Managing Mission-Critical Database Changes with Oracle Real Application Testing

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Managing Mission-Critical Database Changes with Oracle Real Application Testing

Kurt Engeleiter

Principal Product Manager

Oracle

Copyright © 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Insert Information Protection Policy Classification from Slide 12 of the corporate presentation template 2

Oracle Real Application Testing

• SQL Performance Analyzer

• SQL unit testing for response time

• Identify and tune regressed SQL

• Seamlessly integrated with SQL Tuning

Advisor and SQL Plan Baselines

Replay

Workload

Capture

Workload

Deploy Replay

Clients

Create Test

System

• Database Replay

• Load, performance testing for throughput

• Remediate application concurrency problems

• Integrated with Application Testing Suite,

Application Replay, and Data Masking for a

comprehensive testing solution

• Useful for capacity planning, consolidation testing

End-to-End Testing

With Real Workloads

Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.


Test and predict impact of system changes on SQL query performance using real workloads

Identify all plan changes and/or regressions

Eliminate SQL regressions with SQL Tuning Advisor and SQL Plan Baselines

Database consolidation testing support

SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) Application Response Time Testing

SQL Plans + Stats before change

Pre-Change Trial

Compare SQL

Performance Analysis Report

SQL Workload

STS

SQL Plans + Stats after change

Post-Change Trial



Database Replay

Database load and performance testing with

real production workloads

– Production workload characteristics such

as timing, transaction dependency, think

time, etc., fully maintained

Test and measure transaction throughput

improvements

Identify application scalability and concurrency

problems

Remediate issues pre-production for risk-free

migration

Supports migrations from 10gR2 and higher

Test

Capture Process Replay Analysis & Reporting

Production Replay Driver Clients

Storage Storage



Database Replay

EM Cloud Control 12c supports simple and intuitive

interface for Database Replay capacity planning and

scale-up testing

– Scale-up with time shifting

– Scale-up with workload folding

– Scale-up with data duplication

Allows customers to easily and accurately test their

consolidation strategy and future-proof environment

for growth



When to use SPA?

Always use SPA before Database Replay to help reduce testing cycles

• Most changes such as patch-sets, upgrades may result in plan changes

• SPA is the best tool to perform SQL-centric analysis

• SPA handles trials do not change database data

• SPA trials can be repeated without restoring database

• SPA trials complete quickly relative to DB Replay runs

Testing optimizer related changes

• Optimizer statistics refresh

• Database parameter changes, schema changes (e.g., add/drop indexes)

• Implementation of tuning recommendations

• I/O subsystem changes (e.g., ASM, Database Machine)

Testing database upgrades and patch-set releases*

• 9.2/10.1/11g 10.2,11g or 12c releases

• 10.2.0.x 11g or 12c releases

Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. *MOS Note: 560977.1


Use Case 1: Prevent Performance Issues Due to Application Schema Changes

The new BI system has very aggressive SLAs defined.

How can we ensure consistent performance across

the system?

Application schema changes such as new indexes,

objects (MVs, partitions, etc.) can often impact

performance of the application

How do we validate the performance of critical queries

before rolling out these changes?



Trial 1

01001011001010100100100100100100100100100100100010010101001001001

00111001001001001001001000010010000010111001001010100100100101010

1001000100000101010010010101010011010100101010010010101001100101

Validate Impact of Application Schema Changes

Use SPA Guided Workflow (recommended) or PL/SQL APIs

Create STS with representative workload

Establish first trial remotely using current state – baseline

Make change – Create the indexes or access structures

Establish second trial remotely using the same SQL Tuning Set

Review SPA report, tune if any SQL regressions on test, rollout changes on production

Trial 2

Central SPA System Test

State 1

State 2

New indexes or other

access structures



Tip: Take the Guess Work Out!

Run your trial

before and after

making the

change

Make sure your

most important

queries are not

regressed

Take the guess

work out



SPA Challenges

Production Database

Test Database

DBA

Test System is safe but…

Requires separate HW

Data in test system should be

same as production

Lengthy, error-prone task

Production System is Easier but…

Could be resource intensive and

impact production performance

Changes needs to be manually

scoped to private session

Could take a long time to finish

No resource control by default

Yes, SPA can validate changes, but running SPA on:



SPA Quick Check

• Optimized for use on prod systems

• Optimal Trial or Explain Plan mode

• Disable multi-executions, full DML execute disabled

Optimized

• Per SQL time limits

• Testing scoped to private session

• Associate with Resource Consumer Group

Controlled

• Context-aware change testing workflows, such as,

• Optimizer gather statistics

• Init.ora parameter changes

Change-Aware

Enables Testing on Production Safely for Day-to-Day Use Cases

SPA Quick Check

Production Database

DBA

Optimized Controlled/

Scoped

Change-Aware

Optimal Trial

Mode, no DML

execute

Per SQL Time Limits,

Limits testing scope to

private session

Context-aware

change testing

Pre-selected

STS and

default SPA

settings



Identifies subset SQL workload

with plan changes first

Test-executes only SQLs with plan changes

Minimizes use of production resources

dramatically – up to 10x reduction

Multiple executions disabled

No full DML (execute Select part of workload)

SPA Quick Check Optimized



SPA Quick Check Controlled

Per-SQL time limit – protects from runaway SQL

Resource throttling - Associate with Resource Consumer Group

Testing scope limited to private session



SPA Quick Check Change-aware

Change-aware: Knows what change is being tested

In-line with routine DBA tasks such as statistics gathering, init.ora parameter changes

Intelligently limits impact to private test session



Use Case 2: Validate Optimizer Statistics on Production Using SPA Quick Check

Problem:

– Sometimes after gathering optimizer statistics, some

SQL switch to non-optimal execution plans

Solution:

– Use SPA Quick check to validate SQL performance

before publishing new optimizer statistics



Validation on Production



Taking the Guess Work Out!



Use Case 3: SPA Quick Check—Init.ora Parameter Validation

Problem:

– My manager wants me to improve database performance by tuning the

optimizer_index_caching parameter. The assumption is that will help

improve the performance significantly…

– However, I’m not sure if this parameter will help, how do I quickly and

accurately validate the impact of the above parameter for my workload?

Solution: You can use SPA Quick Check to validate the performance

impact of the parameter…



SPA Quick Check: Performance Validation


Copyright © 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Insert Information Protection Policy Classification from Slide 12 of the corporate presentation template 20 Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

SPA Quick Check: Performance Validation


SPA Quick Check—Init.ora Parameter Validation: Solution

SPA Quick Check able to validate the impact of

optimizer_index_caching on production

This change should NOT be implemented since it impacts the

performance negatively

The change was tested on production in a controlled manner very

efficiently without impacting production users!



SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) Benefits

SPA handles trials in a manner that does not change database data

• Hence can be used for testing in production/standby environments

• Multiple tests can be run in quick succession

SPA testing applies to significant portion of the workload

• Provides significant workload coverage for all access row sources including DML

SPA identifies regressed SQL and helps remediate them

• Gives you a mechanism to tune SQL or lock in prior plans if they are better

•Across many releases of Oracle and for upgrades

•On test, standby, and production environments

•Extended to home-grown scripts, third-party testing tools, etc.

•Supports most applications - EBS, SAP, Siebel, home-grown, etc.

SPA Provides

Broad Testing

Coverage



Oracle Real Application Testing Benefits Forrester Consulting: ROI Study

Organizations that implemented Oracle Real Application Testing see

significant savings:

67% Increase in DBA productivity*

Increase in business application availability

and uptime by proactively identifying issues*

32% Reduction in capital expenditures*

ROI achieved

224% ROI

5.9 months payback period

Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Source: Forrester Consulting, Total Econmonic Impact Study of Oracle Real Application Testing

1

2

3

4

5

$M

Productivity Gain Reduced Capital Expenditure

Year 3

Year 2

Year 1

*Risk-Adjusted Over 3 Years


Minimize business impact of database

migration to critical commercial and proprietary

business applications, (payroll, dispatch, and

customer-facing order entry)

Reduce downtime during upgrade of 400

Oracle Databases

Insure seamless migration to a new Linux-

based Oracle Real Application Clusters

environment from legacy IBM AIX platform.

CSX Upgrades Databases 2x Faster with Oracle Real Application Testing

Business Needs

Better Time-to-Value: CSX Corporation upgrades 400 databases 2x faster, less than half the time for the previous upgrade cycle—even though DB footprint grew 30%

Lower Cost: Reduced manual efforts through automated testing using real production workloads

Lower Risk: Tested multiple replays of the Oracle Database 11g version of the enterprise data warehouse to assess potential impact before migrating, resulting in fewer production issues post-migration

Results



Conclusion

SPA enables businesses to safely test

and deploy system changes using real

workloads

Increases business agility and uptime

Increases staff productivity – less

firefighting

More focus on strategic planning and

execution

Increased capital expenditure savings

• 232% ROI over 4 years*

• <12 months payback

period *

*Based on POC and business case from a Fortune 500

Insurance Company



Date post:	20-Aug-2015
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Managing Mission-Critical Database Changes with Oracle Real Application Testing

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