Re: What is fragmentation in databases ?

Atif Ahmad Khan wrote:
>
> I was flipping through the pages of the latest Oracle magazine
> and saw an ad that offered a product to address the fragmentation
> problem in database servers by ARIS (DFRAG 5.0- Page 37). I am
> not sure what fragmentation in databases is and what this product
> does. Does anybody know ? Just curious.

Fragmentation resutls in a reduction in the size of free extents in datafiles. This makes it harder for Oracle to find a contiguous block of disk space when it needs to allocate an extent. Defragmentation combines small free areas into larger free areas.

Large = good
Small = bad

• TRW -- |||| remove the underscores in my address to reply |||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| | Tim Witort || He is not silent. He is not | | trw_@_medicalert.org || whispering. We are not quiet | | || we are not listening. | | Pin: TZ, only one :^( || - Out of the Grey | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||