 64 bit
– One production and one dev database
– Production database 15 Gb in size

7
Our Oracle Environment
 Application: Customer database monitoring tool
– Backend daemons process inbound agent files from our
customers’ database servers in the field
– Web-based user interface for report generation, system
configuration
– Almost all code is PL/SQL (roughly 50,000 lines)
– Leverages Oracle 8i features—eg GTTs, table()
– About 50 SQL statements have hints

8
Our Oracle Environment
 Oracle 8i production database was very stable
– Figured out workarounds to 8i bugs long ago
– Application enhancements are tested in dev before
production deployment
– Instance restarted 3-4 times per year
– Designed and developed from the start by small group
of experienced Oracle DBAs, developers
– Well-architected for efficiency, performance, scalability
(in our opinion)

9
Our Reasons to Upgrade to
10g
 Oracle 8i met all of our needs.
 So why upgrade?
– Oracle 8i desupport. (What difference does it make?)
– Gain Oracle 10g experience. (For us, a more
compelling reason.)

10
 Our Upgrade Strategy
 Restore production hot backup onto dedicated
test server.
 Export Oracle 8i test database and import into
empty Oracle 10g test database.
 Why export/import instead of upgrading in place?
– Switch all tablespaces to LMTs
– Compact all application segments (purges left holes)
– Change character set
– “Fresh” data dictionary, database components
– Worked out a strategy to keep the down time tolerable
11
 Our Upgrade Strategy
 Our Oracle 8i and 10g test databases started out
with the same data—handy for testing and
comparison.
 Two critical points to remember when comparing
these two test databases:
– Application segments in Oracle 10g test database
occupied fewer blocks.
– Our Oracle 10g test database was 64 bit while our
Oracle 8i test database was 32 bit.

12
 Impressions: Upgrade
Process
 Oracle 10g version 10.1.0.2 and patch set
10.1.0.3 installed very smoothly.
 Oracle 10g import utility read our Oracle 8i export
file with no issues.
 Oracle 10g Upgrade Information Tool accurately
pointed out necessary parameter changes.
 I've done my share of Oracle installs over the
years, and honestly this was one of the smoother
ones. (Note: Solaris platform!)
13
Impressions: Compatibility
 Encountered two compatibility issues:
– EXTPROC needed reconfiguring (tighter security) and
recompiling (32 bit to 64 bit change).
– Oracle 10g PLSQL compiler did not like our Oracle 8i
wrapped PL/SQL code. (Cause is probably an Oracle
8i export bug.) Rewrapping with Oracle 10g wrapper
utility resolved this.
– All other application code functioned correctly.
 Retained Oracle 8i modplsql client initially.
– No interoperability issues encountered.
14
Impressions: Oracle 10g
 Worked well out of the box:
– Enterprise Manager Database Control and iSQLPlus
were terribly slow, but they worked.
 Our system appears as stable on Oracle 10g as it
was on Oracle 8i:
– No ORA-600s or other funnies.
– Caveat: We are using few Oracle 9i and bare minimum
Oracle 10g new features.

15
Impressions: Oracle 10g
 Bigger, bulkier, hungrier for system resources:
– Bigger executable size, shared pool, SYSTEM
tablespace…
 More overhead:
– Daemon processes, hard parses, statistics collection…
 Overhead and bulkiness were tolerable for us.

16
Impressions: Oracle 10g
 Application performance was about the same:
– Most SQL consumed similar resources.
– Due to our hints, OLTP nature, we had not expected
Oracle 10g to run noticeably faster.
– Very few queries ran slow enough in Oracle 10g to be a
problem.
– Oracle 10g did better than 8i when hints were removed,
but not as well as either version with the hints in place.
– If we had started out on Oracle 10g, do we think we
could have done without manual query optimization
(hints)? We do not believe so. 17
Impressions: Oracle 10g
 Discouraged by SQL Tuning Advisor. (But did not
test exhaustively due to frustration.)
 The bottom line for us:
– Install and upgrade went better than we expected.
– Increased overhead and heft are manageable—a fair
exchange for increased functionality and sophistication.
– We expect to get more out of our system than was
possible with Oracle 8i, once we leverage newer
features. (But will proceed in this direction very
cautiously!)
18
Upgrade Issues in Greater
Detail
 Sizing the shared pool and SGA
 Optimizer statistics collection and accuracy
 Query optimization
 SQL Tuning Advisor
 Overhead

19
Sizing the Shared Pool and
SGA
 We like SGA to be only as large as necessary.
 Oracle 8i settings:
– shared_pool_size = 40 Mb
– Total SGA size was 84 Mb
 Oracle 8i performance characteristics:
– 50,000 lines of PL/SQL code
– 15-20 executions per second
– Under 660 hard parses per day
– Buffer cache hit ratio > 97%
– Library cache hit ratio ~100%
20
Sizing the Shared Pool and
SGA
 Oracle 10g settings:
– shared_pool_size = 144 Mb
– Total SGA size is 194 Mb
 Why?
– Minimum shared_pool_size setting for 64 bit platforms
is 144 Mb according to Metalink document 263809.1
– Recommended by Upgrade Information Tool as well

