Oracle7 Server Tuning

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The Importance of Tuning I/O

The performance of many software applications is inherently limited by disk I/O. Often, CPU activity must be suspended while I/O activity completes. Such an application is said to be "I/O bound". Oracle is designed so that performance need not be limited by I/O.

Tuning I/O can help performance if a disk containing database files is operating at its capacity. However, tuning I/O cannot help performance in "CPU bound" cases, or cases in which your computer's CPUs are operating at their capacity.

It is important to tune I/O after following the memory allocation recommendations presented in Chapter 8, "Tuning Memory Allocation". Chapter 8 shows you how to allocate memory to reduce I/O to a minimum. After reaching this minimum, follow the instructions in this chapter to perform the necessary I/O as efficiently as possible.


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