Creativity and innovation are two qualities of Oracle performance training that DBAs often overlook. It requires versatility and an understanding of different user, developer, and business owner roles. It is a task of greater depth and complexity than simply adding a few missing indexes or increasing buffer speed. DBAs must understand that Oracle performance tuning is a multi-faceted process that must be approached with deeper thought than such quick-fix “solutions”.
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Successful Oracle tuning requires the DBA to take on many roles. Sometimes he must act like a detective uncovering Oracle performance issues from reports of potentially misleading data. Sometimes he must act like a car mechanic to get under the hood and correct obvious impediments to performance. Other times he must become a business analyst or stakeholder and understand the total impact of a performance tuning plan he recommends. Without this ability to be creative and adaptive in both approach and solution, DBAs will not be able to apply effective long-term Oracle tuning solutions for their clients.
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Each Oracle Tuning Job Requires a Unique Approach
A DBA is always asked to be triage doctor who can diagnose and rate the severity of the performance issues he discovers. Some are minor and require quick-fix bandages solutions. There will, however, be others that are more severe and will require more thought and attention.
Here are few root causes that can lead to Oracle performance issues:
- Overly strict business requirements
- New Oracle functionality that is incorporated incorrectly
- Oracle Optimizer predicting one execution plan, but running another
- Application calling a custom function too many times
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None of these cases require the same solution; rather, they are unique and require more than quick-fix solutions. These are the types of situations where a DBA must be able to approach the Oracle performance issues with both the solution and the business in mind. Execution plans can only be fully realized if they fit into the budget and time constraints that the business demands allow. Understand both the nature of the performance and the environment in which is exists and you’ll immediately improve your Oracle performance tuning skills.
