Oracle Parallel Processing

Sanjay Mishra, Tushar Mahapatra — 2000

Parallel processing is becoming increasingly important to database computing. Databases often grow to enormous sizes and are accessed by huge numbers of users. This growth strains the ability of single-processor and single-computer systems to handle the load. More and more, organizations are turning to parallel processing technologies to give them the performance, scalability, and reliability they need. Anyone managing a large database, a database with a large number of concurrent users, or a database with high availability requirements--such as a heavily trafficked e-commerce site--needs to know how to get the most out of Oracle's parallel processing technologies. Oracle Parallel Processing is the first book to describe the full range of parallel processing capabilities in the Oracle environment, including those new to Oracle8i. It covers: What is parallel processing--features, benefits, and pitfalls. Who needs it and who doesn't? What features does Oracle provide, and what are their requirements and overhead implications? The book answers these questions and presents the various parallel architectures (SMP, or Symmetric Multiprocessing; MPP, or Massively Parallel Processing; clustered systems; and NUMA, or Non Uniform Memory Access). Oracle parallel execution--Oracle supports a variety of parallel execution features in the database. The book covers the use, administration, and tuning of these features: parallel query, parallel data loading, parallel DML (Data Manipulation Language), parallel object creation (through DDL, or Data Definition Language), and parallel replication propagation. Oracle Parallel Server--Oracle also provides the OPS option, which work to be spread over both multiple CPUs and multiple nodes. This book covers OPS architecture, requirements, administration, tuning, storage management, recovery, and application failover issues. Oracle Parallel Processing also contains several case studies showing how to use Oracle's parallel features in a variety of real-world situations.