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CBO Costing Plans With Migrated Rows Part II (“New Killer Star”) March 28, 2023

Posted by Richard Foote in CBO, Index Access Path, Index statistics, Leaf Blocks, Migrated Rows, Non-Equality Predicates, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Oracle Statistics, Performance Tuning, Richard's Blog, ROWID.
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I’ve spent the past few months discussing Migrated Rows, in large part thanks to an excellent 15 minute video by Connor McDonald on how ROWIDs can now be updated on the fly in Oracle Autonomous databases.

Well 14 such posts later, I have finally reached the end of this topic (for now at least). So, an average of about 1 post per minute of video 🙂

In my previous post, I discussed how the CBO costs execution plans with tables that have migrated rows, when the statistics are collected as recommended via the DBMS_STATS package. In summary, migrated rows are basically just ignored, with the CBO blissfully unaware of the existence of any such migrated rows.

As I discussed, if I want to easily see how many migrated rows I have in a table, I can potentially use the ANALYZE command as follows:

SQL> analyze table bowie compute statistics;

Table BOWIE analyzed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables
     where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      4906              86          415            170        56186

As you can now see, the table currently has 56186 migrated rows (yes CHAIN_CNT can potentially count rows that simply can’t fit within a single block, but all these rows are definitely migrated rows as per the demo in my previous post).

Now, it had always been my belief that although you can use the ANALYZE command to count out these migrated rows, the CBO would simply ignore this statistic in its calculations.

But I was wrong.

If we now re-run the query from the previous post:

SQL> select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001;

999 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |    999 |    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |    999 |    999 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
            1 CPU used by this session
            1 CPU used when call started
            1 DB time
         9193 RM usage
            3 Requests to/from client
            2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          664 buffer is not pinned count
         1662 buffer is pinned count
          323 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
       171333 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
            2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
            2 calls to kcmgcs
          666 consistent gets
            1 consistent gets examination
            1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
          666 consistent gets from cache
          665 consistent gets pin
          665 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
            2 execute count
            1 index range scans
      5455872 logical read bytes from cache
          665 no work - consistent read gets
           39 non-idle wait count
            2 opened cursors cumulative
            1 opened cursors current
            2 parse count (total)
            2 process last non-idle time
            1 session cursor cache hits
          666 session logical reads
            1 sorts (memory)
         2024 sorts (rows)
          999 table fetch by rowid
          327 table fetch continued row
            3 user calls

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'b1vwpu2rgn8p5',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0
-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |   302 (100)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |    999 |   141K|   302   (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |    999 |       |     4   (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

    2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

 

We can see that the cost of the plan has now changed.

Although the cost of reading the index itself is still the same with a cost of 4, the overall cost of the plan has increased to 302 (previously it was 21).

So the difference in plan costs is 302 – 21 = 281. And it’s pretty easy to see where this extra comes from…

The extra costs is basically query selectivity x no of migrated rows

Extra costs = 0.005 x 56186 = 281.

So the index scan costing formula should really be updated to be:

Index Scan Cost = blevel +
                                    ceil(effective index selectivity x leaf_blocks) +
                                    ceil(effective table selectivity x clustering_factor) +
                                    ceil(effective table selectivity x chain_cnt)

Now, IMHO, this new cost is actually more accurate and better matches the true cost of now using the index, which requires 666 Consistent Gets (previously, before the rows migrated, the index plan required just 18 Consistent Gets).

So in some respects, this new cost might not be a bad thing. But then again, a sudden change in such costings due to a flood of new migrated rows might result in an unexpected and undesired plan changes that have been carefully crafted for statistics generated with the conventional DBMS_STATS collection method.

However, it’s not sufficient to simply collect fresh statistics using DBMS_STATS to get the previous CBO costings where migrated rows are ignored:

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables
     where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      4906              86          415            167        56186

Simply collecting fresh statistics does NOT clear out the CHAIN_CNT statistic and so the CBO costings remain the same as with ANALYZE command:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'b1vwpu2rgn8p5',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0
-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |   302 (100)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |    999 |   141K|   302   (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |    999 |       |     4   (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

You need to first delete the table statistics to remove the CHAIN_CNT statistic (which of course comes with obvious dangers now there are no table statistics present) before you collect fresh statistics using DBMS_STATS:

SQL> execute dbms_stats.delete_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables
     where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      4906               0            0            167            0

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473                 3250

The CHAIN_CNT statistic has finally been cleared to 0 and the CBO costings now returned to as it was previously when such migrated rows were ignored:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'b1vwpu2rgn8p5',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0
-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    21 (100)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |   163K|    21   (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |       |     4   (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

The CBO costs are now back to the previous 21.

So I’m a little in two minds about this. I think the statistics generated and used by the CBO are better with the ANALYZE command, but would still suggest collecting the necessary statistics using the recommended DBMS_STATS approach. Perhaps Oracle giving us the option to collect these additional statistics using DBMS_STATS might be a useful enhancement… 🤷‍♂️

Now, at one point in time, a long long time ago, I’m reasonably sure the CBO previously didn’t use the CHAIN_CNT statistic. However, it came as no real surprise when I researched when the CBO had started using the CHAIN_CNT statistic in its calculations, that Jonathan Lewis had already written on this subject way way back in April 2009 🙂

So Oracle definitely had this behaviour all the way back to at least 9i and continues to behave this way in 21c. Ah well, better late than never I guess to finally realise how all this actually works…

UPDATE (29 March 2023): Jonathan Lewis can kindly confirmed with me that CHAIN_CNT was definitely ignored back in version 8.1.7.4 and that this changed to the current behaviour in either 9.0 or 9.2.

CBO Costing Plans With Migrated Rows Part I (“Ignoreland”) March 21, 2023

Posted by Richard Foote in BLEVEL, CBO, Clustering Factor, Data Clustering, Index Access Path, Index Height, Index statistics, Leaf Blocks, Migrated Rows, Non-Equality Predicates, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Oracle Statistics, Performance Tuning, Richard's Blog, ROWID.
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Whilst recently blogging about Migrated Rows and specifically changes to how ROWIDs are now maintained on the fly in Oracle Autonomous Databases, I made a discovery regarding how the Cost-Based Optimizer (CBO) costs such plans. This is one of the key reasons why I blog, not only to try and share odd titbits about how Oracle works, but also to hopefully learn much myself in the process.

Imagine my surprise in not only learning that Oracle and the CBO works differently to how I had always thought Oracle worked in this respect, but that this behaviour has been the case since at least Oracle 9i.

In Part I, I’ll use the same example of migrated rows as I’ve used in the past few blog posts and initially show how the CBO generally costs such plans (and by which I had incorrectly assumed ALWAYS costed such plans).

Let’s start by creating and populating a tightly packed table (in an environment where ROWIDs are NOT updated on the fly):

SQL> create table bowie(id number, code1 number, code2 number, code3 number, code4 number, code5 number, code6 number, code7 number, code8 number, code9 number, code10 number, code11 number, code12 number, code13 number, code14 number, code15 number, code16 number, code17 number, code18 number, code19 number, code20 number, name varchar2(142)) PCTFREE 0;

Table BOWIE created.

SQL> insert into bowie SELECT rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, 'BOWIE' FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 200000;

200,000 rows inserted.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

I’ll next create an index on the well clustered ID column (as the rows are inserted in ID column order within the table):

SQL> create index bowie_id_i on bowie(id);

Index BOWIE_ID_I created.

Next, we’ll use the Oracle recommended method of collecting table/index statistics, by using the DBMS_STATS package:

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables
where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      3268               0            0            111            0

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473                 3250

 

Note the key index statistics here: BLEVEL=1, LEAF_BLOCKS=473 and the near perfect CLUSTERING_FACTOR=3250.

If we run the following query featuring a non-equality range predicate:

 

SQL> select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001;

999 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |    999 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |    999 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |    999 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
          1 DB time
       7678 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
         16 buffer is not pinned count
       1983 buffer is pinned count
        323 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     171383 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
         18 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
         18 consistent gets from cache
         17 consistent gets pin
         17 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
     147456 logical read bytes from cache
         17 no work - consistent read gets
         40 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          2 process last non-idle time
          1 session cursor cache count
          1 session cursor cache hits
         18 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
        999 table fetch by rowid
          3 user calls

We notice that the CBO indeed uses the index.

They key statistic to note here is that Consistent Gets is just 18, which is extremely low considering we’re returning 999 rows. This is due to the fact the index is currently extremely efficient as it can fetch multiple rows by visiting the same table block due to the excellent clustering/ordering of the required ID column values (and also due to my high arraysize session setting).

If we look at the CBO costings for this plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'b1vwpu2rgn8p5',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     |Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    21 (100)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     18 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |   108K|      21 (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |     18 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |       |       4 (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |      4 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

 

I’ve previously discussed many times how the CBO costs index access paths, but it’s always useful to go over this again, as it’s the most common question I get asked when I visit customer sites.

The KEY statistic the CBO has to determine is the estimated Selectivity of the query (the estimated percentage of rows to be returned), as this is the driver of all the subsequent CBO calculations.

The Selectivity of this range-based predicate query is calculated as follows:

Selectivity = (Highest Bound Value – Lowest Bound Value) / (Highest Value – Lowest Value)
= (1001-1) /(200000-1)
= 1000/199999
=  approx. 0.005

Once Oracle has the selectivity, it can calculate the query Cardinality (estimated number of rows) as follows:

Cardinality = Selectivity x No of Rows

Cardinality = 0.005 x 200000 = 1000 rows

This is our visual window into the likelihood that the CBO has made an accurate decision with its execution plan. If the cardinality estimates are reasonably accurate, then the CBO is likely to generate a good plan. If the cardinality estimates are way off, then the CBO is more likely to generate an inappropriate plan.

The CBO cardinality estimate in the above plan is 1000 rows, whereas the number of rows actually returned is 999 rows.

So indeed, the CBO has got the cardinality almost spot on (except for a trivial rounding error) and so we have a high degree of confidence that the CBO is using the correct selectivity estimates when they get plugged into the following CBO formula for costing an index range scan (using this selectivity of 0.005 and the index statistics listed above):

Index Scan Cost = (blevel + ceil(effective index selectivity x leaf_blocks)) + ceil(effective table selectivity x clustering_factor)

= (1 + ceil(0.005 x 467)) + ceil(0.005 x 3250)
= (1 + 3) + 17
= 4 + 17 = 21

So we can clearly see where the CBO gets its costings for both reading the index during the Index Range Scan (4) and for the plan as a whole (21).

The CBO cost of 21 very closely resembles the 18 consistent gets accessed when the plan is executed. This to me suggests that the CBO has indeed costed this plan very accurately and appropriately.

It’s interesting to note in the above execution plan that Oracle is attributing 100% of this cost of 21 to CPU (21 (100)). That will be a discussion for another day…

OK, let’s now perform an update on the table, increasing the size of the rows such that I generate a bunch of migrated rows:

SQL> update bowie set name='THE RISE AND FALL OF BOWIE STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS';

200,000 rows updated.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

If we now collect fresh statistics again using DBMS_STATS:

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables
where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      4906               0            0            167            0

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473                 3250

 

We notice that none of the key statistics have changed, except for the number of Table Blocks (now 4906, previously it was 3268) and the Average Row Length has also increased (now 167, previously it was 111). Both of these can of course be attributed to the increase in the size of the values now stored in the NAME column following the Update.

Importantly, notice that collecting statistics via DBMS_STATS does NOT collect data for the CHAIN_CNT statistic, it remains at 0 even though many migrated rows were actually generated by the Update statement (as we’ll see below).

Increasing the Table Blocks will result in an associated increase in the cost of reading this table via a Full Table Scan (FTS).

We notice that none of the index-related statistics changed following the Update statement (as in this example, Oracle does NOT update the ROWIDs of any of the migrated rows, Oracle simply stores a pointer in the original block to denote the new physical location of the migrated rows as previously discussed).

So if we only INCREASE the cost of a FTS (via having more Table Blocks) but keep intact all the previous index related statistics, then the CBO is certainly going to again select the same Index Range Scan plan, as the plan will have the same (cheaper than FTS) costings as before.

If we re-run the query again:

SQL> select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001;

999 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |    999 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |    999 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
       7709 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
        664 buffer is not pinned count
       1662 buffer is pinned count
        323 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     171500 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
        666 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
        666 consistent gets from cache
        665 consistent gets pin
        665 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
    5455872 logical read bytes from cache
        665 no work - consistent read gets
         39 non-idle wait count
          1 non-idle wait time
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          2 session cursor cache count
        666 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
        999 table fetch by rowid
        327 table fetch continued row
          3 user calls

We notice that indeed it’s the same Index Range Scan plan as before.

But we notice that the number of Consistent Gets has increased substantially to 666 (previously it was just 18). The reason for this large jump is due to the now 327 table fetch continued rows that need to be accessed due to the newly migrated rows following the Update. This number is then doubled (so 2 x 327 = 654) to represent the approximate additional Consistent Gets we now need to perform, as Oracle needs to read the additional table block to access the migrated row’s new physical location AND to now re-read the original table block to access the next row to be fetched (previously Oracle could read all the required consecutive rows required from the same table block within the one consistent get).

So it’s now actually substantially more expensive to read the required 1000 rows via this index due to this increase in necessary consistent gets.

