In Oracle, intelligent keys are so named because they contain nontrivial combinations of information. The term is misleading in the extreme because it implies something positive or worthwhile. A more meaningful term might be overloaded keys. General ledger and product codes often fall into this category and contain all the difficulties associated with other codes, […]
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The basic approach to naming [objects in Oracle application design] is to choose meaningful, memorable, and descriptive readable names, avoiding abbreviations and codes, and using underscores either consistently or not at all. In a large application, table, column, and data names will often be multiword, as in the case of REVERSED_EXPENSE_ACCOUNT or LAST_GL_CLOSE_DATE. The goal […]
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Many of us look forward to the day when we can simply type a “natural” language query in English, and have the answer back, on our screen, in seconds. We are closer to this goal than most of us realize. The limiting factor is no longer technology, but rather the rigor of thought in our […]
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The basic approach to naming is to choose meaningful, memorable, and descriptive readable names, avoiding abbreviations and codes, and using underscores either consistently or not at all. In a large application, table, column, and data names will often be multi-word, as in the case of REVERSED_EXPENSE_ACCOUNT or LAST_GL_CLOSE_DATE. The goal of thoughtful naming methods is […]
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Hybrid columnar compression (HCC) changes the way row data is stored to obtain dramatically better compression ratios, often 10x or more. Rather than storing a series of rows inside a data block, HCC operates on an aggregate group of data blocks called a compression unit. Within the compression unit, HCC-compressed data contains the data for […]
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The Exadata flash cache makes use of flash memory to speed up access to commonly used data. Flash-based solid-state storage has latency times and I/O operation rates much higher than rotating storage, improving performance particularly in transaction-processing applications. The flash cache is stored on flash-memory cards on storage servers. The storage server software manages the […]
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Storage indexes build on the smart scan functionality by dividing the physical table data into storage regions and tracking the highest and lowest values for each storage region. When a SELECT query is run on the table, the smart scan code can compare the saved high and low values with the where clause from the […]
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Solving the performance problems in each of nine web application process steps requires different approaches, depending upon the location of the problem. Solving Client Machine Performance Problems (Steps 1 and 9) Performance degradations in the client machine are usually caused by page bloat burdening the client with rich UI components that could be eliminated. Determine […]
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Poorly written server-side code and a badly designed database will make any application run slower, but improving the performance of a slow running web application requires examination of the entire system, not just the database. A typical three-tier web application structure is shown in Figure 1. FIGURE 1. Web application process flow As shown in […]
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There are important tools found within the database realm that can be used to determine what is happening with the database. These tools are well documented, free, and reasonably easy to learn to use. Gaining familiarity with these tools is not only the responsibility of the DBA, but also database developers, user interface developers, application […]
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In the first article we considered the issue of managing small data volumes when working with Oracle LOBS and thinking about I/O tuning, and in the second, we considered buffer cache alternatives. If your database is running in ARCHIVELOG mode (as are the majority of databases), the problem of generating too many logs becomes a real headache […]
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In the previous article we considered the issue of managing small data volumes when working with Oracle LOBS and thinking about I/O tuning. Another critical performance question is how all operations with such large data volumes will impact the buffer cache. Oracle provides enough flexibility to adjust the caching option in a number of ways: […]
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