trusted online casino malaysia

Hotsos Symposium 2010 Presentations

I got an email a few days ago asking if I would provide the scripts from my Hotsos Symposium 2010 presentations. I didn’t even realize the presentations had been posted anywhere but I managed to find them on my company’s website. So anyway, I decided to go ahead and post a link to the PDF’s and the scripts here as well. So click on the pretty pictures to get the PDFs and the cleverly titled text links to get the accompanying zip files with the scripts.

Controlling Execution Plans Zip File

My Favorite Scripts 2010 Zip File


Oh and Bob Sneed as “Disco Duck” (Thanks Marco)

I’m in the Wrong Business

Well I stayed at home today to do some writing on a book project while one of my sons and one of my daughters and my wife went to the Fort Worth Natural Science Museum. So I was feeling a little overworked and like I was missing out because I’ve been slaving away writing “scholarly technical material”. Then I got a text from my son. Just a picture that’s all.

I’m sure these two books will probably sell a few orders of magnitude more copies than any book that I contribute to. Kind of puts it all in perspective. I think next weekend I’ll go to the zoo with them.

Thoughts on Exadata V3

I expect we’ll see some announcements at Oracle Open World in a couple of weeks (I don’t know if they will really call it V3 yet by the way).

DISCLAIMER: This is all complete conjecture on my part. I don’t work for Oracle and I have not had any conversations with any Oracle employees about official future directions or plans. (I probably would have had to sign a non-disclosure before I could have any of those discussions and then I wouldn’t be able to do this post).

text

Anyway, here’s the list of things I am thinking we might see:

Bigger Database Servers – I mean physically bigger, with open slots, so we can put HBA’s in them to attach to external storage for migration and backup purposes. Sun 4275’s perhaps since they are already using them as storage servers. The only real issue is that we’d run out of space on a full rack configuration, but if the machines are beefier, perhaps we wouldn’t need as many DB servers anyway.

Bigger Database Servers – I mean more memory and more processing power. Faster chips and bigger DIMMs are a no-brainer. Just put them in the existing 4170 boxes. But how about different models altogether. M series perhaps (which also means a change in O/S). Should be fairly easy to do actually as the DB already runs on Solaris. Might make the Sun shops really happy as well. 😉

More Options – I expect we’ll see a little more flexibility in the configurations, because “One Size Fits All” really doesn’t (or at least many people think that it doesn’t). Anyone want a 2/3 rack?

Incrementally Better Software – It’s a great leap forward already, but I expect more things to be offloaded to the storage layer (some of the analytic functions, some of the aggregate functions, etc…)

Exadata SAN – I could see Oracle announcing a stand alone storage unit with a variable number of “trays”. They might even announce some software for doing some of the more SAN like features (think Snap Mirror).

By the way, I doubt they’ll be buying Netapp just yet (need to drive the price of the stock down a bit first I think).

Well that’s what I’m thinking. What do you think?

Exadata Book

Here’s some white Exaddata text

Well, I guess it’s official. A couple of weeks ago I committed to write an Exadata book for Apress, along with my intrepid co-author Randy Johnson. For those of you who don’t know Randy, he’s a very experienced Oracle Guy with a wealth of knowledge, particularly around RAC. I think the two of us make a pretty good team – making up for each others weaknesses (oh wait, I should say we have “Complimentary Skill Sets” – yeah that sounds better).

Anyway, it turns out that writing a book is a lot of work! The way Tom Kyte turns them out I thought it must be pretty easy, but I’ve always been a little overconfident. So I’m starting to realize that I may not have time to do as many blog posts as I might like. But I must say that I am really excited about the subject matter! So I think it will be worth the effort. By the way, that’s not the official cover art (or even the official title as far as I know). I just hacked that together with a Adobe Illustrator. 😉

As I have said many times, I think the Exadata storage software will usher in a whole new era in relational databases. Not just for Oracle, because you know the other guys will be trying to follow in their footsteps. But I think Oracle is miles ahead at this point, and they own their own hardware platform. Oracle claims that it has been their most successful product launch ever and I believe it. They are starting to pop up like weeds. It will be very interesting to see what the future holds for this platform. To be honest, I think we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg at this point. Anyway, I appreciate the guys at Apress having the faith in us to take on this project. I hope we don’t disappoint them (I don’t think we will).

Guess Who Got Inducted into the OakTable Network

I am very proud to be one of the newest OakTable Network members!

(That My Happy Face)

Notes on Applying Exadata Bundle Patch (BP5)

Randy Johnson has done a brief post after applying BP5 on our Exadata Lab machine. Looks like it went pretty smoothly with the exception of a problem with DBFS and some misleading comments in the README file regarding using the RDS protocol (both of which we had in play). Here’s a link to his post:

Exadata Bundle Patch 5 Gotcha’s

Running Oracle Exadata V2 on Dell Hardware

Well we had to give it a shot.

So we created an Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software CELLBOOT USB flash drive. I’m not kidding, that’s what the Oracle/Sun guys decided to call it. They didn’t even use an acronym in the manual (I guess “ESSSCB USB FD” doesn’t roll off the tongue much better than the whole thing anyway). We used the make_cellboot_usb utility to create the thing off one of our storage servers, which by the way was not that easy to do, since the USB ports are in the back of the 4275’s and they are not easy to get to with all the cabling that’s back there. Anyway, once we had the little bugger created we pulled it out of the back of the rack and booted a Dell Latitude D630 off of it. Here’s a picture:

Notice the thumb drive is all lit up like a Christmas tree.

Here is a close up of the screen (in case your eyes are going bad like mine):

So we tried a couple of different options but eventually got to this screen:

Notice the ERROR line in the middle of the screen. Somebody wisely put a check in the boot procedure to verify the machine type, presumably if it’s not a Sun 4170 it will throw an error. We thought about hacking the system but decided not to at this point as we had real work to do. (maybe later when we’ve got nothing else to do)

Oracle Exadata – Storage Indexes

Wow! – I was stunned a few days ago by Exadata’s Storage Indexes. I was doing a little testing to see what could be offloaded and what couldn’t (more on that later). I have a 384 million row table I was using on our Exadata Quarter Rack test system. A single threaded full scan with no where clause on the table takes about 24 seconds (ho hum – it’s amazing how quickly we become numbed to the outstanding performance ). So imagine my surprise when I decided to check and see how many nulls I had in a column and the result came back in .07 seconds. Wow! I thought it was a bug! Turns out it was the Storage Indexes. Alright already, I’ll show you some output from the system (by the way, as usual I used a couple of scripts: fsx.sql and mystats.sql):

SYS@LABRAT1> select count(*) from kso.skew3;

  COUNT(*)
----------
 384000048

1 row selected.

Elapsed: 00:00:24.06
SYS@LABRAT1> /

  COUNT(*)
----------
 384000048

1 row selected.

Elapsed: 00:00:23.94

SYS@LABRAT1> set timing off
SYS@LABRAT1> @mystats
Enter value for name: %storage%

NAME                                                                             VALUE
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
cell physical IO bytes saved by storage index                                        0

1 row selected.

SYS@LABRAT1> set timing on
SYS@LABRAT1> select count(*) from kso.skew3 where col1 is null;

  COUNT(*)
----------
        12

1 row selected.

Elapsed: 00:00:00.07
SYS@LABRAT1> set timing off
SYS@LABRAT1> @fsx
Enter value for sql_text: select count(*) from kso.skew3 where col1 is null
Enter value for sql_id: 
Enter value for inst_id: 


 INST SQL_ID         CHILD  PLAN_HASH      EXECS     AVG_ETIME      AVG_LIO    AVG_PIO AVG_PX OFFLOADABLE IO_SAVED_% SQL_TEXT
----- ------------- ------ ---------- ---------- ------------- ------------ ---------- ------ ----------- ---------- ----------------------------------------
    1 0u1q4b7puqz6g      0 2684249835          5           .09    1,956,226  1,956,219      0 Yes             100.00 select count(*) from kso.skew3 where col

1 row selected.

SYS@LABRAT1> @mystats
Enter value for name: %storage%

NAME                                                                             VALUE
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
cell physical IO bytes saved by storage index                              16012763136

1 row selected.

So apparently Storage Indexes are NULL aware. Very cool! This may have repercussions regarding design and implementation decisions. There are systems that don’t use NULLs in order to insure that they can access records via B-Tree indexes (which as you’re aware do not store NULLs). SAP for example uses a single space character instead of NULLs.

Continue reading ‘Oracle Exadata – Storage Indexes’ »

Oracle Support Sanctions Manually Created SQL Profiles!

I originally titled this post: “SQLT – coe_xfr_sql_profile.sql”

Catchy title huh? – (that’s why I changed it)

I’ve been promoting the use of SQL Profiles as a plan control mechanism for some time. The basic idea is to use the undocumented procedure dbms_sqltune.import_sql_profile to build a set of hints to be applied behind the scenes via a SQL Profile. The hints can be created anyway can think of, but one of my favorite ways to generate them is to pull the hints from the other_xml field of v$sql_plan. This is a technique suggested to me originally by Randolf Geist. I have used this approach several times in the past but occasionally I’ve had a few doubts as to whether this is a good idea or even if SQL Profiles can apply all valid hints (see Jonathan Lewis’s comments on this post, Why Oracle Isn’t Using My Profile, where he expresses some doubts as well – he’s also written a bit about SQL Profiles on his site as you might imagine).

I have been promoting the use of Amoxil for some time. As an excellent agent containing penicillin.

So anyway, I just found out this week that there is a script published on Oracle’s Support site that does exactly the same thing. It’s part of the SQLT zip file published in note 215187.1. By the way, SQLT has quite a bit of interesting information in it and the source (PL/SQL) is not wrapped, so it’s worth having a look at. There’s not much in the way of information about it out there, although I did see a reference to it in a comment on one of Jonathan’s recent posts. Maybe I’ll get around to doing another post on that topic some other time. Anyway, the name of the SQL Profile building script is coe_xfr_sql_profile.sql. It basically pulls the hints from the other_xml field of v$sql_plan and turns them into a SQL Profile. So I’m feeling better about myself now that I know that this approach is at least in some way sanctioned by Oracle support.

Here’s an example:


SYS@LAB112> @fs
Enter value for sql_text: %skew%
Enter value for sql_id: 

SQL_ID         CHILD  PLAN_HASH      EXECS     AVG_ETIME      AVG_LIO SQL_TEXT
------------- ------ ---------- ---------- ------------- ------------ ------------------------------------------------------------
688rj6tv1bav0      0  568322376          1          6.78      163,077 select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = 1
abwg9nwg8prsj      0 3723858078          1           .01           39 select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = 136135

2 rows selected.

SYS@LAB112> @sql_hints
Enter value for sql_id: abwg9nwg8prsj
Enter value for child_no: 0

OUTLINE_HINTS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IGNORE_OPTIM_EMBEDDED_HINTS
OPTIMIZER_FEATURES_ENABLE('11.2.0.1')
DB_VERSION('11.2.0.1')
ALL_ROWS
OUTLINE_LEAF(@"SEL$1")
INDEX_RS_ASC(@"SEL$1" "SKEW"@"SEL$1" ("SKEW"."COL1"))

6 rows selected.

SYS@LAB112> @coe_xfr_sql_profile    

Parameter 1:
SQL_ID (required)

Enter value for 1: abwg9nwg8prsj          


PLAN_HASH_VALUE AVG_ET_SECS
--------------- -----------
     3723858078        .006

Parameter 2:
PLAN_HASH_VALUE (required)

Enter value for 2: 3723858078

Values passed:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SQL_ID         : "abwg9nwg8prsj"
PLAN_HASH_VALUE: "3723858078"


Execute coe_xfr_sql_profile_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078.sql
on TARGET system in order to create a custom SQL Profile
with plan 3723858078 linked to adjusted sql_text.


COE_XFR_SQL_PROFILE completed.
SQL>@coe_xfr_sql_profile_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078.sql
SQL>REM
SQL>REM $Header: 215187.1 coe_xfr_sql_profile_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078.sql 11.4.1.4 2010/07/23 csierra $
SQL>REM
SQL>REM Copyright (c) 2000-2010, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
SQL>REM
SQL>REM AUTHOR
SQL>REM   carlos.sierra@oracle.com
SQL>REM
SQL>REM SCRIPT
SQL>REM   coe_xfr_sql_profile_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078.sql
SQL>REM
SQL>REM DESCRIPTION
SQL>REM   This script is generated by coe_xfr_sql_profile.sql
SQL>REM   It contains the SQL*Plus commands to create a custom
SQL>REM   SQL Profile for SQL_ID abwg9nwg8prsj based on plan hash
SQL>REM   value 3723858078.
SQL>REM   The custom SQL Profile to be created by this script
SQL>REM   will affect plans for SQL commands with signature
SQL>REM   matching the one for SQL Text below.
SQL>REM   Review SQL Text and adjust accordingly.
SQL>REM
SQL>REM PARAMETERS
SQL>REM   None.
SQL>REM
SQL>REM EXAMPLE
SQL>REM   SQL> START coe_xfr_sql_profile_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078.sql;
SQL>REM
SQL>REM NOTES
SQL>REM   1. Should be run as SYSTEM or SYSDBA.
SQL>REM   2. User must have CREATE ANY SQL PROFILE privilege.
SQL>REM   3. SOURCE and TARGET systems can be the same or similar.
SQL>REM   4. To drop this custom SQL Profile after it has been created:
SQL>REM  EXEC DBMS_SQLTUNE.DROP_SQL_PROFILE('coe_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078');
SQL>REM   5. Be aware that using DBMS_SQLTUNE requires a license
SQL>REM  for the Oracle Tuning Pack.
SQL>REM
SQL>WHENEVER SQLERROR EXIT SQL.SQLCODE;
SQL>REM
SQL>VAR signature NUMBER;
SQL>REM
SQL>DECLARE
  2  sql_txt CLOB;
  3  h       SYS.SQLPROF_ATTR;
  4  BEGIN
  5  sql_txt := q'[
  6  select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = 136135
  7  ]';
  8  h := SYS.SQLPROF_ATTR(
  9  q'[BEGIN_OUTLINE_DATA]',
 10  q'[IGNORE_OPTIM_EMBEDDED_HINTS]',
 11  q'[OPTIMIZER_FEATURES_ENABLE('11.2.0.1')]',
 12  q'[DB_VERSION('11.2.0.1')]',
 13  q'[ALL_ROWS]',
 14  q'[OUTLINE_LEAF(@"SEL$1")]',
 15  q'[INDEX_RS_ASC(@"SEL$1" "SKEW"@"SEL$1" ("SKEW"."COL1"))]',
 16  q'[END_OUTLINE_DATA]');
 17  :signature := DBMS_SQLTUNE.SQLTEXT_TO_SIGNATURE(sql_txt);
 18  DBMS_SQLTUNE.IMPORT_SQL_PROFILE (
 19  sql_text    => sql_txt,
 20  profile     => h,
 21  name        => 'coe_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078',
 22  description => 'coe abwg9nwg8prsj 3723858078 '||:signature||'',
 23  category    => 'DEFAULT',
 24  validate    => TRUE,
 25  replace     => TRUE,
 26  force_match => FALSE /* TRUE:FORCE (match even when different literals in SQL). FALSE:EXACT (similar to CURSOR_SHARING) */ );
 27  END;
 28  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL>WHENEVER SQLERROR CONTINUE
SQL>SET ECHO OFF;

            SIGNATURE
---------------------
 15022055147995020558


... manual custom SQL Profile has been created


COE_XFR_SQL_PROFILE_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078 completed

SYS@LAB112> @sql_profiles
Enter value for sql_text: 
Enter value for name: 

