Re: SESSION_CACHED_CURSORS -- RE: Parse Vs Execute

Steve Adams talks about AST's which are blast from the VMS past. More exactly, AST used to stand for Asynchronous System Trap, and was processed in a similar way like signals on the unix. The CPU IPL was elevated to "AST delivery level" (IPL 2) and AST was queued on the target process entry. When the process was selected by the scheduler to run again, AST was executed on an elevated IPL, just before the control was passed back to the process. My "VMS Internals" books (4.4 and 5.2) are buried deep in the cellar and I can no longer vouch for correctness of this. I'm not going to start digging for those books even if you point a gun at me. My question is how does oracle implement AST's? Normal mechanism would be to use signals, but that would make the code vulnerable to all kinds of attacks, because someone could simply queue signals by using sigqueue and see what happens. The only two signals that are user defined are SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2, which means that if they were used, their delivery should be clearly visible by looking at strace. It's not being the case. I would really, really like to know how does Oracle implement AST's?

On 12/02/2003 12:39:26 PM, Tanel Poder wrote:
> Mladen,
>
> I don't think it's SMON who is coalescing free memory extents. I'm not
> entirely sure here, but I think if any server process explicitly frees a
> freeable chunk, then the 16-byte header of immediate next chunk is checked,
> if this is also free both chunks are coalesced and header of next chunk is
> checked and so on. When no more adjacent free chunks are found, shared pool
> freelists are updated. This is called forward coalescing (not to be confused
> with on-disk segment extent forward coalescing), Ixora also mentions a bit
> about them.
>
> This all is done by the server process who is freeing the chunk, not SMON
> (SMONs sleep interval is too long for this kind of critical operation
> anyway).
>
> Also, when a process tries to allocate memory from shared pool and there are
> no sufficiently large free chunks left, then the process goes to shared pool
> LRU list to find unpinned recreatable chunks and uses callback through the
> kernel stack to find the "owner" of the chunk and free it appropriately.
> When freeing chunk for new allocation like that, here we might also have
> forward coalescing going on (adjacent free space is coalesced before
> allocated to new process).
>
> Actually, I'm not sure whether this "callback" is real callback up the
> kernel stack or is a separate context estabilished for it like Steve Adams
> describes for data and transaction layer in the beginning of his book.
> Estabilishing a separate call context for such a low level operation seems
> quite expensive. If anyone knows about this, please let us know ;)
>
> Mladen, another way for circumventing excessive memory usage in shared pool,
> in addition to cursor_sharing, is to tell TFDs to use bind variables
> appropriately ;)
>
> Tanel.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 5:49 PM
>
>
> > That was my understanding, too. The problem with unpinning only at
> > the specific close is that smon cannot free shared pool memory belonging
> > to the cursor if the cursor is pinned, so the shared pool usage
> skyrockets.
> > The only way to circumvent the problem is to set CURSOR_SHARING to FORCE.
> > That is also fraught with danger, but what the heck, we are the DBAs, we
> want
> > to live dangerously.
> >
> > On 12/02/2003 04:59:33 AM, Tanel Poder wrote:
> > > Jonathan,
> > >
> > > I've understood that when cursor_space_for_time is true, then unpin is
> only
> > > done when cursor is closed, thus there's no need for pinning/unpinning
> for
> > > every execution of a cursor. This should reduce hits on library cache
> > > latches since pinning is not done so often?
> > >
> > > Hermant,
> > >
> > > I've sometimes seen this parameter recommended when having library cache
> > > latching issues in large Apps installations, I have not used it myself
> in
> > > Apps though.
> > >
> > > Also note, that cursor_space_for_time requires 50-100% larger
> shared_pool
> > > (and some more private SQL area in PGA, shared_pool or large_pool,
> depending
> > > on configuration), since shared cursor's frames can't be aged out from
> > > library cache until all corresponding cursors are closed (normally if
> > > there's not enough free memory in shared pool when parsing a new
> statement,
> > > some unpinned, but open cursors can be thrown out, but with
> > > cursor_space_for_time they can't be).
> > >
> > > So, if you don't find any better cure and decide to use this parameter,
> you
> > > should first increase your shared pool quite much to avoid ORA-4031
> errors
> > > and then start reducing in small amounts, based on v$librarycache,
> > > v$rowcache, x$kghlu and shared pool/library cache latch wait statistics.
> > > It's not good idea to leave shared pool too large, otherwise your memory
> > > allocations from there (hard parses for example) will get slow (shared
> pool
> > > latch (or latches in 9i) are kept too long when searching for
> > > free/recreatable chunks).
> > >
> > > Tanel.
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> > > Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 9:34 PM
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > You still have to hit the library cache to execute
> > > > a statement as it needs to be pinned in share mode,
> > > > and unpinned when you finish with it. Library cache
> > > > latch waits can be a symptom of excessive executions.
> > > >
> > > > Have you checked the library cache latch children
> > > > to see if the load is evenly balanced, or whether there
> > > > is a single library cache latch that is suffering most of
> > > > the sleeps.
> > > >
> > > > Good news for 9.2 - v$sql, and a couple of others
> > > > include the library cache child latch number, so you
> > > > can see which objects are protected by the hot latch
> > > > without having to use Steve's algorithm.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Regards
> > > >
> > > > Jonathan Lewis
> > > > http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk
> > > >
> > > > The educated person is not the person
> > > > who can answer the questions, but the
> > > > person who can question the answers -- T. Schick Jr
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > One-day tutorials:
> > > > http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/tutorial.html
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Three-day seminar:
> > > > see http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/seminar.html
> > > > ____UK___November
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ
> > > > http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.html
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> > > > Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 1:29 PM
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > What's the value for your cursor_space_for_time parameter?
> > > >
> > > > Tanel.
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: Hemant K Chitale
> > > > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > > > Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 8:54 AM
> > > > Subject: SESSION_CACHED_CURSORS -- RE: Parse Vs Execute
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I have taken SESSION_CACHED_CURSORS from 0 to 100 to 400. On
> occassion
> > > I
> > > > still see
> > > > very high LIBRARY CACHE LATCH contention and am considering upping
> the
> > > > value again.
> > > > Currently, I set it at the Instance level. Since I am running
> Oracle
> > > > Apps, I have suggested
> > > > to the application team to put a custom ALTER SESSION trigger into
> the
> > > > specific first
> > > > responsibility form for users who do navigate between forms a lot
> and
> > > > where we see
> > > > high contention.
> > > > Running Steve Adams's query, I get
> > > > SQL> @Session_Cursor_Cache.sql
> > > >
> > > > PARAMETER VALUE USAGE
> > > > ----------------------------- ----- -----
> > > > session_cached_cursors 400 50%
> > > > open_cursors 1024 36%
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > CURSOR_CACHE_HITS SOFT_PARSES HARD_PARSES
> > > > ----------------- ----------- -----------
> > > > 35.10% 63.09% 1.81%
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > MAX_CACHEABLE_CURSORS
> > > > ---------------------
> > > > 5227
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > > > --
> > > > Author: Jonathan Lewis
> > > > INET: jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk
> > > >
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> > >
> > > --
> > > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > > --
> > > Author: Tanel Poder
> > > INET: tanel.poder.003_at_mail.ee
> > >
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> >
> > Mladen Gogala
> > Oracle DBA
> >
> >
> >
> > Note:
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> > Author: Mladen Gogala
> > INET: mladen_at_wangtrading.com
> >
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> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> --
> Author: Tanel Poder
> INET: tanel.poder.003_at_mail.ee
>
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Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA

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-- 
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-- 
Author: Mladen Gogala
  INET: mladen_at_wangtrading.com

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