21
Sizing the Shared Pool and
SGA
 Just to satisfy a curiosity…
 shared_pool_size = 48 Mb on Oracle 10g:
– Instance would not start
 shared_pool_size = 64 Mb on Oracle 10g:
– Instance started, but frequent ORA-4031 errors
 shared_pool_size = 96 Mb on Oracle 10g:
– Everything seemed to work properly
 We run Oracle 10g in production with:
– shared_pool_size = 144 Mb
22
Reasons for Larger Shared
Pool
 Three reasons why the shared_pool_size
setting needs to be increased when upgrading
to Oracle 10g:
– Allocation for overhead
– Shared SQL area memory usage
– SQL statements generated by Oracle

23
Allocation for Overhead
 A portion of the shared pool is used to hold
internal memory structures (overhead).
 Oracle 8i and 9i make the shared pool larger
than shared_pool_size specifies in order to allow
space for this overhead.
 Oracle 10g does not make the shared pool
larger than shared_pool_size specifies.
– Thus Oracle 10g gives you less usable space in the
shared pool for the same shared_pool_size setting.
 See Metalink document 270935.1. 24
Allocation for Overhead
 On our Oracle 8i database the shared pool was
about 3 Mb (8%) larger than specified by
shared_pool_size:
SQL> SELECT SUM (bytes) / 1024 / 1024 actual_pool_size
2 FROM v$sgastat
3 WHERE pool = 'shared pool';
ACTUAL_POOL_SIZE
----------------
43.1291847
SQL> SHOW PARAMETER shared_pool_size
NAME TYPE VALUE
------------------------------------ ------- -------------------------
shared_pool_size string 41943040

 We’ve seen the disparity as high as 27%.

25
Shared SQL Area Memory
Usage
 Individual SQL statements appear to occupy more
memory in the shared SQL area in Oracle 10g
than in Oracle 8i.
 In our environment the difference was almost 2x.
 The move from 32 bit Oracle software to 64 bit
accounts for much of this growth.
– How much, we don’t know.

26
Shared SQL Area Memory
Usage
 On our Oracle 8i database:
SQL> SELECT A.username, COUNT(*), SUM (B.sharable_mem) sharable_mem,
2 SUM (B.persistent_mem) persistent_mem,
3 SUM (B.runtime_mem) runtime_mem,
4 SUM (B.sharable_mem + B.persistent_mem + B.runtime_mem)
5 total_mem
6 FROM dba_users A, v$sql B
7 WHERE A.username = 'DBRX_OWNER‘
8 AND B.parsing_user_id = A.user_id
9 GROUP BY A.username;

USERNAME COUNT(*) SHARABLE_MEM PERSISTENT_MEM RUNTIME_MEM TOTAL_MEM

------------ -------- ------------ -------------- ----------- ----------
DBRX_OWNER 362 6,275,020 256,176 1,996,324 8,527,520

27
Shared SQL Area Memory
Usage
 On our Oracle 10g database:
SQL> SELECT A.username, COUNT(*), SUM (B.sharable_mem) sharable_mem,
2 SUM (B.persistent_mem) persistent_mem,
3 SUM (B.runtime_mem) runtime_mem,
4 SUM (B.sharable_mem + B.persistent_mem + B.runtime_mem)
5 total_mem
6 FROM dba_users A, v$sql B
7 WHERE A.username = 'DBRX_OWNER‘
8 AND B.parsing_user_id = A.user_id
9 GROUP BY A.username;

USERNAME COUNT(*) SHARABLE_MEM PERSISTENT_MEM RUNTIME_MEM TOTAL_MEM

------------ -------- ------------ -------------- ----------- ----------
DBRX_OWNER 360 12,941,006 487,048 3,361,160 16,789,214

28
SQL Generated by Oracle
 The shared SQL area on any Oracle instance will
contain statements issued by Oracle itself and not
by the application.
 Often called “internal SQL” or “recursive SQL”.
 Automatic and self-management infrastructure in
Oracle 10g (database and EM Database Control)
generates a lot of internal SQL.
 The shared pool will need to be larger in order to
accommodate the extra statements.
29
SQL Generated by Oracle
 Internal SQL took up an order of magnitude more
space in the shared SQL area of our Oracle 10g
test database than our Oracle 8i test database.
 Internal SQL took up more space in Oracle 10g
than our application code.
 Caveat:
– The Oracle 8i test database was Standard Edition with
minimal options installed.
– The Oracle 10g test database was Enterprise Edition
with “default” options installed.
30
SQL Generated by Oracle
 On our Oracle 8i database:
SQL> SELECT A.username, COUNT(*), SUM (B.sharable_mem) sharable_mem,
2 SUM (B.persistent_mem) persistent_mem,
3 SUM (B.runtime_mem) runtime_mem,
4 SUM (B.sharable_mem + B.persistent_mem + B.runtime_mem)
5 total_mem
6 FROM dba_users A, v$sql B
7 WHERE A.username IN ('DBSNMP', 'SYS', 'SYSTEM', 'SYSMAN')
8 AND B.parsing_user_id = A.user_id
9 GROUP BY A.username;