But if we look at the actual cost of this plan now:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'b1vwpu2rgn8p5',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID b1vwpu2rgn8p5, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id > 1 and id < 1001

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     |Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    21 (100)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |    666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |   163K|      21 (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |    666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |       |       4 (0)|    999 |00:00:00.01 |      4 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">1 AND "ID"<1001)

 

We notice that as expected (as none of the index-related statistics have changed), that despite being much more expensive to now use this index, the costs of this plan (4 for reading the index and 21 overall) remain unchanged.

I would argue that these CBO costs are no longer as accurate as the 21 total CBO cost does not so closely represent the actual 666 consistent gets now required.

Now, the 327 table fetch continued row statistics from the previous run is clear proof we indeed have migrated rows following the Update statement.

But if we want to confirm how many migrated rows we now have in the table, we can use the ANALYZE command to collect these additional statistics:

SQL> analyze table bowie compute statistics;

Table BOWIE analyzed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables
where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      4906              86          415            170        56186

 

We notice that we now have a CHAIN_CNT of 56186.

Now this statistic can represent any row that is not housed inside a single table block (for which there could be a number of possible reasons, such as a row simply being too long to fit in a single table block), but as all rows are still relatively tiny, we can be certain that indeed all 56186 chained rows represent migrated rows.

Now that I’ve gone and used ANALYZE, primarily to generate this CHAIN_CNT statistic, my previous understanding of how the CBO costs migrated rows crumbles away, as I’ll discuss in my next post…

Possible Impact To Clustering Factor Now ROWIDs Are Updated When Rows Migrate Part II (“Dancing Out In Space”) March 7, 2023

Posted by Richard Foote in 19c, 19c New Features, Attribute Clustering, Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous Database, Autonomous Transaction Processing, CBO, Changing ROWID, Clustering Factor, Data Clustering, David Bowie, Full Table Scans, Index Access Path, Index Internals, Index Rebuild, Index statistics, Leaf Blocks, Migrated Rows, Oracle, Oracle 21c, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Oracle Statistics, Oracle19c, Performance Tuning, Richard's Musings, ROWID.
1 comment so far

In my previous post, I discussed how the clustering of data can be impacted if rows migrate and how this in turn can have a detrimental impact on the efficiency of associated indexes.

In this post, I’ll discuss what you can do (and not do) to remedy things in the relatively unlikely event that you hit this issue with migrated rows.

I’ll just discuss initially the example where the table is defined without ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT enabled in the Transaction Processing Autonomous Database (and so does NOT update ROWIDs on the fly when a row migrates).

I’ll start by again creating and populating a tightly packed table, with the data inserted in ID column order:

SQL> create table bowie(id number, code1 number, code2 number, code3 number, code4 number, code5 number, code6 number, code7 number, code8 number, code9 number, code10 number, code11 number, code12 number, code13 number, code14 number, code15 number, code16 number, code17 number, code18 number, code19 number, code20 number, name varchar2(142)) PCTFREE 0;

Table BOWIE created.

SQL> insert into bowie SELECT rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, 'BOWIE' FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 200000;

200,000 rows inserted.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

I’ll now create an index on this well ordered/clustered ID column:

SQL> create index bowie_id_i on bowie(id);

Index BOWIE_ID_I created.

Next, I’ll update the table, increasing the size of the rows such that I generate a bunch of migrated rows:

SQL> update bowie set name='THE RISE AND FALL OF BOWIE STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS';

200,000 rows updated.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

 

If we check the number of migrated rows:

SQL> analyze table bowie compute statistics;

Table BOWIE analyzed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables

where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      4906              86          414            170        56186

 

We notice there are indeed 56186 migrated rows.

If we check the current Clustering Factor of the index:

SQL> execute dbms_stats.delete_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS
_____________ ___________ _________
BOWIE              200000      4906

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473                 3250

 

We notice the index still has an excellent Clustering Factor of just 3250. As the ROWIDs are NOT updated in this example when rows migrate, the index retains the same Clustering Factor as before the Update statement.

If we run the following query that returns 4200 rows (as per my previous post):

SQL> select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)


Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          2 CPU used by this session
          2 CPU used when call started
          3 DB time
      24901 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
       2762 buffer is not pinned count
       7005 buffer is pinned count
        324 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     461909 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
       2771 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
       2771 consistent gets from cache
       2770 consistent gets pin
       2770 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
   22700032 logical read bytes from cache
       2770 no work - consistent read gets
         73 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          1 session cursor cache count
          1 session cursor cache hits
       2771 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       4200 table fetch by rowid
       1366 table fetch continued row
          3 user calls

We can see the query currently uses 2771 consistent gets, which is significantly higher than it could be, as Oracle has to visit the original table block and then follow the pointer to the new location for any migrated row that needs to be retrieved.

However, if we look at the cost of the current plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'c376kdhy5b0x9',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    80 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   684K|      80 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |       |      11 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

 

We can see it only has a cost of 80, as Oracle does not consider the additional accesses required now for these migrated rows. With such a perfect Clustering Factor, this cost is not particularly accurate and does not represent the true cost of the 2771 consistent gets now required.

Now there are various ways we can look at fixing this issue with all these migrated rows requiring additional consistent gets to access.

One method is to capture all the ROWIDs of the migrated rows, copy these rows to a temporary holding table, delete these rows and then re-insert them all back into the table from the temporary table.

We can identify the migrated rows by creating the CHAIN_ROWS table as per the Oracle supplied UTLCHAIN.SQL script and then use the ANALYZE command to store their ROWIDs in this CHAIN_ROWS table:

SQL> create table CHAINED_ROWS (
2 owner_name varchar2(128),
3 table_name varchar2(128),
4 cluster_name varchar2(128),
5 partition_name varchar2(128),
6 subpartition_name varchar2(128),
7 head_rowid rowid,
8 analyze_timestamp date
9* );

Table CHAINED_ROWS created.

SQL> analyze table bowie list chained rows;

Table BOWIE analyzed.

SQL> select table_name, head_rowid from chained_rows where table_name='BOWIE' and rownum<=10;

   TABLE_NAME            HEAD_ROWID
_____________ _____________________
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAP
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAR
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAU
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAW
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAZ
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAb
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAe
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAg
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAj
BOWIE         AAAqFjAAAAAE6CzAAl

 

Another method we can now utilise is to simply MOVE ONLINE the table:

SQL> alter table bowie move online;

Table BOWIE altered.

 

If we now look at the number of migrated rows after the table reorg:

SQL> analyze table bowie compute statistics;

Table BOWIE analyzed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks, empty_blocks, avg_space, avg_row_len, chain_cnt from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS    EMPTY_BLOCKS    AVG_SPACE    AVG_ROW_LEN    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ___________ _________ _______________ ____________ ______________ ____________
BOWIE              200000      4936              56          838            169            0

 

We can see we no longer have any migrated rows.

BUT, if we now look at the Clustering Factor of this index:

SQL> execute dbms_stats.delete_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS
_____________ ___________ _________
BOWIE              200000      4936

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473               114560

 

We can see it has now significantly increased to 114560 (previously it was just 3250).

The problem of course is that if the ROWIDs now represent the correct new physical location of the migrated rows, the previously perfect clustering/ordering of the ID column has been impacted.

If we now re-run the query returning the 4200 rows:

SQL> select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1845943507

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                  | Name  | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |       |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4857 |
|* 1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | BOWIE |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4857 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - storage(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))
       filter(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          3 CPU used by this session
          3 CPU used when call started
       4849 Cached Commit SCN referenced
          2 DB time
      25870 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          2 buffer is not pinned count
        324 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     461962 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          9 calls to kcmgcs
       4857 consistent gets
       4857 consistent gets from cache
       4857 consistent gets pin
       4857 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
   39788544 logical read bytes from cache
       4850 no work - consistent read gets
         72 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          2 process last non-idle time
          1 session cursor cache count
       4857 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       4850 table scan blocks gotten
     200000 table scan disk non-IMC rows gotten
     200000 table scan rows gotten
          1 table scans (short tables)
          3 user calls

 

Oracle is now performing a Full Table Scan (FTS). The number of consistent gets now at 4857 is actually worse than when we had the migrated rows (previously at 2771)

The Clustering Factor of the ID column is now so bad, that returning 4200 rows via such an index is just too expensive. The FTS is now deemed the cheaper option by the CBO.

If we look at the CBO cost of using this FTS plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'c376kdhy5b0x9',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1845943507

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                  | Name  | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |       |      1 |        |       |  1340 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4857 |
|* 1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | BOWIE |      1 |   4200 |   684K|    1340 (1)|   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4857 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - storage(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))
       filter(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))

 

We can see the cost of this plan is 1340.

If we compare this with the cost of using the (now deemed) inefficient index:

SQL> select /*+ index (bowie) */ * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 9215hkzd3v1up, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select /*+ index (bowie) */ * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2784 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2784 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)


Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          2 CPU used by this session
          2 CPU used when call started
       2741 Cached Commit SCN referenced
          2 DB time
      12633 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
       2775 buffer is not pinned count
       5626 buffer is pinned count
        345 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     462170 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
       2784 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
       2784 consistent gets from cache
       2783 consistent gets pin
       2783 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
   22806528 logical read bytes from cache
       2783 no work - consistent read gets
         72 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          4 process last non-idle time
          1 session cursor cache count
          1 session cursor cache hits
       2784 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       4200 table fetch by rowid
          3 user calls

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'9215hkzd3v1up',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 9215hkzd3v1up, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select /*+ index (bowie) */ * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |  2418 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2784 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   684K|    2418 (1)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2784 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |       |      11 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

 

We can see the CBO cost of the index is now 2418, more than the 1340 cost of using the FTS.

So in the scenario where by migrating a significant number of rows, we impact the Clustering Factor and so the efficiency of vital indexes in our applications, we need to eliminate the migrated rows in a more thoughtful manner.

An option we have available is to first add an appropriate Clustering Attribute before we perform the table reorg:

SQL> alter table bowie add clustering by linear order (id);

Table BOWIE altered.

SQL> alter table bowie move online;

Table BOWIE altered.

 

If we now look at the Clustering Factor of this important index:

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS
_____________ ___________ _________
BOWIE              200000      4936

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473                 4850

 

The Clustering Factor has been reduced down to the almost perfect 4850, down from the previous 114560.

If we now re-run the query:

SQL> select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |     102 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |     102 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)


Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
         89 Cached Commit SCN referenced
          1 DB time
      11249 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
         93 buffer is not pinned count
       8308 buffer is pinned count
        324 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     462165 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
        102 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
        102 consistent gets from cache
        101 consistent gets pin
        101 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
     835584 logical read bytes from cache
        101 no work - consistent read gets
         72 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          1 session cursor cache count
          1 session cursor cache hits
        102 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       4200 table fetch by rowid
          3 user calls

We can see the query now automatically uses the index and only requires just 102 consistent gets (down from 4857 when it performed the FTS and down from 2771 when we had the migrated rows).

If we look at the cost of this new plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'c376kdhy5b0x9',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |   113 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |     102 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   684K|     113 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |     102 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |       |      11 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

 

We can see the plan has a cost of just 113, which is both much more accurate and close to the 102 consistent gets and much less than the previous cost of 1340 for the FTS plan.

So in specific scenarios where by having migrated rows we significantly impact the Clustering Factor of indexes important to our applications, we have to be a little cleverer in how we address the migrated rows.

This can also the case in the new scenario where Oracle automatically updates the ROWIDs of migrated rows, as I’ll discuss in my next post…

Possible Impact To Clustering Factor Now ROWIDs Are Updated When Rows Migrate Part I (“Growin’ Up”) March 1, 2023

Posted by Richard Foote in 19c, 19c New Features, Attribute Clustering, Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous Database, Autonomous Transaction Processing, BLEVEL, CBO, Changing ROWID, Clustering Factor, Data Clustering, Hints, Index Access Path, Index Block Splits, Index Delete Operations, Index Height, Index Internals, Index Rebuild, Index statistics, Leaf Blocks, Migrated Rows, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Oracle Indexing Internals Webinar, Oracle Statistics, Oracle19c, Performance Tuning, Richard Foote Training, Richard's Blog, ROWID.
2 comments

In my previous post I discussed how an index can potentially be somewhat inflated in size after ROWIDs are updated on the fly after a substantial number of rows are migrated.

However, there’s another key “factor” of an index that in some scenarios can be impacted by this new ROWID behaviour with regard migrated rows.

To highlight this scenario, I’ll again start by creating and populating a table with ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT disabled:

SQL> create table bowie(id number, code1 number, code2 number, code3 number, code4 number, code5 number, code6 number, code7 number, code8 number, code9 number, code10 number, code11 number, code12 number, code13 number, code14 number, code15 number, code16 number, code17 number, code18 number, code19 number, code20 number, name varchar2(142)) PCTFREE 0;

Table BOWIE created.

SQL> insert into bowie SELECT rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, 'BOWIE' FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 200000;

200,000 rows inserted.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

I’ll next create an index on the ID column. The important aspect with the ID column is that the data is entered monotonically in ID column order, so the associated index will have an excellent (very low) Clustering Factor:

SQL> create index bowie_id_i on bowie(id);

Index BOWIE_ID_I created.

If we look at some key statistics of the table and index:

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS
_____________ ___________ _________
BOWIE              200000      3268

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473                 3250

We can see that the number of table blocks is 3268, the number of index leaf blocks is 473 and we indeed have a near perfect Clustering Factor of 3250.

