Public Appearances

I currently have scheduled the following public appearances:

• Bloom Filters: A bloom filter is a data structure used to support membership queries. Simply put, a bloom filter is used to test whether an element is a member of a given set or not. Since Oracle Database 10g Release 2 bloom filters are used in various situations. Unfortunately, not much information about their usage is available in Oracle Database documentation. The aim of this presentation is to explain not only what bloom filters are, but also, and foremost, to describe how the database engine makes use of them. Specifically, it explains how the database engine uses bloom filters to improve the performance of joins (including the particular cases with Exadata and In-Memory Column Store) and to implement join-filter pruning.
• Free Load Testing Tools for Oracle Database – Which One Do I Use?: It regularly happens to me that for testing purposes I have to generate load on an Oracle Database. The three most common situations leading to such a task are when I need to: assess the performance of a new platform or disk I/O subsystem; verify whether a set of SQL statements executed on a specific environment and/or configuration fulfills the expected performance requirements; perform usability and functionality checks of tools or utilities that require a non-trivial load to be carried out. The aim of this presentation is to introduce the freely available tools that I use, to explain how I use them, and to present real-world use cases of their utilization.
• Query Optimization in Oracle Database 12c: With every new release, the query optimizer is enhanced. The aim of this presentation is to review adaptive query optimization techniques, management of object statistics, plan stability, and optimization techniques from a practical point of view as well as to point out challenges related to them. In other words, to let you know what you can expect from the query optimizer when you upgrade your Oracle Database.
• Identification of Performance Problems Without the Diagnostic Pack: Diagnostic Pack, which is an option available for the Enterprise Edition of Oracle Database only, gives access to a number of dynamic performance views and to the Automatic Workload Repository (AWR). Both are very useful for the identification of performance problems. On the one hand, dynamic performance views are mainly used for the analysis of performance problems while they are occurring. On the other hand, AWR is aimed at the analysis of performance problems that occurred in the past. The aim of this presentation is to describe how to perform analyses similar to those that can be carried out with the tools provided by the Diagnostic Pack even if you don’t have it.
• Designing for Performance: Database Related Worst Practices: Optimal performance is not simply a product one can buy but rather the results of accurate planning and a correct implementation. Given that applications should be designed for performance, it would be useful to cover an approach to doing that in great detail. However, for obvious reasons, it is not a subject that can be covered in a presentation. For this reason, I limit myself to briefly describing the top most common database-related design problems that frequently lead to suboptimal performance.

A list of past public appearances can be seen here.