Oracle 7.2.3 does not release memory!

We are running AIX 3.2.5 on an RS/6000 box, Oracle version 7.2.3. A database-intensive production run was scheduled for last weekend, and it failed due to lack of available memory. When we examined the status of the memory via the aixmonitor utility, we discovered there was only 0.5 MB of free memory available on our production server.

We examined the memory status on the identical development server, and noted an identical memory situation. We endeavoured to find out what had changed recently on these servers which might be contributing to this condition. We decided it might be the application of a patch (344490), so we contacted Oracle support about how we could back out of this patch.

A few days ago we were successful in backing out of the patch on both servers. At first it seemed things were going better. However, after rebooting the machines and allowing work to resume, we observed that things hadn't really been resolved after all. Memory is still being allocated by processes and not released.

We did some experimentation to find out what is failing to release memory. We ran some non-Oracle processes and watched the memory for those processes be allocated and freed successfully. Then we tried some Oracle database tests. It seems the memory for the Oracle tool program itself is successfully allocated and released, but not memory used by the work the process does. For example, we launched SQL*PLUS and saw its memory allocated. We did a select count(*) from a large table and watched memory be used by doing that. We then exited SQL*PLUS and saw the memory that was allocated by launching the program be freed, but NOT the memory used by doing the select count(*).

So, we have determined that it is Oracle's work that is not properly freeing memory back to the operating system. Our system has 256 MB of memory, and only about 1 MB is currently free. After system reboot and starting the databases we are left with about 170 MB free at that time, which then decreases and is not freed as work is being done. Because it was only recently that we discovered the situation, we don't really know how long this has been going on. However, we urgently need to take steps to rectify this if possible.

This has been the subject of an ongoing TAR at Oracle support, but no progress has been made. I thought maybe someone out there has encountered the same / similar problem?

Any suggestions would be really appreciated!! We're dying here. Received on Fri Nov 20 1998 - 11:58:29 CST