3 Creating an Analysis Task

Once you have captured a SQL workload that you want to analyze into a SQL tuning set (STS), you can run SQL Performance Analyzer to analyze the effects of a system change on SQL performance. To run SQL Performance Analyzer, you must first create a SQL Performance Analyzer task. A task is a container that encapsulates all of the data about a complete SQL Performance Analyzer analysis. A SQL Performance Analyzer analysis comprises of at least two SQL trials and a comparison. A SQL trial captures the execution performance of a SQL tuning set under specific environmental conditions and can be generated automatically using SQL Performance Analyzer by one of the following methods:

  • Test executing SQL statements

  • Generating execution plans for SQL statements

  • Referring to execution statistics and plans captured in a SQL tuning set

When creating a SQL Performance Analyzer task, you will need to select a SQL tuning set as its input source. The SQL tuning set will be used as the source for test executing or generating execution plans for SQL trials. Thus, performance differences between trials are caused by environmental differences. For more information, see "Creating a SQL Performance Analyzer Task".

This chapter described how to create a SQL Performance Analyzer task and contains the following topics:

Note:

The primary interface for running SQL Performance Analyzer is Oracle Enterprise Manager. If for some reason Oracle Enterprise Manager is unavailable, you can run SQL Performance Analyzer using the DBMS_SQLPA PL/SQL package.

Tip:

Before running SQL Performance Analyzer, capture the SQL workload to be used in the performance analysis into a SQL tuning set on the production system, then transport it to the test system where the performance analysis will be performed, as described in "Capturing the SQL Workload".