SQL plan directives are a new concept introduced in version 12.1. Their purpose is to help the query optimizer cope with misestimates. To do so, they store in the data dictionary information about the predicates that cause misestimates. Simply put, the purpose of SQL plan directives is to instruct the database engine to either use […]
Trivadis, the company I work for, just opened a new branch in Denmark (the press release, in German, is available here). On the 14th of April (09:00-15:00) takes place, in the Oracle’s office in Ballerup, the opening event. Two colleagues of mine and I will be there to deliver the following presentations: Big Data versus […]
Before discussing the Exadata-specific feature, let’s review what the database engine can do independently of whether Exadata is used. To execute queries containing the min or max functions efficiently, two specific operations are available with B-tree indexes defined on the column referenced in the min or max function. The first, INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX), is […]
To make upgrades easier, I regularly see people considering disabling query optimizer features by setting the OPTIMIZER_FEATURES_ENABLE initialization parameter to a non-default value. My general opinion about this “habit” is summarized in TOP with the following two sentences: Changing the default value of the OPTIMIZER_FEATURES_ENABLE initialization parameter is only a short-term workaround. Sooner or later […]
If you are an attendee of UKOUG Tech14 you have a chance to win a free copy of Expert Oracle SQL by Tony Hasler AND a free copy of Troubleshooting Oracle Performance (2nd edition) by myself. If you want to know more, click here.
The aim of the STATISTICS COLLECTOR row source operation, which is used in adaptive plans, is to buffer all data produced by its child operation until it is known whether the inflection point is crossed. It goes without saying that buffering requires memory and, therefore, Oracle Database has to limit the amount of memory that […]
With the INMEMORY clause you can specify 4 sub-clauses: The MEMCOMPRESS clause specifies whether and how compression is used The PRIORITY clause specifies the priority (“order”) in which the segments are loaded when the IMCS is populated The DISTRIBUTE clause specifies how data is distributed across RAC instances The DUPLICATE clause specifies whether and how […]
I strive to keep the number non-technical posts on this blog to the minimum. However, there are days when a non-technical post has to be written. This is one of such days. Oracle Corporation, concerned about legal and ethical issues, not only provides to its employees a document entitled Code of Ethics and Business Conduct, […]
The aim of this post is not to explain how the APPROX_COUNT_DISTINCT function works (you find basic information in the documentation and in this post written by Luca Canali), but to show you the results of a test case I run to assess how well it works. Here’s what I did… I created a table […]
Every new Oracle Database patch introduces not only documented features, but also undocumented ones. In this short post I would like to provide information about an enhancement of the RESULT_CACHE hint. According the documentation, the RESULT_CACHE hint has no parameter. But, as of 12.1.0.2, at least the SNAPSHOT parameter is supported. Its purpose is to […]