
5 Exadata Performance and AWR / Version 2.0
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AWR Overview
The Automatic Workload Repository (AWR), introduced in Oracle Database 10g, is the most widely used
performance diagnostics tool for Oracle Database. AWR collects, processes, and maintains database performance
statistics data for problem detection and self-tuning purposes. This process of data collection is repeated on a
regular time interval and the results are captured in an AWR snapshot. The delta values, calculated from the data
captured by the AWR snapshot, represent the changes for each statistic over the interval, and can be viewed
through an AWR report for further analysis. By default, the AWR snapshots are taken at hourly intervals, and the
snapshots are retained for eight days. It is recommended to increase the retention period to allow for monthly (31
days) or quarterly (90 days) comparisons, depending on your reporting and retention requirements. AWR reports
can also be generated on-demand for specific time intervals.
Performance and Scope
When analyzing performance issues, it is important to understand the scope of the performance problem, and to
ensure that the data and the tools used for analysis matches the scope of the problem.
For example, if an issue is localized to a small set of users or SQL statements, a SQL Monitor report will have data
that is relevant to the scope of the problem. A SQL Monitor report provides detailed statistics about a single
execution of a SQL statement or a Database (DB) operation.
If the performance issues are instance-wide or database-wide, then an AWR report will contain data and statistics
for the instance or the entire database. Active Session History (ASH), which samples active sessions, can be used
for instance-wide, database-wide, and localized issues. ASH collects data across multiple dimensions that can be
used to filter the data.
Maintaining Baselines
A statistical baseline is a collection of statistics usually taken over an interval when the system is performing well.
The baselines can be used to diagnose performance problems by comparing statistics captured in a baseline to
those captured during periods of poor performance. This enables the identification of statistics that may have
increased significantly, that could be the cause of the problem.
It is recommended to collect baselines during normal processing periods, as well as critical time frames such as
month-end or year-end processing. The baselines should include AWR data
, a SQL Monitor report of a few key
SQL statements, along with additional statistics from the storage servers (ExaWatcher and cell metric history)
.
Exadata Support in AWR
Exadata support in AWR was introduced with Oracle Database 12.1.0.2.0 and Exadata System Software
12.1.2.1.0. Including Exadata statistics in the AWR report gives more visibility into the storage tier through a
unified report, without having to collect additional data from the storage servers. This is of particular interest to
ExaDB-D and ExaDB-C@C customers that do not have access to the storage servers.
The Exadata statistics are only available in the HTML and Active-HTML formats of the AWR Instance report, and
the AWR Global report from CDB$ROOT. The Exadata statistics are not available in the text format of the report;
nor are they available in the PDB-level AWR report. The Exadata sections in the report are also constantly being
enhanced, as new features are included in new releases of Exadata software.
Exadata statistics are also available
in AWR reports in Enterprise Manager. The References section in this technical brief provides a list of documents
describing how to manage Exadata with Enterprise Manager.
It is also important to note that with the addition of Exadata storage level statistics in the AWR report, the
performance tuning methodology does not change. Users should first look at DB time, and address performance
Refer to “Gathering Database Statistics” in Oracle Database Performance Tuning Guide for more details on AWR.
Baselines should include the actual AWR data, not just an AWR report.
Oracle Exadata System Software – Monitoring Exadata has extensive information on AWR, ExaWatcher, and cell metric history.
As the Exadata sections are constantly being enhanced, the version you see on your systems may not match the screenshots in this technical brief.