I discussed recently an updated MOS note that details the needs vs. the implications of rebuilding indexes. Following is a neat little trick if you want to very quickly and cheaply estimate the size of an index if it were to be rebuilt or a new index before you actually create the thing. I meant to blog about this sometime […]

The last couple weeks I’ve been lucky enough to get time with a new ZFSSA Simulator, (it will be out soon for everyone, so you’ll have to just play with the current one available, patience grasshopper! :)) and spent checking out the newest features available with Database as a Service, (DBaaS) Snapclone via Enteprise Manager 12c.  I’m really thrilled with Snapclone-  In two previous positions, I spent considerable time finding new ways of speeding up RMAN duplicates to ease the stress of weekly datamart builds that were sourced off of production and this feature would have been a lifesaver back then!

As Oracle’s DBaaS offering is so full featured, I think its easy to have misconceptions about the product or find blog posts and documentation on earlier releases that lead to misconceptions. Due to this, we thought it might help if I tried to dispel some of myths, letting more folks realize just how incredible Snapclone really is!

Misconception #1- Snapclone only works with the ZFS Storage Appliance

DBaaS does offer a fantastic hardware solution that requires a hardware NAS like Netapp and ZFS/ZFSSA, but that’s not the only option.  There is also the software solution which  can work on ANY storage.  There’s no requirement for the test master database, (used to track changes and save considerable space vs. a traditional cloning method…) on where it must reside and that means it can be on different storage than production.

There are benefits to both the hardware and software solutions of Snapclone.  Keep in mind, Oracle prefers to support hardware and software that are engineered to work together, but they realize that not all customers will have a ZFS or NetApp Solution in place, so they ensure that Snapclone solutions are available to all storage a customer may have in their shop.  Some of those benefits and requirements are listed below, but you can clearly see, Snapclone does not have a requirements of ZFS or NetApp:

Misconception #2-  Snapclone Requires a Cloud Implementation

It is true that Snapclone requires database pools to be configured and built, but this is in the environment’s best interest to ensure that it is properly governed placement is enforced. This feature is separate from an actual “cloud” implementation and the two shouldn’t be confused.  There are often dual definitions for terms and cloud is no different.  We have private cloud, public cloud, the over-all  term for cloud technology and then we have database pools that are part of Snapclone and those are configured in the cloud settings of DBaaS.  They should not be confused with having to implement “cloud”.

Misconception #3- Unable to Perform Continuous Refresh on Test Master Database

There are a couple easy ways to accomplish a refresh of the test master database used to clone from production.  Outside of the traditional profiles that would schedule a snapshot refresh, DBAs can set up active or physcial dataguard or can use storage replication technologies that they already have in place.  To see how these look from a high level, let’s first look at a traditional refresh of a test master database:

Now you’ll notice that the diagram states the test master is “regularly” refreshed with a current data set from production and if you inspect the diagram below, you will see an example of an example of a software or hardware refresh scenario to the test master database, (using datamasking and subsetting if required) and then creating Snap Clones.

Now as I said earlier, you can use a standby database, too, to perform a clone.  The following diagram shows the simplicity of a standby with Dataguard or Golden Gate.  Notice where Snap Clone takes over-  it’s at the Standby database tier, so you still get the benefit of the feature, but can utilize comfortable technology such as Dataguard or Golden Gate:

Misconception #4- Snapclone Can Only be Used with DB12c

Snapclone works with any supported version of the database 10gR2 to 12c. Per the DBaaS team of experts, it may work on earlier versions, they just haven’t certified it, so if there are any guinea pigs out there that want to test it out, we’d love to hear about your experience!

The process of Snapclone is very simple once the environment is set up.  With the Rapid Start option, it’s pretty much the “Easy button” for setting up the DBaaS environment and the process solidified once service templates are built and the service request has been submitted in the Self Service Portal.  There isn’t anymore confusion surrounding where an Oracle home installation should be performed or what prefix is used for database naming convention and other small issues that can end up costing an environment in unnecessary complexity later on.

Misconception #5- Snapclone doesn’t Support Exadata

A couple folks have asked me if Snapclone is suppored on Exadata and in truth, Exadata with Snapclone offers a unique opportunity with consolidations and creating a private cloud for the business.  I’ll go into it in depth in another blog post, as it deserves it’s own post, but the following diagram does offer a high level view of how Snapclone can offer a really cool option with Exadata:

There are so many features that are provided by Snapclone that its difficult to keep on top of everything, but trying to dispel the misconceptions is important so people don’t miss out on this impressive opportunity to save companies time, money and storage.  I know my whitepaper was over 40 pages on DBaaS and I only focused on NetApp and ZFS, so I do understand how easy it is, but hopefully this first post will get people investigating DBaaS options more!

