Re: Oracle's use of tablespaces

In article <grimes.746706830_at_access> grimes_at_oecd.fr writes:
>score.) Then there's the case where a tablespace is filled and has used
>the maximum number of extents. The DBA has to "export, drop, and
>re-create ... the object" [Oracle 7 Server Administrator's Guide] instead of
>just upping the quotas. "For an extremely large table, this can take as
>much as 14 hours, or more."

What of it, doesn't Unix have a limit on the size of a file? If you hit the ? gigabyte limit on a unix file is it reasonable to say. Shit, Why can't I just up the limit?!

You dont have to create the table or tablespace with MAXEXTENTS set to the MAX. In fact it is very reasonable to set it much lower so that when your file approaches the hardlimit you can increase the PCTINCREASE and keep it from hitting that limit. Isn't that the same as Upping the Quota?

While the number of maxextents is rather small the size of those extents is under our control. I dont view MAXEXTENTS as so much of a limit as a safety switch to keep runaway programs from fragmenting my database. Granted hitting that mark in a real system is a pain but that's not the fault of oracle. That's my fault for not taking care of my storage parameters.

I dont have a problem with this scheme, But I do have a problem with the fix once you have hit the Max Extents limit. It seems to me that if the Space Managment People can keep track of chained rows and fragmented tables, then they should be able to figure out a way of combining extents without haveing to copy/export the entire table.

If My first extent of 50M is just fine, but I want to get rid of those other 120 10K extents, It seems reasonable to me that I should be able to combine them in to a single 1.2M 2nd extent.

Oh well, As Oracle support would say I guess I'm just not "seeing the whole picture." :-}

-- 
Regards, 

Lee E. Parsons                  		Baker Hughes Inteq, Inc
Oracle Database Administrator 			lparsons_at_exlog.com