If we run a couple of queries:

SQL> select * from bowie where id between 1 and 1000;

1,000 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gz5u92hmjwz1h, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
       7353 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
         16 buffer is not pinned count
       1985 buffer is pinned count
        324 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     171305 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
         18 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
         18 consistent gets from cache
         17 consistent gets pin
         17 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
     147456 logical read bytes from cache
         17 no work - consistent read gets
         38 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          2 session cursor cache count
         18 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       1000 table fetch by rowid
          3 user calls

We can see for this first query that returns 1000 rows, it requires just 18 consistent gets, thanks primarily due to the efficient index with the perfect Clustering Factor.

If we look at the cost of this plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'gz5u92hmjwz1h',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gz5u92hmjwz1h, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    21 (100)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |   108K|      21 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |       |       4 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)

We can see the plan has an accurate cost of just 21.

If we now run a similar query that returns a few more rows:

SQL> select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
          1 DB time
      11353 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
         59 buffer is not pinned count
       8342 buffer is pinned count
        324 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     461834 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
         68 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
         68 consistent gets from cache
         67 consistent gets pin
         67 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
     557056 logical read bytes from cache
         67 no work - consistent read gets
         73 non-idle wait count
         2 opened cursors cumulative
         1 opened cursors current
         2 parse count (total)
         1 process last non-idle time
         2 session cursor cache count
        68 session logical reads
         1 sorts (memory)
      2024 sorts (rows)
      4200 table fetch by rowid
         3 user calls

We can see that it only required just 68 consistent gets to return 4200 rows, thanks to the excellent data clustering and associated very low Clustering Factor.

If we look at the cost of this plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'c376kdhy5b0x9',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    80 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   455K|      80 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |       |      11 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

 

We can see the cost of the plan is currently a relatively accurate 80.

OK, let’s now perform an update on this table that generates a bunch of migrated rows:

SQL> update bowie set name='THE RISE AND FALL OF BOWIE STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS';

200,000 rows updated.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

If we now look at the table and index statistics:

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS
_____________ ___________ _________
BOWIE              200000      4906

We can see that the table blocks value has increased to 4906 (previously 3268). This as explained previously is to due in large part to the increased NAME column values and also due to the pointers in the original table blocks that point to the new locations of the migrated rows.

This relates to approximately a 50% increase in table blocks.

If we look at the current index statistics:

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE';

   INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
_____________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE_ID_I            1            473                 3250

We can see that these values are all unchanged, as the ROWIDs in indexes remain unchanged when a row migrates, when ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT is not set.

Therefore, when we re-run these same queries:

SQL> select * from bowie where id between 1 and 1000;

1,000 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gz5u92hmjwz1h, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 DB time
       7967 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
        664 buffer is not pinned count
       1664 buffer is pinned count
        324 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     171419 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
        666 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
        666 consistent gets from cache
        665 consistent gets pin
        665 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
    5455872 logical read bytes from cache
        665 no work - consistent read gets
         37 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          2 session cursor cache count
        666 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       1000 table fetch by rowid
        327 table fetch continued row
          3 user calls

The number of consistent gets has increased significantly to 666 (previously it was just 18).

Now we can attributed an increase of approximately 50% of the previous consistent gets (18 x 0.50 = 9) due to the 50% increase in table blocks required now to store the rows due to the increased row size.

We can also attribute an additional 327 consistent gets for the table fetch continued row value listed in the statistics, representing the extra consistent gets required to access the migrated rows from their new physical location.

But 18 + 9 + 327 = 354 still leaves us short of the new 666 consistent gets value.

The problem with having to visit another table block to get a row from its new location is that it means Oracle has to re-access again the original table block to get the next row (rather than reading multiple rows with the same consistent get).

So it’s actually approximately 2 x table fetch continued row, by which the number of consistent gets is going to increase when accessing migrated rows (noting that the last migrated row in a block will only incur a additional consistent get as the next table block accessed will differ regardless).

If we look at the new CBO cost for this plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'gz5u92hmjwz1h',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gz5u92hmjwz1h, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    21 (100)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   1000 |   163K|      21 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     666 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |       |       4 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)

 

We notice the CBO cost for this plan remains unchanged at 21.

This is totally to be expected, as the index statistics by which the cost of an index scan is calculated are unchanged.

Considering the rough “rule of thumb” is that the CBO cost of an index scan should be in the ball-park of the number of possible IOs, the fact the plan now uses 666 consistent gets highlights this cost of just 21 is no longer as accurate…

If we look at the second SQL that returns 4200 rows:

SQL> select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          2 CPU used by this session
          2 CPU used when call started
          2 DB time
      14103 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
       2762 buffer is not pinned count
       7005 buffer is pinned count
        324 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
      461947 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
           2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
           2 calls to kcmgcs
        2771 consistent gets
           1 consistent gets examination
           1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
        2771 consistent gets from cache
        2770 consistent gets pin
        2770 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
           2 execute count
           1 index range scans
    22700032 logical read bytes from cache
        2770 no work - consistent read gets
          72 non-idle wait count
           2 opened cursors cumulative
           1 opened cursors current
           2 parse count (total)
           1 process last non-idle time
           2 session cursor cache count
        2771 session logical reads
           1 sorts (memory)
        2024 sorts (rows)
        4200 table fetch by rowid
        1366 table fetch continued row
           3 user calls

We again notice consistent gets has increased significantly to 2771 (previously it was just 68). Again, these additional consistent gets can not be attributed to the extra size of the table and the additional approximate 2 x 1366 table fetch continued row gets.

If we now look at the cost of this plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'c376kdhy5b0x9',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________

SQL_ID c376kdhy5b0x9, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1405654398

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name       | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |            |      1 |        |       |    80 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE      |      1 |   4200 |   684K|      80 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2771 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |       |      11 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

 

We again notice the CBO cost for this plan remains unchanged at 80, again totally expected as the underlying index statistics have remain unchanged after the update statement.

But again, not necessary as accurate a cost as it was previously…

 

If we repeat this demo, but this time on a table with ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT enabled:

SQL> create table bowie2(id number, code1 number, code2 number, code3 number, code4 number, code5 number, code6 number, code7 number, code8 number, code9 number, code10 number, code11 number, code12 number, code13 number, code14 number, code15 number, code16 number, code17 number, code18 number, code19 number, code20 number, name varchar2(142)) PCTFREE 0 ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT;

Table BOWIE2 created.

SQL> insert into bowie2 SELECT rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, rownum, 'BOWIE' FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 200000;

200,000 rows inserted.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE2', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> create index bowie2_id_i on bowie2(id);

Index BOWIE2_ID_I created.

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE2';

   TABLE_NAME    NUM_ROWS    BLOCKS
_____________ ___________ _________
BOWIE2             200000      3268

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE2';

        INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
__________________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE2_ID_I                1            473                 3250

 

The table and index statistics are currently identical to the previous demo.

If we run the same two equivalent queries:

 

SQL> select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 1000;

1,000 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gtkw2704bxj7q, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 3243780227

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
       7909 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
         16 buffer is not pinned count
       1985 buffer is pinned count
        325 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     171306 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
         18 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
         18 consistent gets from cache
         17 consistent gets pin
         17 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
     147456 logical read bytes from cache
         17 no work - consistent read gets
         37 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          2 session cursor cache count
         18 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       1000 table fetch by rowid
     3 user calls

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'gtkw2704bxj7q',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gtkw2704bxj7q, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 3243780227

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |       |    21 (100)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   1000 |   108K|      21 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |      18 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |       |       4 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       4 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)



SQL> select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 25qktyn35b662, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 3243780227

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
          2 DB time
      13157 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
         59 buffer is not pinned count
       8342 buffer is pinned count
        325 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     461838 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
         68 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
         68 consistent gets from cache
         67 consistent gets pin
         67 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
     557056 logical read bytes from cache
         67 no work - consistent read gets
         73 non-idle wait count
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          2 session cursor cache count
         68 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       4200 table fetch by rowid
          3 user calls

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'25qktyn35b662',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 25qktyn35b662, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 3243780227

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |       |    80 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   4200 |   455K|      80 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      68 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |       |      11 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      11 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

 

With identical table/index statistics, we notice as expected that both SQLs have the same consistent gets and CBO costs as with the previous demo.

If we now repeat the equivalent Update statement:

SQL> update bowie2 set name='THE RISE AND FALL OF BOWIE STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS';

200,000 rows updated.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE2', estimate_percent=> null, no_invalidate=>false);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

 

If we look at the table statistics:

SQL> select table_name, num_rows, blocks from user_tables where table_name='BOWIE2';

   TABLE_NAME   NUM_ROWS     BLOCKS
_____________ ___________ _________
BOWIE2             200000      4654

 

We notice the number of table blocks has increased to 4654 due to the increased row lengths, but not as much as with the previous demo (where table blocks increased to 4906) as in this scenario, Oracle does not have to store the row location pointers in the original blocks for the migrated rows.

If we look at the index statistics:

SQL> select index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE2';

    INDEX_NAME    BLEVEL    LEAF_BLOCKS    CLUSTERING_FACTOR
______________ _________ ______________ ____________________
BOWIE2_ID_I            2            945               109061

We notice that these are substantially different from the first demo, where ROWIDs for migrated rows are not updated on the fly.

By now updating the ROWIDs, the indexes can possibly increase in size as they have to store both the previous and new ROWIDs in separate index entries and hence Oracle is more likely to perform additional index block splits (as I discussed in my previous post).

The LEAF_BLOCKS are now 945 (previously 473) and even the BLEVEL has increased from 1 to 2.

Additionally, and perhaps importantly for specific key indexes, the Clustering Factor value of indexes can also be impacted. By migrating rows and physically storing them in different locations, this can potentially detrimentally impact the tight clustering of rows based on specific column values.

The Clustering Factor for the index on the monotonically increased ID column has now increased significantly to 109061, up from the previously perfect 3250.

So columns that have naturally good clustering (e.g.: monotonically increasing values such as IDs and dates) or have been manually well clustered for performance purposes, can have the Clustering Factor of associated indexes detrimentally impacted by migrated rows.

If we re-run the first query:

SQL> select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 1000;

1,000 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gtkw2704bxj7q, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 3243780227

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     639 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     639 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       7 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          1 CPU used by this session
          1 CPU used when call started
          1 DB time
      15262 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
        634 buffer is not pinned count
       1367 buffer is pinned count
        325 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     171421 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
        639 consistent gets
          2 consistent gets examination
          2 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
        639 consistent gets from cache
        637 consistent gets pin
        637 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
    5234688 logical read bytes from cache
        637 no work - consistent read gets
         38 non-idle wait count
          1 non-idle wait time
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 process last non-idle time
          2 session cursor cache count
        639 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
       1000 table fetch by rowid
          3 user calls

I discussed in a previous post how by updating the ROWIDs of migrated rows we can improve performance, as Oracle can go directly to the correct new physical location of a migrated row.

But for some specific indexes, where data clustering is crucial, and we have a significant number migrated rows, this might not necessarily be the case.

We can see consistent gets here has increased to 639 (previously is was just 21), and so not hugely different from the 666 consistent gets required to fetch the migrated rows when the ROWIDs were not updated in the first demo.

If we look at the CBO costings:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'gtkw2704bxj7q',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID gtkw2704bxj7q, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 1000

Plan hash value: 3243780227

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |       |   553 (100)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     639 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   1000 |   163K|     553 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |     639 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   1000 |       |       7 (0)|   1000 |00:00:00.01 |       7 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=1000)

 

We can see the CBO cost has increased significantly to 553 (previously it was just 21).

With a much increased Clustering Factor, this will obviously impact the CBO costs of associated index scans.

In very extreme cases, these possible changes in the Clustering Factor can even impact the viability of using the index.

If we re-run the second query returning the 4200 rows:

SQL> select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 25qktyn35b662, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1495904576

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                  | Name   | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |        |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4572 |
|* 1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | BOWIE2 |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4572 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - storage(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))
       filter(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))

We can see that the CBO has now chosen to perform a Full Table Scan (FTS), rather than use the now less efficient index to return this number of rows.

If we look at the CBO costings of this FTS plan:

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'25qktyn35b662',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 25qktyn35b662, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 1495904576

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                  | Name   | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |        |      1 |        |       |  1264 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4572 |
|* 1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | BOWIE2 |      1 |   4200 |   684K|    1264 (1)|   4200 |00:00:00.02 |    4572 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - storage(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))
       filter(("ID"<=4200 AND "ID">=1))

 

The cost of the FTS plan is 1264.

If we compare this is a plan that used the index:

SQL> select /*+ index (bowie2) */ * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200;

4,200 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID bzm2vhchqpq7w, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select /*+ index (bowie2) */ * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 3243780227

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2665 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2665 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      21 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          2 CPU used by this session
          2 CPU used when call started
          2 DB time
      14531 RM usage
          3 Requests to/from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
       2646 buffer is not pinned count
       5755 buffer is pinned count
        348 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     462143 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
       2665 consistent gets
         2 consistent gets examination
         2 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
      2665 consistent gets from cache
      2663 consistent gets pin
      2663 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
         2 execute count
         1 index range scans
  21831680 logical read bytes from cache
      2663 no work - consistent read gets
        73 non-idle wait count
         2 opened cursors cumulative
         1 opened cursors current
         2 parse count (total)
         3 process last non-idle time
         2 session cursor cache count
      2665 session logical reads
         1 sorts (memory)
      2024 sorts (rows)
      4200 table fetch by rowid
         3 user calls

SQL> SELECT * FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.display_cursor(sql_id=>'bzm2vhchqpq7w',format=>'ALLSTATS LAST +cost +bytes'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID bzm2vhchqpq7w, child number 0

-------------------------------------

select /*+ index (bowie2) */ * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 4200

Plan hash value: 3243780227

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name        | Starts | E-Rows |E-Bytes| Cost (%CPU)| A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |             |      1 |        |       |  2314 (100)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2665 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BOWIE2      |      1 |   4200 |   684K|    2314 (1)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |    2665 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |   4200 |       |      22 (0)|   4200 |00:00:00.01 |      21 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

---------------------------------------------------

2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=4200)

 

The cost of using the index to retrieve the 4200 rows is 2310, more than the 1264 of the FTS.

