Performance Optimization and Tuning

Wednesday 23 February

The aim of this lecture is to give you an idea of what database performance tuning is from the point of view of an application developer and not that of a DataBase Administrator (DBA ). Why do we need to tune at all? How can we make tuning experts unnecessary? Application tuning is the main topic of the lecture and its substantial part is devoted to SQL statement tuning. But the larger picture is also there! Common pitfalls are listed and you will see real life examples and problems.

Come to this lecture if you want to learn:

• what tuning is, why it's perceived as magic and how to tame it,

• when to start tuning a database application,

• what techniques and tools to use,

• what is an SQL optimizer and how to make it work better,

• how to read an execution plan,

• what types of indexes to use and why,

• why timing and logging is so important,

• why avoid using optimizer hints

All these issues are presented based on an Oracle database. But they are also relevant to other database systems!