This concise book contains detailed information about Oracle internals -- information that's not readily available to Oracle customers. It lays a foundation for advanced performance tuning of the Oracle database. Based on Oracle8i release 8.1, the book describes many of the secrets of Oracle's internal services: data structures, algorithms, and undocumented Oracle system statistics. Main topics include:

• Waits - how Oracle processes communicate via semaphores, and how to use the Oracle wait statistics to identify the source of performance problems.

• Latches - how they keep multiple processes from inspecting protected data structures at the same time, and how to examine and control latch behavior and statistics.

• Locks - how they work with latches to protect data structures (locks allow multiple sessions to share resources in some cases), and how locks affect performance. There is also a detailed discussion of instance locks, which are used in parallel server environments.

• Memory - how Oracle uses memory (e.g., the various elements of the System Global Area), and how Oracle dynamically allocates and manages memory.

Oracle8i Internal Services is aimed especially at administrators and developers who need detailed internal information to do advanced performance tuning. The book will expand your repertoire of tuning solutions and troubleshooting techniques by explaining how you can use Oracle's hidden parameters and undocumented system statistics to best advantage. NOTE: The author has collected the scripts he has developed for tuning and analysis into a toolkit (known as APT, for Advanced Performance Tuning). These scripts access the Oracle X$ tables directly and provide information not otherwise available. The scripts are available to readers for free from the O'Reilly web site.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 19 Ratings

WOW! Heady stuff. Read it twice. - 2001-10-16
Reviewer Rating:
I'll admit, this book made my head hurt the first time I read it, and I consider myself to be pretty well versed in Oracle. Steve does a fantastic job explaining some of the internal workings of the database. He dispells many of the "tuning" myths associated with locks and latches and touches on using Oracle's wait statistics, which has become a foundation for a new and better approach to tuning the database. If you are DBA that is interested at all in the internal workings of the database, or need a reference to help in your tuning efforts, get this book.

If you don't know Steve Adams, oh baby - 2002-11-12
Reviewer Rating:
Any sincere oracle Professional know the name of steve adams. Any expert on oracle pays a visit to his site. so think for a moment in silence and buy the book.

Focused on a single topic and covers it exceptionally well - 2001-07-03
Reviewer Rating:
Steve Adams has collected and assembled a compendium of facts about a difficult aspect of Oracle: waits, latches, locks and meemory. His clearly written explanations will not only provide DBAs with an in-depth understanding of how these fit into the overall scheme of Oracle's design, but also will allow them to troubleshoot and resolve problems that would exasperate all but the demi-gods. Although the book would have benefited from a lot more than the two illustrations he saw fit to provide, his generous use of tables goes a long way towards making an obtuse subject clear. I would have liked more examples than the outputs he uses to show results of queries, but the lack of illustrations and better examples did not prevent me from undertanding every topic presented.

My wishlist notwithstanding, this book merits five stars because it provides a wealth of information and knowledge that you just can't find elsewhere. If you're an Oracle DBA you need this book.

Good look into Oracle internals - 2004-07-28
Reviewer Rating:
Yes, the book was written when Oracle 8i was around, but it is well worth the read even today.

Adams knows how Oracle works and explains the waits, latches and locks pretty well. I especially liked the chapter on Memory.

I learned a lot from this book. This was money well spent.

Highly recommended.

A must for advanced tuning and trouble-shooting - 2003-09-25
Reviewer Rating:
Wait events are often the key to understanding 'what is going on' when Oracle performance problems occur during run time. This book does a great job giving an overview of the complex Oracle internals that underlie these wait events. Now, if you don't know what wait events are, this is not the book for you.

There are a few criticisms of this book, but they ignore the fact that this book is the first substantial overview of this often nefarious subject. Many, including myself, had attemtped to piece together the internal workings of Oracle using Oracle internal documents, speaking with Oracle developers, empirical tests, etc. with limited success. This book was a welcome relief and quite an eye-opener.

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