Optimizer

I appreciate this is probably a huge topic, but can anyone point me in the direction of information about the Oracle optimizer. In particular, what should the optimizer rule be set to (CHOOSE, RULE etc). If the optimizer is using cost based optimization, is it necessary to analyze tables regularly or can it be run once. Does the cost based optimizer always give better results that the rule based optimizer or are there too many variables to decide this.

Are there are good tools to help with optimization, (where to add indexes etc), I found tkprof output very cryptic.

Many thanks Received on Sun May 14 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT