Tuning is the final step in a four-step process: planning, implementing, and monitoring must
precede it. If you tune only for the sake of tuning, you are failing to address the full cycle of
activity and will likely never resolve the underlying flaws that caused the performance problem.
Most of the database objects that can be tuned are discussed elsewhere in this book??”for
example, undo segments are covered thoroughly in Chapter 7. This chapter only discusses the
tuning-related activities for such objects, while their own chapters cover planning and monitoring
activities.
As of Oracle Database 10g, and significantly enhanced in Oracle Database 11g, you can take
advantage of new tuning tools and features, including the Automated Workload Repository. For
ease of use, and to take advantage of numerous automated monitoring and diagnostic tools, OEM
Database Control is the Oracle-recommended tool on a routine basis. Before jumping into the
OEM tools, however, I??™ll present some of the prerequisites and principles behind effective
proactive and reactive tuning methods.
In the following sections, you will see tuning activities for the following areas:
Application design
SQL
Memory usage
Data storage
Data manipulation
Physical storage
Logical storage
Network traffic
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Chapter 8: Database Tuning 243
Tuning Application Design
Why should a DBA tuning guide include a section on application design? And why should this
section come first? Because nothing you can do as a DBA will have as great an impact on the
system performance as the design of the application.
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