Customer Reviews

Oracle SQL High-Performance Tuning (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If the idea of slow database response scares you, this is a good place to start. You hear "tuning a database" a lot, but most of it comes too late. There are some queries that no disks, no CPU, and no amount of memory can speed up. Guy Harrison (well named) is expert on tuning SQL, and knows how to write about it in a way that makes it easy for you to benefit.

Besides giving you lots examples of how SQL and PL/SQL can work well, Guy shows you how to use the tools (explain plan, SQL*Trace, Tkprof) that let you know when you are getting close. Actually, he points out that you need to set performance goals early on, and keep testing to see if you are on track; if you don't do that early, it may be too late when you realize you need help. One of my favorite sections is on tuning joins and sub-queries and the accompanying graph showing 197,664 block gets if you do it wrong (wrong index), and 45 if you do it right (using pl/sql instead of correlated subqueries).

The title of this review aside, Guy has good sections on tuning an instance, looking at instance settings and hardware, that can be helpful if you get the application working well and still have slow response times, but most of the chances to have an application that works are available during planning and development, and this book defintely helps there. If you like working with Oracle, and want to know more, you will benefit from this book.

Turned right to the page I needed and got started on the solution.

What out-dated material? Did they move the SGA? Are we not using SQL anymore?

This is an outstanding book by an author with actual experience in the field who's taken the time to produce extensive examples. Not just the trivial examples for syntax diagrams, Mr. Harrison demonstrates the discipline required of tuning, performance testing, data gathering and analysis.

My copy has pages 59-61 and is just about error-free. I suppose it may be possible that the word "select" may have been mis-spelled somewhere, but if you get stuck on that, you've probably got bigger problems that need to be dealt with before buying this book.

Who is it that writes those negative reviews; a competitive author or just someone with a brain-fart? It skews the results unfairly. Shouldn't stand-out books like these have something more relevant than just a blank value judgement?

It was a real jaw-dropper to see "unuseful" in a review about this book after having landed a contract to implement one of the techniques straight off the page.

If you get nothing else out of this book, know that tuning SQL will give you orders of magnitude improvement in performance, while fiddle-farting with the init.ora will get you a percentage, in other words, not even a factor.

Which would you rather have...10% or 10 times?

I do have one complaint...the new cover is too gaudy, if not down-right garish. But then, I bought it for the content, not the cover.

Of all the SQL tuning books available on the market, this one provides the most depth. It provides solid, easy to follow examples. The flaw in this book is that it just provides 'techniques' for improving performance. It's basically a book that is useful for trial and error SQL tuning.

When tuning SQL you should think in terms of sets and essentially 'What can I do to make the optimizer do the least work?' This book does not teach you to do that. I've yet to see one book that does. It also only discusses response time. Response time is an ends and is not a means in SQL tuning. By reducing the amount of work Oracle has to do, you improve response time.

There is one serious inaccuracy in this book. I emailed the author about this and he did not respond. The author states that you can improve response time of updates, by wrapping them inside of a PL/SQL cursor. This is not only inaccurate, it's not even close. Not only does it take twice as long in Oracle 8i(slightly less in 9i), but it also increases logical I/Os significantly. How something this inaccurate could be missed in a major publication astounds me. To be fair, the 8i version of Steven Fuersteins PL/SQL book has the same inaccuracy(I have not read the 9i version).

The rest of the book seems accurate. I recommend it, but beware that inaccuracy. I have not tested everything the author has stated, but I have not found any other inaccuracies.

I had a nagging and peculiar performance problem with a specific query involving a quirk in the Oracle optimizer which I had been trying to solve on and off for months. With the help of this book, I resolved the problem. It has a level of detail in query optimization way beyond other "highly recommended" books. The explanations are clear, *complete* (completeness was lacking in the other books), and easy and enjoyable to read. I finally have the understanding of these Oracle internals that I have been seeking!

This book has it all. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I can only hope that there are similar books available if my work ever shifts to competing databases.

After 3 years of working with Oracle 7, I've only amassed about 1% of the practical knowledge and insights that Mr. Harrison shares with us in this book. Like the title suggests, it teaches Oracle database and SQL statement performance tuning rules, strategies and tips. However, it also dips into other valuable topics like principles of indexing, explaining the ever-mysterious tkprof output, configuring and tuning the database server itself, and listing other resources to fill the void of Oracle documentation.

This book and Fuerstein's PL/SQL programming book have become standard issue for all developers on our project.

I do a lot of SQL tuning for Oracle. This book is the best book I have read in this subject. It is not bias, it is clear, easy to understand, with good practical examples. It is written for a truly expert in Oracle SQL tuning. Using plain english the author explains a lot of concepts that are fundamental for a successful SQL tuning effort. I read the 1st edition more than once, and I am reading the 2nd edition for the second time. If you already have the first edition, it is worth to purchase the second edition that has been updated and feeded with additional elements. If you only have the time to read one book in Oracle SQL tuning, this is your book.

I have read this book cover to cover and more. I have been using this book since 1998 and I still have to say it is good book.It is one of the Oracle Classics. It is a little outdated. If you look at the cover it clearly states it covers to oracle 8i. If you still have 8i databases this is a good book. if you are using 9i and cost based optimization it is still useful but it will not pick up on some of the newer fetures of the CBO. If you use Rule based optimization(RBO) than it is a good book. I had actually used this book as a teaching guide when I use to teach SQL Tuning for an application software company who uses oracle database. I look forward to when the revised version does ship.

This is a MUST HAVE book if you're writing lots of SQL (in Oracle) and need to make sure it is as efficient as possible. Lots of real-world examples, with side-by-side comparisons of different queries that all produce the same result via different methods. It is easy to apply these techniques in my work. I have six books from Oracle Press, and while they are good as reference material, I find myself using them basically for syntax or server tuning, and never for PL/SQL tuning. Guy Harrison's book is a permanent fixture on my desk; this book covers table access methods, how to avoid unnecessary table scans, how to use TKPROF (with some excellent ratios and things to look for in the output), etc. The list goes on. I would strongly recommend this to anyone who writes SQL (in Oracle) on a daily basis.

I've been tuning Oracle Applications instances for several customers, this book is the best in its class. It is easy to read, it follows a logical path. I always use it as my main reference book for SQL tuning. If you want to increase your knowledge in Oracle SQL tuning, this is the book. It provides good examples and explains concepts very well.

This book is vastly superior to 99% of other purported tuning books. This book has saved me huge amounts of time, and assisted me in solving numerous performance problems, with great benefit to myself and my clients.

True - there appear to be some minor syntax errors; this only proves that Mr. Harrison is human. I seriously question the credibility of anyone who would call this book not useful. That is simply not a believable statement.