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Even the simplest things change – here’s a brief history of nested loop joins, starting from 8i, based on the following query (with some hints):

select
	t2.n1, t1.n2
from
	t2,t1
where
	t2.n2 = 45
and	t2.n1 = t1.n1
;

There’s an index to support the join from t2 to t1, and I’ve forced an (unsuitable) index scan for the predicate on t2.

Basic plan for 8i (8.1.7.4)

As reported by $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/utlxpls.sql.
Note the absence of a Predicate Information section.

Plan Table
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Operation                 |  Name    |  Rows | Bytes|  Cost  | Pstart| Pstop |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SELECT STATEMENT          |          |   225 |    3K|   3038 |       |       |
|  NESTED LOOPS             |          |   225 |    3K|   3038 |       |       |
|   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX RO|T2        |    15 |  120 |   3008 |       |       |
|    INDEX FULL SCAN        |T2_I1     |    15 |      |      8 |       |       |
|   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX RO|T1        |     3K|   23K|      2 |       |       |
|    INDEX RANGE SCAN       |T1_I1     |     3K|      |      1 |       |       |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Basic plan for 9i (9.2.0.8)

As reported by a call to a home-grown version of dbms_xplan.display_cursor() with statistics_level set to all.

Note the “prefetch” shape of the body of the plan but the inconsistency in the numbers reported for Rows, Bytes, and Cost seem to be reporting the “traditional” 8i values transposed to match the new arrangement of the operations. There’s also a little oddity in the A-rows column in line 2 which looks as if it is the sum of its children plus 1 when the size of the rowsource is (presumably) the 225 rowids used to access the table.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                     |  Name       | Rows  | Bytes | Cost  | Starts  | A-Rows  | Buffers |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT              |             |   225 |  3600 |  3038 |         |         |         |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID  | T1          |    15 |   120 |     2 |     1   |    225  |   3061  |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                |             |   225 |  3600 |  3038 |     1   |    241  |   3051  |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T2          |    15 |   120 |  3008 |     1   |     15  |   3017  |
|   4 |     INDEX FULL SCAN           | T2_I1       |  3000 |       |     8 |     1   |   3000  |     17  |
|*  5 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN           | T1_I1       |    15 |       |     1 |    15   |    225  |     34  |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter("T2"."N2"=45)
   5 - access("T2"."N1"="T1"."N1")

Basic plan for 10g (10.2.0.5)

As reported by a call to dbms_xplan.display_cursor() with statistics_level set to all.

No change from 9i.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                     | Name  | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT              |       |      0 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID  | T1    |      1 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.03 |    3061 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                |       |      1 |    225 |    241 |00:00:00.03 |    3051 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T2    |      1 |     15 |     15 |00:00:00.03 |    3017 |
|   4 |     INDEX FULL SCAN           | T2_I1 |      1 |   3000 |   3000 |00:00:00.01 |      17 |
|*  5 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN           | T1_I1 |     15 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      34 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter("T2"."N2"=45)
   5 - access("T2"."N1"="T1"."N1")

Basic plan for 11g (11.2.0.4)

As reported by a call to dbms_xplan.display_cursor() with statisics_level set to all

Note how the nested loop has now turned into two NESTED LOOP operations – potentially opening the way for a complete decoupling of index access and table access. This has an interesting effect on the number of starts of the table access by rowid for t1, of course. The number of buffer gets for this operation looks surprisingly low (given that it started 225 times) but can be explained by the pattern of the data distribution – and cross-checked by looking at the “buffer is pinned count” statistic which accounts for most of the table visits.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                     | Name  | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT              |       |      1 |        |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3048 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS                 |       |      1 |    225 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3048 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                |       |      1 |    225 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3038 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T2    |      1 |     15 |     15 |00:00:00.01 |    3013 |
|   4 |     INDEX FULL SCAN           | T2_I1 |      1 |   3000 |   3000 |00:00:00.01 |      13 |
|*  5 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN           | T1_I1 |     15 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      25 |
|   6 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | T1    |    225 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      10 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter("T2"."N2"=45)
   5 - access("T2"."N1"="T1"."N1")

