There have been several advances in the optimization of the Oracle database for organizations as well as its supporting infrastructure; however, experienced DBAs and IT managers still discover poor database performance over a diverse area of workloads. There have been well-documented methodologies and other tools that are available for diagnosing and resolving these performance problems on Oracle. However, most IT managers fail to embrace high-level action steps to identify the root causes of the poor performance of Oracle databases to offer feasible solutions for its immediate resolution.
This post is intended to explore these high-level action steps that can be resorted to arresting common causes of the Oracle database to perform poorly. It will assess your current situation and offer guidance on how issues with your database can be prevented in the future.
What are the common problems that the Oracle Database generally faces?
Specialists with years of experience in managing Oracle databases state the following are the common problems that keep on resurfacing with the system over time-
- Inefficient SQL Execution Plans – IT managers state that ineffective SQL execution plans are the prime cause of a poor Oracle database. They can be divided into two groups-
- The ones that should not change ever
- The ones that should change depending upon the volumes of data
Oracle has offered essential enhancements to-
- Recognize the SQL query plan that is run on the database
- Identify the critical information on SQL.
- Manage query plans available to a specific SQL
Note that inefficient SQL query plans can be identified when combined with a successful diagnostic procedure. The good news here is that in several instances, the SQL query plans that are performing poorly can be fixed quickly as they gather attention fast.
- One should take good care of the unintentional consequences of using shared infrastructure when they are consolidating systems on general infrastructure. Modern technologies permit a large consolidation of different workloads that are not compatible with one another to be placed on the common infrastructure. This, in turn, creates havoc on the database performance.
When this occurs, the Oracle databasefaces critical problems. In most cases, the platforms that have been designed poorly make it very challenging for the organization to segregate the root cause of the issue that causes problems in the performance of the database, especially when there is an extensive amount of dependent workload present on the shared infrastructure.
Now, if you consider the costs of the poor performance of the Oracle database, you will find that its real costs for consolidation will outweigh any direct savings of expenses of a decreased infrastructure footprint. In addition to the above, the changes that are needed to rectify the performance problems in the Oracle database can be caused due to the shared infrastructure to be limited.
Experts from esteemed database administration company in the USA, RemoteDBA.Comsays that you can change the configuration in the Oracle database as this will help to some extent; however, note that these changes can also affect application performance that runs on the Oracle database. Experts suggest that you embrace the appropriate approach so that you can accurately consider the impact of the change before proceeding with the move.
- Issues due to the generic application in schema design- There are many application vendors that generally abstract the code of the application from the Oracle Database platform. This permits the customer to use the application to their preferred system platform. However, despite the flexibility that is offered to customers due to the above deployment, the Oracle database suffers from a reduction in performance.
You will not be able to detect inefficient SQL execution query plans, a large increase in resource consumption, and other associated problems until the system has been operating over some time. When discovered at that point, it does become costly and complex for the organization to fix. When incorporated, the above issues again are difficult for the organization to overcome. Therefore, when IT managers in the organization access the applications, they should determine if the vendor of the application has a preferred system platform.
This, in turn, will offer guidance as to how robust they must keep their porting efforts across different databases irrespective of whether the platform is an Oracle, PostgreSQL, or MySQL database. The IT managers must ensure that they check the references of the customers, ask for specific documentation and configuration activities of the database. In case the vendor of the application has a single database but has space for the accommodation of your database, note that the application that performs well on a SQL server might not perform the same on the Oracle database system.
What is the remedy?
Now, you have identified the main causes of poor Oracle database performance. However, to rectify them, you should seek feedback when it comes to issues that plague performance. The following is a process flow that you can use when you are diagnosing performance issues in the Oracle database-
People generally want to get their jobs completed, and so if there is a work-around that they can use, they will use it. However, note that workarounds can result in many issues in performance. For instance, a person can download relevant data on a spreadsheet. However, this does not mean that they will not be responsible for causing another problem, such as creating security issues by storing the data stored in the system outside of the database.
You should understand that it does take time for you to inculcate trust in the Oracle database users that issues will be sorted out and fixed. The biggest way for you to create this deep trust is to primarily listen, evaluate, and resolve at least one of the end-users’ problems. This is generally their biggest issue. However, even if you attempt to fix one small issue of the user, it goes the extra mile when it comes to invoking credibility and trust in your efforts.
