Re: Your new book

No, you don't. I made mistake and tried to learn queuing theory from it. This book is not a course in queuing theory, it's a book about the optimization techniques and how to use queuing theory to actually predict the response time and write SLA's. It's not written in the usual form for mathematical texts, using theorem/proof/corollary layout. What you actually need to do is to skip the explanatory part of the chapter and concentrate on the definitions, formulas and their meaning. I do intend to look for an undergraduate level text in queuing theory, learn the basics and re-read the chapter when I have time. I don't make any promises that it will be soon, though. I must say that I admire Cary for laying out the internals of the work they do at Hostos in this way. This book gives Hotsos the utmost credibility, because now I understand the methods they use. I knew that Cary, Jeff, Anjo, Mogens and the gang are good, but promises about guaranteed response time sounded too good to be true. I couldn't help but wonder about the nature of the beast. It is explained to me now. I once was lost but now I'm found. I once was blind but now I see. It's an amazing book.

On 2003.10.22 23:59, Ryan wrote:
> if someone wants to dig into the type of math you are using in your book in
> more depth, what level of math expertise would you recommend? Do you have to
> go beyond college level calculus ?
> ----- Original Message -----
> To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 10:54 PM
>
>
> > Dennis,
> >
> > Thanks. In fact, I feel the same way about this as many of you who have
> > written about the book in the prior two days. I think the material that
> > ended up being Part II needed to be studied, refined, and documented.
> > And I believe it is important that this material be written in a BOOK
> > instead of only in some electronic medium. Without Part II, I'm not sure
> > many readers would have accepted the possibility of the rather
> > remarkable results I promise in Parts I and III.
> >
> > As it happens, Part II seems to have begun serving a number of uses,
> > some of which I didn't anticipate, including:
> >
> > - Those who want to take our work further can do so without having to
> > reinvent everything we've learned.
> > - Those who want to debate our approach can argue about it on an
> > unambiguous technical foundation.
> > - Forcing ourselves to write everything down in a consumer-ready format
> > guided our making the Hotsos Profiler into a much more robust and
> > complete product than it would have been otherwise.
> > - Similarly, it tightened the content in our educational courses
> > considerably. We now have excellent training material for Hotsos
> > employees, and perhaps (if O'Reilly is lucky) university students of
> > Oracle performance analysis around the world.
> > - Funny enough, it turns out that some of the MySQL guys are at least
> > considering the idea to integrate much better response time
> > instrumentation into their kernel as a result of the book.
> >
> > But Mr. Milligan is absolutely right: you don't have to be able to prove
> > why something works in order to use it. I tried to design Parts I and
> > III to give you what you need to make the method work, regardless of
> > whether you are interested in proving out the theory. I just didn't feel
> > like it would be responsible to sell Part III without including Part II.
> >
> >
> > Cary Millsap
> > Hotsos Enterprises, Ltd.
> > http://www.hotsos.com
> >
> > Upcoming events:
> > - Performance Diagnosis 101: 10/28 Phoenix, 11/19 Sydney
> > - SQL Optimization 101: 12/8-12 Dallas
> > - Hotsos Symposium 2004: March 7-10 Dallas
> > - Visit www.hotsos.com for schedule details...
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > DENNIS WILLIAMS
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 6:15 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> >
> > I think Cary deserves a vote of appreciation for Part II of his book. I
> > feel
> > (based on the comments of others, haven't waded through it myself yet)
> > that
> > he has put Oracle performance tuning on a solid mathematical foundation.
> >
> > My first education was engineering and I learned was that a practice
> > that rests on a solid mathematical foundation is not easily overturned.
> > A
> > great example for we DBAs is relational database theory, which rests on
> > relational algebra. Fads come and go that threaten to obsolete the
> > relational database, but since none of them has a solid mathematical
> > foundation, they soon fade.
> > If you gave me a quiz on relational algebra today, I'd probably
> > flunk
> > it, like many people that daily work with relational databases. But that
> > doesn't stop us from making use of the fruits of the theory. Similarly,
> > I
> > don't think we need to understand Part II in detail to successfully use
> > Cary's methods to tune an Oracle database.
> >
> >
> >
> > Dennis Williams
> > DBA
> > Lifetouch, Inc.
> > dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com <mailto:dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com>
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 4:10 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> >
> >
> >
> > I also am not Cary .....
> >
> > I have however read Cary's book from cover to cover (including spending
> > rather too long on a romantic weekend in paris with my wife
> > contemplating a
> > 10046 trace parsing project :(). I Am rereading and intend to require my
> > fellow DBAs and sysadmins to read it. However to attempt to answer your
