6.05.2012

ORA-07445: exception encountered: core dump [evaopn3()+384] [SIGSEGV]

Before I really get started discussing seriously about the subject matter, I would like to shared and echo what Coskan's had said at his blog.

"Every Oracle version, developers at Oracle add or change some of the undocumented parameters to do better optimization. Most of the time these new optimizations works fine but from time to time they have a negative effect for the generated plan which causes post upgrade slowness. When you change OFE (optimizer_features_enable) from 10.2.0.4 to 11.2.0.1 Oracle changes value of 33 parameters !!! Because they are undocumented, unless an Oracle Scientist reveals what they are actually doing or note on MOS explaining the parameter, their effects to the plans are not that clear."  (although a bit older stuff, still worth reading his blog entry about Plan Stability Through Upgrade).

First and foremost, it is indeed a big disappointment (at least for ourselves) the way Oracle 11gR2 CBO behave/manage things with regards to ENCRYPTED columns in contrast to 10gR2 CBO. We really had enough surprises post 11gR2 upgrade with most of our business critical databases where ENCRYPTED column tables involved in a query. The queries in the context had terrible performance degradation and it was totally unacceptable. Since there was no suitable workaround great help from the Oracle Support, we decided to DECRYPT the columns temporary to fall back to 10gR2 behavior.

Couple of days ago, I have been notified by one of the application support guys about the wired situation of some queries, where the queries run OK at first run and fail in another run to produce the results. When I simulated the test case over non-production database, the session constantly terminating with following errors:

ERROR at line 20:
ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
Process ID: 12560
Session ID: 104 Serial number: 21213

Additionally, an ORA- 07445 error also written in the alert.log.

Exception [type: SIGSEGV, Address not mapped to object] [ADDR:0x1200000000] [PC:0x4000000006320C80, evaopn3()+384] [flags: 0x0, count: 1]
Errors in file /u00/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/pmsit/DBXX/trace/DBXX_ora_12560.trc  (incident=48362):
ORA-07445: exception encountered: core dump [evaopn3()+384] [SIGSEGV] [ADDR:0x1200000000] [PC:0x4000000006320C80] [Address not mapped to object] []
Incident details in: /u00/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/pmsit/DBXX/incident/incdir_48362/DBXX_ora_12560_i48362.trc
Use ADRCI or Support Workbench to package the incident.
See Note 411.1 at My Oracle Support for error and packaging details.
Mon Jun 04 16:37:55 2012
Dumping diagnostic data in directory=[cdmp_20120604163755], requested by (instance=1, osid=12560), summary=[incident=48362].
Mon Jun 04 16:37:59 2012
Sweep [inc][48362]: completed
Sweep [inc2][48362]: completed

After a very quick initial analysis, found MOS Note "ORA-7445 (evaopn3) [ID 860969.1], that describes the cause as one of the BUG due to ENCRYPTED columns. It was confirmed after looking at the table structure, we indeed have ENCRYPTED columns. The MOS Note explained that the fix would be in version 12 and also have the following suggestion:

 "_optimizer_join_factorization"=false


I then googled about the parameter in the question and come across several great posts from many people, including Oracle CBO blog. Although the join factorization (JF) appears to be a great improvement for the queries with UNION ALL and with SELF/INNER JOIN conditions, where it could drastically improve the query performance, unfortunately, we had to cut if OFF due to column ENCRYPTION.. The query went well after turning the feature OFF.

I have couple more interesting topics to discuss in my next blog entries.

Till then, happy reading.

6.03.2012

Advt: Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control: Managing Data Center Chaos

My friend and former ACE Director Porus Homi Havewala's new book on 
Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control, will be available in September 2012 
or earlier, perhaps the First EM 12c Cloud Control book in the world.
 
If you are interested in learning about the capabilities of Enterprise Manager 12c,
please have a look. The book can be pre-ordered in advance. Electronic copies 
will be available too on publication.
 
Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control: Managing Data Center Chaos
 
 
Happy reading

5.13.2012

Ad: Interesting webinars lined up at RedGate - dont miss it

Hi everyone,

In case if you haven't come across, here is a very quick update about some of the very interesting webinars lined-up at RedGate by world top most known Oracle gurus, such as (in no particular order), Jonathan Lewis,  Carry Milsap, Tom Kyte, Doug Burns, Ron Crisco and Randolf Geist.

