Re: Monitoring and tuning database performance

Why are you writing coursework for students on a subject about which you know nothing? I'm somehow both amused and offended.

The answer is so long and involved books have been written about it. You might even google this group to find some of them.

If you weren't so completely clueless, I'd say start with the performance guide in the docs. But I have to say, start with the concepts manual. By the time you understand it, your course will be long gone.

Sorry to be so negative, I'm usually an advocate of being nice to newbies, but there is a huge backstory of people having to unlearn other databases, and myth propagation, here. MS SQL and WINDOWS GUI's advocates in particular have a reputation of vast and misleading oversimplification of the issues involved. Some people have even gone to the extreme of saying "why do you care what the most common transactions are? Wouldn't you care more what transactions affect your business the most?"

Grid Control has some pretty pictures, if that's what you want. If you have metalink access, see
https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/f?p=130:3:3296175892382194830::::p3_database_id,p3_docid,p3_show_header,p3_show_help,p3_black_frame,p3_font:NOT,131704.1,1,1,1,helvetica for some scripts, some of which may also propagate myths.

Some people downplay Niemec's performance tuning book, but I think it has some interesting insights. Milsap, Kyte and Lewis' books are generally perceived to be the best (with good reason, IMO). Don't hurt your back picking them up. You might want to start with Lawson's book to pick up some administration basics.

Definitely avoid downloading any "free java tool" crap.

There are some commercial products that have their fans, for some reason the few obvious flaws get magnified out of proportion, perhaps because they cause an inordinate amount of needless work.

jg

-- 
@home.com is bogus.
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.13.html#subj3