 

For the vast majority of indexes, updating the ROWIDs for migrated rows will result in better performance, as such indexes will be able to directly access the correct new physical location of migrated rows, rather than having to visit the original table block and then follow the stored pointer to the new table block.

But for some very specific indexes, where data clustering is crucial, AND we have a significant number migrated rows, this might not necessarily be the case. The performance benefit might be minimal at best.

That’s more than enough for one post 🙂

In my next post, I’ll discuss how to potentially remedy these performance implications, both for tables with or without ENABLE TABLE MOVEMENT enabled…

Advantages To Updating ROWID When Rows Migrate (“Fantastic Voyage”) February 13, 2023

Posted by Richard Foote in 19c, Autonomous Database, Autonomous Transaction Processing, Changing ROWID, Migrated Rows, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle General, Oracle Statistics, Performance Tuning, ROWID.
1 comment so far

In my last post, I discussed how with Oracle Autonomous Databases, when a row migrates and the ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT clause is specified for a table (be it Partitioned or Non-Partitioned), the ROWID of such rows are now updated on the fly. In non-autonomous database environments, such ROWIDs would NOT be updated, with a pointer in the previous table blocks pointing to the new physical location of the migrated row (as I previously discussed here).

So what’s the advantage of this new behaviour? Why might Oracle have made this change?

Well, the obvious benefit is that subsequent index scans that need to access migrated rows will have ROWIDs that directly point to the new, correct physical location of the row. Previously, indexes still had ROWIDs that reference the original row location and an additional table block access was required to access the row in its new physical location.

To illustrate this reduction in table block accesses, I’ll run a simple SQL that reads all 10,000 rows via an index from the BOWIE table that did not have the ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT clause when most rows were updated with significantly increased row sizes (as created in my previous post):

SQL> select /*+ index (bowie) */ * from bowie where id between 1 and 10000;

10,000 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 5gum0cs9pb3zf, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select /*+ index (bowie) */ * from bowie where id between 1 and 10000

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                           | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers  |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                    |            |      1 |        |  10000 |00:00:00.03 |    18866 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| BOWIE      |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.03 |    18866 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                  | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.01 |      688 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=10000)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          9 CPU used by this session
          9 CPU used when call started
         13 DB time
     136499 RM usage
        707 Requests to/from client
        706 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
      19508 buffer is not pinned count
      10216 buffer is pinned count
       5273 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     201460 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
      18866 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
      18866 consistent gets from cache
      18865 consistent gets pin
      18865 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          1 cursor authentications
          2 execute count
          2 global enqueue gets sync
          2 global enqueue releases
          1 index range scans
  154550272 logical read bytes from cache
      18865 no work - consistent read gets
        721 non-idle wait count
          1 non-idle wait time
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
          1 parse time cpu
         20 process last non-idle time
      18866 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
      10000 table fetch by rowid
       9059 table fetch continued row
        707 user calls

I’m using a SQLcl connection to my autonomous database here to more easily list a bunch of useful statistics.

The 2 statistics I just want to highlight are the number of consistent gets (18866) and the number of table fetch continued rows (9059).

If we compare this with the exactly same SQL on the exact same data, but this time on the BOWIE2 table that did have ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT enabled and thus had the ROWIDs updated on the fly when most of its rows migrated:

SQL> select /*+ index (bowie2) */ * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 10000;

10,000 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID c346wwr8f4hfu, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select /*+ index (bowie2) */ * from bowie2 where id between 1 and 10000

Plan hash value: 3243780227

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                           | Name        | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers  |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                    |             |      1 |        |  10000 |00:00:00.02 |     4443 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| BOWIE2      |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.02 |     4443 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                  | BOWIE2_ID_I |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.01 |      710 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=10000)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          8 CPU used by this session
          8 CPU used when call started
         13 DB time
        340 OS Involuntary context switches
       2532 OS Page reclaims
         14 OS System time used
         45 OS User time used
       2425 OS Voluntary context switches
     188462 RM usage
        707 Requests to/from client
        706 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
       2244 Server Data Segments In
       2244 Server Data Segments Out
      62270 Server Elapsed Time (msec) Last Data Sent
   35307000 Server Time (usec) Busy Sending Data
       2596 Server Time (usec) Round Trip Time
         72 Server Time (usec) Round Trip Time Variance
     869824 Server Total Bytes Acked
      40188 Server Total Bytes Received
       5063 buffer is not pinned count
      15602 buffer is pinned count
       5274 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     201450 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
       4443 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
       4443 consistent gets from cache
       4442 consistent gets pin
       4442 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
   36397056 logical read bytes from cache
       4442 no work - consistent read gets
        720 non-idle wait count
          5 non-idle wait time
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
        173 process last non-idle time
         14 session cursor cache count
          1 session cursor cache hits
       4443 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
      10000 table fetch by rowid
        707 user calls

In this case, the number of consistent gets (4443) is much less than the previous 18866 and there are no table fetch continued row listed.

Now just a couple of points to make here.

Firstly, this is a tiny table and so the actual overall benefits here are relatively trivial, especially considering this all sits on an Exadata platform, where much of this data is effectively cached.

But as the saying goes, data may be updated once but accessed 10s of 1000s of times and so tiny savings can be considerable if SQLs are executed very frequently and/or tables are much larger and so less well cached within the database or the Exadata storage cells as a result.

You can determine if there’s potentially a migrated row problem by checking out CHAIN_CNT after analyzing a table:

SQL> analyze table bowie compute statistics;

Table BOWIE analyzed.

SQL> analyze table bowie2 compute statistics;

Table BOWIE2 analyzed.

SQL> select table_name, chain_cnt from user_tables where table_name in ('BOWIE', 'BOWIE2');

   TABLE_NAME    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ____________
BOWIE                 9059
BOWIE2                   0

 

Note that CHAIN_CNT can also be a result of large rows that simply can’t fit within a data block, so you need to know your data to fully appreciate this figure. In this scenario, all 9059 chained rows are indeed associated with the migration of rows when the row length was substantially increased by an UPDATE statement.

A method of addressing ROWIDs that still point to the original table block following a row migration, is to reorganise the table (which can now be performed ONLINE):

SQL> alter table bowie move online;

Table BOWIE altered.

SQL> analyze table bowie compute statistics;

Table BOWIE analyzed.

SQL> select table_name, chain_cnt from user_tables where table_name in ('BOWIE', 'BOWIE2');

   TABLE_NAME    CHAIN_CNT
_____________ ____________
BOWIE2                   0
BOWIE                    0

As we can see, there are no longer any Chained Rows associated with the previously migrated rows.

This will now reduce the consistent gets and the overall overheads associated with accessing these previously migrated (chained) rows via an index, as we can now directly access their current table blocks via the correct ROWIDs.

If we now re-run the first SQL:

SQL> select /*+ index (bowie) */ * from bowie where id between 1 and 10000;

10,000 rows selected.

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SQL_ID 5gum0cs9pb3zf, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select /*+ index (bowie) */ * from bowie where id between 1 and 10000

Plan hash value: 1405654398

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                           | Name       | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time     | Buffers  |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                    |            |      1 |        |  10000 |00:00:00.02 |     2677 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| BOWIE      |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.02 |     2677 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                  | BOWIE_ID_I |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.01 |      688 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID">=1 AND "ID"<=10000)

Note
-----
   - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 because of no expensive parallel operation

Statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------
          4 CPU used by this session
          4 CPU used when call started
       1850 Cached Commit SCN referenced
          5 DB time
     150963 RM usage
        707 Requests to/from client
        706 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
       3319 buffer is not pinned count
      17346 buffer is pinned count
       5273 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
     201475 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
          2 calls to get snapshot scn: kcmgss
          2 calls to kcmgcs
       2677 consistent gets
          1 consistent gets examination
          1 consistent gets examination (fastpath)
       2677 consistent gets from cache
       2676 consistent gets pin
       2676 consistent gets pin (fastpath)
          2 execute count
          1 index range scans
   21929984 logical read bytes from cache
       2676 no work - consistent read gets
        720 non-idle wait count
          2 non-idle wait time
          2 opened cursors cumulative
          1 opened cursors current
          2 parse count (total)
         15 process last non-idle time
          1 session cursor cache count
          1 session cursor cache hits
       2677 session logical reads
          1 sorts (memory)
       2024 sorts (rows)
      10000 table fetch by rowid
        707 user calls

The consistent gets has gone way down to just 2677, down from the previous 18866…

In my next post, I’ll highlight some of the disadvantages with this new approached on how autonomous databases handle migrated rows in relation to now maintaining ROWIDs on the fly (and the discerning reader might even find a clue or two within this very post)… 🙂

When Does A ROWID Change? Part III (“Arriving Somewhere But Not Here”) December 13, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in Autonomous Database, Changing ROWID, Index Internals, Local Indexes, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Oracle Indexing Internals Webinar, Partitioning, Performance Tuning, Richard's Blog, ROWID, Secondary Indexes.
2 comments

In Part II of this series, I discussed how updating the Partitioned Key of a row from a Partitioned table will result in the row physically moving and the associated ROWID changing.

One of the reasons why changing the ROWID has historically has not been the default behaviour and requires the explicit setting of the ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT clause for Partitioned tables is because changing a ROWID comes at a cost. The cost being not only having to delete and re-insert the row within the table, but also delete and re-insert the associated index entry for each corresponding index on the table.

To illustrate, I’m going to create and populate another simple little Partitioned Table:

SQL> CREATE TABLE big_bowie2(id number, code1 number, code2 number, code3 number, code4 number, code5 number, code6 number, code7 number, code8 number, code9 number, code10 number, release_date date, name varchar2(42)) PARTITION BY RANGE (release_date)
(PARTITION ALBUMS_2021 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2022', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
PARTITION ALBUMS_2022 VALUES LESS THAN (MAXVALUE)) ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT;

Table created.

SQL> INSERT INTO big_bowie2 SELECT rownum, mod(rownum,1000), mod(rownum,1000), mod(rownum,1000), mod(rownum,100
ownum,1000), mod(rownum,1000), mod(rownum,1000), mod(rownum,1000), mod(rownum,1000), mod(rownum,1000), sysdate-
m,500), 'DAVID BOWIE' FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 10000;

10000 rows created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=> null, tabname=> 'BIG_BOWIE2');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

I’m now going to create a number of basic Global indexes on this table:

SQL> create index big_bowie2_id_i on big_bowie2(id);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code1_i on big_bowie2(code1);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code2_i on big_bowie2(code2);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code3_i on big_bowie2(code3);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code4_i on big_bowie2(code4);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code5_i on big_bowie2(code5);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code6_i on big_bowie2(code6);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code7_i on big_bowie2(code7);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code8_i on big_bowie2(code8);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code9_i on big_bowie2(code9);

Index created.

SQL> create index big_bowie2_code10_i on big_bowie2(code10);

Index created.

If I run a simple single row UPDATE that updates a non-indexed, non-partitioned key column:

SQL> update big_bowie2 set name='ZIGGY STARDUST' where id=424;

1 row updated.

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3590621923

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation          | Name            | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | UPDATE STATEMENT   |                 |    1 |    16 |       2 (0) | 00:00:01 |
|  1 |  UPDATE            | BIG_BOWIE2      |      |       |             |          |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN | BIG_BOWIE2_ID_I |    1 |    16 |       1 (0) | 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID"=424)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          1 recursive calls
          1 db block gets
          2 consistent gets
          0 physical reads
        328 redo size
        204 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

We can see that the number of db block gets is just 1 and consistent gets just 2, as only the one table block needs to be updated and easily accessed via the index on the ID column.

If we now run a single row update of an indexed column:

SQL> update big_bowie2 set code1=42 where id = 424;

1 row updated.

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3590621923

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation          | Name            | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | UPDATE STATEMENT   |                 |    1 |     8 |       2 (0) | 00:00:01 |
|  1 |  UPDATE            | BIG_BOWIE2      |      |       |             |          |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN | BIG_BOWIE2_ID_I |    1 |     8 |       1 (0) | 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID"=424)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          1 recursive calls
          5 db block gets
          2 consistent gets
          1 physical reads
        948 redo size
        204 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          1 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

We can see that the number of db block gets increases to 5, as not only does the table block have to be updated but so also do the associated index blocks.

If we now finally run a single row update on the partitioned table’s partition key column that results in the row having to physically move to another partition:

SQL> update big_bowie2 set release_date='06-DEC-22' where id = 424;

1 row updated.

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3590621923

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation          | Name            | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | UPDATE STATEMENT   |                 |    1 |    64 |       2 (0) | 00:00:01 |
|  1 |  UPDATE            | BIG_BOWIE2      |      |       |             |          |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN | BIG_BOWIE2_ID_I |    1 |    64 |       1 (0) | 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("ID"=424)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          1 recursive calls
         49 db block gets
          3 consistent gets
          0 physical reads
       5996 redo size
        204 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
         11 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

We see that the number of db block gets jumps significantly to 49, as all the corresponding indexes require their associated index entries to be likewise deleted/re-inserted in order to change all their ROWIDs.

So this additional cost of updating the indexes has been a cost that Oracle has traditionally attempted to avoid, by generally not changing the ROWID when performing an update of a row.

Of course, the update of a Partitioned Key column is not the only manner in which ROWIDs have previously easily changed as we’ll see in Part IV…

UPDATE: As my buddie Martin Widlake makes in this comment. it’s also well worth mentioning the increase in associated redo (as redo is an excellent measurement of “work” the Oracle Database has to perform), if Oracle has to change the ROWID of a row and make the necessary changes to all its corresponding indexes. In the example above, the redo increases significantly from 328 bytes to 5996 bytes, when Oracle has to move the row to another partition and so update the ROWID on the 11 indexes. More on all this when I discuss the changes implemented with the current Autonomous Databases…

When Does A ROWID Change? Part II (“You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving”) December 9, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in Autonomous Database, CBO, Changing ROWID, Global Indexes, Multiple Indexes, Oracle, Oracle 21c, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle General, Partitioning, Performance Tuning, Richard's Blog, ROWID.
3 comments

In my previous post, I discussed how a row is generally “migrated”, but the ROWID remains unchanged, when a row is updated such that it can no longer fit into its current block. Hence the general rule has always been that the ROWID of a row does not change.

However, even before the changes now present with Oracle Autonomous Databases (to be discussed in future posts), there has always been (since Oracle 8) one classic scenario when this “ROWID never changes after an update” rule has not been true.

To illustrate, I’m going to create and populate a basic little Range-based Partitioned table, with the RELEASE_DATE column being the partitioned column:

SQL> CREATE TABLE big_bowie(id number, release_date date, name varchar2(42)) PARTITION BY RANGE (release_date)
(PARTITION ALBUMS_2021 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2022', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
PARTITION ALBUMS_2022 VALUES LESS THAN (MAXVALUE));

Table created.

SQL> INSERT INTO big_bowie SELECT rownum, sysdate-mod(rownum,500), 'DAVID BOWIE' FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 10000;

10000 rows created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=> null, tabname=> 'BIG_BOWIE');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Let’s look at the current ROWIDs of a few random rows:

SQL> select id, release_date, rowid from big_bowie where id in (424, 444, 482) order by id;

        ID RELEASE_D ROWID
---------- --------- ------------------
       424 08-OCT-21 AAASe9AAMAAAAj7ABU
       444 18-SEP-21 AAASe9AAMAAAAj7ABo
       482 11-AUG-21 AAASe9AAMAAAAj7ACO

I’m now going to try and update for these rows, the partitioned column value, such that they would now logically belong in the other partition:

SQL> update big_bowie set release_date='06-DEC-22' where id in (424, 444, 482);
update big_bowie set release_date='06-DEC-22' where id in (424, 444, 482)
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-14402: updating partition key column would cause a partition change

I now get a very key and important error. By default, Oracle does not allow you to update a row if it results in the row having to physically move to a different partition.

I suspect there are at least 3 good reasons for this default restriction.

One is to protect the business integrity of the data, where it might just not make any business sense for a row to be updated in this manner.

The second is that it protects any applications out there that explicitly uses ROWIDs and relies on the ROWIDs not suddenly changing behind the scenes.

And finally, it protects perhaps valuable database resources and ensures that the database does not have to incur any additional workloads, that would be necessary if such an operation were to proceed.

But we have the ability and control to override this default behaviour in the following manner with the ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT clause:

SQL> alter table big_bowie enable row movement;

Table altered.

If we now try and update these rows again:

SQL> update big_bowie set release_date='06-DEC-22' where id in (424, 444, 482);

3 rows updated.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

The updates are now successful.

As these rows no longer logically belong in the previous partition, they have to be physically moved to its new partition. This is effectively implemented by deleting the rows from the previous partition and then re-inserting them in the new partition segment.

If we now look the ROWIDs of these updated rows:

SQL> select id, release_date, rowid from big_bowie where id in (424, 444, 482) order by id;

        ID RELEASE_D ROWID
---------- --------- ------------------
       424 06-DEC-22 AAASe+AAMAAAATQABR
       444 06-DEC-22 AAASe+AAMAAAATQABS
       482 06-DEC-22 AAASe+AAMAAAATQABT

We notice that they now all have different ROWIDs, because they indeed now all exist in a different physical location.

In my next post, I’ll highlight but one obvious disadvantage and consequence of allowing rows to be physically moved in this manner…

Costing Concatenated Indexes With Range Scan Predicates Part II (Coming Back To Life) July 27, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in Automatic Indexing, CBO, Column Statistics, Concatenated Indexes, Explain Plan For Index, Full Table Scans, Index Access Path, Index Column Order, Index Column Reorder, Index Internals, Index statistics, Leaf Blocks, Non-Equality Predicates, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Index Seminar, Oracle Indexes, Oracle Statistics, Performance Tuning, Richard Foote Training.
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In my previous Part I post, I discussed how the CBO basically stops the index leaf block access calculations after a non-equality predicate. This means that for an index with the leading indexed column being accessed via an unselective non-equality predicate, a large percentage of the index’s leaf blocks might need to be scanned, making the index access path unviable.

In the example in Part I, an index on the ID, CODE columns was too expensive due to the unselective range-scan predicate based on the leading ID column.

To provide the CBO a potentially much more efficient access path, we need an index with the more selective CODE predicate to be the leading column:

SQL> CREATE INDEX radiohead_code_id_i ON radiohead(code, id);

Index created.

SQL> SELECT index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor

FROM user_indexes WHERE index_name = 'RADIOHEAD_CODE_ID_I';

INDEX_NAME                        BLEVEL LEAF_BLOCKS CLUSTERING_FACTOR
----------------------------- ---------- ----------- -----------------
RADIOHEAD_CODE_ID_I                    1         265             98619

If we now re-run the previous query:

SQL> SELECT * FROM radiohead WHERE id BETWEEN 1000 AND 5000 AND CODE = 140;

Execution Plan

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                           | Name                | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                    |                     |     4 |    72 |     6   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| RADIOHEAD           |     4 |    72 |     6   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|*  2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                  | RADIOHEAD_CODE_ID_I |     4 |       |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0  recursive calls
          0  db block gets
          7  consistent gets
          0  physical reads
          0  redo size
        806  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        608  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
          4  rows processed

We notice the CBO is now using this new index, as the costs for this index-based plan have dropped significantly, down to just 6 (from the previous 116). This overall cost of 6 is lower than the cost of 105 for the Full Table Scan and hence the reason why this index-based plan is now chosen by the CBO.

This is all due entirely to the significant drop in costs in accessing the index itself, now just 2 (from the previous 112).

Importantly, these much lower costs are accurate as we can tell via the reduced number of consistent reads, now just 7 (from 114 from the previous index-based plan).

If we now look at the associated costings:

Effective Index Selectivity = CODE selectivity x ID selectivity

= (1/10000) x ((5000-1000)/(10000-1) + 2 x (1/10000))

= 0.0001 x ((4000/9999) + 0.0002)

= 0.0001 x 0.40024)

= 0.000040024

Effective Table Selectivity = same as Index Selectivity

= 0.000040024

 

The effective index selectivity of 0.000040024 is now much lower than the previous (0.40024), as the CBO can now consider the product of the selectivities of both columns).

If we now plug this improved effective index selectivity into the index path costing calculations:

Index IO Cost = blevel +

ceil(effective index selectivity x leaf_blocks) +

ceil(effective table selectivity x clustering_factor)

 

Index IO Cost = 1  +  ceil(0.000040024 x 265) + ceil(0.000040024 x 99034)

= 1 + 1  + 4

= 2 + 4

= 6

Index Access Cost  = IO Costs + CPU Costs (in this plan, 0% of total costs and so unchanged from the IO costs)

= 2 + 4

= 6

We can see how the respective 2 and 6 improved CBO index costings are derived.

So again, it’s important to note that Automatic Indexing is doing entirely the correct thing with these examples, when it creates an index with the equality based predicate columns as the leading columns of the index…

Costing Concatenated Indexes With Range Scan Predicates Part I (Nothing To Be Desired) July 22, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in BLEVEL, CBO, Clustering Factor, Concatenated Indexes, Index Access Path, Index Column Order, Index Column Reorder, Leaf Blocks, Non-Equality Predicates, Oracle, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Performance Tuning, Richard Foote Consulting, Richard Foote Training, Richard's Blog.
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In my previous post, I discussed how Automatic Indexing ordered columns when derived from SQLs containing both equality and non-equality predicates.

I’ve since had offline questions asking why indexes are more effective with leading columns addressing the equality predicates rather than the leading columns addressing non-equality predicates. Based on the theory that for everyone who asks a question, there are likely numerous others wondering the same thing, I thought I’ll try to explain things with these posts.

I’ll start by creating the following simple table that has two columns (ID and CODE) that are both highly selective (they both have 10,000 distinct values in a 100,000 rows table, so 10 rows approximately per value):

SQL> CREATE TABLE radiohead (id NUMBER, code NUMBER, name VARCHAR2(42));

Table created.

SQL> INSERT INTO radiohead SELECT mod(rownum,10000)+1,

ceil(dbms_random.value(0,10000)), 'RADIOHEAD' FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 100000;

100000 rows created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

I’ll next create an index based on the ID, CODE columns, with importantly the ID column as the leading column:

SQL> CREATE INDEX radiohead_id_code_i ON radiohead(id, code);

Index created.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'RADIOHEAD',

estimate_percent=> null, method_opt=> 'FOR ALL COLUMNS SIZE 1');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

 

When it comes to costing index accesses, some of the crucial statistics including the Blevel, Leaf_Blocks and often most crucial of all, the Clustering_Factor:

SQL> SELECT index_name, blevel, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor FROM user_indexes WHERE index_name = 'RADIOHEAD_ID_CODE_I';

INDEX_NAME               BLEVEL LEAF_BLOCKS CLUSTERING_FACTOR
-------------------- ---------- ----------- -----------------
RADIOHEAD_ID_CODE_I           1         265             99034

 

We begin by running the following query, with an equality predicate on the ID column and a relatively large, non-selective range predicate on the CODE column:

SQL> SELECT * FROM radiohead WHERE id = 42 AND CODE BETWEEN 1000 AND 5000;

Execution Plan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                           | Name                | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                    |                     |     4 |    72 |     6   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| RADIOHEAD           |     4 |    72 |     6   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|*  2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                  | RADIOHEAD_ID_CODE_I |     4 |       |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0  recursive calls
          0  db block gets
          8  consistent gets
          0  physical reads
          0  redo size
        824  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        608  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
          5  rows processed

As (perhaps) expected, the CBO uses the index to retrieve the small number of rows (just 5 rows).

However, if we run the following query which also returns a small number of rows  (just 4 rows) BUT with the relatively unselective, non-equality predicate based on the leading indexed ID column:

SQL> SELECT * FROM radiohead WHERE id BETWEEN 1000 AND 5000 AND CODE = 140;

Execution Plan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation         | Name      | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT  |           |     4 |    72 |   105  (11)| 00:00:01 |
|*  1 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL| RADIOHEAD |     4 |    72 |   105  (11)| 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0  recursive calls
          0  db block gets
        363  consistent gets
          0  physical reads
          0  redo size
        770  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        608  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
          4  rows processed

We notice (perhaps unexpectedly) that the CBO now ignores the index and uses a Full Table Scan, even though only 4 rows are returned from a 100,000 row table.

This is a common area of confusion. Why does Oracle not use the index when both columns in the index are referenced in the SQL predicates and only a tiny number of rows are returned?

The answer comes down to the very unselective non-equality predicate (ID BETWEEN 1000 AND 5000) being serviced by the leading column (ID) of the index.

The “ID BETWEEN 1000 AND 5000” predicate basically covers 40% of all known ID values, which means Oracle must now read 40% of all Leaf Blocks within the index (one leaf block at a time), starting with ID =1000 and ending with ID = 5000. Although there are very few rows that then subsequently match up with the other (CODE = 140) predicate based on the second column (CODE) of the index, these relatively few values could exist anywhere within the 40% ID range.

Therefore, when costing the reading of the actual index, the CBO basically stops its calculations after the non-equality predicate on this leading ID column and indeed estimates that a full 40% of the index itself must be scanned.

If we force the CBO into a range scan via a basic index hint:

SQL> SELECT /*+ index(r) */ * FROM radiohead r WHERE id BETWEEN 1000 AND 5000 AND CODE = 140;

Execution Plan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                           | Name                | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                    |                     |     4 |    72 |   116   (4)| 00:00:01 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED| RADIOHEAD           |     4 |    72 |   116   (4)| 00:00:01 |
|*  2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                  | RADIOHEAD_ID_CODE_I |     4 |       |   112   (4)| 00:00:01 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0  recursive calls
          0  db block gets
        114  consistent gets
          0  physical reads
          0  redo size
        806  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        608  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
          4  rows processed

We notice that the overall cost of this index based plan is 116, greater than the 105 cost of the Full Table Scan (and hence why the Full Table Scan was selected). We also notice that the vast majority of this 116 cost can be attributed to the index scan itself in the plan, which has a cost of 112.

If you have a calculator handy, this is basically how these costs are derived.

Range Selectivity = (Max Range Value–Min Range Value)/(Max Column Value–Min Column Value)

Effective Index Selectivity = Range Selectivity + 2 x ID density (as a BETWEEN clause was used which is inclusive of Min/Max range)

= (5000-1000)/(10000-1) + 2 x (1/10000)

= 0.40004 + 0.0002

= 0.40024

Effective Table Selectivity = ID selectivity (as above) x CODE selectivity

= 0.40024 x (1/10000)

= 0.40024 x 0.0001

= 0.000040024

These selectivities are then inserted into the following index costing formula:

Index IO Cost = blevel +

ceil(effective index selectivity x leaf_blocks) +

ceil(effective table selectivity x clustering_factor)

 

Index IO Cost = 1  +  ceil(0.40024 x 265) + ceil(0.000040024 x 99034)

= 1 + 107 + 4

= 108 + 4 = 112.

 

Index Access Cost = IO Costs + CPU Costs (in this plan, 4% of total costs)

= (108 + (112 x 0.04)) + (4 + (4 x 0.04))

= (108 + 4) + (4 + 0)

= 112 + 4

= 116

 

So we can clearly see how the CBO has made its calculations, come up with its costs and has decided that the Full Table Scan is indeed the cheaper alternative with the current index in place.

So Automatic Indexing is doing the right thing, by creating an index with the leading column based on the equality predicate and the second indexed column based on the unselective non-equality predicate.

I’ll expand on this point in an upcoming Part II post.

Automatic Indexing 21c: Non-Equality Predicate Anomaly (“Strangers When We Meet”) July 14, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in 21c New Features, Automatic Indexing, Autonomous Database, Autonomous Transaction Processing, CBO, Exadata, Exadata X8, Full Table Scans, Index Column Order, Invisible Indexes, Non-Equality Predicates, Oracle, Oracle 21c, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle Indexes, Performance Tuning, Richard Foote Training, Richard's Blog.
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I’m currently putting together some Exadata related training for a couple of customers and came across a rather strange anomaly with regard the status of Automatic Indexes, when created in part on unselective, non-equality predicates.

As discussed previously, Oracle Database 21c now allows the creation of Automatic Indexes based on non-equality predicates (previously, Automatic Indexes were only created on equality-based predicates).

But one appears to get rather odd resultant Automatic Indexes in the scenario where the non-equality predicate is not particularly selective but other predicates are highly selective.

To illustrate, I’ll create a basic table that has two columns (ID and CODE) that are both highly selective:

SQL> create table ziggy_new (id number, code number, name varchar2(42));

Table created.

SQL> insert into ziggy_new select rownum, mod(rownum, 1000000)+1, 'David Bowie' from dual connect by level <= 10000000;

10000000 rows created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'ZIGGY_NEW');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

So there are currently no indexes on this table.

I’ll next run the following SQL (and others similar) a number of times:

SQL> select * from ziggy_new where code=42 and id between 1 and 100000;

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3165184525

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                  | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |           |    1 |    23 |    6738 (2) | 00:00:01 |
| * 1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | ZIGGY_NEW |    1 |    23 |    6738 (2) | 00:00:01 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - storage("CODE"=42 AND "ID"<=100000 AND "ID">=1)
       filter("CODE"=42 AND "ID"<=100000 AND "ID">=1)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
      38605 consistent gets
      38600 physical reads
          0 redo size
        725 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         52 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

Without any indexes, the CBO currently has no choice but to use a Full Table Scan.

But only 1 row is returned. The first equality predicate on the CODE column is highly selective and on its own would only return 10 rows out of the 10M row table. The second, non-equality range-based predicate on the ID column is nowhere near as selective and offers limited additional filtering.

The CBO stops calculating index related costs after a non-equality predicate column (as subsequent column values could exist anywhere within the preceding range), and so the more effective index here is one based on (CODE, ID) with the non-equality predicate column second,  or potentially just on the CODE column only, as the ID range offers minimal filtering benefits.

So what does Automatic Indexing make of things?

If we look at the subsequent Automatic Indexing report:

SUMMARY (AUTO INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index candidates                             : 3
Indexes created (visible / invisible)        : 1 (0 / 1)
Space used (visible / invisible)             : 209.72 MB (0 B / 209.72 MB)
Indexes dropped                              : 0
SQL statements verified                      : 44
SQL statements improved (improvement factor) : 12 (64.7x)
SQL plan baselines created                   : 0
Overall improvement factor                   : 1.6x
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY (MANUAL INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unused indexes   : 0
Space used       : 0 B
Unusable indexes : 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX DETAILS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following indexes were created:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Owner | Table     | Index                | Key     | Type   | Properties |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| BOWIE | ZIGGY_NEW | SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j | CODE,ID | B-TREE | NONE       |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So Automatic Indexing has indeed created an index based on CODE,ID (a common Automatic Indexing trait appears to be to create an index based on all available predicates).

BUT the index is created as an INVISIBLE Index and so can not generally be used by database sessions.

SQL> select index_name, auto, visibility, status, num_rows, leaf_blocks, clustering_factor
from user_indexes where table_name='ZIGGY_NEW';

INDEX_NAME                     AUT VISIBILIT STATUS     NUM_ROWS LEAF_BLOCKS CLUSTERING_FACTOR
------------------------------ --- --------- -------- ---------- ----------- -----------------
SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j           YES INVISIBLE VALID      10000000       25123          10000000

SQL> select index_name, column_name, column_position
     from user_ind_columns where table_name='ZIGGY_NEW';

INDEX_NAME                     COLUMN_NAME  COLUMN_POSITION
------------------------------ ------------ ---------------
SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j           CODE                       1
SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j           ID                         2

 

So re-running the previous SQL statements continues to use a Full Table Scan:

SQL> select * from ziggy_new where code=42 and id between 1 and 100000;

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3165184525

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Id | Operation                  | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |           |    1 |    23 |    6738 (2) | 00:00:01 |
| * 1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | ZIGGY_NEW |    1 |    23 |    6738 (2) | 00:00:01 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - storage("CODE"=42 AND "ID"<=100000 AND "ID">=1)
       filter("CODE"=42 AND "ID"<=100000 AND "ID">=1)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
      38605 consistent gets
      38600 physical reads
          0 redo size
        725 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         52 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

 

Automatic Indexing appears to only create Invisible indexes when there is an inefficient non-equality predicate present. It won’t create the index as a Visible index, even though it would significantly benefit these SQL statements that caused its creation. And Automatic Indexing won’t create an index on just the highly selective CODE equality predicate, which would also be of much benefit to these SQL statements.

If we now run similar queries, but with much more selective non-equality predicates, such as:

SQL> select * from ziggy_new where code=1 and id between 1 and 10;

no rows selected

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3165184525

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Id | Operation                  | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |           |    1 |    23 |    6738 (2) | 00:00:01 |
| * 1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | ZIGGY_NEW |    1 |    23 |    6738 (2) | 00:00:01 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - storage("CODE"=1 AND "ID"<=10 AND "ID">=1)
       filter("CODE"=1 AND "ID"<=10 AND "ID">=1)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
      38604 consistent gets
      38600 physical reads
          0 redo size
        503 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          0 rows processed

Again, with no (Visible) index present, the CBO currently has no choice but to use the Full Table Scan.

But during the next cycle, after Automatic Indexing kicks in again:

SUMMARY (AUTO INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index candidates                             : 5
Indexes created (visible / invisible)        : 1 (1 / 0)
Space used (visible / invisible)             : 209.72 MB (209.72 MB / 0 B)
Indexes dropped                              : 0
SQL statements verified                      : 89
SQL statements improved (improvement factor) : 31 (71.9x)
SQL plan baselines created                   : 0
Overall improvement factor                   : 1.7x
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY (MANUAL INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unused indexes   : 0
Space used       : 0 B
Unusable indexes : 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX DETAILS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following indexes were created:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Owner | Table     | Index                | Key     | Type   | Properties |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| BOWIE | ZIGGY_NEW | SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j | CODE,ID | B-TREE | NONE       |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VERIFICATION DETAILS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The performance of the following statements improved:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parsing Schema Name : BOWIE
SQL ID              : d4znwcu4h52ca
SQL Text            : select * from ziggy_new where code=42 and id between 1 and 10
Improvement Factor  : 38604x

Execution Statistics:
-----------------------------
                    Original Plan                Auto Index Plan
                    ---------------------------- ----------------------------
Elapsed Time (s):   3398605                      68
CPU Time (s):       3166824                      68
Buffer Gets:        463250                       3
Optimizer Cost:     6738                         4
Disk Reads:         463200                       0
Direct Writes:      0                            0
Rows Processed:     0                            0
Executions:         12                           1

PLANS SECTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------

- Original
-----------------------------
Plan Hash Value : 3165184525

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                  | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost | Time     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT           |           |      |       | 6738 |          |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | ZIGGY_NEW |    1 |    23 | 6738 | 00:00:01 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- With Auto Indexes
-----------------------------
Plan Hash Value : 1514586396

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Id | Operation                            | Name                 | Rows | Bytes | Cost | Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |                      |    1 |    23 |    4 | 00:00:01 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | ZIGGY_NEW            |    1 |    23 |    4 | 00:00:01 |
| * 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j |    1 |       |    3 | 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
------------------------------------------
* 2 - access("CODE"=42 AND "ID">=1 AND "ID"<=10)

Notes
-----
- Dynamic sampling used for this statement ( level = 11 )

 

But this time, the index on the CODE,ID columns is created as a Visible index.

INDEX_NAME                     AUT VISIBILIT STATUS     NUM_ROWS LEAF_BLOCKS CLUSTERING_FACTOR
------------------------------ --- --------- -------- ---------- ----------- -----------------
SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j           YES VISIBLE   VALID      10000000       25123          10000000

SQL> select index_name, column_name, column_position from user_ind_columns where table_name='ZIGGY_NEW';

INDEX_NAME                     COLUMN_NAME  COLUMN_POSITION
------------------------------ ------------ ---------------
SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j           CODE                       1
SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j           ID                         2

So this index can be generally used, both by the newer SQLs that generated the now Visible index:

SQL> select * from ziggy_new where code=42 and id between 1 and 10;

no rows selected

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 1514586396

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name                 | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |                      |    1 |    23 |       4 (0) | 00:00:01 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | ZIGGY_NEW            |    1 |    23 |       4 (0) | 00:00:01 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j |    1 |       |       3 (0) | 00:00:01 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("CODE"=42 AND "ID">=1 AND "ID"<=10)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
          3 consistent gets
          0 physical reads
          0 redo size
        503 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          0 rows processed

And also used by the SQLs with the unselective non-equality predicates, that Automatic Indexing would only create as Invisible indexes:

SQL> select * from ziggy_new where code=42 and id between 1 and 100000;

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 1514586396

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                            | Name                 | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                     |                      |    1 |    23 |       4 (0) | 00:00:01 |
|  1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID BATCHED | ZIGGY_NEW            |    1 |    23 |       4 (0) | 00:00:01 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                   | SYS_AI_75j16xff1ag3j |    1 |       |       3 (0) | 00:00:01 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   2 - access("CODE"=42 AND "ID">=1 AND "ID"<=100000)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
          5 consistent gets
          0 physical reads
          0 redo size
        729 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         52 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

 

Automatic Indexing appears to currently not quite do the right thing with SQL statements that have unselective non-equality predicates, by creating such indexes as only Invisible Indexes, inclusive of the unselective columns.

Although an edge case, I would recommend looking through the list of created Automatic Indexes to see if any such Invisible/Valid indexes exists, as it can suggest there are current inefficient SQL statements that could benefit from such indexes being Visible.

Announcement: Registration Links For Upcoming Webinars Now Open (“Join The Gang”) May 25, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in 18c New Features, 19c New Features, 21c New Features, Index Internals, Index Internals Seminar, Indexing Tricks, Oracle 21c, Oracle General, Oracle Index Seminar, Oracle Indexing Internals Webinar, Oracle Performance Diagnostics and Tuning Seminar, Oracle Performance Diagnostics and Tuning Webinar, Oracle19c, Performance Tuning, Performance Tuning Seminar, Performance Tuning Webinar, Richard Foote Consulting, Richard Foote Seminars, Richard Foote Training, Richard Presentations.
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The registration links for my upcoming webinars running in August are now open!!!

The price of each webinar is $1,600 AUD. There is a special price of $2,750 AUD if you wish to attend both webinars (just use the Special Combo Price button).

(Note: Do NOT use the links if you’re an Australian resident. Please contact me at richard@richardfooteconsulting.com for additional payment info and tax invoice that includes additional GST).

Just click the below “Buy Now” buttons to book your place for these unique, highly acclaimed Oracle training events (see some of my testimonials for feedback by previous attendees to these training events):

 

“Oracle Indexing Internals“ Webinar: 8-12 August 2022 (between 09:00 GMT and 13:00 GMT daily) – $1,600 AUD: SOLD OUT!!

“Oracle Performance Diagnostics and Tuning“ Webinar: 22-25 August 2022 (between 09:00 GMT and 13:00 GMT daily) – $1,600 AUD: SOLD OUT!!

“Special Combo Price for both August 2022 Webinars” $2,750 AUD: SOLD OUT!!

 

The links allow you to book a place using either PayPal or a credit card. If you wish to pay via a different method or have any questions at all regarding these events, please contact me at richard@richardfooteconsulting.com.

As I mentioned previously, for those of you on my official waiting list, I will reserve a place for you for a limited time.