There is, however, a second possible plan for 11g. The one above is the “NLJ Batching” plan, but I could have hinted the “NLJ prefetch” strategy, which takes us back to the 9i execution plan (with a very small variation in buffer visits).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                     | Name  | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT              |       |      0 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID  | T1    |      1 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3052 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                |       |      1 |    225 |    241 |00:00:00.01 |    3042 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T2    |      1 |     15 |     15 |00:00:00.01 |    3017 |
|   4 |     INDEX FULL SCAN           | T2_I1 |      1 |   3000 |   3000 |00:00:00.01 |      17 |
|*  5 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN           | T1_I1 |     15 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      25 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter("T2"."N2"=45)
   5 - access("T2"."N1"="T1"."N1")

Base plan for 12c (12.1.0.1)

As reported by a call to dbms_xplan.display_cursor() with statistics_level set to all.
Note that the table access to t2 in line 3 is described as “batched” (a feature that can be disabled by the /*+ no_batch_table_access_by_rowid(alias) */  hint) otherwise the plan matches the 11g plan.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                             | Name  | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                      |       |      1 |        |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3052 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS                         |       |      1 |        |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3052 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                        |       |      1 |    225 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3042 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| T2    |      1 |     15 |     15 |00:00:00.01 |    3017 |
|   4 |     INDEX FULL SCAN                   | T2_I1 |      1 |   3000 |   3000 |00:00:00.01 |      17 |
|*  5 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | T1_I1 |     15 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      25 |
|   6 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID         | T1    |    225 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      10 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter("T2"."N2"=45)
   5 - access("T2"."N1"="T1"."N1")

Of course 12c also has the “prefetch” version of the plan available; and again “batched” access appears – for both tables in this case – and again the feature can be disabled individually by hints addressed at the tables:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                             | Name  | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                      |       |      0 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED  | T1    |      1 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3052 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                        |       |      1 |    225 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |    3042 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| T2    |      1 |     15 |     15 |00:00:00.01 |    3017 |
|   4 |     INDEX FULL SCAN                   | T2_I1 |      1 |   3000 |   3000 |00:00:00.01 |      17 |
|*  5 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | T1_I1 |     15 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      25 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter("T2"."N2"=45)
   5 - access("T2"."N1"="T1"."N1")

In these examples the difference in work done by the different variations and versions is negligible, but there may be cases where the pattern of data distribution may change the pattern of logical I/Os and buffer pins – which may affect the physical I/O. In this light it’s interesting to note the hint /*+ cluster_by_rowid(alias) */ that was introduced in 11.2.0.4 but disappeared by 12c changing the 11g plan as follows:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                     | Name  | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |  OMem |  1Mem | Used-Mem |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT              |       |      0 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |       |       |          |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID  | T1    |      1 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |     134 |       |       |          |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                |       |      1 |    225 |    241 |00:00:00.01 |     124 |       |       |          |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T2    |      1 |     15 |     15 |00:00:00.01 |      99 |       |       |          |
|   4 |     SORT CLUSTER BY ROWID     |       |      1 |   3000 |   3000 |00:00:00.01 |       8 |   142K|   142K|  126K (0)|
|   5 |      INDEX FULL SCAN          | T2_I1 |      1 |   3000 |   3000 |00:00:00.01 |       8 |       |       |          |
|*  6 |    INDEX RANGE SCAN           | T1_I1 |     15 |     15 |    225 |00:00:00.01 |      25 |       |       |          |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter("T2"."N2"=45)
   6 - access("T2"."N1"="T1"."N1")

Note the effect appearing at line 4 – and the extraordinary effect this has on the buffer visits (so significant that I did a follow-up check on v$mystat to see if the figures were consistent). This type of rowid sorting is, of course, an important fix for an Exadata issue I described some time ago, and I had assumed that the “batched” concept in the 12c plan was in some way enabling it – although the 12c rowsource execution stats don’t seem to bear that idea out.

Footnote:

You may also want to read the following note on the 12c batched rowid.

  Just a short note to say I’ll be presenting at the Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) Kaleidoscope 14 Conference this year in beautiful Seattle, Washington on June 22-26 2014. I had a fantastic time when I attended this conference a few years ago when it was held in Monterey so I’m really looking forward to […]