Oracle Tuning & Monitoring Utilities Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting

Advanced Oracle Utilities: The Definitive Reference by Rampant TechPress is written by top Oracle database experts (Bert Scalzo, Donald Burleson, and Steve Callan).  The following is an excerpt from the book.

One of a DBA’s most challenging and yet highly rewarding activities is database monitoring, diagnostics and tuning. Therefore, expect this chapter to be like the financial or sports sections of the USA Today newspaper – the place where many people go first and often. Because as the cartoon above so truly states, management and/or customers will most often measure a DBA by the database performance even though they did not write the application code. Think of it like the racecar driver who wins or loses a race: it is the driving and not the design or mechanical condition of the racecar that day that gets the credit or the blame. It is much the same with DBAs. If the database is humming along nicely, he is the golden child at the company. But when the database tanks, and regardless of whether the fault lies with the database or with the application, people simply expect the DBA to make the difference. It is his problem and it must be fixed ASAP.

Fortunately, Oracle versions 10g and 11g have made the tasks of monitoring, diagnostics and tuning much easier. In many respects, the self-diagnostic and self-healing claims are warranted. When properly planned and configured, a modern Oracle database needs much less care and attention than in days past. However, that requires effective planning and efficient configuration as well as some managed best practices to maintain that happy state. This chapter will focus on the tools Oracle provides to support those efforts. Note that portions of this chapter may appear version specific, optional, or otherwise less than automatic. Failure to utilize these tools can very often be cited as the primary cause for less than optimal database performance over the long term. Moreover, several key utilities in the next chapter on advisories will depend heavily upon having correctly made appropriate choices here. Thus, this chapter should be regarded as a prerequisite for the next.

Returning to the racecar driver example, this chapter is much like the process of graduating from a road racing course. The driver requires this knowledge of the basics long before entering and participating in any actual race. The next chapter then is much like the racecar drivers’ plan for a specific race on a specific date.

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