The Application DBA

The AppsDBA.com web site has been in existence for just over 12 years. When it started it focused on Oracle Applications technology and architecture. It has evolved over the years, expanding into performance related topics with emphasis on response time optimization, workload and capacity management and workload characterization. Just as the Oracle Applications product line has evolved into the E-Business Suite, Fusion Applications and the myriad of additional products that Oracle has purchased over the years we have evolved as well. Recently more emphasis has been placed on system management and offering tools and information related to managing database systems in general.

Over the years our experience has led us to the realization that it is the role of the application DBA that provides
the best chance for designing and creating well performing applications. Systems that perform well are designed that way and are equipped with the tools to allow the performance architect to quickly gather the information necessary to identify problems when they occur. We believe that the only way to do that is to get the application developer involved early in the performance process.

So the AppsDBA.com web site and the AppsDBA Blog will be evolving, focusing on the role of the application DBA, and perhaps reinterpreting the meaning of the term appsdba. The web site will be expanding to include ideas, tools and practices that allow the creation of performance oriented applications.

Oracle Instrumentation

Check out the AppsDBA paper Oracle Instrumentation. This is the original version. An edited version appeared in the IOUG SELECT Journal in the first quarter of 2009.

Trace File Event Timeline

The AppsDBA Interval Resource Profiler now includes the ability to create a trace file event timeline. The technique is described in more detail in blog posts starting here. This is a new technique that creates a graph of the events in a trace file grouped in approximately equal intervals. The advantage of this technique is to allow the visualization of event skew within a trace file. This may help illustrate scoping problems or event skew that might otherwise be hidden by the profile summary.

The new utility is a perl script called resource_event.pl. It requires the perl GD module, but a CSV file can also be created that can be imported into Excel for more sophisticated graphing.

Trace File Execution Tree

A new utility to parse an extended SQL trace file and create an an indented listing of PARSE, EXEC and FETCH statements with recursive and exclusive times summarized for each depth. This is the utility mentioned in

this blog entry and makes it much easier to follow the time accounting when trying to reconcile recursive and exclusive time in the trace file.

"Conventional wisdom is opinion that has been repeated enough over time to become accepted as fact. While sometimes it can be fact, most times it is not." - Tom House, The Picture Perfect Pitcher, 2003