Enterprises need an organized database to achieve business goals and ensure that the IT infrastructure is aligned with their organizational objectives. This will help the database administrator to maintain and manage a database without any issues. Database management demands time and resources. A well-tuned database is easier to navigate and frees up IT resources, thereby reducing costs for the enterprise. It is easier to extract information, analyze and report it if the database is well-organized. A well-tuned database also ensures that the extracted data is accurate. It is easier to recover data from performance-tuned databases after a disaster or a security breach.

Query performance optimization lays the foundation of high database efficiency. Collecting information on base tables helps enable ‘Oracle Text’ that in turn chooses the most efficient query execution plan. The Oracle Text ‘tracing facility’ identifies issues with indexing and querying. Partitioning data and structuring local partitioned indices also boost query performance. Other ways to performance-tune queries in Oracle can be carried out by inner joins over outer joins, indexing predicates, and rewriting subqueries with Global Temporary Tables (GTT).

Performance tuning of Oracle databases includes optimizing SQL statements and query execution plans to ensure requests are handled more efficiently. The level of organization in a database determines how SQL statements respond to queries and use resources when applications communicate with the database. Poorly optimized SQL statements consume more resources, affecting user experience and increasing the chances of performance issues.

• Response time is the amount of time taken by a database to complete a request, while system throughput tracks the number of processes completed in a given period. High response time leads to a slow user experience, while low system throughput indicates limited resources available to manage tasks. Optimizing an Oracle database must align with business goals and the type of applications in use. The choice between optimizing for response time or throughput depends on the type of applications used, such as OLTP or DSS.
• Proactive monitoring is essential to catch inefficiencies before they become bigger problems. Database administrators should continuously check the database for performance issues. However, caution must be exercised before making changes to avoid affecting database performance. Bottleneck elimination involves identifying and fixing bottlenecks that impact performance. Recoding SQL statements can handle internal bottlenecks, while addressing external issues like CPU and storage performance can further optimize the database.
• Instead of optimizing every line of code, it is more efficient to focus on the most used SQL statements with the largest database/I/O footprint. Oracle database monitoring tools, such as Oracle SQL Analyze, can identify resource-intensive SQL statements. By reducing the workload using appropriate indices and optimizing the query code, database performance can be significantly improved.
• Dropped connections between the application and the database can result in poor performance. Connections should be configured correctly to ensure a stable connection. Maintaining a stateful connection reduces the wastage of system resources and improves overall performance.
• Optimizer statistics describe a database and its objects and help choose the best execution plan for SQL statements. Collecting optimizer statistics ensures accurate information on table contents, avoiding poor execution plans that impact the end-user experience. Oracle databases automatically collect optimizer statistics, but it can also be done manually using the DBMS_STATS package.

Oracle database tuning is crucial to enhance performance and achieve business goals. By optimizing SQL statements, monitoring performance, eliminating bottlenecks, and gathering accurate statistics, enterprises can ensure a well-tuned database that efficiently handles requests. A well-organized database not only improves query performance but also supports better decision-making and data recovery. Implementing these tuning techniques will help enterprises maximize the potential of their Oracle databases and drive overall business success.