Oracle's SQL Performance Analyzer

We present the SQL Performance Analyzer, a novel approach in Oracle Database 11g to testing database changes, such as upgrades, parameter changes, schema changes, and gathering optimizer statistics. The SQL Performance Analyzer offers a comprehensive solution to enable users to forecast and analyze how a system change will impact SQL query plans and run time performance, so they can tune their system before they make the change in production. The SQL Performance Analyzer identifies potential problems that may occur and makes suggestions for avoiding any SQL performance degradation. It provides quantitative estimates of the system’s performance in the new environment with high confidence and performs a comparative analysis of the response time of the SQL workload thus allowing for an easy assessment of the change. In this paper we describe the architecture of the SQL Performance Analyzer, its usage model, and its integration points with other Oracle database components to form an end-to-end change management solution.