USERNAME COUNT(*) SHARABLE_MEM PERSISTENT_MEM RUNTIME_MEM TOTAL_MEM

------------ -------- ------------ -------------- ----------- ----------
SYS 192 2,331,619 125,356 569,688 3,026,663
SYSTEM 30 810,325 19,644 163,480 993,449
------------ -------------- ----------- ----------
sum 3,141,944 145,000 733,168 4,020,112

31
SQL Generated by Oracle
 On our Oracle 10g database:
SQL> SELECT A.username, COUNT(*), SUM (B.sharable_mem) sharable_mem,
2 SUM (B.persistent_mem) persistent_mem,
3 SUM (B.runtime_mem) runtime_mem,
4 SUM (B.sharable_mem + B.persistent_mem + B.runtime_mem)
5 total_mem
6 FROM dba_users A, v$sql B
7 WHERE A.username IN ('DBSNMP', 'SYS', 'SYSTEM', 'SYSMAN')
8 AND B.parsing_user_id = A.user_id
9 GROUP BY A.username;

USERNAME COUNT(*) SHARABLE_MEM PERSISTENT_MEM RUNTIME_MEM TOTAL_MEM

------------ -------- ------------ -------------- ----------- ----------
DBSNMP 99 4,161,758 137,504 1,701,032 6,000,294
SYS 695 24,402,627 1,024,744 8,103,496 33,530,867
SYSMAN 670 16,644,400 806,904 4,403,720 21,855,024
SYSTEM 14 533,442 18,152 290,280 841,874
------------ -------------- ----------- ----------
sum 45,742,227 1,987,304 14,498,528 62,228,059

32
 Optimizer Statistics
 Collected optimizer statistics weekly in Oracle 8i:
ANALYZE TABLE table_name ESTIMATE STATISTICS SAMPLE 5 PERCENT;

 Oracle 10g uses gather_stats_job:

– Automatic job runs nightly 10 pm to 6 am.
– Uses dbms_stats.
– Only collects statistics where missing or stale.
– Sample size and histograms “automatic.”
– This is all set up automatically out of the box.

33
Optimizer Statistics: Cost
 Automatic statistics collection in Oracle 10g is
more resource intensive than ANALYZE was in
Oracle 8i:
Resources Used to Collect Oracle8i Oracle 10g
Optimizer Statistics (ANALYZE) (automatic)
CPU seconds 1,101 2,595
Elapsed seconds 2,044 5,244
Logical reads 597,717 73,082,675
Physical reads 545,844 2,926,625

34
 Histogram Creation
 Histograms are one reason statistics collection
in Oracle 10g is so much more expensive:
– Our setup on Oracle 8i created no histograms.
– Oracle 10g created lots of histograms:
SQL> SELECT histogram, COUNT(*)
2 FROM user_tab_columns
3 GROUP BY histogram;

HISTOGRAM COUNT(*)
--------------- ----------
FREQUENCY 267
HEIGHT BALANCED 74
NONE 1202
---------- 35
sum 1543
 Histogram Creation
 If a column has ever been used in a WHERE
clause, Oracle 10g will consider creating a
histogram for it (note col_usage$):
– FREQUENCY histograms for low cardinality columns
– HEIGHT BALANCED histograms for columns with gaps
or skewed data distribution
 Many of the histograms won’t be useful:
– On unindexed columns that only appear in WHERE
clauses alongside a selective, indexed column
– On columns that rarely appear in
WHERE clauses 36
 Sample Size
 Sample size is another reason statistics collection
in Oracle 10g was so much more expensive.
 Oracle 8i sample sizes were consistent:
– Sample sizes on tables over 1 Mb were 4.5 to 5.4%.
– Sample sizes on smaller tables were 100%.
 Oracle 10g sample sizes were all over the map:
– Sample size on 80 Mb table: 100%
– Sample size on 1,088 Mb table: 0.4%
– Sample size on 760 Mb table: 100%
37
 Sample Size
 On our Oracle 10g database:
SQL> SELECT A.table_name, A.num_rows, B.bytes / 1024 / 1024 mb,
2 100 * (A.sample_size / A.num_rows) sample_pct
3 FROM user_tables A, user_segments B
4 WHERE A.table_name IN
5 ('SAMPLE_DATA_FILES', 'SAMPLE_JOBS',
6 'COMMON_SQL_PLAN_PARTS', 'SAMPLE_SQL_TEXTS',
7 'SAMPLE_LIBRARY_CACHE_STATS')
8 AND B.segment_type = 'TABLE‘
9 AND B.segment_name = A.table_name
10 ORDER BY sample_pct;
TABLE_NAME NUM_ROWS MB SAMPLE_PCT
-------------------------- ----------- ---------- ----------
SAMPLE_DATA_FILES 14,938,632 1,088.00 0.4
SAMPLE_JOBS 1,360,429 54.00 4.1
COMMON_SQL_PLAN_PARTS 174,851 9.00 6.9
SAMPLE_LIBRARY_CACHE_STATS 1,414,830 80.00 100.0
SAMPLE_SQL_TEXTS 6,346,638 760.00 100.0

