Customer Reviews

Oracle Wait Interface: A Practical Guide to Performance Diagnostics & Tuning (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)

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if you're into the whole wait event thang, get this book. This is a great resource. Very interesting reading! Chapter 4 presents an event data collector (page 86: Sampling for performance data using pl/sql procedure), a very nice idea. The logoff trigger discussed in the same chapter is nice too. Chapter 5 gives a good overview of some of the most important I/O related wait events. Chapter 6, Locks and latches. Chapter 7, latency related wait events. And then there's tons more, look inside the book and see what I mean...
All in all, this is one of the best Oracle books of the past six months. My other favorite would be 'Oracle Insights' from Oaktable press.

I've implemented the data collector mentioned inchapter 4 to diagnose some performance problems. If you're interested, you can download the code for free from my website, www rhdba dot com. Look under Oracle SQL Scripts -> Event data collector.

Other must have books:
- Tom Kyte's 'Expert one-on-one' and 'Effective Oracle by Design'
- Cary Millsap and Jeff Holt 'Optimizing Oracle Performance'
- Oaktable press 'Oracle Insights'

A lot of people have been talking about monitoring and tuning using the "wait interface". There are too many sites around with bits and pieces of the necessary information, but up until now there wasn't a complete source on the subject.

Having used Oracle since 1984, I have read just about every advanced book on Oracle databases. This one is right at the top of the list for anyone wanting to learn how to accurately monitor and tune Oracle databases.

Here at last is a single, complete and authoritative reference for all to use. And what I like the best: it is not restricted to a single version of Oracle. Simply the best reference right now.

The book is simply spectacular, both for the quality of its writing as well as the depth of the material. Practical? Indeed, indispensible!

The three authors, Richmond Shee, Kirti Deshpande, and K Gopalakrishnan, have done a wonderful job in organizing a enormous subject area into manageable chunks. They have also managed to render potentially bone-dry source material into very readable text, interspersed heavily with code examples and output, sidebars, and analogies. This is a good read as well as an authoritative reference. I'm still unable to read it steadily for long periods of time, as the analogy of trying to drink from a fire-hose is relevant here. But picking it up and reading different sections, treating it like a reference, has proved rewarding. Richmond, Kirti, and K had an absolute "dream team" of reviewers on this book in Kyle Hailey, John Kanagaraj, Craig Shallahamer, and Graham Wood. The combined efforts of the three authors and the four technical editors blows my mind.

All I can say is - get it! You may (like me) not read it immediately. But, keep it handy. Along with the Google, Ixora, Asktom, JLComp, MetaLink websites, this book is the place to find explanation for the unexplainable in Oracle. Start skimming through it and recognize situations that had previously baffled now being explained (and proved) in full. It is like a light coming on.

I recently attended a local OUG Meeting in which Richmond gave a presentation on the efficient use of the Oracle Wait Interface to diagnose and solve performance problems. His presentation and philosopy corroborated another source that I had read "Performance Tuning 101" Unfortunately, I didn't win one of the three copies that he was giving away at the meeting. Instead, I went straight back to the office to order this book. It is everything I expected and more. I particularly appreciate chapter 4 in which the authors provide step by step instruction on how to create your own tool for monitoring and collecting wait interface data. I just implemented this new tool in a production environment and have already been able to diagnose some potential application "issues". This book rocks.

An excellent read, I have to say that it exceeds my expectations. For those who are just getting exposed to the myths of OWI, a must read from cover to cover.
Having worked in Performance Tuning for the last few years I never come across a book which is complete in itself and needs no additional reference to other books or documents.

The authors of this book have done an excellent job in exposing invaluable information on Oracle wait Interface. Particularly, they targeted the most important waits that one must pay attention to while dealing with Oracle performance issues. On the contrary to misconceptions floating around usage of x$ which was thought to hamper performance the author clearly demonstrates its use throughout the book.

This is one of a kind book available. A book like this should be part of all serious DBAs reference collection. More importantly one of the very very few books that helps not only identifying the problem but actually offers a solution for the same....provides a cause for the event and ways to alleviate it.

Kudos to the authors for writing such a wonderful book and would highly recommend it for anybody wanting to plunge into the OWI gold mine.

Fantastic work
From,
Vinod Haval

I bought this book in order to improve my skills in performance tuning and I have to say that it exceeds my expectations. All Oracle events are described with their common causes and actions to take in order to reduce them... Great work... So a big thank for that book which will make every DBA a much better one !

Also, I would like to thank you the Author (K. Deshpande) on replying for my queries...

Regards,

L.

If you are serious about solving Oracle performance issues, this book is required reading. If you are not serious, read it anyway so you can understand why you need to get serious. This book is not just an explanation of each wait event, but why it occurs and where to look for solutions. The coverage of the extensive changes in 10g and collection methods cannot be found anywhere else. This book lives up to the title!

Richmond, Kirti and K. take the time to research everything that they present. They do not simply rehash Oracle documentation, nor do they make unfounded assertions. This scientific approach offers reassurance that what you read is what you really see, not some slick marketing designed to sell you additional products or services.

The book is packed with examples, scenarios, code (especially the direct sga attach program).

The bottom line is that the book shows you why you should use the wait interface, how to use it, what to look for and what it means to the system.

Hi,

My Heartiest Congratulations to the Authors of the Book for an Excellent Book.

I am in Performance Tuning since last few years and have never come across such a wonderful book which is complete in itself and needs no additional reference to other book or documents.

The Book also exposes to much informative and required x$ views boldly. For many years, I have been interacting with many Oracle Executives and each of one claimed that using x$ is not advisable and it can hamper performance and blah blah blah.... But the author boldly said that these are misconceptions and have boldly demonstrated the use of these throughout the book.

I would also appreciate the promptness of the Author (K. Gopal) on replying for my queries raised during reading of this book.

Congrats again.
Thanks
Vivek Sharma

This is one of my favorite books. It gives easy to understand descriptions and examples. It is a must have for tuning. It is nicely organized and highly useful in a "crisis" situation.

Hats off to Kirti & Richmond and to the editors I don't have to remember everything 'cept where I put this book.

This is truly the only good book on wait interface. Very well written and explained very succinctly...

Chapters on IO and latch related wait events are great reads..
This book is top notch along with oracle perf tuning 101 and practical oracle 8i..