Chapter 9. Transaction Size and Performance Issues

Performance plays a very important role in the success of any system—hardware, software, utility—anything you can think of. SQL*Loader provides many ways to control or improve its performance. Previous chapters occasionally discussed performance issues, or mentioned parameters, clauses, or keywords that relate to the performance of SQL*Loader. In this chapter, we consolidate the discussion of SQL*Loader's performance, explore issues involved with it, and show you ways to control and improve it.

The discussion in this chapter mainly focuses on performance when doing a conventional path load. Direct path loads, because they are performed so differently from conventional path loads, lead to an almost completely different set of performance issues. You'll find a detailed discussion of direct path loads, including performance issues, in Chapter 10.