38
 Sample Size
 How Oracle 10g came to sample every row in a
760 Mb table:
– First, Oracle sampled all 35 columns of the table on
0.0892929621% of the rows.
– Next, Oracle sampled 8 of the columns on
0.8929296209% of the rows.
– Next, Oracle sampled 3 of the columns on
8.9292962091% of the rows.
– Finally, Oracle performed a COUNT (DISTINCT) on
one of the columns without a SAMPLE clause.
39
 Optimizer Statistics:
Accuracy
 Oracle 10g optimizer statistics did not appear to
be particularly more accurate than those collected
by ANALYZE in Oracle 8i.
 In particular Oracle 10g’s estimate of distinct
column values was sometimes less accurate than
Oracle 8i’s.
– Could have been caused by excessively small sample
size on some tables (…just a guess)

40
 Optimizer Statistics:
Accuracy
 How accurate do optimizer statistics need to be?
– If every business process on your system gives
satisfactory response time, then the statistics are
accurate enough.
– But if a business process runs too slowly, can you
blame the optimizer statistics?
 We will see some queries that got unsatisfactory
execution plans in our Oracle 10g test
environment.
– Is it the statistics? We don’t know.
41
 Query Optimization
 Queries in our application follow an OLTP
workload model.
– All run quickly (except for quarterly purge).
– Quick, but some are complex.
 We believe we’ve written practical, logical SQL.
 Oracle 8i ran most of our SQL efficiently:
– We added hints to SQL only when response time
concerns arose.
– About 50 statements throughout the application have
hints.
42
 Query Optimization
 Did not expect things to run faster in Oracle 10g.
– Queries already had efficient execution plans in 8i.
– We expect the gains to come when we leverage Oracle
9i and 10g new features.
 Concern: What if some queries run slower in
Oracle 10g?
– In a business process with 100 SQL statements, it only
takes one bad execution plan to slow the whole
process down.

43
The Executive Summary
 Most SQL in our application consumed
roughly the same CPU time and number of
logical reads in Oracle 10g as in Oracle 8i.
 Some statements ran a little faster, and a
few ran a little slower.
 Most workload operations yielded similar
response times in both versions of Oracle.
 Only a very few SQL statements were slow
enough on Oracle 10g to cause concern.
44
Query Optimizer Challenge
 Could Oracle 10g find efficient execution
plans for the queries that required hints in
Oracle 8i?
– Is adding hints to queries a thing of the past?
 Well… not yet:
– Oracle 10g ran the troublesome queries faster
without hints than Oracle 8i without hints.
– However, both versions of Oracle ran the
queries faster with hints than Oracle 10g did
without hints.
45
 Query Optimization in
Detail
 SQL that ran similarly in Oracle 8i and 10g
 SQL that ran faster in Oracle 10g
 SQL that ran faster in Oracle 8i

46
SQL That Ran Similarly
 Loader Daemon comparison
 Performance Summary report comparison
 See the white paper for TKPROF report
excerpts

47
Loader Daemon Comparison
 Loader Daemon parses, validates, and loads
files from our monitoring agents into the
database for analysis and reporting.
 PL/SQL package roughly 7,800 lines long.
 7 SQL statements in the package have hints.
 Starting out with the same data in the Oracle
8i and 10g test databases, we traced the
Loader Daemon on each database while
loading the same agent file into each.
48
Loader Daemon Comparison
Resources Used by Loader Daemon
Oracle 8i Oracle 10g
to Load One Agent File
User SQL statements traced 110 127
Internal SQL statements traced 9 9
Unique SQL statements traced 109 110
Total OCI calls 1,800 1,792
CPU seconds 3.13 3.12
Logical reads 13,767 12,920
Physical reads 6 13

49
Loader Daemon Comparison
 Business process gave roughly same response
time and load profile on Oracle 8i and 10g.
 Fewer logical reads on Oracle 10g:
– Import made 10g segments more compact.
 More user SQL statements traced on Oracle 10g:
– Oracle 10g database had smaller PL/SQL cursor
cache due to behavior change implemented in 9.2.0.5
re open_cursors. (See Metalink document 274496.1.)
– Cache misses lead to extra (soft) parse calls.
– TKPROF reported these extra parse
50
calls as extra traced statements.
 Performance Report
Comparison
 Performance Summary report provides a
summary of performance statistics for one
monitored Oracle database over a specified
period of time (like a Statspack report).
 PL/SQL package roughly 3,200 lines long.
 4 SQL statements in the package have hints.
 Starting out with the same data in the Oracle
8i and 10g test databases, we traced sessions
that called the report with the same
parameters on each database. 51
 Performance Report
Comparison
Resources Used by Performance
Oracle 8i Oracle 10g
Summary Report
User SQL statements traced 98 98
Internal SQL statements traced 10 10
Unique SQL statements traced 98 97
Total OCI calls 654 531
CPU seconds 0.89 0.88
Logical reads 4,641 3,661
Physical reads 1 0

