Re: spin_count and cpu usage

  • From: amonte <ax.mount@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: tim@xxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2006 09:28:33 +0200

Hi Tim

Thanks very much foor the reply.

Since spin_count is just a numbe rof loops, if we have a faster CPU shouldnt
we increase the value? I mean running 2000 loops in a 3GHZ CPU is definitely
not the same as running in a 500MHz CPU. In fact i recall, Guy Harrison
wrote a latch related paper mentioning that since 2000 for spin_count has
been used since Oracle 7, that is 10 - 13 years ago a higher value for
modern CPU wouldnt surprise.

Regarding the CPU usage, if with 8 500MHz CPU I consume 30000 seconds CPU in
1 hour, if I replace those with 1GHZ CPU would I reduce my CPU time/usage to
half?


TIA

Alex



On 9/4/06, Tim Gorman <tim@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Spin count has little to do with CPU cycles, and everything to do with the duration of non-pre-emptive waits on latches (i.e. column SPIN_GETS on V$LATCH). It is literally the count in a loop that Oracle spins while waiting non-pre-emptively (i.e. without losing the CPU) for a latch. Really, really bad feng-shui to mess with spin count.

Oracle cannot record if your CPU is working "efficiently" or not.  All
it can do is report on how much CPU time was consumed.  If you do the
math, 3 million centi-seconds is 30,000 seconds.  An hour has 3,600
seconds, so eight CPUs can use 28,800 seconds in an hour.  It pretty
much adds up to Oracle consuming all the CPU on your server, which is OK
if it is the only thing on the server.  As far as the discrepency
between 28,800 and 30,000, don't expect too much accuracy from a
mechanism that is constantly rounding or truncating micro-seconds to the
nearest centi-second...


amonte wrote: > Hi > > I was wondering if anyone know how is spin_count measured? In CPU CYCLES? > > I havea doubt with CPU usage as well, I undersstand that in v$sysstat > it is using centiseconds to measure CPU usage. I wonder how can we > determine 1 centisecond is equivalent to how many CPU cycles? For > example I have a server with 8 PA-RISC 1200 MHz CPU, in 1 hour it > reports 3 million centiseconds usage, am I using fully? Basically is > how do you know how efficiently is your CPU working from Oracle > Statistics. > > TIA > > Alex >

--
--
-Tim Gorman
consultant - Evergreen Database Technologies, Inc.

website = http://www.evdbt.com
email   = tim@xxxxxxxxx
mobile  = +1-303-885-4526
fax     = +1-303-484-3608

--
//www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l



Other related posts: