Clustering Factor

In Part I we looked at a scenario where an index was deemed to be too inefficient for Automatic Indexing to create a VALID index, because of the poor clustering of data within the table. In Part II we improved the data clustering but the previous SQLs could still not generate a new Automatic Index […]

  In my previous post, I discussed a scenario in which Oracle Automatic Indexing refused to create a VALID index, because the resultant index was too inefficient to access the necessary rows due to the poor clustering of data within the table. If the performance of such an SQL were critical for business requirements, there […]

I’ve discussed many times the importance of data clustering in relation to the efficiency of indexes. With respect to the efficiency of Automatic Indexes including their usage within Oracle’s Autonomous Database environments, data clustering is just as important. The following demo was run on an Oracle 19c database within the Oracle Autonomous Database Transaction Processing […]

When I go to a customer site to resolve performance issues, one of the most common issues I encounter is in relation to inefficient SQL. And one of the most common causes for inefficient SQL I encounter is because of deficiencies the default manner by which the index Clustering Factor is calculated. When it comes […]

In previous articles, I discussed how Automatic Indexing has the capability to add columns or reorder the column list of previously created Automatic Indexes. However, how does Automatic Indexing handle these types of scenarios with regard to existing manually created indexes? To investigate, let’s create a table identical to the table I created in my […]

In Part I, we explored some options that Oracle might adopt when ordering the columns within an Automatic Index by default, in the absence of other factors where there is only the one SQL statement to be concerned with. A point worth making is that if all columns of an index are specified within SQL […]

Let me start by saying if you don’t already following Jonathan Lewis’s excellent Oracle blog, do yourself a favour. In a recent article, Jonathan highlighted a danger with rebuilding indexes (or indeed creating an index) when used in relation to collecting index statistics with the TABLE_CACHED_BLOCKS preference. I’ve discussed the importance of the TABLE_CACHED_BLOCKS statistics […]

I of course attract a highly clever readership :). As some have commented, for a single table to require 1000+ consistent gets to retrieve 1000 rows implies that each row needs to be accessed from a different block. This in turn implies the Clustering Factor for this index to be relatively bad and the associated […]

I’ve had a couple of recent discussions around clustering and how if you attempt to improve the clustering of a table based on a column, you thereby ruin the current clustering that might exist for a different column. The common wisdom being you can only order the data one way and if you change the […]

In my previous post, I discussed how you can now move heap tables online with Oracle Database 12.2 and how this can be very beneficial in helping to address issues with the Clustering Factor of key indexes. A problem with this technique is that is requires the entire table to be effectively reorganised when most of […]