52
 Performance Report
Comparison
 Business process gave roughly same response
time and load profile on Oracle 8i and 10g.
 Fewer logical reads on Oracle 10g again.
 Fewer total OCI calls in Oracle 10g:
– Same number of parse and execute calls.
– Oracle 8i had twice as many fetch calls as 10g.
– It appears as if Oracle 8i did extra fetch calls to make
sure it had retrieved all rows from a cursor, while
perhaps Oracle 10g asked for more rows up front.

53
SQL That Ran Faster in 10g
 We did not expect noticeable response time
improvements on Oracle 10g because
everything already ran “fast enough” on 8i.
 We removed the hints from queries that had
been slow in Oracle 8i to see if Oracle 10g
could find the right execution plan.
 In several cases Oracle 10g did better than
8i did without hints, but 10g’s execution plan
was still far inferior to that chosen when the
hints were in place. 54
Recent Event Notifications
 Query appears in several reports.
 Retrieves a list of recent event notifications for
all databases to which the specified user has
access.
 Joins 7 tables and includes a subquery.
 To get the query to run efficiently in Oracle 8i
we had added a hint to specify join order and
which join algorithm to use for each table.
 Not a trivial query, nor the most complex.
55
Recent Event Notifications
SELECT /*+ ORDERED INDEX (privs) USE_NL (i s ar acr) USE_HASH (t l) */
t.test_severity_id severity, i.instance_id,
NVL (privs.instance_nickname, i.current_instance_name) inst_name,
ar.first_detected, t.short_description brief_description,
l.report_section_id
FROM customer_user_instance_privs privs, customer_instances i,
samples s, analysis_results ar, analysis_common_results acr,
analysis_tests t, lookup_report_40000_formats l
WHERE privs.user_id = :cp_user_id
AND privs.current_cust_user_priv_level IN ('admin', 'read only')
AND i.instance_id = privs.instance_id
AND privs.user_wishes_to_see = 'y'
AND s.instance_id = i.instance_id
AND s.sample_type IN ('ping', 'full_stat')
AND s.sample_date_db_local_time >
(
SELECT s2.sample_date_db_local_time -
(i.display_events_for_so_many_hrs / 24)
FROM samples s2
WHERE s2.sample_id = rpt_util.most_recent_analyzed_sample (i.instance_id)
)
AND ar.sample_id = s.sample_id
AND acr.analysis_common_result_id = ar.analysis_common_result_id
AND t.test_id = acr.test_id
AND t.alert_type = 'event'
AND l.test_id = t.test_id
ORDER BY severity, first_detected DESC, inst_name; 56
Recent Event Notifications
Resources Used by Query With Hint Query Without Hint
Recent Event
Notifications Query Oracle 8i Oracle 10g Oracle 8i Oracle 10g
CPU seconds 0.10 0.09 51.84 2.91
Logical reads 2,208 1,451 1,678,011 4,111
Physical reads 7 0 27,551 0

57
Recent Event Notifications
 Without the hint, Oracle 10g did a better job
than Oracle 8i—but still not good enough:
– Good: Oracle 10g figured out the right time to
perform the subquery.
– Bad: Oracle 10g chose a hash join to a table
with 800,000 rows when nested loops was the
right way to go.
 With the hint, Oracle 10g did better than
Oracle 8i (with the hint) by performing the
subquery as early as possible instead of as
late as possible. 58
 Oracle 8i Without Hint
Rows Execution Plan
------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 SELECT STATEMENT MODE: CHOOSE
0 SORT (ORDER BY)
0 FILTER
7093 HASH JOIN
71 TABLE ACCESS MODE: ANALYZED (FULL) OF 'LOOKUP_REPORT_40000_FORMATS
7092 HASH JOIN
4 TABLE ACCESS MODE: ANALYZED (FULL) OF 'ANALYSIS_TESTS'
512382 HASH JOIN
512382 NESTED LOOPS
832470 HASH JOIN
465504 HASH JOIN
41 TABLE ACCESS MODE: ANALYZED (FULL) OF 'CUSTOMER_INSTANCES'
465504 TABLE ACCESS MODE: ANALYZED (FULL) OF 'SAMPLES'
832469 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (FAST FULL SCAN) OF 'ANALYSIS_RESULTS_PK'
512382 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (UNIQUE SCAN) OF 'CUSTOMER_USER_INST_PRIVS
126110 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (FAST FULL SCAN) OF 'ANALYSIS_COMMON_RESULT
42 TABLE ACCESS MODE: ANALYZED (BY INDEX ROWID) OF 'SAMPLES'
42 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (UNIQUE SCAN) OF 'SAMPLES_PK' (UNIQUE)

