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Re: CBO irregularity

From: Jonathan Lewis <jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 09:31:39 +0100
Message-ID: <02b101c44d33$04b88950$7102a8c0@Primary>

Notes in-line.

Regards

Jonathan Lewis

http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk

http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.html The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ

http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/seminar.html Optimising Oracle Seminar - schedule updated May 1st

: I've gotta respectfully disagree on this one, Cary. I've tuned a fair
amount of
: 9.2 SQL by now, and there are definitely still common situations where I
: couldn't get it to do the right thing with one of the "Informative" hints
Cary
: lists, needing one or more of the directive hints (ordered, index(...))
: instead. The main reasons this still happens (and is likely to continue to
: happen for quite a long time) are:
:
: 1) Reality conflicts with CBO assumptions. Examples are:
: a) The CBO does not know how selective a condition will be after a
particular
: bind variable is set. Bind variable peeking doesn't solve this either, by
the
: way - do you want the plan you'll be stuck with till the SQL falls out of
the
: shared pool to be dependent on whether Oracle first sees a report on a
large
: date range or a small date range? You thought you had that SQL tuned and
: tested, but 4 hours before the quarter close it starts performing
optimally
: only for huge date ranges (likely reverting to a full table scan) because
it
: happened to age out and come back with the first example of binding seen
for
: date bind vaiables specifying a huge date range...

    I don't know how others feel, but I think that mandatory     bind variable peeking was a bad mistake. In some cases     it sounds like a nice idea; but I prefer to pay the price of     skewed data (which I think is the target) in different ways.

: b) Conditions/joins are not independent. You and I know that open orders
: generally point to recent order lines, but the databsase doesn't know that
, no
: not even if you give it histograms on every column. When the CBO sees
partially
: redundant conditions (such as an Open_Flag on the order and an Update_Date
on an
: Order_Line), it is very likely to calculate that after it evaluates
: both conditions, it'll be down to essentially 0 rows. From that point, a
great
: many plans are going to look equally fast, although the reality is that
they
: vary greatly.
:

    Agree with the general principle - but it doesn't help that     Oracle is a little bit broken in 'recent dates' area, and that     the pendulum has swung too hard in the direction of     bind-variables when things like 'open flag' should be present     as literals.

: 2) Combinatorics defeat the optimizer search. If the optimizer found the
best
: plan before it ran up against its search limit, it'd take it, but the
enormous
: number of join orders exceeds that limit.
:

    I've rarely found this to be true. The problem is more likely     to be that one of the issues you've given in part (1) means there     is at least one selectivity that is so far off that Oracle will discard     the optimum path (or would discard it if it got there).

: These are good, solid reasons to use directive hints unapologetically,
even if
: (as is normally the case) you cannot find an outright Oracle bug that
makes the
: hint necessary.
:
: I like the idea of avoiding directive hints where informative hints and
good
: stats, including necesary histograms, suffice. Where those do *not*
suffice,
: I've heard all the theoretical reason to avoid directive hints, but I find
: them unpersuasive:
:

    Agree (ignoring the minor quibbles). I think the context of the     Tom Kyte comments is that hints are a last resort in tweaking     rather than a first step; and if they are a last resort there are     some hints that are more harmless than others. (Looking at     the list that Cary quoted, though, I'm not in 100% agreement     with Tom's list - but that may, again be context).

: Theoretical-issue) You restrict the optimizer's freedom to do the right
thing
: later.
:
: Sure, but why is that a problem?
:

    It depends where you started from.

    Very few people hint their code properly (i.e. completely).     Too many people hint too much of the code.     If you upgrade and find that a perfectly reasonable hint     in the previous version turns into a disaster in the next     version.
    If you get 250 pieces of SQL running very slowly, what     do you do to fix them.
    If you get just 3 pieces of SQL running very slowly, that's     less of a problem.

: a) Data distributions may change, calling for a different plan than
today's
: optimum.
: - As I mentioned in my book, in over 10 years of intensive SQL tuning, I
have
: *never*, *not once* seen a real-world case where a well-chosen, robust
: execution plan could not deliver good enough performance for all
real-world,
: production data distributions.

    But think how often you see the complaint:

        This code ran perfectly well in development,
        but the same execution path (which has been
        forced by hints) is a disaster on production.
        Again, it depends on your starting point.
        I see a huge waste of human effort spent on
        fiddling around with hints because of a lack of
        awareness of what cost based optimisation means.

    I think you're right about carefully considered production     systems - each SQL statement (in an OLTP system) is going to     have its one plan which is going to be right for the life of     the business. The probability of norrmal fluctuations in business     patterns is unlikely to make a plan 'the catastrophically wrong'     plan. If the data distribution changes so much that lots of execution     plans become sub-optimal, the business probably has a much     larger problem than worrying about re-tuning a load of SQL     statements.

: I make no claim that none of
 you have seen such
: a case. (If you'll send me a note, personally, I'll inform the group of
the
: total count of such cases seen across the whole group, without burdening
the
: group with a lot of details.) However, unless my experience is completely
: freakish, the cost of living with a whole lot of SQL (which I see very
: regularly) that is bad *today* without directive hints will *hugely*
exceed the
: cost of later having to hand-retune one or two statements/year that might
cross
: the line from tuned to untuned as data distributions evolve.
:

    My experience has been that it's only ever a few SQL     statements that have to be sorted out to deal with the     major excesses anyway.

