Is "_db_block_cache_protect = true" killing my throughput?

From: Christopher Allen <progplusSPAMBEGONE_at_gte.net>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:24:50 GMT
Message-ID: <CrDs3.223$Bt3.14271@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net>

I learned yesterday that my Sun 450 server's Oracle 7.3.4.0.1 installation has about 1/10th the throughput (with simple INSERT statements) of the NT server sitting next to it running 8.0.5. This surprised me greatly, and I've started investigating why the Sun is so much slower. One thing I noticed was in the $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/init$ORACLE_SID.ora was this section:

# FOR BETA RELEASE ONLY. Enable debugging modes. Note that these can
# adversely affect performance. On some non-VMS ports the db_block_cache_*
# debugging modes have a severe effect on performance.

 _db_block_cache_protect = true                       # memory protect

buffers

 event = "10210 trace name context forever, level 2" # data block checking
 event = "10211 trace name context forever, level 2" # index block checking
 event = "10235 trace name context forever, level 1" # memory heap checking
 event = "10049 trace name context forever, level 2" # memory protect

cursors

"Severe effect on performance" is certainly the symptom I'm seeing. Before commenting out the _db_block_cache_protect parameter, I want to know more about what it does. The Oracle online docs returned no matches to the phrase "db_block_cache". Can anyone tell me what this does, and what the ramifications of disabling it will be?

Thanks,
Christopher Received on Thu Aug 12 1999 - 12:24:50 CDT