Re: Your new book

I think Cary has put performance tuning on a solid math foundation, not just the Oracle one. I'm writing a little paper (not much yet) on why you can not optimise any other system right than the MVS environment and the Oracle database. The MySQL people are currently reading Cary's book and learning that they should not put in all those things we got in Oracle6 for ratios and stuff, but instead instrument the code right and allow the optimisers, the tools and the users to view session-based measurements of what went on. Windows, Linux, Unix, and all the other databases can't do that. That's my happy claim :).

Mogens

DENNIS WILLIAMS wrote:

>I think Cary deserves a vote of appreciation for Part II of his book. I feel
>(based on the comments of others, haven't waded through it myself yet) that
>he has put Oracle performance tuning on a solid mathematical foundation.
> My first education was engineering and I learned was that a practice
>that rests on a solid mathematical foundation is not easily overturned. A
>great example for we DBAs is relational database theory, which rests on
>relational algebra. Fads come and go that threaten to obsolete the
>relational database, but since none of them has a solid mathematical
>foundation, they soon fade.
> If you gave me a quiz on relational algebra today, I'd probably flunk
>it, like many people that daily work with relational databases. But that
>doesn't stop us from making use of the fruits of the theory. Similarly, I
>don't think we need to understand Part II in detail to successfully use
>Cary's methods to tune an Oracle database.
>
>
>
>Dennis Williams
>DBA
>Lifetouch, Inc.
>dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com <mailto:dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 4:10 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>
>I also am not Cary .....
>
>I have however read Cary's book from cover to cover (including spending
>rather too long on a romantic weekend in paris with my wife contemplating a
>10046 trace parsing project :(). I Am rereading and intend to require my
>fellow DBAs and sysadmins to read it. However to attempt to answer your
>questions.
>
>Yes it is different from every other tuning book out there (though there is
>*some* overlap with Christpher Lawson's 'the art and science of oracle
>performance tuning'). The difference is exactly in the approach - the
>central thesis of the book is (something like) that by utilizing well
>specified and targeted extended sqltrace data for problem user actions the
>Oracle performance analyst can quickly and efficiently resolve Oracle
>performance problems that debilitate the business performance of Oracle
>based systems. This approach - to target problem business processes, find
>out why they run slowly and optimize them, is exactly what the RDBMS world
>needs (IMO).
>
>In addition the method Cary and Jeff describe predicts when it will (and
>more importantly) won't be of use.
>
>Is it more readable than others? Here I do have some reservations. The first
>and last third of the book are extremely readable, and the character and
>humour of the authors shines through. The formal central section will put
>off some (maybe a significant number) of readers though. Stephen Hawking in
>'A Brief History of Time' writes "Someone told me that each equation I put
>in the book would halve the sales. I therefore resolved not to have any
>equations at all. In the end, however, I did put in one equation, Einstein's
>famous equation E=mc²." Cary and Jeff have either not been given this
>advice, or ignored it in the interests of accuracy. The advantage that this
>gives is that the book has a formal methodology that puts others to shame -
>the disadvantage is that folk look at pages filled with equations full of
>queueing theory and Greek symbols and react badly. I hope that the advice is
>wrong, but fear that it may not be.
>
>
>Niall
>
>
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com [ mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com
>>
>>
><mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com> ] On
>
>
>>Behalf Of Michael Milligan
>>Sent: 21 October 2003 17:49
>>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>>Subject: Your new book
>>
>>
>>Cary,
>>
>>I don't mean to ask you to brag, but can you please tell me
>>if your new book, of which I've heard good things, is
>>different in any way than other Oracle Performance Tuning
>>books out. Does it take a different approach? Does it teach
>>different methodologies? Is it more readable? I'd be very
>>interested in your own assessment. What did you try to
>>accomplish with this book?
>>
>>TIA,
>>
>>Michael Milligan
>>Oracle DBA
>>Ingenix, Inc.
>>2525 Lake Park Blvd.
>>Salt Lake City, Utah 84120
>>wrk 801-982-3081
>>mbl 801-628-6058
>>michael.milligan_at_ingenix.com
>>
>>
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>>
><http://www.orafaq.net>
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>
>>--
>>Author: Michael Milligan
>> INET: Michael.Milligan_at_ingenix.com
>>
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