Dear Peter, Thank you very much for an answer, this post provides exact solution I was looking for. For this simple query the LIO gain is very small just 2 LIOs, but the main thing that the SORT ORDER BY step simply disappeared. I do have environment very similar to what you have described, the system is mainly OLTP with few DSS features (I must admit my problem looks exactly like you described). I will return to the list with additional information after few experiments. On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:08:22 +0200, Peter Welker <peter.welker@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: -- Edgar -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l