8

Tuning the Oracle Shared Server

Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to do

the following:
• Identify issues associated with managing users in
an Oracle Shared Server environment
• Configure the Oracle Shared Server environment
to optimize performance
• Diagnose and resolve performance issues with
Oracle Shared Server processes

8-2 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Overview
Client
Database server
Dispatcher processes Listener

Shared
Oracle server server
code program processes
interface

Request queue Response queues

System Global Area

Oracle background processes

8-3 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Oracle Shared Server Characteristics

• Enables users to share processes

• Supports Oracle Net functionality
• Increases the number of concurrent users
• Useful on servers with remote clients
• CPU overhead could possibly increase for each
individual user request

8-4 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Monitoring Dispatchers

• Use the following dynamic views:

– v$shared_server_monitor
– v$dispatcher
– v$dispatcher_rate
• Identify contention for dispatchers by checking:
– Busy rates
– Dispatcher waiting time
• Check for dispatcher contention.
• Add or remove dispatchers while the database
is open.

8-5 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Monitoring Shared Servers

• Oracle Shared Servers are started up dynamically.

• However, you should monitor the shared
servers by:
– Checking for shared server process contention
– Adding or removing idle shared servers

8-7 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Monitoring Process Usage

The v$circuit view displays:

• Server address
• Dispatcher address
• User session address

8-9 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Shared Servers and Memory Usage

• Some user information goes into the shared pool.

• To reduce the load on the shared pool set a
large pool.
• Overall memory demand is lower when using
shared servers.
• Shared servers use the user global area (UGA)
for sorts.

8-10 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Troubleshooting

Possible causes of problems with the shared server

include the following:
• The database listener is not running.
• The Oracle Shared Server initialization parameters
are set incorrectly.
• The dispatcher process has been killed.
• The DBA does not have a dedicated connection.
• The PROCESSES parameter is too low.

8-11 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Obtaining Dictionary Information

Dynamic performance views:

• v$circuit
• v$dispatcher
• v$dispatcher_rate
• v$queue
• v$shared_server_monitor
• v$session
• v$shared_server

8-12 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.

 Summary

In this lesson, you should have learned how to:

• Describe the Oracle Shared Server as a resource-
sharing configuration
• List some situations in which it is appropriate to
use the Oracle Shared Server
• Monitor dispatcher and server usage
• Troubleshoot Oracle Shared Server configuration

8-13 Copyright © Oracle Corporation, 2002. All rights reserved.