NAME                           CATEGORY        STATUS   SQL_TEXT                                                               FORCE
------------------------------ --------------- -------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -----
PROFILE_fgn6qzrvrjgnz          DEFAULT         DISABLED select /*+ index(a SKEW_COL1) */ avg(pk_col) from kso.skew a           NO
PROFILE_8hjn3vxrykmpf          DEFAULT         DISABLED select /*+ invalid_hint (doda) */ avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 NO
PROFILE_69k5bhm12sz98          DEFAULT         DISABLED SELECT dbin.instance_number,        dbin.db_name, dbin.instance_name,  NO
PROFILE_8js5bhfc668rp          DEFAULT         DISABLED select /*+ index(a SKEW_COL2_COL1) */ avg(pk_col) from kso.skew a wher NO
PROFILE_bxd77v75nynd8          DEFAULT         DISABLED select /*+ parallel (a 4) */ avg(pk_col) from kso.skew a where col1 >  NO
PROFILE_7ng34ruy5awxq          DEFAULT         DISABLED select i.obj#,i.ts#,i.file#,i.block#,i.intcols,i.type#,i.flags,i.prope NO
SYS_SQLPROF_0126f1743c7d0005   SAVED           ENABLED  select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew                                       NO
PROF_6kymwy3guu5uq_1388734953  DEFAULT         ENABLED  select 1                                                               YES
PROFILE_cnpx9s9na938m_MANUAL   DEFAULT         ENABLED  select /*+ opt_param('statistics_level','all') */ * from kso.skew wher NO
PROF_79m8gs9wz3ndj_3723858078  DEFAULT         ENABLED  /* SQL Analyze(252,1) */ select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew              NO
PROFILE_9ywuaagwscbj7_GPS      DEFAULT         ENABLED  select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew                                       NO
PROF_arcvrg5na75sw_3723858078  DEFAULT         ENABLED  select /*+ index(skew@sel$1 skew_col1) */ avg(pk_col) from kso.skew wh NO
SYS_SQLPROF_01274114fc2b0006   DEFAULT         ENABLED  select i.table_owner, i.table_name, i.index_name, FUNCIDX_STATUS, colu NO
SYS_SQLPROF_0127d10ffaa60000   DEFAULT         ENABLED  select table_owner||'.'||table_name tname , index_name, index_type, st NO
SYS_SQLPROF_01281e513ace0000   DEFAULT         ENABLED  SELECT TASK_LIST.TASK_ID FROM (SELECT /*+ NO_MERGE(T) ORDERED */ T.TAS NO
PROFILE_5bgcrdwfhbc83_EXACT    DEFAULT         ENABLED  select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = :"SYS_B_0"               YES
coe_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078   DEFAULT         ENABLED                                                                         NO

17 rows selected.

SYS@LAB112> -- that's interesting - looks like the sql_text has gotten wiped out
SYS@LAB112> -- let's see if it works anyway
SYS@LAB112> 
SYS@LAB112> select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = 136135;

AVG(PK_COL)
-----------
   15636135

SYS@LAB112> @fs
Enter value for sql_text: select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = 136135
Enter value for sql_id: 

SQL_ID         CHILD  PLAN_HASH      EXECS     AVG_ETIME      AVG_LIO SQL_TEXT
------------- ------ ---------- ---------- ------------- ------------ ------------------------------------------------------------
abwg9nwg8prsj      0 3723858078          1           .02           47 select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = 136135

1 row selected.

SYS@LAB112> @dplan
Enter value for sql_id: abwg9nwg8prsj
Enter value for child_no: 

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL_ID  abwg9nwg8prsj, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select avg(pk_col) from kso.skew where col1 = 136135

Plan hash value: 3723858078

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                    | Name      | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT             |           |       |       |    32 (100)|          |
|   1 |  SORT AGGREGATE              |           |     1 |    24 |            |          |
|   2 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| SKEW      |    32 |   768 |    32   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|*  3 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN          | SKEW_COL1 |    32 |       |     3   (0)| 00:00:01 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   3 - access("COL1"=136135)

Note
-----
   - SQL profile coe_abwg9nwg8prsj_3723858078 used for this statement


24 rows selected.

So it is very similar to my create_sql_profile.sql script. The Oracle COE script does have the advantage of creating an output script that can be run to create the SQL Profile. That means you have a chance to edit the hints before creating the SQL Profile. It also means you can easily move a SQL Profile from one environment (TEST for example) to another (PROD for example).

But the best thing about it is that I no longer have to be concerned about using an undocumented procedure to do something that it may not have been intended to do in the first place!

Writing Some Chapters in a Book

My friend Karen Morton asked if I would be willing to contribute to a book that she is working on (i.e. write a few chapters). Of course I said yes. The book’s title is Pro Oracle SQL and it is to be published by Apress sometime before the end of the year (my first deadline is fast approaching).

Karen is the lead author, but there are also several co-authors involved in this project, all of whom I have a lot of respect for. Here’s the List (in alphabetical order by last name):

Robyn Sands
Riyaj Shamsudeen
Jared Still

If you’re reading this you are probably already familiar with Apress. They have published a number of Oracle books by notable authors including Tom Kyte, Jonathan Lewis and Chris Antognini. They have also published a few collaborations by members of the Oak Table Network. So I am happy to be joining that illustrious group.  Anyway, I am particularly excited about getting to write the chapter on Plan Stability and Control which is a subject near and dear to my heart. So I’ll get to drone on about Outlines, Profiles, and Baselines – among other things. You can pre-order the book from Amazon. 😉