Oracle7 Server Tuning

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When Do You Tune?

Most people believe the tuning process begins when users complain about poor response time. This is usually too late in the process to use some of the most effective tuning strategies. At that point, if you are unwilling to completely redesign the application, you may only improve performance marginally by reallocating memory and tuning I/O. Oracle provides many features that can greatly improve performance when properly used in a well designed system.

The application designer needs to set performance expectations of the application at the design phase. Then during design and development, the application designers should consider which Oracle features can benefit the system. This manual describes some of the performance implications of the various Oracle features, and you can use this information to determine if a particular feature will enhance the performance of your application.

By designing a system to perform well, you can eliminate cost and frustration later in the life of the application. Figure 1 - 1 and Figure 1 - 2 illustrate the relative cost and benefits of tuning during the life of an application. As you can see, the most effective time to tune is during the design phase. Tuning during design gives you the maximum benefit at the lowest cost.

Figure 1 - 1. Cost of Tuning During the Life of an Application

Figure 1 - 2. Benefit of Tuning During the Life of an Application

Chapter 2, "Effective Application Design", describes some of the performance enhancing features you can use to ensure your application meets its designed performance goals. Of course, even the performance of well designed systems can degrade with use. This manual also describes a strategy for identifying and dealing with various performance bottlenecks.


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