As this will probably be the last time I will run these events, remaining places are likely to go quickly. So please book your place ASAP to avoid disappointment…

 

Read below a brief synopsis of each webinar:

“Oracle Indexing Internals“

This is a must attend webinar of benefit to not only DBAs, but also to Developers, Solution Architects and anyone else interested in designing, developing or maintaining high performance Oracle-based applications. It’s a fun, but intense, content rich webinar that is suitable for people of all experiences (from beginners to seasoned Oracle experts).

Indexes are fundamental to every Oracle database and are crucial for optimal performance. However, there’s an incredible amount of misconception, misunderstanding and pure myth regarding how Oracle indexes function and should be maintained. Many applications and databases are suboptimal and run inefficiently primarily because an inappropriate indexing strategy has been implemented.

This webinar examines most available Oracle index structures/options and discusses in considerable detail how indexes function, how/when they should be used and how they should be maintained. A key component of the webinar is how indexes are costed and evaluated by the Cost Based Optimizer (CBO) and how appropriate data management practices are vital for an effective indexing strategy. It also covers many useful tips and strategies to maximise the benefits of indexes on application/database performance and scalability, as well as in maximising Oracle database investments. Much of the material is exclusive to this webinar and is not generally available in Oracle documentation or in Oracle University courses.

For full details, see: https://richardfooteconsulting.com/indexing-seminar/

 

“Oracle Performance Diagnostics and Tuning“

This is a must attend webinar aimed at Oracle professionals (both DBAs and Developers) who are interested in Performance Tuning.  The webinar details how to maximise the performance of both Oracle databases and associated applications and how to diagnose and address any performance issues as quickly and effectively as possible.

When an application suddenly runs “slow” or when people start complaining about the “poor performance” of the database, there’s often some uncertainty in how to most quickly and most accurately determine the “root” cause of any such slowdown and effectively address any associated issues. In this seminar, we explore a Tuning Methodology that helps Oracle professionals to both quickly and reliably determine the actual causes of performance issues and so ensure the effectiveness of any applied resolutions.

Looking at a number of real world scenarios and numerous actual examples and test cases, this webinar will show participants how to confidently and reliably diagnose performance issues. The webinar explores in much detail the various diagnostics tools and reports available in Oracle to assist in determining any database performance issue and importantly WHEN and HOW to effectively use each approach. Additionally, participants are also invited to share their own database/SQL reports, where we can apply the principles learnt in diagnosing the performance of their actual databases/applications.

One of the more common reasons for poor Oracle performance is inefficient or poorly running SQL. This seminar explores in much detail how SQL is executed within the Oracle database, the various issues and related concepts important in understanding why SQL might be inefficient and the many capabilities and features Oracle has in helping to both resolve SQL performance issues and to maintain the stability and reliability of SQL execution.

It’s a fun, but intense, content rich webinar that is suitable for people of all experiences (from beginners to seasoned Oracle experts).

For full details, see: https://richardfooteconsulting.com/performance-tuning-seminar/

 

If you have any questions about these events, please contact me at richard@richardfooteconsulting.com

 

Announcement: Dates Confirmed For Upcoming Webinars (“Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”) May 19, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in 19c, 19c New Features, 21c New Features, Index Internals, Index Internals Seminar, Indexing Myth, Oracle, Oracle 21c, Oracle General, Oracle Index Seminar, Oracle Indexes, Oracle Indexing Internals Webinar, Oracle Performance Diagnostics and Tuning Webinar, Oracle19c, Performance Tuning, Performance Tuning Webinar, Richard Foote Seminars, Webinar.
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As promised last week, I have now finalised the dates for my upcoming webinars.

They will be run as follows (UPDATED):

“Oracle Indexing Internals“ Webinar: 8-12 August 2022 (between 09:00 GMT and 13:00 GMT daily): SOLD OUT!!

“Oracle Performance Diagnostics and Tuning“ Webinar: 22-25 August 2022 (between 09:00 GMT and 13:00 GMT daily): SOLD OUT!!

“Special Combo Price for both August 2022 Webinars“: SOLD OUT!!

I’ll detail costings and how to register for these events in the coming days.

 

There is already quite a waiting list for both of these webinars and so I anticipate available places will likely go quickly. Sorry to all those who have been waiting for so long and thank you for your patience. Please note for those on the waiting list, I already have places reserved for you.

It’s highly likely these will be the last time I’ll ever run these highly acclaimed training events (yes, I’m getting old)…

So don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn important skills in how to improve the performance and scalability of both your Oracle based applications and backend Oracle databases, in the comfort of your own home or office.

Read below a brief synopsis of each webinar:

“Oracle Indexing Internals“

This is a must attend webinar of benefit to not only DBAs, but also to Developers, Solution Architects and anyone else interested in designing, developing or maintaining high performance Oracle-based applications. It’s a fun, but intense, content rich webinar that is suitable for people of all experiences (from beginners to seasoned Oracle experts).

Indexes are fundamental to every Oracle database and are crucial for optimal performance. However, there’s an incredible amount of misconception, misunderstanding and pure myth regarding how Oracle indexes function and should be maintained. Many applications and databases are suboptimal and run inefficiently primarily because an inappropriate indexing strategy has been implemented.

This seminar examines most available Oracle index structures/options and discusses in considerable detail how indexes function, how/when they should be used and how they should be maintained. A key component of the seminar is how indexes are costed and evaluated by the Cost Based Optimizer (CBO) and how appropriate data management practices are vital for an effective indexing strategy. It also covers many useful tips and strategies to maximise the benefits of indexes on application/database performance and scalability, as well as in maximising Oracle database investments. Much of the material is exclusive to this seminar and is not generally available in Oracle documentation or in Oracle University courses.

For full details, see: https://richardfooteconsulting.com/indexing-seminar/

 

“Oracle Performance Diagnostics and Tuning“

This is a must attend webinar aimed at Oracle professionals (both DBAs and Developers) who are interested in Performance Tuning.  The webinar details how to maximise the performance of both Oracle databases and associated applications and how to diagnose and address any performance issues as quickly and effectively as possible.

When an application suddenly runs “slow” or when people start complaining about the “poor performance” of the database, there’s often some uncertainty in how to most quickly and most accurately determine the “root” cause of any such slowdown and effectively address any associated issues. In this seminar, we explore a Tuning Methodology that helps Oracle professionals to both quickly and reliably determine the actual causes of performance issues and so ensure the effectiveness of any applied resolutions.

Looking at a number of real world scenarios and numerous actual examples and test cases, this webinar will show participants how to confidently and reliably diagnose performance issues. The webinar explores in much detail the various diagnostics tools and reports available in Oracle to assist in determining any database performance issue and importantly WHEN and HOW to effectively use each approach. Additionally, participants are also invited to share their own database/SQL reports, where we can apply the principles learnt in diagnosing the performance of their actual databases/applications.

One of the more common reasons for poor Oracle performance is inefficient or poorly running SQL. This seminar explores in much detail how SQL is executed within the Oracle database, the various issues and related concepts important in understanding why SQL might be inefficient and the many capabilities and features Oracle has in helping to both resolve SQL performance issues and to maintain the stability and reliability of SQL execution.

It’s a fun, but intense, content rich webinar that is suitable for people of all experiences (from beginners to seasoned Oracle experts).

For full details, see: https://richardfooteconsulting.com/performance-tuning-seminar/

 

Keep an eye out in the coming days on costings and how to register for these events.

If you have any questions about these events, please contact me at richard@richardfooteconsulting.com

Automatic Indexes: Automatically Rebuild Unusable Indexes Part II (“I Wish You Would”) May 11, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in 19c, 19c New Features, Automatic Indexing, Autonomous Database, Autonomous Transaction Processing, CBO, Exadata, Full Table Scans, Local Indexes, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Oracle19c, Partitioned Indexes, Partitioning, Performance Tuning, Rebuild Unusable Indexes.
1 comment so far

Within a few hours of publishing my last blog piece on how Automatic Indexing (AI) can automatically rebuild indexes that have been placed in an UNUSABLE state, I was asked by a couple of readers a similar question: “Does this also work if just a single partition of an partitioned index becomes unusable”?

My answer to them both is that I’ve provided them the basic framework in the demo to check out the answer to that question for themselves (Note: a fantastic aspect of working with the Oracle Database is that it’s available for free to play around with, including the Autonomous Database environments).

But based on the principle that for every time someone asks a question, there’s probably a 100 others who potentially might be wondering the same thing, thought I’ll quickly whip up a demo to answer this for all.

I’ll begin with the same table format and data as my previous blog:

SQL> CREATE TABLE big_ziggy(id number, album_id number, country_id number, release_date date,
total_sales number) PARTITION BY RANGE (release_date)
(PARTITION ALBUMS_2015 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2016', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
 PARTITION ALBUMS_2016 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2017', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
 PARTITION ALBUMS_2017 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2018', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
 PARTITION ALBUMS_2018 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2019', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
 PARTITION ALBUMS_2019 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2020', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
 PARTITION ALBUMS_2020 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2021', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
 PARTITION ALBUMS_2021 VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-JAN-2022', 'DD-MON-YYYY')),
 PARTITION ALBUMS_2022 VALUES LESS THAN (MAXVALUE));

Table created.

SQL> INSERT INTO big_ziggy SELECT rownum, mod(rownum,5000)+1, mod(rownum,100)+1, sysdate-mod(rownum,2800),
ceil(dbms_random.value(1,500000)) FROM dual CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 10000000;

10000000 rows created.

SQL> COMMIT;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=> null, tabname=> 'BIG_ZIGGY');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

 

But this time, I’ll run a number of queries similar to the following, that also has a predicate based on the partitioned key (RELEASE_DATE) of the table:

SQL> select * FROM big_ziggy where release_date = '01-JUN-2017' and total_sales = 123456;

no rows selected

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3599046327

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation              | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     | Pstart | Pstop |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT       |           |    1 |    26 |    1051 (2) | 00:00:01 |        |       |
|  1 | PARTITION RANGE SINGLE |           |    1 |    26 |    1051 (2) | 00:00:01 |      3 |     3 |
|* 2 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL     | BIG_ZIGGY |    1 |    26 |    1051 (2) | 00:00:01 |      3 |     3 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

2 - storage(("TOTAL_SALES"=123456 AND "RELEASE_DATE"=TO_DATE('2017-06-01 00:00:00', 'syyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss')))
    filter(("TOTAL_SALES"=123456 AND "RELEASE_DATE"=TO_DATE('2017-06-01 00:00:00', 'syyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss')))

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
       5618 consistent gets
          0 physical reads
          0 redo size
        676 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          0 rows processed

 

If we wait for the next AI task to kick in:

DBMS_AUTO_INDEX.REPORT_LAST_ACTIVITY()
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Activity start              : 11-MAY-2022 10:55:43
Activity end                : 11-MAY-2022 10:56:27
Executions completed        : 1
Executions interrupted      : 0
Executions with fatal error : 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY (AUTO INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index candidates                             : 0
Indexes created (visible / invisible)        : 1 (1 / 0)
Space used (visible / invisible)             : 192.94 MB (192.94 MB / 0 B)
Indexes dropped                              : 0
SQL statements verified                      : 6
SQL statements improved (improvement factor) : 3 (6670.1x)
SQL plan baselines created                   : 0
Overall improvement factor                   : 2x
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY (MANUAL INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unused indexes   : 0
Space used       : 0 B
Unusable indexes : 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX DETAILS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following indexes were created:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------
| Owner | Table     | Index                | Key                      | Type   | Properties |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| BOWIE | BIG_ZIGGY | SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar | RELEASE_DATE,TOTAL_SALES | B-TREE | LOCAL      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

We can see that AI has indeed automatically created a LOCAL, partitioned index (on columns RELEASE_DATE, TOTAL_SALES) in this scenario, as we have an equality predicate based on the partitioned key (RELEASE_DATE).

Currently, all is well with the index, with all partitions in a USABLE state:

SQL> SELECT index_name, partitioned, auto, visibility, status FROM user_indexes WHERE table_name = 'BIG_ZIGGY';

INDEX_NAME                     PAR AUT VISIBILIT STATUS
------------------------------ --- --- --------- --------
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           YES YES VISIBLE   N/A

SQL> select index_name, partition_name, status from user_ind_partitions where index_name='SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar';

INDEX_NAME                     PARTITION_NAME       STATUS
------------------------------ -------------------- --------
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2015          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2016          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2017          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2018          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2019          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2020          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2021          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2022          USABLE

SQL> select index_name, column_name, column_position from user_ind_columns 
     where index_name='SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar';

INDEX_NAME                     COLUMN_NAME     COLUMN_POSITION
------------------------------ --------------- ---------------
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           RELEASE_DATE                  1
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           TOTAL_SALES                   2

 

But if we now do an offline reorg of a specific table partition:

SQL> alter table big_ziggy move partition albums_2017;

Table altered.

SQL> select index_name, partition_name, status from user_ind_partitions where index_name='SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar';

INDEX_NAME                     PARTITION_NAME       STATUS
------------------------------ -------------------- --------
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2015          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2016          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2017          UNUSABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2018          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2019          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2020          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2021          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2022          USABLE

 

We can see we’ve now made the associated Local Index partition UNUSABLE.

