Oracle Performance Monographs

Here are some of my favorite essays about optimizing Oracle Database performance. Each is just one page, front and back.

Solving the Unsolvable Performance Problem

Cary Millsap 2020-01-28

How do you solve production performance problems? The method you use may be structurally incapable of helping you find certain types of performance problems. Changing how you look at your system makes all the difference. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing some short articles in a new series that I’m calling the Method…

Preventing the Post-Production Performance Problem

Cary Millsap 2020-03-11

How confident are you that those new features you’re adding to your production application will be fast and efficient? What if they’re not? You need a process that finds inefficient code earlier, and a process to fix the inefficiencies that evade early detection. One process can accomplish both goals. This is article number two in…

Better Testing, Better Risk Reduction

Cary Millsap 2020-04-23

When your tests don’t measure your system the way your users will perceive it, you can be headed for big trouble. When you test, you should measure how your application is going to feel to your users. These measurements give you confidence both in the programs you’ve tested, and in the diagnostic process you’ll use…

Death to the Health Check… Long Live the Health Check

Cary Millsap 2020-06-10

I have a long history with conventional database system “health checks.” I don’t like them. I haven’t liked them for a really long time, since about 1997, when I realized that conventional health checks are an inferior way to help customers. There is a better way. This is article number four in the Method R Oracle®…

Making Your Application Easier to Diagnose

Cary Millsap 2021-10-18

It’s easy these days to mine interesting user experiences out of enormous trace data collections. But there’s still value in being able to trace that one user or that one program, right when you need it. This is article number five in the Method R Oracle® Performance Monograph series. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

The Case of the 2× Slower Report

Cary Millsap 2021-10-18

Why does a report run twice as fast on an identically configured sandbox? It’s not the execution plan. Method R Workbench makes it easy to find out. This is article number six in the Method R Oracle® Performance Monograph series. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Making Sense of Thousands of Trace Files

Cary Millsap 2021-10-18

If you do it right, the overhead incurred by Oracle tracing is imperceptible, so more sites than ever are using trace data as a source for detailed performance data. But what can you do when you end up with thousands of trace files? With Method R Workbench, it’s not a problem. This is article number…