59
 Oracle 10g Without Hint
Rows Row Source Operation
------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 SORT ORDER BY (cr=4212 pr=0 pw=0 time=3573213 us)
0 HASH JOIN (cr=4212 pr=0 pw=0 time=3573077 us)
71 TABLE ACCESS FULL LOOKUP_REPORT_40000_FORMATS (cr=3 pr=0 pw=0 time=489
0 HASH JOIN (cr=4209 pr=0 pw=0 time=3562005 us)
4 TABLE ACCESS FULL ANALYSIS_TESTS (cr=18 pr=0 pw=0 time=853 us)
243 HASH JOIN (cr=4191 pr=0 pw=0 time=3554047 us)
126110 INDEX FAST FULL SCAN ANALYSIS_COMMON_RESULTS_N1 (cr=341 pr=0 pw=0 ti
243 HASH JOIN (cr=3850 pr=0 pw=0 time=2830427 us)
343 TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID SAMPLES (cr=391 pr=0 pw=0 time=19666 us
359 NESTED LOOPS (cr=292 pr=0 pw=0 time=578919 us)
15 NESTED LOOPS (cr=58 pr=0 pw=0 time=1791 us)
41 TABLE ACCESS FULL CUSTOMER_INSTANCES (cr=15 pr=0 pw=0 time=759 u
15 INDEX UNIQUE SCAN CUSTOMER_USER_INST_PRIVS_PK (cr=43 pr=0 pw=0 t
343 INLIST ITERATOR (cr=234 pr=0 pw=0 time=40802 us)
343 INDEX RANGE SCAN SAMPLES_UK2 (cr=234 pr=0 pw=0 time=40979 us)(ob
14 TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID SAMPLES (cr=147 pr=0 pw=0 time=3364
14 INDEX UNIQUE SCAN SAMPLES_PK (cr=133 pr=0 pw=0 time=33165 us)(
832469 INDEX FAST FULL SCAN ANALYSIS_RESULTS_PK (cr=3459 pr=0 pw=0 time=16

60
SQL That Ran Slower in 10g
 SQL noticeably slower in very few cases on 10g.
 A report ran unacceptably slower after the
upgrade:
– CPU time doubled.
– Logical reads increased by order of magnitude.
 Slowdown attributed to one query (which runs
many times):
SELECT B.value
FROM common_stat_names A, sample_sysstats B
WHERE A.name = :p_statname
AND B.common_stat_name_id = A.common_stat_name_id
AND B.sample_id = :p_sample_id;
61
 Sample Stats Query
 On our Oracle 8i database:
call count cpu elapsed disk query current rows
------- ------ -------- ---------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Parse 1 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0
Execute 1 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0
Fetch 2 0.00 0.00 0 6 0 1
------- ------ -------- ---------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
total 4 0.00 0.00 0 6 0 1

Rows Execution Plan

------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 SELECT STATEMENT MODE: CHOOSE
1 NESTED LOOPS
2 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (RANGE SCAN) OF 'COMMON_STAT_NAMES_PK' (UNIQUE
1 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (UNIQUE SCAN) OF 'SAMPLE_SYSSTATS_PK' (UNIQUE)

62
 Sample Stats Query
 On our Oracle 10g database:
call count cpu elapsed disk query current rows
------- ------ -------- ---------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Parse 1 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0
Execute 1 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0
Fetch 2 0.01 0.01 0 244 0 1
------- ------ -------- ---------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
total 4 0.01 0.01 0 244 0 1

Rows Row Source Operation

------- ---------------------------------------------------
1 NESTED LOOPS (cr=244 pr=0 pw=0 time=893 us)
234 INDEX RANGE SCAN SAMPLE_SYSSTATS_PK (cr=5 pr=0 pw=0 time=1152 us)
1 INDEX RANGE SCAN COMMON_STAT_NAMES_UK1 (cr=239 pr=0 pw=0 time=9472 us)

63
 Sample Stats Query
 Who cares about a 0.01 second query?
– Suppose the query runs 50+ times each time a
popular report is viewed?
 Adding an ORDERED hint to the query made
Oracle 10g choose the correct execution plan.
 The same exact behavior occurred in both our
test and production Oracle 10g environments.
 Both tables in the query are IOTs.
– Oracle has determined this is “a problem with the
optimizer caching cost model.” 64
 SQL Tuning Advisor
 Cool sounding Oracle 10g feature that studies
a query and makes recommendations:
– You tell Advisor how long to study the query.
– Advisor could recommend rewrite.
– Advisor could collect additional statistics that can
be saved in data dictionary as a “profile” to be used
whenever the statement is parsed in the future.
 Opens the door to fixing bad queries without
modifying the application code.

65
 SQL Tuning Advisor
 We had already added hints to all queries that
ran unacceptably slow.
 We’ve already discussed that taking those
hints away in Oracle 10g led to inferior
response times.
 So what if we took the hints away and let the
SQL Tuning Advisor recommend a solution for
each troublesome query?