If we run the following query:

SQL> select * FROM big_ziggy where release_date = '01-JUN-2017' and total_sales = 123456;

no rows selected

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3599046327

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation              | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time     | Pstart | Pstop |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT       |           |    1 |    26 |     986 (2) | 00:00:01 |        |       |
|  1 | PARTITION RANGE SINGLE |           |    1 |    26 |     986 (2) | 00:00:01 |      3 |     3 |
|* 2 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL     | BIG_ZIGGY |    1 |    26 |     986 (2) | 00:00:01 |      3 |     3 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

2 - storage(("TOTAL_SALES"=123456 AND "RELEASE_DATE"=TO_DATE('2017-06-01 00:00:00', 'syyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss')))
    filter(("TOTAL_SALES"=123456 AND "RELEASE_DATE"=TO_DATE('2017-06-01 00:00:00', 'syyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss')))

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          3 recursive calls
          4 db block gets
       5578 consistent gets
       5571 physical reads
        924 redo size
        676 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          0 rows processed

The CBO has no choice here but to do a full partition table scan.

If now wait again for the next AI task to strut its stuff:

SQL> select dbms_auto_index.report_last_activity() from dual;

DBMS_AUTO_INDEX.REPORT_LAST_ACTIVITY()
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Activity start              : 11-MAY-2022 11:42:42
Activity end                : 11-MAY-2022 11:43:13
Executions completed        : 1
Executions interrupted      : 0
Executions with fatal error : 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY (AUTO INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index candidates                             : 0
Indexes created (visible / invisible)        : 1 (1 / 0)
Space used (visible / invisible)             : 192.94 MB (192.94 MB / 0 B)
Indexes dropped                              : 0
SQL statements verified                      : 4
SQL statements improved (improvement factor) : 1 (5573x)
SQL plan baselines created                   : 0
Overall improvement factor                   : 1.1x
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY (MANUAL INDEXES)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unused indexes   : 0
Space used       : 0 B
Unusable indexes : 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX DETAILS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following indexes were created:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------
| Owner | Table     | Index                | Key                      | Type   | Properties |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| BOWIE | BIG_ZIGGY | SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar | RELEASE_DATE,TOTAL_SALES | B-TREE | LOCAL      |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SQL> select index_name, partition_name, status from user_ind_partitions where index_name='SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar';

INDEX_NAME                     PARTITION_NAME       STATUS
------------------------------ -------------------- --------
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2015          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2016          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2017          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2018          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2019          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2020          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2021          USABLE
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2022          USABLE

The index partition is now automatically in a USABLE state again.

If we look at the index object data:

SQL> select object_name, subobject_name, to_char(created, 'dd-Mon-yy hh24:mi:ss') created, to_char(last_ddl_time, 'dd-Mon-yy hh24:mi:ss’)
last_ddl_time from dba_objects where object_name='SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar';

OBJECT_NAME                    SUBOBJECT_NAME       CREATED                     LAST_DDL_TIME
------------------------------ -------------------- --------------------------- ---------------------------
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2015          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 10:56:14
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2016          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 10:56:15
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2017          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 11:42:42
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2018          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 10:56:18
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2019          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 10:56:19
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2020          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 10:56:20
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2021          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 10:56:22
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar           ALBUMS_2022          11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 10:56:22
SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar                                11-May-22 10:41:33          11-May-22 11:43:13

 

We can see that just the impacted index partition has been rebuilt.

The CBO can now successfully use the index to avoid the full partition table scan:

SQL> select * FROM big_ziggy where release_date = '01-JUN-2017' and total_sales = 123456;

no rows selected

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3640710173

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                                  | Name                 | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     | Pstart | Pstop |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT                           |                      |    1 |    26 |      4 (0) | 00:00:01 |        |       |
|  1 | PARTITION RANGE SINGLE                     |                      |    1 |    26 |      4 (0) | 00:00:01 |      3 |     3 |
|  2 |  TABLE ACCESS BY LOCAL INDEX ROWID BATCHED | BIG_ZIGGY            |    1 |    26 |      4 (0) | 00:00:01 |      3 |     3 |
|* 3 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN                         | SYS_AI_6wv99zdbsy8ar |    1 |       |      3 (0) | 00:00:01 |      3 |     3 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

3 - access("RELEASE_DATE"=TO_DATE(' 2017-06-01 00:00:00', 'syyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss') AND "TOTAL_SALES"=123456)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
          3 consistent gets
          0 physical reads
          0 redo size
        676 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          0 rows processed

 

I’ll leave it to the discernible reader to determine if this also works in the scenario where the partitioned index were to be global… 🙂

Automatic Indexes: Scenarios Where Automatic Indexes NOT Created Part II (“Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola” April 27, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in 19c, 21c New Features, Automatic Indexing, Autonomous Database, Autonomous Transaction Processing, CBO, Constraints, Exadata, Foreign Keys, Full Table Scans, Index Internals, Oracle, Oracle 21c, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Oracle19c, Performance Tuning.
1 comment so far

In my last post, I discussed how Automatic Indexing doesn’t create an automatic index in the scenario where the minimum or maximum of a column is required.

Another scenario when an automatic index is not created is when we hit issues associated with a missing index on a Foreign Key (FK) constraint.

As I’ve discussed many times previously, if you delete a parent record without an index on the dependant FK constraints, you hit a number of issues including having to perform a (potentially expensive and problematic) Full Table Scan (FTS) on the child tables and the associated locking problems.

To illustrate, I’ll first create a small parent table:

SQL> create table daddy (id number constraint daddy_pk primary key , name varchar2(42));

Table created.

SQL> insert into daddy select rownum, 'David Bowie '|| rownum from dual connect by level <= 10000;

10000 rows created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'DADDY');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

And then a somewhat larger child table, with no index on the associated foreign key constraint:

SQL> create table kiddy (id number constraint kiddy_pk primary key , code1 number constraint daddy_fk references daddy(id), code2 number, code3 number, name varchar2(42));

Table created.

SQL> insert into kiddy select rownum, mod(rownum,1000)+1000 , mod(rownum, 10000)+1, mod(rownum, 100000)+1, 'Ziggy Stardust '|| rownum from dual connect by level <= 10000000;

10000000 rows created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'KIDDY');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

 

If we delete a number of parent rows, for example:

SQL> delete from daddy where id = 101;

1 row deleted.

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 1477800718

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation         | Name     | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) |   Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | DELETE STATEMENT  |          |    1 |     4 |       1 (0) |   00:00:01 |
|  1 | DELETE            | DADDY    |      |       |             |            |
|* 2 | INDEX UNIQUE SCAN | DADDY_PK |    1 |     4 |       1 (0) |   00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

2 - access("ID"=101)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
         18 recursive calls
         13 db block gets
     117462 consistent gets
      22292 physical reads
    4645500 redo size
        204 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

We notice that even though we only delete one row from a relatively small table, we perform a large number of consistent gets (117462) due to the necessary FTS on the child table, as Oracle is forced to check the table for any possible FK violations. Without an index on the child CODE1 column, Oracle has no choice but to perform the relatively expensive FTS.

Additionally, if we have an existing transaction of a child table (in Session 1):

SQL> insert into kiddy values (10000001,1042,1042,1042,'Iggy Pop');

1 row created.

And then in another session attempt to delete a parent row (in Session 2):

SQL> delete from daddy where id = 112;

The delete hangs in a locked state due to the child transaction in Session 1. This can lead to further locking issues in other sessions (Session 3):

insert into kiddy values (10000002,1042,1042,1042,'Iggy Pop');

 

The FTS on the child table and these associated locks can all be avoided by having an index on the FK constraint, as the index can then be used to effectively police the constraint during such delete operations.

What does AI do in this scenario?

Currently, nothing.

I’ve been unable to ever get AI to create a usable automatic index in this scenario. In Oracle Database 19c, I’ve not been able to get an AI created at all. In Oracle Database 21c, the best I’ve seen has been a Unusable/Invisible AI:

SQL> select index_name, index_type, auto, constraint_index, visibility, status, num_rows from user_indexes where table_n
ame='KIDDY';

INDEX_NAME                     INDEX_TYPE                  AUT CON VISIBILIT STATUS     NUM_ROWS
------------------------------ --------------------------- --- --- --------- -------- ----------
KIDDY_PK                       NORMAL                      NO  YES VISIBLE   VALID      10000004
SYS_AI_31thttf8v6r35           NORMAL                      YES NO  INVISIBLE UNUSABLE   10000004

SQL> select index_name, column_name, column_position from user_ind_columns where table_name='KIDDY';

INDEX_NAME                     COLUMN_NAME     COLUMN_POSITION
------------------------------ --------------- ---------------
KIDDY_PK                       ID                            1
SYS_AI_31thttf8v6r35           CODE1                         1

So you may need to manually create such an index on the FK constraint to improve performance and eliminate these locking issues:

SQL> create index kiddy_code1_i on kiddy(code1);

Index created.

SQL> delete from daddy where id = 142;

1 row deleted.

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 1477800718

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation         | Name     | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) |   Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | DELETE STATEMENT  |          |    1 |     4 |       1 (0) |   00:00:01 |
|  1 | DELETE            | DADDY    |      |       |             |            |
|* 2 | INDEX UNIQUE SCAN | DADDY_PK |    1 |     4 |       1 (0) |   00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

2 - access("ID"=142)

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          1 recursive calls
          8 db block gets
          2 consistent gets
          2 physical reads
        132 redo size
        204 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         41 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          1 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

Consistent gets have dropped off massively (down to just 8) as Oracle can now use the index to avoid the FTS search on the child table. The associated locking issues are eliminated as well.

Note: As always, this AI behaviour can always change in the future…

Automatic Indexes: Scenarios Where Automatic Indexes NOT Created Part I (“Always Crashing In The Same Car”) April 26, 2022

Posted by Richard Foote in 19c, 21c New Features, Automatic Indexing, Autonomous Database, Autonomous Transaction Processing, CBO, Exadata, Full Table Scans, MAX, MIN, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Oracle Cloud, Oracle Cost Based Optimizer, Oracle General, Oracle Indexes, Performance Tuning.
1 comment so far

As I’ve discussed previously, Oracle has increased the number of scenarios in which it will now create automatic indexes, such as with non-equality predicates and JSON expressions.

However, as of Oracle Database 21c, there are still a number of scenarios where an automatic index will NOT be created, even though an index might prove beneficial.

One such scenario is when the Min/Max of a column is required.

As I’ve discussed a number of times previously, Oracle can very efficiently use an index to determine either the Min or Max value of a column, by (hopefully) just visiting the first or last leaf block in an index. The INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX) execution plan path can be used explicitly for this purpose.

If I create a simple table as follows:

SQL> create table bowie_min (id number constraint bowie_min_pk primary key, code number, name varchar2(42));

Table created.

SQL> insert into bowie_min select rownum, mod(rownum, 1000000)+1, 'David Bowie' from dual connect by level <= 10000000;

10000000 rows created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(ownname=>null, tabname=>'BOWIE_MIN');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

 

And then run the following queries a number of times that return the Min and Max of the CODE column:

SQL> select min(code) from bowie_min;

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 1068446691

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                 | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time       |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT          |           |    1 |     5 |    6706 (2) | 00:00:01   |
|  1 | SORT AGGREGATE            |           |    1 |     5 |             |            |
|  2 | TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | BOWIE_MIN |  10M |   47M |    6706 (2) | 00:00:01   |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
      39430 consistent gets
      39421 physical reads
          0 redo size
        569 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         52 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

SQL> select max(code) from bowie_min;

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 1068446691

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                 | Name      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time       |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT          |           |    1 |     5 |    6706 (2) | 00:00:01   |
|  1 | SORT AGGREGATE            |           |    1 |     5 |             |            |
|  2 | TABLE ACCESS STORAGE FULL | BOWIE_MIN |  10M |   47M |    6706 (2) | 00:00:01   |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
      39430 consistent gets
      39421 physical reads
          0 redo size
        569 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         52 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

 

Currently, the CBO has no choice but to use a Full Table Scan (FTS) as there is currently no index on the CODE column.

So what does Automatic Indexing (AI) make of things?

Nothing.

Currently, AI will not create an index in this scenario, no matter how many times I execute these queries.

If we look at the indexes on the table after a significant period of time after running these queries:

SQL> select index_name, auto from user_indexes where table_name='BOWIE_MIN';

INDEX_NAME   AUT
------------ ---
BOWIE_MIN_PK NO

No Automatic Indexes. To improve the performance of these queries, we currently have to manually create the associated index:

SQL> create index bowie_min_code_i on bowie_min(code);

Index created.

If we now re-run these queries and look at the execution plan:

SQL> select min(code) from bowie_min;

Execution Plan
----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 252811132

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation                 | Name             | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU) | Time       |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  0 | SELECT STATEMENT          |                  |    1 |     5 |       3 (0) | 00:00:01   |
|  1 | SORT AGGREGATE            |                  |    1 |     5 |             |            |
|  2 | INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX) | BOWIE_MIN_CODE_I |    1 |     5 |       3 (0) | 00:00:01   |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          0 recursive calls
          0 db block gets
          3 consistent gets
          0 physical reads
          0 redo size
        569 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
         52 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0 sorts (memory)
          0 sorts (disk)
          1 rows processed

We can see that the CBO is now indeed using the index to return the Min/Max values with a vastly reduced number of consistent gets (down to just 3 from the previous 38538).

However, a key point here is that Automatic Indexes only works on an Exadata platform and Exadata has various smarts that potentially makes accessing data via a “FTS” in this manner much more efficient than in non-Exadata environments.

Oracle may well take the position that getting Min/Max data on a Exadata is potentially efficient enough and doesn’t on its own warrant the creation of an index.

More on this in future posts…