The topics are listed hereunder:

24 May 2012     Agile Schema Design    by Ron Crisco, Method R Corporation
07 June 2012     Oracle Heap Tables or SQL Server Clustered Indexes? A Live Debate
                                                              by Jonathan Lewis (Oracle ACE Director, OakTable Member) and
                                                                  Grant Fritchey (Microsoft SQL Server MVP)
21 June 2012     Tom Kyte - subject TBC
03 July 2012      How I Learned to Love Pictures - OEM Performance Page Fundamentals 
                                                              by Doug Burns, Oracle ACE Director, OakTable Member
19 July 2012     Falling in Love All Over Again - OEM 12c Performance Page Enhancements  
                                                              by Doug Burns, Oracle ACE Director, OakTable Member
02 Aug 2012    Oracle Cost-Based Optimizer Advanced Session              
                                                              by Randolf Geist, Oracle ACE Director, OakTable Member

To register the webinars in the context and to view the past webinars, visit here.

Happy reading,

Jaffar

4.13.2012

Yet another Oracle SIG born - IOUG Virtualization SIG

Good news for those who are interested in Oracle and Virtualization technologies. Yet another Oracle SIG commenced to help the community.

Excerpt from IOUG Virtualization SIG page:


IOUG Virtualization SIG

Virtualization is the foundation stone in the Cloud Computing space and an integral part of the IT ecosystem. The IOUG Virtualization SIG is dedicated to communication and information around all areas of virtualization.

The IOUG Virtualization SIG was started at Oracle OpenWorld 2011.  The main purpose of the SIG is to discuss and share the key challenges, options, and best practices for virtualizing Oracle.  Topics will be discussed freely in this open forum and will touch on server virtualization, desktop virtualization, storage management, Oracle VM, VMware and EMC.  The SIG is led by the following thought leaders in the virtualization community. 

Virt_SIGVirt_SIGVirt-SIGVirt_SIGVirt_SIG
President and Website ChairTariq Farooq, BrainSurface and Oracle ACE DirectorVice PresidentGeorge Trujillo, VMware, Double Oracle ACEVendor Liaison ChairMichael Corey, NtiretyContent and Resource ChairDr. Bert Scalzo, Texas Publishing and Oracle ACEWeb Events ChairKai Yu, Dell and Oracle ACE Director 
Virt_SIGVirt_SIGVirt_SIGVirt_SIG 
Board LiaisonMaria Anderson, Encana

Member at LargeMichael Ault, Texas Memory Systems
Member at LargeCharles Kim, Viscosity Technology and Oracle ACE Director
Member at LargeSyed Jaffar Hussain, Alinma Bank and Oracle ACE Director


For registration, events and more details, click the following link:

3.24.2012

Upcoming Webinar - Migrate single instance database to RAC

Interested knowing about all existing methods to migrate your existing single instance database to RAC? Attend my upcoming webinar 'Migrate single instance database to RAC - 360 degrees' on 29/3/2012.
The webinar is sponsored and hosted by RedGate .

Register here

Abstract:

On Oracle Database administrators have to deal with numerous challenges whilst migrating an existing non-cluster environment to a cluster environment. Beyond any doubts, one of the most significant challenges a DBA faces is migrating an existing single instance database to RAC.
Although Oracle provides several easy methods to carry out the procedure,  it is important to every DBA to identify which method best fits to his/her needs and requirements.
The core objective of this presentation is to give you an overview about different methods for migrating an existing single instance database to RAC, and help you discover the most suitable one for your need. The session will also explain how to perform the migration procedure to minimize the downtime in order to improve (speed up) the duration whilst dealing with VLDB.
A live Q+A with Syed Jaffar Hussain will follow the presentation.
Syed Jaffar Hussain
Oracle ACE Director, Oracle Magazine Editor's choice award (2011) for 'Technologist of the year, DBA' Database Support Team Lead in Inma Bank, Oracle Certified Master (10g),Oracle RAC Certified Expert and OCP v8i, v9i, v10g and v11g. 17 years of Information Technology experience, including 9 years as an Oracle DBA. Expert on All Things Oracle.