Has anyone experimented with SGA_MAX_SIZE? Does Oracle request that amount of memory on startup? If memory of the components like SHARED_POOL_SIZE and DB_CACHE_SIZE are smaller than SGA_MAX_SIZE, does Oracle only request enough memory for the components? If the size of one of the components is reduced dynamically, does Solaris eventually reclaim that space? I have a test system with many Oracle9i instances. Most are little used, and I allocate only a small amount of memory. However, now and then a development group will start pounding an instance. Often they run out of memory. So I have to audit the memory settings of all instances, then notify developers on other instances that I need to bounce their instance to retrieve some memory. A hassle for everyone concerned. I'm wondering if I can set the SGA_MAX_SIZE high on all instances, but then just allocate a small amount of memory. Then if an instance needs more memory, I could allocate it dynamically, and also dynamically reduce the memory allocated in other instances. Any thoughts appreciated. Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. dwilliams@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------