> > questions.
> >
> > Yes it is different from every other tuning book out there (though there
> > is
> > *some* overlap with Christpher Lawson's 'the art and science of oracle
> > performance tuning'). The difference is exactly in the approach - the
> > central thesis of the book is (something like) that by utilizing well
> > specified and targeted extended sqltrace data for problem user actions
> > the
> > Oracle performance analyst can quickly and efficiently resolve Oracle
> > performance problems that debilitate the business performance of Oracle
> > based systems. This approach - to target problem business processes,
> > find
> > out why they run slowly and optimize them, is exactly what the RDBMS
> > world
> > needs (IMO).
> >
> > In addition the method Cary and Jeff describe predicts when it will (and
> > more importantly) won't be of use.
> >
> > Is it more readable than others? Here I do have some reservations. The
> > first
> > and last third of the book are extremely readable, and the character and
> > humour of the authors shines through. The formal central section will
> > put
> > off some (maybe a significant number) of readers though. Stephen Hawking
> > in
> > 'A Brief History of Time' writes "Someone told me that each equation I
> > put
> > in the book would halve the sales. I therefore resolved not to have any
> > equations at all. In the end, however, I did put in one equation,
> > Einstein's
> > famous equation E=mc˛." Cary and Jeff have either not been given this
> > advice, or ignored it in the interests of accuracy. The advantage that
> > this
> > gives is that the book has a formal methodology that puts others to
> > shame -
> > the disadvantage is that folk look at pages filled with equations full
> > of
> > queueing theory and Greek symbols and react badly. I hope that the
> > advice is
> > wrong, but fear that it may not be.
> >
> >
> > Niall
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com [ mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com
> > <mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com> ] On
> > > Behalf Of Michael Milligan
> > > Sent: 21 October 2003 17:49
> > > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > > Subject: Your new book
> > >
> > >
> > > Cary,
> > >
> > > I don't mean to ask you to brag, but can you please tell me
> > > if your new book, of which I've heard good things, is
> > > different in any way than other Oracle Performance Tuning
> > > books out. Does it take a different approach? Does it teach
> > > different methodologies? Is it more readable? I'd be very
> > > interested in your own assessment. What did you try to
> > > accomplish with this book?
> > >
> > > TIA,
> > >
> > > Michael Milligan
> > > Oracle DBA
> > > Ingenix, Inc.
> > > 2525 Lake Park Blvd.
> > > Salt Lake City, Utah 84120
> > > wrk 801-982-3081
> > > mbl 801-628-6058
> > > michael.milligan_at_ingenix.com
> > >
> > >
> > > This e-mail, including attachments, may include confidential
> > > and/or proprietary information, and may be used only by the
> > > person or entity to which it is addressed. If the reader of
> > > this e-mail is not the intended recipient or his or her
> > > authorized agent, the reader is hereby notified that any
> > > dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is
> > > prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please
> > > notify the sender by replying to this message and delete this
> > > e-mail immediately.
> > > --
> > > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > <http://www.orafaq.net>
> > > --
> > > Author: Michael Milligan
> > > INET: Michael.Milligan_at_ingenix.com
> > >
> > > Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> > <http://www.fatcity.com>
> > > San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> > > to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru')
> > > and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB
> > > ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed
> > > from). You may also send the HELP command for other
> > > information (like subscribing).
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > --
> > Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
> > INET: DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM
> >
> > Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> > San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> > to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> > the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> > (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> > also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
> >
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > --
> > Author: Cary Millsap
> > INET: cary.millsap_at_hotsos.com
> >
> > Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> > San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> > to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> > the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> > (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> > also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> --
> Author: Ryan
> INET: rgaffuri_at_cox.net
>
> Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
>

-- 
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA
-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
-- 
Author: Mladen Gogala
  INET: mgogala_at_adelphia.net

Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
San Diego, California        -- Mailing list and web hosting services
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).