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Inside Oracle Database 10g
Manageability: What's In It for the DBA?
with Sushil Kumar
Sushil Kumar, Oracle's director of product management for database manageability, explains the strategic importance of the self-managing capabilities of Oracle Database 10g
OTN: Why is manageability a strategic area of importance for customers?
Kumar: The role of IT systems has evolved radically over time. Ten or 15 years ago, the primary consumers of these systems were internal users—if the system was unavailable for a particular period of time, business was not affected much. In contrast, systems today are also serving as storefronts for e-businesses, not only processing orders automatically but also interacting with suppliers. So rather than being just a supporting infrastructure, the IT system has gradually become a core business enabler. That means if your system is not performing well, if it is not servicing user requests within an acceptable time, you're actually losing business.
The result is that these systems have to be monitored very, very closely, more closely than ever before, and IT managers need to take proactive steps to ensure that problems are fixed before they start affecting end users. That's where the dilemma comes in: On one hand, it's never been so important to manage your IT system well. On the other hand, in a growing competitive economy, you have increasing pressure to reduce IT expenses. That means IT managers are being asked to do a lot more with a lot fewer resources. Consequently, businesses are looking for products that are easier to use and manage, that can automate most tasks, and that require less manual intervention.
OTN: What is Oracle's strategy to address the manageability challenges faced by customers?
Kumar: Today's IT systems comprise many components, including multiple databases, application servers, applications, and so on. The first aspect of our manageability strategy is to make each of those components as self-managing as possible. The goal here is to make the management of a single target, such as a database, as simple and automatic as possible, so that it requires the bare minimum of intervention to keep it operational.
| "An independent study has determined that an Oracle 10g DBA needs 30% less time to perform common administrative tasks than his or her SQL Server 2000 counterpart."
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Oracle Database 10g, therefore, features an extremely simplified install, is very simple to configure, and includes a number groundbreaking self-management capabilities that automate most of the complex and time consuming ongoing management tasks. As a result, Oracle Database 10g reduces the management burden of Oracle DBAs to half and has emerged as the easiest database to manage. I was very pleased to learn that an independent study conducted by Progressive Strategies determined that an Oracle 10g DBA needs 30% less time and 20% fewer steps to perform common day-to-day administrative tasks than his or her SQL Server 2000 counterpart.
The second aspect of our manageability strategy addresses the challenges associated with managing the multiple management targets of a typical data center. What we are trying to do here is to give you a solution that provides a unified view of your entire IT infrastructure and allows you to manage it as a single entity. For example, Enterprise Manager Grid Control allows you to manage hundreds of components by exception, no matter where they are, by giving you a single, unified global view of your data center. "Management by exception" means that manual intervention is required only if something is going wrong in the system and it can't be automatically corrected. So rather than going and babysitting each of the components separately every day, you now have an infrastructure that monitors all the systems, captures configuration and performance data on each, and compiles the data, letting you know precisely where there are any problems. In addition, you can also apply fixes to multiple targets in groups, as need be, as when applying patches simultaneously to all the members of a group. Managing by groups greatly simplifies typical DBA tasks.
OTN: What are some of the unique self-management capabilities of Oracle Database 10g?
Kumar: First in line is Oracle 10g's self-diagnostic engine. Traditionally, for any database—not just Oracle—performance tuning is a complex task. Often it's a hit-and-miss process to track down the key cause among various plausible causes for a decrease in response time and to apply the right fix to solve the problem. So what we've done in Oracle Database 10g is completely automate the performance diagnostic process by building a self-diagnostic engine within the database kernel itself. This engine is called the Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor, or ADDM. Thanks to ADDM, Oracle Database 10g can automatically identify performance bottlenecks and provide recommendations on how these bottlenecks can be resolved. Oracle DBAs no longer need to spend hours pouring through the performance statistics to figure out what is wrong with their database. All that they need to do is to simply ask the database itself.
You may say, "That's good. The database identified four problems for me—say, in I/O, in memory, in the application, and in the SQL—but which of these problems are most critical and most in need of fixing?" In order to help you make that decision, ADDM not only identifies the problems but also quantifies the impact each of these problems has on overall performance. But that's not all. As I said earlier, ADDM goes a step further and also recommends solutions for the identified problems along with the expected gains resulting from implementation of these solutions. If you're a DBA, you'll recognize this feature as a revolutionary breakthrough.
| "If you're a DBA, you'll recognize (ADDM) as a revolutionary breakthrough."
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The other unique aspect of Oracle Database 10g is the complete automation of the SQL tuning process. This is yet another area that accounts for a significant percentage of an administrator's time. In order to address this issue, Oracle Database 10g includes SQL Tuning and Access Advisors that can automatically analyze either a single SQL statement or a complete workload and then generate recommendations to make them run faster, thus taking the labor as well as guesswork out of the SQL tuning process.
