Back when the blog tag thing was going around, some people participated, some people ignored it, and some protested vehemently. I learned a little about some friends and they learned a little about me. Some prefer this exchange in a more private location (say "in the pub or in the mountains"). No problem...I like to learn more about my Oracle colleagues.
Regardless of what you think about it all, it had a positive impact on one family's life...
A friend recently asked me about my VSD (item 4). Her newborn son has been diagnosed with the same condition and she wanted to know more about my health growing up. We were able to chat for a short time and it seemed to assuage some of her fears.
If not for the tagging post, it is likely that she would never have known about my condition. She might not have had someone with the condition to ask how it had affected their lives. She might not have been able to see that her son might someday ride in the mountains, hike in the Himalayas and travel the world.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
What if the Wait Interface was licensed separately?
A recent email exchange has prompted me to examine ADDM, AWR and ASH in more detail. While I make no judgment on the effectiveness at Diagnosis and Optimization (yet), I do wonder why Oracle has taken such a stand on licensing the base products. I have no problem with Oracle asking for additional license fees for the OEM packs, but I do object to installing and running products that I am told to not use or look at, even though they are taking up storage and processing in "my" database.
I do wonder...what would the current state of Oracle Diagnosis and Optimization be if the Wait Interface, Extended SQL Trace and Statspack were additional charges? We would be back in the "Dark Ages" of Diagnosis. Lots of Grimacing and Guessing (thanks, Mogens). More ratios (assuming we could still query v$sysstat), less response time. I could never have identified a disk issue because all I could say is that the statement takes more time...but I could never tell the user that the problem was that disk reads were taking almost 4 times as long. I hate to even think of our abysmal diagnostic track records.
I do wonder...what would the current state of Oracle market share be if we had limited access to diagnostic views and tools? Perhaps Informix, Sybase, DB2 would be leading the pack because their performance was enhanced by system and session diagnostic and optimization information. Granted, the market determines the winner based on marketing, not technology (or else we would all be working on Vax/VMS). But how quickly would the word get around that the slow performance of that new multi-million dollar database system can't be addressed in a timely manner? Or that the only way to solve problems was to hire Oracle Consulting at $750/hr to look at views and use tools that already exist within your system?
Guesses, Grimaces, Black Boxes and Bloated Consulting Engagements...not a pretty picture.
I do wonder...what would the current state of Oracle Diagnosis and Optimization be if the Wait Interface, Extended SQL Trace and Statspack were additional charges? We would be back in the "Dark Ages" of Diagnosis. Lots of Grimacing and Guessing (thanks, Mogens). More ratios (assuming we could still query v$sysstat), less response time. I could never have identified a disk issue because all I could say is that the statement takes more time...but I could never tell the user that the problem was that disk reads were taking almost 4 times as long. I hate to even think of our abysmal diagnostic track records.
I do wonder...what would the current state of Oracle market share be if we had limited access to diagnostic views and tools? Perhaps Informix, Sybase, DB2 would be leading the pack because their performance was enhanced by system and session diagnostic and optimization information. Granted, the market determines the winner based on marketing, not technology (or else we would all be working on Vax/VMS). But how quickly would the word get around that the slow performance of that new multi-million dollar database system can't be addressed in a timely manner? Or that the only way to solve problems was to hire Oracle Consulting at $750/hr to look at views and use tools that already exist within your system?
Guesses, Grimaces, Black Boxes and Bloated Consulting Engagements...not a pretty picture.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Reductio Ad Absurdum
In response to my recent blogging about the wait interface and tools, a comment was made on another blog that challenged my assertion that instrumentation had some shortcomings. This particular comment compared my assertion to gravity and the creation of the universe, which I dislike as it adds nothing to the discussion.
On another topic, there has been some great back and forth (via private emails, so I'm not going to share the specifics) regarding my recent post on tools. While we may disagree with each other, we are also each adding to the discussion in a positive manner (except for my recent comment about a certain person's maternal olfactory relationship to a common small pet and paternal fruit origin...but it was in good fun).