66
Recent Event Notifications
SQL> SELECT dbms_sqltune.report_tuning_task
2 ('Tuning case 47696', 'TEXT', 'ALL', 'ALL')
3 FROM SYS.dual;
DBMS_SQLTUNE.REPORT_TUNING_TASK('TUNINGCASE47696','TEXT','ALL','ALL')
---------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL INFORMATION SECTION
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuning Task Name : Tuning case 47696
Tuning Task ID : 951
Scope : COMPREHENSIVE
Time Limit(seconds): 600
Completion Status : COMPLETED
Started at : 01/27/2005 13:42:34
Completed at : 01/27/2005 13:42:48
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL ID : b6c2qka14951z
SQL Text: SELECT t.test_severity_id severity, i.instance_id,
...
ORDER BY severity, first_detected DESC, inst_name
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There are no recommendations to improve the statement.
67
 Sample Stats Query
SQL> SELECT dbms_sqltune.report_tuning_task
2 ('Tuning case 47694', 'TEXT', 'ALL', 'ALL')
3 FROM SYS.dual;
DBMS_SQLTUNE.REPORT_TUNING_TASK('TUNINGCASE47694','TEXT','ALL','ALL')
---------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL INFORMATION SECTION
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuning Task Name : Tuning case 47694
Tuning Task ID : 950
Scope : COMPREHENSIVE
Time Limit(seconds): 600
Completion Status : COMPLETED
Started at : 01/27/2005 13:32:02
Completed at : 01/27/2005 13:32:03
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL ID : g5pqqgcuq8pma
SQL Text: SELECT B.value /* tuning case 47694 */
FROM common_stat_names A, sample_sysstats B
WHERE A.name = :p_statname
AND B.common_stat_name_id = A.common_stat_name_id
AND B.sample_id = :p_sample_id
---------------------------------------------------------------------
68
There are no recommendations to improve the statement.
Sample Stats Query – Try
#2
SQL> SELECT dbms_sqltune.report_tuning_task
2 ('Tuning case 47725', 'TEXT', 'ALL', 'ALL')
3 FROM SYS.dual;
DBMS_SQLTUNE.REPORT_TUNING_TASK('TUNINGCASE47725','TEXT','ALL','ALL')
---------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL INFORMATION SECTION
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuning Task Name : Tuning case 47725
Tuning Task ID : 956
Scope : COMPREHENSIVE
Time Limit(seconds): 600
Completion Status : COMPLETED
Started at : 01/27/2005 15:09:12
Completed at : 01/27/2005 15:09:13
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL ID : 3kt66qm84bcnz
SQL Text: SELECT B.value
FROM common_stat_names A, sample_sysstats B
WHERE A.name = 'user commits'
AND B.common_stat_name_id = A.common_stat_name_id
AND B.sample_id = 575783
----------------------------------------------------------------------
69
There are no recommendations to improve the statement.
 A Trivial Query
SQL> SELECT dbms_sqltune.report_tuning_task
2 ('Tuning case 47702', 'TEXT', 'ALL', 'ALL')
3 FROM SYS.dual;
DBMS_SQLTUNE.REPORT_TUNING_TASK('TUNINGCASE47702','TEXT','ALL','ALL')
---------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL INFORMATION SECTION
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuning Task Name : Tuning case 47702
Tuning Task ID : 952
Scope : COMPREHENSIVE
Time Limit(seconds): 600
Completion Status : COMPLETED
Started at : 01/27/2005 13:51:45
Completed at : 01/27/2005 13:51:57
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL ID : 9cz4z8xvtxbm1
SQL Text: SELECT instance_id, sample_type, sample_date_db_local_time
/* tuning case 47702 */
FROM samples
WHERE sample_id + 1 = :sample_id

70
 A Trivial Query
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FINDINGS SECTION (1 finding)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1- Restructure SQL finding (see plan 1 in explain plans section)

----------------------------------------------------------------
The predicate "SAMPLES"."SAMPLE_ID"+1=:B1 used at line ID 1 of the execution
plan contains an expression on indexed column "SAMPLE_ID". This expression
prevents the optimizer from selecting indices on table
"DBRX_OWNER"."SAMPLES".

Recommendation
--------------
Rewrite the predicate into an equivalent form to take advantage of
indices. Alternatively, create a function-based index on the expression.

