Change the Way You Think About SQL Tuning with SQL Plan Management

Regression in SQL plans are a frequent cause for performance related incidents when the cost-based optimizer comes up with a new plan due to changes in data distribution, statistics, or binds. While most organizations have very strict processes for changes to applications or infrastructure, the CBO is most often left alone, accepting that SQL execution performance could change at any time. But with SQL Plan Management it does not take much effort to implement a process that makes changes to SQL plans manageable. It starts with monitoring regression in execution times, capturing baselines, auto pre-evaluating potentially better plans, and documenting information needed to accept the change. We will not only cover how SPM works, but also how you can start using it in your organization today. Basic CBO fundamentals are useful, attendees should know roughly how the CBO comes up with plans taking into consideration statistics and evaluating different access paths. The more painful experience attendees have with flipping plans, the more they will appreciate the ideas presented here

A Manly Man's Guide to Open-Source Database Tuning Tools

Instance and SQL tuning with EM12c Cloud Control is so easy, it is not even much fun anymore. Also, not every customer may have the appropriate license or database edition, or all you have available remotely is a command-line login to a database
This presentation showcases a few open-source database tuning tools such as Snapper and ASH replacements that DBAs can use to gather and review metrics and wait events from the command line and even in standard edition. This is done by dissecting the familiar performance pages in EM12c, explaining the underlying statistics and showing how similar observations can be made in other tools

Tackling Time Troubles - How Oracle Implemented Datetime Datatypes

Dealing with time related data can be more complicated than what one might expect at first thought. Leap years, time zones and daylight saving time switches can cause confusion and lead to runtime errors or poorly performing SQL code. We will look at some major pitfalls that should be avoided and discusses best practices when dealing with time data.