I have intentionally posted some provocative statements with the intent of provoking a discussion on the matter. To be honest, I play devil's advocate and do not always agree 100% with what I post...but I do post what I perceive as a position that is reasonable. Agree or disagree...but add something to the discussion.
On another topic, there has been some great back and forth (via private emails, so I'm not going to share the specifics) regarding my recent post on tools. While we may disagree with each other, we are also each adding to the discussion in a positive manner (except for my recent comment about a certain person's maternal olfactory relationship to a common small pet and paternal fruit origin...but it was in good fun).
I have intentionally posted some provocative statements with the intent of provoking a discussion on the matter. To be honest, I play devil's advocate and do not always agree 100% with what I post...but I do post what I perceive as a position that is reasonable. Agree or disagree...but add something to the discussion.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
How useful are diagnostic/optimization tools?
At RMOUG, I "attended" the session by Mogens Norgaard "You Probably Don't Tune Right...And Never Have." Mogens stated that if you take two people of the same skill level, gave them the same statspack report and put them in separate rooms, they would come up with different conclusions. The issue is not skill, it is the lack of a real method for interpreting the data. Without a method, you are still "guessing". If you do not have a method you can explain to another person, that you can repeat multiple times and reach the same conclusion with the same data, that accurately identifies the root cause and recommends the correct plan of action...you really do not have a method...you have a bunch of guesses.
Software is the implementation of a method or process. It is a set of coded decisions. If condition A, then perform action 1, else perform action 2. It is consistent, it is repeatable (unless there are bugs of course). With the same set of inputs, you will (should) receive the same set of outputs. Codified tools are software...if you can't document a repeatable method or process...you don't have a real software so you don't have a real tool. If a tool can't take a 10046 trace as an input and return the correct optimization recommendation, if a tool can't examine session statistics and return the same correct optimization recommendation, if a tool can't examine system metrics and return the same correct optimization recommendation...IT'S NOT A COMPLETE OPTIMIZATION TOOL! It certainly provides valuable data, but that data still needs interpretation ("numbers are numbers until you interpret them" Jonathan Lewis).
Ah...but what about all the tools that are out there? What about the self-managing, self-tuning Oracle database? That is the stuff of marketing, not of technology. If there truly was a self-managing, self-tuning Oracle database...do you think there would be any market for DBAs and performance specialists? A team of DBAs costs a company hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of dollars each and every year...if there were real tools out there that could replace them, it would be a tremendous cost savings to a company.
As a performance specialist, I need to start putting together diagnostic routines that I can test and adapt. More importantly, diagnostic routines that I can share with others. And that, my faithful readers, is for another post and another project.
Software is the implementation of a method or process. It is a set of coded decisions. If condition A, then perform action 1, else perform action 2. It is consistent, it is repeatable (unless there are bugs of course). With the same set of inputs, you will (should) receive the same set of outputs. Codified tools are software...if you can't document a repeatable method or process...you don't have a real software so you don't have a real tool. If a tool can't take a 10046 trace as an input and return the correct optimization recommendation, if a tool can't examine session statistics and return the same correct optimization recommendation, if a tool can't examine system metrics and return the same correct optimization recommendation...IT'S NOT A COMPLETE OPTIMIZATION TOOL! It certainly provides valuable data, but that data still needs interpretation ("numbers are numbers until you interpret them" Jonathan Lewis).
Ah...but what about all the tools that are out there? What about the self-managing, self-tuning Oracle database? That is the stuff of marketing, not of technology. If there truly was a self-managing, self-tuning Oracle database...do you think there would be any market for DBAs and performance specialists? A team of DBAs costs a company hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of dollars each and every year...if there were real tools out there that could replace them, it would be a tremendous cost savings to a company.
As a performance specialist, I need to start putting together diagnostic routines that I can test and adapt. More importantly, diagnostic routines that I can share with others. And that, my faithful readers, is for another post and another project.
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