Rationale
---------
The optimizer is unable to use an index if the predicate is an inequality
condition or if there is an expression or an implicit data type conversion
on the indexed column. 71
 A Trivial Query
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPLAIN PLANS SECTION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1- Original
-----------
Plan hash value: 3806118825

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 4656 | 122K| 2375 (4)| 00:00:29 |
| 1 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| SAMPLES | 4656 | 122K| 2375 (4)| 00:00:29 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Query Block Name / Object Alias (identified by operation id):

-------------------------------------------------------------

1 - SEL$1 / SAMPLES@SEL$1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
72
 Overhead
 What does the automation, self-management,
and new functionality of Oracle 10g cost us?
 For example:
– Memory usage
– The cost of a parse
– CPU usage by automation and self-mgmt processes
 As you would expect, all of these go up
noticeably with Oracle 10g.
 For us, the increases were all manageable.
73
SYS Has Put on Weight
 Oracle 8i production (SE, minimal options):
– 2,303 objects in SYS schema
– 100 Mb allocated in SYSTEM tablespace
 Oracle 10g production (SE, minimal options):
– 6,284 objects in SYS schema
– 454 Mb allocated in SYSTEM, SYSAUX
 Oracle 10g test (EE, “default” options):
– 21,848 objects in SYS schema
– 800 Mb allocated in SYSTEM, SYSAUX
74
 Memory Usage
Oracle Dedicated Server Processes Oracle 8i Oracle 10g
Resident set size of Oracle process 97 Mb 224 Mb
Total virtual memory size of Oracle process 121 Mb 301 Mb
SGA size according to v$sgastat 84 Mb 197 Mb
Size of the Oracle executable 32 Mb 95 Mb

 Process stats from prstat and top

 Total VM size includes SGA
 Remember: 32 bit to 64 bit change

75
 Hard Parse Cost
 Hard parses have been expensive in Oracle for a
long time.
 Mechanisms to reduce the need for hard parses:
– Shared SQL area
– Bind variables
 Hard parses should be a one-time expense in
properly designed systems.
 As the optimizer gets more sophisticated you
might expect hard parses to get more expensive.
 In Oracle 10g, they do. 76
 Hard Parse Cost
Comparison
Agent File 1 (hard parse)
Resources used by Loader Daemon
Oracle 8i Oracle 10g
User SQL statements traced 110 127
Internal SQL statements traced 402 977
Unique SQL statements traced 139 149
Total OCI calls 9,094 10,754
CPU seconds 7.49 10.94
Logical reads 26,776 27,373
Physical reads 695 959

77
 Hard Parse Cost
Comparison
Agent File 2 (soft parse)
Resources used by Loader Daemon
Oracle 8i Oracle 10g
User SQL statements traced 110 127
Internal SQL statements traced 9 9
Unique SQL statements traced 109 110
Total OCI calls 1,800 1,784
CPU seconds 3.10 3.09
Logical reads 13,763 12,912
Physical reads 8 13

78
 Hard Parse Cost
Comparison
Difference
Resources used by Loader Daemon
Oracle 8i Oracle 10g
User SQL statements traced 0 0
Internal SQL statements traced 393 968
Unique SQL statements traced 30 39
Total OCI calls 7,294 8,970
CPU seconds 4.39 7.85
Logical reads 13,013 14,461
Physical reads 687 946

79
 CPU Used by Oracle
Daemons
 How much additional CPU time will Oracle
10g daemons consume?
 Simple test: Measure CPU usage on an idle
instance.
 Flaws in this test:
– Some Oracle features probably use more
resources on a busy database than an idle one
(eg AWR).
– How do you measure CPU time accurately?
(We used sar.)
80
CPU Usage Comparison
 No Oracle processes running:
02:00:03 %usr %sys %wio %idle
02:05:03 0 4 0 96
02:10:03 0 4 0 96
02:15:03 0 4 0 96

 Idle Oracle 8i instance:

02:00:03 %usr %sys %wio %idle
02:05:03 1 4 1 94
02:10:03 0 4 1 95
02:15:03 0 4 0 95

 Idle Oracle 10g instance plus EMDC:

13:00:05 %usr %sys %wio %idle
13:05:05 5 6 3 87
13:10:05 3 6 2 89
13:15:05 3 6 4 88

81
Activity in Idle Oracle 10g
 An AWR report for a one hour period on an
Oracle 10g instance with no user activity
showed:
– 27,000 statement executions
– 49 CPU seconds used
– 8 Mb redo generated

82
 Wrapping Up
 We’ve been happy with Oracle 10g:
– Installed easily
– Upgrade went smoothly
– No serious compatibility issues
– Very few response time issues caused by upgrade
– New features ought to justify increased heft,
complexity, and overhead
 For us, the upgrade justification boiled down to
getting the experience. Technology-wise, Oracle
8i was already meeting our needs.
83
 Always Remember
 Each Oracle system is unique and will have its
own challenges.
 Never take somebody else’s word on anything
when it comes to Oracle technology.
 In this session we are only relaying one
company’s experiences.
 The only way for you to know how your specific
system will fare on Oracle 10g is to try it—in a
test environment—and see.
84
 White Paper
 Contains additional topics and examples we
didn’t have time to discuss today
 Contains additional "supporting evidence" for
conclusions reached in today's session that we
didn’t have time to discuss or that couldn’t fit
legibly on a PowerPoint slide
– TKPROF reports, execution plans, AWR reports
 Download: www.dbspecialists.com/presentations

85
Contact Information
Roger Schrag
Database Specialists, Inc.
388 Market Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94111

Tel: 415/344-0500
Email: rschrag@dbspecialists.com
Web: www.dbspecialists.com

86