Monday, January 24, 2011

Optimizing Oracle SQL Class

I have completed the Hotsos Optimizing Oracle SQL, Intensive class this past week. The class was held in San Francisco, taught by Ric Van Dyke. Having worked with Oracle for so long, I am familiar with basic SQL Tuning concepts. This class was a deep dive into advanced topics related to SQL and the Oracle Optimizer.

After completing the course I was surprised at how much I learned during my week. In my most recent job I did less SQL tuning than I had in the past. Although most of my older knowledge was still valid, Ric covered several new items that updated my understanding of the optimizer engine.

Some of the key items I took back from the class include the following:
1. The importance of using Logical I/Os as a key metric for tuning.
2. The best way to quickly interpet the lengthy and confusing Oracle trace files.
3. Numerous tips to improve performance of queries.
4. New ways to structure SQL statements to be even more efficent.
5. A better understanding of how cool analytics really are.

I'd recommend this class for DBAs and Developers.

Monday, January 17, 2011

One Week down

I've completed my first week as a Hotsos employee. The first week has been an exciting and rewarding experience. Most of my time has been spent learning the HAWCS tool. This tool provides some really powerful monitoring of the overall performance of an E-Business Suite instance.

HAWCS will identify where most of your database activity occurs and what dates/times are the most active. That information is a critical starting point to managing the performance of the E-Business Suite. Over the coming weeks I will be spending a lot more time with this product.

I've been most impressed with the options with monitoring Concurrent Manager processes. For most EBS shops the Concurrent Manager is the primary consumer of resources. Being able to quickly identify potential issues with the Managers is a must for Applications DBAs. From what I've seen so far, the HAWCS tool certainly delivers.

I have also done some work troubleshooting a VM Template install of E-Business Suite. These VM templates are a great way to quickly get a sandbox or small test instance up and running. I still wouldn't recommend doing any serious development/testing from the templates and certainly not running a production instance. In any case, they are a good place to start working with EBS.