Oracle Database 11g: Rich Niemiec's Favorite New Features (Part 1) In 1987, Rich Niemiec came to Oracle to help build client-server system on Oracle Database Version 6. He went on to become one of the world's leading advocates of Oracle technology. He has written several Oracle best sellers, including 10g Performance Tips and Techniques. He is the former president of the International Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and current CEO of TUSC, an Oracle partner that has been on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing privately owned companies. As Oracle Database 11g is about to launch, Database Insider asked Rich to talk about its best features.
Insider: Tell us about planned features, big or small, that will have an immediate impact in the data center. Niemiec: First I want to give my overall impression of Oracle Database 11g. I'm excited about Oracle Database 11g because I think it manages the business systems of the future. The amount of data continues to grow while the pace of change accelerates. We'll need systems that give us a way to visualize and manage huge data loads. We'll need systems that help us meet that change with confidence. We'll need systems that have the intelligence to manage themselves to some degree. The goal is for Oracle Database 11g to do all these things. The first planned feature that I would mention, and this might be the best one, is workload capture and replay. People are constantly making changes in their data centers: implementing migrations and upgrades, or changing hardware, operating system, and applications. They need a way to ensure consistent or better behavior when they make these changes. We expect Oracle Database 11g's workload capture and replay feature to be huge. Insider: Tell us more about what workload capture and replay does. Niemiec: Workload capture and replay is a simple, menu-driven way of capturing a system's workload over time and then replaying it precisely in the same manner as it was captured. You can capture workload for a minute, an hour, or for several days. Then, when you make changes in your system, you can test your real day-to-day workloads against the new system. You can make changes with confidence. This is also great for tuning the database. For example, you might say, "Our system runs great, but from 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock, it slows down and we're not sure why." So from 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock, you could run the capture and replay feature and build a tuning set for your exact workload for that period of time. Then, when you make a change, you'll know how it will affect each of the various parameters in your system. The system would tell you, among other things, the number of block reads that it's going to change or how the CPU is going to change, and graphs it out to show you the before and after for this whole group of SQL statements. So this planned feature is going to be great for both managing change and tuning existing systems. Insider: Any other planned tuning features? Niemiec: One of my favorite tuning features planned for Oracle Database 11g is something called the invisible index. I'll be able to create an index or alter an index to be visible or invisible. Indexes are usually visible by everyone. But now, let's say I see that somebody has overindexed something, which is often the case with third-party applications. Let's say it's a single table that you know doesn't need 50 indexes, but you're afraid to drop any. So you could say, "Oh these 10 indexes, I'm pretty sure they're worthless." And instead of dropping them, you just make them invisible. Then, of course, as the table is updated, the index continues to be updated, too. So, if you eventually say, "Oh, that was a bad idea," and you want to get the indexes back, you don't have to rebuild them-you just make them visible. This is a phenomenal feature. When I look at the features in Oracle [Database] 10g, Oracle is already over a decade ahead of their closest competitor. With Oracle Database 11g, they add another five years. In Part Two, Rich will cover grid, upgrades to the optimizer, and more. http://www.oracle.com/newsletters/information-indepth/database-insider/jun-07/niemiec.html
