Re: The best CPU usage measurement in Oracle: BUFFER_GETS or CPU_TIME?

  • From: Stephane Faroult <sfaroult@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 09:40:24 +0200


Cary Millsap wrote:

[snip]

>More generally, the problem is not V$ data in particular, it's ANY
>perf
>

I think that presenting things as abruptly requires a bit of 
qualification. To me, it's the same as saying that macroeconomics are 
totally useless and microeconomics rule.
Well, yes and no. I don't like statspack much and I usually use my own 
scripts to collect what I need. But at the same time, I very rarely use 
traces - for one thing, using them in a production environment which has 
trouble keeping afloat isn't always easy, and I don't always have the 
freedom to connect as Oracle (or to connect, at the OS level, to the 
server. No such problem with Oracle, since the password for DBSNMP is 
rarely changed and ALL_USERS usually shows an acount named SUPERDBA the 
password of which is ... - I am not sure that some queries on the V$ may 
not put as much overhead on the system as a localized trace, but it's 
more discreet :-)).  It's probably a frame of mind as well. I have 
several millions of lines of code behind me, and have always disliked 
debuggers.
Traces certainly are a great tool in some cases for understanding some 
complex situations. But to get the broad picture and an understanding of 
what is going on from a business point of view, V$ are quite valuable. 
If aggregates were invented, it's simply because people were lost in the 
details. Something as simple as checking which statements are executed 
most often is very telling (such as getting four times per second 
currency exchange rates which are updated once a day ...). To me, 
understanding what people are trying to do comes first, and how they are 
doing it second. I am certain that you'll agree with me that it is 
pointless to minimize wait events on a query which has no reason to be 
run in the first place - but I am not sure that everybody understands it 
as clearly, especially some well-intentioned beginners.
I have sometimes seen on this list questions such as:
'I am running this query :
                            select distinct a.c1, b.c2
                            from mega_table a, gigantic_table b;
  and it is very slow. What can I do to speed it up ?'
To which the answer was :
      'Have you tried to set event 10046?'.

Cough, cough, cough! Well, it's better than 'your BCHR looks dreadful, 
try to increase your SGA size'.

Stephane Faroult




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