Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning [Paperback]

Donald Burleson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0072190582 | ISBN-13: 978-0072190588 | Publication Date: July 27, 2001 | Edition: 1

From the official Oracle Press comes a comprehensive guide to tuning SQL statements for optimal execution. This expert resource explains how to view the internal execution plan of any SQL statement and change it to improve the performance of the statement. You'll get details on Oracle's optimizer modes, SQL extensions, the STATSPACK utility, and a wealth of methods for tuning Oracle SQL statements.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Improve Database Performance by Tuning SQL Statements

Tune all types of SQL statements--from a simple SELECT statement to a complex non-correlated subquery--using tips and techniques from SQL expert Don Burleson. Officially authorized by Oracle Corporation, this in-depth resource explains how to take any SQL statement, view the internal execution plan, and change the execution plan to improve the performance of the statement. You'll get details on Oracle's optimizer modes, SQL extensions, the STATSPACK utility, and a wealth of methods for tuning Oracle SQL statements.

• Understand how SQL tuning fits into the overall Oracle tuning model
• Improve Oracle SQL functionality using extensions such as in-line views and BIFs
• Identify and report on SQL in the library cache
• Tune SQL table access, full-table scans, and parallel query
• Run TKPROF to get a SQL trace report
• Change the execution plans for Oracle SQL statements using Oracle hints
• Use the Oracle8i optimizer plan stability, cost-based optimizer, and rule-based optimizer
• Tune SQL DML statements, SQL subqueries, and data warehouse SQL
• Tune SQL with temporary tables and indexes
• Diagnose and optimize system performance using STATSPACK

About the Author

Don Burleson (Kittrell, NC) has 20 years of experience as a database administrator and has written 9 books on database management including Oracle SAP Administration (O’Reilly), High-Performance Oracle8 Tuning, High-Performance Oracle Data Warehousing, High-Performance Oracle Database Applications (Coriolis) and Oracle8 Tuning, German Edition (Sybex). Don has taught more than 100 University courses and regularly conducts in-house Oracle training.

Product Details

• Paperback: 656 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (July 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072190582
• ISBN-13: 978-0072190588
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,226,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Donald K. Burleson is one of the world's most widely published Database experts with more than 20 years of full-time DBA experience.

He specializes in creating database architectures for very large online databases and he has worked with some of the world's most powerful and complex systems.

A former Adjunct Professor Emeritus, Burleson has written 30 books, published more than 100 articles in National Magazines, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Rampant TechPress.

Don is a popular lecturer and teacher and is a frequent speaker at Oracle Openworld and other international database conferences.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ancient coverage, February 6, 2006

By 

Lorraine de DBA - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning (Paperback)

I'm sure that this was a great book in it's day, but it is 5 years old and useful only for firewood. The rule optimizer is not even there anymore. [...]

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for deeper understanding of sql performance, September 7, 2001

By 

"greatnate_2000" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning (Paperback)

After having tuned our server, network, and database it was clear that the remaining slow performance was due to the SQL.
This led me to the purchase of this book which has not disapointed. This book goes into great detail about how sql statements effect database performance and how to correct it.
After just the first few chapters, I was able to quickly find 'hot' sql statements and see how they were causing bad performance due to full table scans, merge joins, slow index scans, hints, built in functions, sorting etc. This book gives a good explanation to the various table / index access methods and thus improved my ability to look at an explain plan and quickly see problem areas. With this book I have better understanding of the options to correct them without messing with the sql code. Infact, most all of these are correctable without changing the sql code - my favorite part.
There is of course a lot written on tuning to the code that can make great strides in performance as well, but as a dba and not a developer, I was more focused on things I could do to improve performance without changing the code.

The scrips with the book are especially good - pull sql out of the library cache on the fly, or out of statspack tables for hisorical analysis - and get reports on full table scans, various index scan reports, etc. These alone make the usefulness of this book fast and easy - worth it.

In short, I recomend this book to anyone wanting a better understanding of how sql code is affecting your DB performance as well as options to correct it. This is good if you have applications where you can't change the code (or just don't want to) but see improvements in performance need be made.

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars no detail and some mistake, September 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Oracle High-Performance SQL Tuning (Paperback)

The book never go deep into sql even the author promised to do so, it is not a step-by-step guild that dbas can follow, and the seasoned dba also do not need this book because of nothing new.
You can see some obvious mistake in this book, for example, about the hash join, Mr. Burleson told us in the page 67 and page 391 that the hash table probe the large table, but oracle document said large table probes the hash table.

I hope to see some detail about the analyse of execution plan of table join and scenario, but there is none.