Oracle Performance Tuning and Optimization [Paperback]

Edward Whalen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1996

As today's IS departments move toward client/server environments, the demand and need for RDBMS performance tuning rapidly increases. This book is written to address that need and provide system administrators the detailed information they need to effectively maintain an efficient RDBMS.
-- Shows readers how to design an efficient client/server environment
-- Teaches ways to fine tune legacy systems
-- CD-ROM includes source code from the book and various powerful utilities

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

As today's IS departments move toward Client/Server environments, the demand and need for RDBMS performance tuning rapidly increases. This book is written to address that need and provide system administrators the detailed information they need to effectively maintain an efficient RDBMS. - Shows readers how to design an efficient client/server environment

- Teaches ways to fine tune legacy systems

- CD-ROM includes source code from the book and various powerful utilities

Product Details

• Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: Sams Publishing (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067230886X
• ISBN-13: 978-0672308864
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,876,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I started my database career at Compaq Computer Corporation in around 1991. I was working as a SCO Unix kernel developer in the Unix group when I was asked to help with an Oracle benchmark. After working with Oracle I found that Oracle performance was very challenging and interesting. Eventually they started a database performance group and I was part of it. In this role I continued to work with Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server performance on both Unix and Windows. While I was at Compaq I started my writing career.
In 1997 I left Compaq and founded Performance Tuning Corporation (www.perftuning.com). At Performance Tuning Corporation we do database performance, integration and disaster recovery consulting and I continue to write books. I am currently working on the "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Administrator's Companion" which is my 9th book. I continue to enjoy database performance consulting as well as being at home with my wife and playing with our Border Collies. I enjoy being able to work with customers and I am constantly learning new things about Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful concepts, limited detail, May 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Oracle Performance Tuning and Optimization (Paperback)

The book is a nice compilation of performance issues and general strategies for improving database performance. However, there are few detailed examples and concrete samples of how different approaches can result in different performance. Much of the book differs little in content from the Oracle documentation. If you need more insight or information than the Oracle documentation provides, this is not the book.

3.0 out of 5 stars Shallow, boring and irrelevant, May 10, 2007

By 

Dmitry Dvoinikov (Ekaterinburg, Russia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oracle Performance Tuning and Optimization (Paperback)

This book contains so little information about Oracle - it could have been called "AnyOtherDatabase Performance Tuning and Optimization".

The author presumably has been doing a lot of database tuning and optimization, but only from the administrator side. When an application is already deployed and you need to speed it up without touching the application itself, there is not much you can do - beef up the I/O subsystem, memory and the CPU power. In different variations this is repeated many times throughout the book, like "so, you need to optimize OLTP system ? throw in I/O, memory and CPUs", "so, you need to optimize a DSS ? throw in I/O, memory and CPUs"... And so on and so forth.

Parameter tweaking is considered and the book contains a list of may be a hundred Oracle configuration parameters, each accompanied with an explanation few lines long. But then, the book has been published in 1996, many changes have been introduced since thus greatly minimizing this reference's value.

40 little chapters contain so many irrelevant details about different operating systems and TPC benchmarks and CISC vs. RISC CPUs and RAIDs explained and whatnot, but so little about Oracle as such - it's boring.

Besides, there are things that are confusing at best. When explaining BLOBs, the author doesn't even mention the fact that they are stored separately and access to those separate segments is not cached at all. Instead, he treats BLOBs as though they were just huge VARCHARS, saying

[quote]
In the other types of database applications you have seen, it is unlikely that a single record is larger than a data block. With BLOBs, it is certain that a single record will span many data blocks.
[/quote]

and

[quote]
In a BLOB system, increasing the database block size greatly improves performance. [...] having a larger block size brings
more of the rows into the SGA at once. Having these additional rows in the SGA can benefit you because you will be using them.
[/quote]

Perhaps, I'm missing something, or Oracle has changed but this is at least misleading.

Oh, it also contains the infamous "problem solving algorithm": "if you have a problem you should determine the cause and try to fix it, then repeat until the problem is solved". Duh ! A sure tell-tale of a lack of real information.

Anyhow, not worth reading.