Running SQL Access Advisor from SQL Plus

Following one of the recommendations from running ADDM on one of my production databases, I decided to run SQL Access Advisor rather than just creating a couple of Indexes suggested by Oracle.

My problem, EM is not available on that database server! I needed to find a way to run SQL Access Advisor without going through EM.

Thankfully, I have some other databases with EM running and knowing that Oracle put this really nice feature in EM where you get the chance to see the exact SQL statements that are being executed against your database. I quickly connected to one of my test databases and I proceeded to Advisor Central > SQL Advisors > SQL Access Advisor.


PS: I decided to run an comprehensive analysis with SQL AA.

I followed the steps until I got the chance to click the SHOW SQL button. The output is below:

DECLARE

taskname varchar2(30) := 'desired_task_name';
task_desc varchar2(256) := 'SQL Access Advisor';
task_or_template varchar2(30) := 'SQLACCESS_EMTASK';
task_id number := 0;
num_found number;
sts_name varchar2(256) := 'desired_task_name_sts';
sts_cursor dbms_sqltune.sqlset_cursor;

BEGIN
/* Create Task */
dbms_advisor.create_task(DBMS_ADVISOR.SQLACCESS_ADVISOR,task_id,taskname,task_desc,task_or_template);
/* Reset Task */
dbms_advisor.reset_task(taskname);
/* Delete Previous STS Workload Task Link */
select count(*) into num_found from user_advisor_sqla_wk_map where task_name = taskname and workload_name = sts_name;
IF num_found > 0 THEN
dbms_advisor.delete_sqlwkld_ref(taskname,sts_name,1);
END IF;
/* Delete Previous STS */
select count(*) into num_found from user_advisor_sqlw_sum where workload_name = sts_name;
IF num_found > 0 THEN
dbms_sqltune.delete_sqlset(sts_name);
END IF;
/* Create STS */
dbms_sqltune.create_sqlset(sts_name, 'Obtain workload from cursor cache');
/* Select all statements in the cursor cache. */
OPEN sts_cursor FOR
SELECT VALUE(P)
FROM TABLE(dbms_sqltune.select_cursor_cache) P;
/* Load the statements into STS. */
dbms_sqltune.load_sqlset(sts_name, sts_cursor);
CLOSE sts_cursor;
/* Link STS Workload to Task */
dbms_advisor.add_sqlwkld_ref(taskname,sts_name,1);
/* Set STS Workload Parameters */
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'VALID_ACTION_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'VALID_MODULE_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'SQL_LIMIT',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNLIMITED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'VALID_USERNAME_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'VALID_TABLE_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'INVALID_TABLE_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'INVALID_ACTION_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'INVALID_USERNAME_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'INVALID_MODULE_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'VALID_SQLSTRING_LIST',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'INVALID_SQLSTRING_LIST','"@!"');
/* Set Task Parameters */
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'ANALYSIS_SCOPE','ALL');
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'RANKING_MEASURE','PRIORITY,OPTIMIZER_COST');
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DEF_PARTITION_TABLESPACE',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'TIME_LIMIT',10000);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'MODE','COMPREHENSIVE');
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'STORAGE_CHANGE',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNLIMITED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DML_VOLATILITY','TRUE');
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'WORKLOAD_SCOPE','PARTIAL');
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DEF_INDEX_TABLESPACE',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DEF_INDEX_OWNER',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DEF_MVIEW_TABLESPACE',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DEF_MVIEW_OWNER',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DEF_MVLOG_TABLESPACE',DBMS_ADVISOR.ADVISOR_UNUSED);
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'CREATION_COST','TRUE');
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'JOURNALING','4');
dbms_advisor.set_task_parameter(taskname,'DAYS_TO_EXPIRE','30');
/* Execute Task */
dbms_advisor.execute_task(taskname);
END;
/




To read the output:
#################################################################
SET LONG 100000
SET PAGESIZE 50000
SELECT DBMS_ADVISOR.get_task_script('desired_task_name') AS script
FROM   dual;
SET PAGESIZE 24

ORA-04030: out of process memory when trying to allocate XXXXXX bytes...

I was running SQL Access Advisor when my alert log threw up this error. First thing that came to my mind obviously was that was I out of memory? The answer to that is a big NO! My initial investigation at the OS level shows that I have enough free memory available.
After pondering for a while, I searched Oracle forums and found what the problem was... I was running the Oracle session while logged in as sysdba from an OS user account that has low ULIMIT SETTINGS!

SOLUTION:

I got the sys admin to change my ULIMIT settings to the below:

# ulimit -a
time(seconds)              unlimited
file(blocks)                  unlimited
data(kbytes)                unlimited
stack(kbytes)              4194304
memory(kbytes)          unlimited
coredump(blocks)       unlimited
nofiles(descriptors)      unlimited
threads(per process)    unlimited
processes(per user)     unlimited

ORA-48913

Found this error in one of my production alert logs....has to do with the sizing of my trace files which is also in a way dependent on OS block size. Mine is 512K, I think most UNIX are the same.
ERROR MESSAGE:
Non critical error ORA-48913 caught while writing to trace file "/dboracle/product/dbhome_1/~

SOLUTION:

I increased the "max_dump_file_size" parameter using the SQL syntax below:

SQL> alter system set max_dump_file_size=51200 scope=both;

There is the option of setting max_dump_file_size to UNLIMITED. This means the trace files will grow as much as the OS permits.

This error has nothing to do with the sizing of your alert logs though.

I'll keep monitoring to see if the message shows up once again!