Thread Thrashing under Win32

I'm working with a developer to deploy Oracle db 10.2.0.3 64-bit under Win64. Custom front-end app.

He's asking a question which seems relevant to Oracle architecture, but I find no mention of this term anywhere on Metalink.

Basically, he's concerned that the processes parameter in the db (which has been set moderately high for initial testing) will result in the same number of threads being created in the Oracle Windows process - and that this high number of threads will result in 'thread thrashing' (a term I wasn't familiar with until today), which will limit scalability.

I gather that 'thread thrashing' is a situation where a process slows down because of excessive context switching between the threads inside the process.

My response is pretty pragmatic - let's not worry about that problem unless we have specific reason to worry about it, or unless we see evidence of a problem in the Dev environment.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to identify a precedent wherein someone has actually *seen* performance issues related to context switching of this kind in a Win32/Win64 deployment.

Thus far I'm coming up dry.

Does anyone know of any 'guidelines' Oracle provides which would limit the number of processes (and therefore threads in the OS process) because of a concern like this? I've tried looking for 'thread thrashing' on Metalink, and predictably get nothing at all - 'Context Switching' isn't leading me to anything of use either.

I'd like to tell this gent that thread thrashing of this kind is not a concern - but I'd prefer to have some kind of architectural provision in front of me, to back that up... plus, assuming this kind of excessive context switching within the Win32 process is even a possibility, I'm not clear how you'd identify that it's occurring...

Thanks for any suggestions... Received on Fri Jun 08 2007 - 13:28:38 CDT