: b) Oracle, itself, may change, opening up new opportunities for execution
plans
: that are inferior (or simply unavailable) with current code, but will be
best
: someday.
: - Do we imagine that changes to Oracle will actually make the current
execution
: plan that is optimized today actually *bad*??! I've certainly never seen
*that*
: happen - Oracle learns new tricks, certainly, but it has never in my
experience
: actually become *worse* at performing its *old* tricks (at least as far as
: robust execution plans go!)!

    On a reasonable number of occasions, I've found that     removing the existing hints from a badly performing     piece of SQL has magically improved the performance.     Yes, upgrades to Oracle can make an existing set of     hint do something bad. (Sometimes because bugs kick in     at the unluckiest places, and sometimes because of the     selectivity issues you mentioned further up the page).

                                                     On the contrary, even
with normal expected
: hardware improvements, alone, today's just-barely-adequate tuned SQL is
likely
: to be so good at this future date that we don't even *care* if it could be
: better. So, we should except a dead certainty of non-optimal performance,
: today, because we think that at some unknown future date, this SQL
statement
: (if we leave it free of directive hints) *may* be *even better* than
today's
: potential optimum performance after improvement on future hardware? That
: certainly would not be my choice!

    I agree - 'it might get better on the upgrade, new hardware' etc.     is never a reason for leaving a problem in place. The only reason     for leaving it in place is if the fix costs more (in whatever currency     you are accounting) than the benefit.

    However -

:
: I see some false assumptions behind the case for avoiding directive hints:
:
: Assumption-I-don't-agree-with A) The SQL, and the hardware performance
will be
: cast in stone, while Oracle evolves, and we're stuck with the SQL,
unchanged
: forever, once we tune it.
: - Hardly! It is almost certainly the case that functionality changes and
changes
: to the underlying database design will change the SQL *long* before any
: hypothetical future arrives when you'd wish the SQL had fewer
restrictions!
:

    Got to agree with that. Have to remember, though, the massive     effort that is sometimes involved in getting even an obvious     error fixed - change control and all that.

: Assumption-I-don't-agree-with B) The application has just loads of SQL
that
: needs tuning, so it would be really horrible if we had to re-visit any SQL
we
: thought we'd already tuned.

    Change "any SQL" to "lots of SQL" and you can may be     a little more generous on the degree of sympathy.

: - I admit that as someone making his living tuning SQL and teaching SQL
tuning,
: this assumption has a certain appeal! Unfortunately for my income, the
reality
: is that if you correctly choose which SQL to manually tune (and go ahead
by all
: means and leave the rest to the CBO, with "informative" hints at most), so
that
: you only manually tune the SQL that demonstrates it truly matters to end
users
: and to the business, you will almost certainly need to tune at most a few
dozen
: statements per application, a tiny fraction of the SQL.


    Absolutely, spot on, 100% agree.

    It's the shotgun approach that sprays hints     indiscriminately around a development     environment (particularly) that causes the     trouble with hints, and leads to a loaded     condemnation of hints as a solution.


If, a few years down
: the line, you need to retune, say, 10% of those statements (which would be
: *way* more than my experience leads me to expect), well, that's probably
going
: to be *far* less work than the work you're going to need to do, *anyway*,
: because the application, and the way the end users *use* the application,
: evolves at a normal rate.
:
: Assumption-I-don't-agree-with C) The CBO is a whole lot smarter than you,
the
: tuner, are, when it comes to tuning SQL.
: - Well, this is maybe a pretty good assumption about the average, untaught
: tuner, but I wouldn't have written my book if I thought the CBO's
brute-force
: advantage couldn't be overcome.

    But almost everyone is an "average untaught tuner", or worse     an "average, badly taught tuner". How is anyone supposed to     use hints correctly when the performance tuning guide (9.2)     pages 5-4/5-4 comes up with a section titled "Specifying a Full     Set of Hints" then gives an example which is far from a full     set of hints, and even manages to give the impression that     perhaps use_nl(a,b) means "use a nested loop from table a     to table b".

: Having said that, there's a
simple, safe test -
: . determine the best plan you can, following your choice of method for
: determining the best execution plan.
: . add appropriate "Informative" hints and histograms as relevant, and see
if
: they result in that best plan. If they do, you're done, and you get
evidence of
: the quality of the CBO and all its assumptions.
: . if you didn't get what you found as the best plan, add directive hints
without
: embarrassment until you have your chosen plan. Compare performance of the
best
: no-directive-hints SQL with performance of your directive-hints SQL. If
the
: difference is enough to matter to end users and/or to overall load, well,
you
: just got evidence that you're at least sometimes a smarter tuner than the
CBO.


    I love that "enough to matter" and its resonance     with "compulsive tuning disorder". Even so, I would     be concerned about making sure that the hints were     expanded to a complete set of hints to make sure     that there was no way for Oracle to misinterpret them     at a later date. Sure, it may only be one statement     that has to be fixed - but it may be a couple of days     of complaints from users until it is.


: If the CBO beat you with Informative hints, only, use the CBO's best. If
the
: CBO's best beats your best often, by enough to matter, consider whether
your
: method of finding the right execution plan is right, or if you just
haven't
: mastered it, yet.
:

One trap you haven't mentioned, by the way, is the problem you face when someone comes along and drops 13 of the indexes on a particular table because they are clearly redundant. Of course, if you're dropping indexes, you will be doing some careful testing anyway (probably), but having to review the hints on all the SQL that references that table is just another stumbling block in the path of change.



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Received on Tue Jun 08 2004 - 03:28:25 CDT

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