OTN: Haven't other vendors made similar claims about their products before?
Kumar: True; every database vendor claims to have one kind of SQL tuning solution or another. But if you look deeper, our solution is unique in more ways than one. First of all, unlike most other solutions that operate on a set of predetermined assumptions on how query execution works, Oracle Database 10g SQL Tuning Advisor uses the Query Optimizer itself to analyze the problem statements and generate the recommendations. This approach ensures that its recommendations are extremely accurate, even when you upgrade the database version. Second, Oracle Database 10g allows you to optimize a SQL statement without requiring any changes to either SQL syntax or the schema design.
This approach is possible because of a unique capability that we have introduced in Oracle 10g called SQL Profile. While analyzing a SQL statement, the SQL Tuning Advisor looks at the execution pattern and other characteristics of the statement, such as how often it is executed and what kind of data it is trying to correlate. This information helps Optimizer learn more about the characteristics of this particular SQL statement and generate a more optimal execution plan. This information can then be stored in the database as the SQL Profile and used in conjunction with regular Optimizer statistics to make SQL run faster. This solution did not require any change in the SQL syntax, so it is possible to tune any SQL statement, even those coming from packaged applications such as Siebel, SAP, or anywhere else where you typically have no control over SQL.
OTN: How do Resource Manager and dynamic resource plans fit into the self-management picture? And where does the concept of services fit in?
Kumar: One of the biggest challenges that IT managers and administrators face today is how to dynamically align and realign resources in the database to the changing needs of the business. Resource Manager and resource plans let you identify the business priorities in your system and let you control how the resources are used in servicing those needs.
The concept of services basically makes the database in some sense application-aware. The only way a database can know that four different applications are attached to it is if they can be categorized into different services. So that means one 10g database can support multiple services; or conversely, multiple 10g databases can serve a particular service.
For example, if one particular application demands a peak load at a given point in time, all you need to do to service that request is to include another database instance running on a different machine as a part of that service. This approach creates a kind of virtualization layer that separates database resources from the end user. When the user initiates a request, it doesn't matter to the user where the request is being serviced. Services make this possible by dynamically routing a request to a particular node that can service that request, as well as by allowing the administrator to dynamically add resources to meet peak load requirements.
OTN: What role does manageability play in enabling grid computing?
Kumar: The grid is just an extension of what I just explained. The benefit of grid computing is that it allows companies to dynamically provision and re-provision resources to meet changing business requirements. However, a grid may comprise hundreds or even thousands of nodes located worldwide. Well, the only way that grid computing can become financially viable is if those systems are easier to manage. By making the components self-managing, and by providing you a way to get a global view of how your overall enterprise is doing throughout the key components, you make grid computing commercially feasible. Both factors together allow you to start with a two-system grid and go even to a 1,000-system grid without a corresponding increase in administrative costs.
More specifically, we provide manageability solutions for grids on three different levels. The first is at the inter-node level, where you have different physical machines you want to deploy. Here's where solutions like services come into the picture because by using services and Real Application Clusters (RAC) infrastructure, we can dynamically bring a node into a cluster, or take a node off a cluster and move it to a different cluster. This gives you the ability to respond to unforeseen requirements rather quickly without having to go out and buy additional resources.
| "The only way that grid computing becomes financially viable is if system nodes are easier to manage."
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The second aspect of grid manageability relates to the provisioning of shared disk resources. Here, our Automatic Storage Management (ASM) solution liberates the DBA from having to think about how to spread the data across different disks or how to stripe them. All the DBA needs to do is to specify which disks the Oracle database should be using by creating one or more disk groups, and Oracle Database 10g automatically stripes and mirrors the data across these disks. ASM also allows you to dynamically add and remove disks from your disk groups. When you do that, we do automatic rebalancing. It all happens in the background, with absolutely no impact on users.
The third type of manageability solution that we provide for the grid is within the node itself, which is where the Database Resource Manager comes in. By providing the capability to flexibly map consumer groups, we make it easier for the administrator to set up a resource allocation policy. This allocation policy could be based on services, or it could be based on the name of the application. Either way, because of the very dynamic nature of the Resource Manager, you can dynamically relocate resources and create multiple resource plans and schedules. By resetting the Resource Manager quotas, you can dynamically move resources around, allowing you to respond quickly to the varying computing requirements that you may be subjected to as your business needs change.
OTN: What is your advice for DBAs who are comfortable with "traditional," statistics-intensive database management strategies but want to explore 10g's self-management capabilities?
Kumar: Although 10g provides comprehensive self-management capabilities, all the traditional statistics that DBAs have needed in the past are still exposed within the database. Moreover, in addition to the self-management decisions that we make, we also publish the rationale on how those decisions were made—the underlying data on which we based a decision. All of that data is published within the database and can be used to validate self-management decisions. By publishing those statistics, we allow more experienced DBAs who do want to get into all the details to look at how the decisions are being made.
We hope, of course, that when they observe the system functioning and the self-management decisions being made by 10g over a period of time, they will gradually begin to trust the database and will no longer feel the need to go and look at that level of detail. But because the detail is still there, the DBA can still maintain detailed control and oversight if desired. By the same token, if you're a beginner DBA, part-time DBA, or someone who has so much workload that you don't have time to examine all the details, database management is as simple as looking at the Enterprise Manager screen and clicking a mouse button.
OTN: A number of other vendors have announced plans to make their products easier to use. What makes Oracle's manageability solution different?
Kumar: Two things come to mind. First, while others have simply announced their solutions or articulated their vision, our self-management solution is very real and working today. The other aspect that makes our solution so very different is that, while there are several ways to simplify database management, it must be said that there are simplistic as well as sophisticated ways to implement automation. The simplistic way is when you use rules of thumb to make some decision on behalf of users. By limiting your users' choices, by making that decision on their behalf, you can claim you have a "self-managing" option. What you've really done, however, is take away some of the flexibility your environment may require. The fundamental assumption behind rule-of-thumb automation is "one size fits all."
Our solution, in contrast, uses a more sophisticated automation strategy, specifically tailored to the operating environment. At the core of 10g's self-management decision process is something we call the Automatic Workload Repository. When you start 10g, we automatically start capturing statistics about how the database is being used, what is the workload pattern, and so on. All of our self-management decisions from that point on are based on scientific, empirical data gathered in the system. This approach ensures that the Oracle Database 10g is aware of the environment in which it is operating and helps it make self-management decisions specifically tailored for this environment.
OTN: How will these enhancements help DBAs, both from a day-to-day operations point of view as well as for their long-term career prospects?
Kumar: Let me start with day-to-day operations. There are not many DBAs out there who have been asked to do less work than a year before. Every time I talk to a DBA, they say they are being asked to add more databases, to manage more applications, and to oversee more websites. So the workload has significantly increased for all database administrators.
For that reason, they're finding it extremely difficult to offer adequate attention to individual databases. They no longer have time to monitor each one, to run a daily report, or to babysit each of the components. With Oracle Database 10g, we've tried to take away all those mundane tasks from the DBA's day-to-day workload. So, from a day-to-day operations point of view, Oracle 10g will certainly help significantly in making their workload more manageable.
The other impact of the automation introduced in Oracle 10g is that the DBA now has more time for activities that he or she wants to focus on. Instead of spending all their time putting out fires, administrators will now be able to concentrate on more strategic activities—things like architecture review, data planning, and most important, better management of the end user experience. Oracle 10g's automation, therefore, makes DBAs more strategic players in the success of their company's business, enabling them to move from the backroom to the boardroom.
OTN: There is perception out there that Oracle, while being the most reliable, robust and high-performing data management solution available today, is too complex for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that do not have specialized DBA skills in-house. How does Oracle Database 10g counter that perception?
Kumar: It's true that many SMBs have the perception that Oracle is too complex for them, though that's not entirely accurate. Be that as it may, with Oracle Database 10g we've simplified all aspects of the database lifecycle, from deployment, to ongoing management, to troubleshooting.
On the deployment side, we offer a single-screen install that allows even someone who is minimally familiar with their computer systems to install an Oracle 10g database and get it up and running in less than 20 minutes. During installation, we automatically set up things like monitoring and routine tasks like backup, Optimizer statistics collection, and so on.
For ongoing maintenance, we have alerts in the database that are set up out of the box that can tell you where the problems are. You don't have to sit in front of a terminal and manually monitor how the database is performing. If things do go wrong, we have simple advisors that can answer the questions that you may have in plain and simple English and give you a number of recommendations that you can implement to resolve this problem.
Finally, thanks to all the automation and self-management capabilities introduced in Oracle Database 10g, we are now able to offer a new program called the "2-Day DBA." As the name suggests, the goal of this program is allow anyone with basic familiarity of computers to become an Oracle DBA with just two days of training. This itself makes a statement about how simple it has become to deploy and operate an Oracle database. It is this simplicity that makes Oracle Database 10g really attractive to SMBs that have always wanted Oracle, but were reluctant to adopt it because of the perceived notion that it was too complex for their expertise.
OTN: Where do you go from here? What is Oracle's future direction for manageability?
Kumar: With Oracle Database 10g, we have taken a giant step toward creating a self-managing database by building the infrastructure to support its self-managing decisions. But our work has just begun. In future releases, we will continue to build on that, automating more tasks while helping DBAs answer more future-oriented issues such as capacity planning, what-if analysis, and scenario building. This work will continue until we fully realize the goal of a completely self-managing database.
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