I’ve come to realize that most folks don’t really understand the limitations in the allocation of PGA memory to hashing and sorting. They truly believe that if they set their PGA high enough, the database will just allocate as much memory as they have in the setting towards any hash or sort process, when in truth, (and I am referencing 10g here…) there is a “threshold” to protect the database from allocating too much PGA memory to any one process. This ceiling is for sorting or hashing and this is why I am such a strong advocate of viewing temp…

I’m preparing to build our new 11g environment and as I “study up” on all that is new in 11g, there are a few features that stand out over the rest, (at least in my book!) I/O Calibration I’m am challenging the upper most limits of my hardware with how much I/O I can produce. I have spent much of my time since I started with my new company correcting the I/O issues manually, (yes, ASM failed me, but I’m sure it will live up to my expectations someday!:)) The CALIBRATE_IO procedure that comes as part of the DBMS_RESOURCE_MANAGER packge…