Sunday 10 June 2018

Troubleshooting Issues with Undo Tablespace


Commonly seen problems with the undo tablespace are of the following nature:
These errors can be caused by many different issues, such as incorrect sizing of the undo tablespace or poorly written SQL or PL/SQL code.

• ORA-01555: snapshot too old
• ORA-30036: unable to extend segment by ... in undo tablespace 'UNDO1'

Causes :


Frequent commits can be the cause of ORA-1555. It's all about read consistency. The time you start a query oracle records a before image. So the result of your query is not altered by DML that takes place in the meantime (your big transaction). The before image uses the rollback segments to get the values of data that is changed after the before image is taken. By committing in your big transaction you tell oracle the rollback data of that transaction can be overwritten. If your query need data from the rollback segments that is overwritten you get this error. The less you commit the less chance you have that the rollback data you need is overwritten. Typically this occurs when users are executing the PL/SQL procedures and code commits inside a cursor.

Actions :


    1. Check if Undo Is Correctly Sized:

The below query checks for issues that have occurred within the last day :

select to_char(begin_time,'MM-DD-YYYY HH24:MI') begin_time
,ssolderrcnt ORA_01555_cnt, nospaceerrcnt no_space_cnt
,txncount max_num_txns, maxquerylen max_query_len
,expiredblks blck_in_expired
from v$undostat where begin_time > sysdate - 1 order by begin_time; 

Output :

BEGIN_TIME           ORA_01555_CNT   NO_SPACE_CNT   MAX_NUM_TXNS   BLCK_IN_EXPIRED
----------------     -------------   ------------   ------------    ---------------
06-10-2018 14:52                 0         0         42              0

02-10-2018 07:24                 0         0          0              0


If this column reports a non-zero value, you need to do one or more of the following tasks:

The most effective way is to “Increase the UNDO_RETENTION initialization parameter”.  

2. Below are the resolutions that can be taken hence forth

         Commit less often, commit at the end only
         Ensure that code does not contain COMMIT statements within cursor loops.
         Re-schedule long-running queries when the system has less DML load or Off-peak hours
         Check the SQL’s that are consuming more undo and try to tune the SQL statement throwing the errors.
         Finally, you may proceed to add extra rollback segments (undo logs) to make more transaction slots available.


NOTE : A maximum of 4 days’ worth of information is stored in the V$UNDOSTAT view. The statistics are gathered every 10 minutes, for a maximum of 576 rows in the table. If you’ve stopped and started your database within the last 4 days, this view will only contain information from the time you last started your database.


The following query displays the current undo size and the recommended size for an undo tablespace with recommended retention in seconds:

select sum(bytes)/1024/1024 cur_mb_size,
dbms_undo_adv.required_undo_size(900) req_mb_size
from dba_data_files
where tablespace_name = (select
value from v$parameter where name = 'undo tablespace');



Output:

CUR_MB_SIZE   REQ_MB_SIZE
-----------   -----------

51200         35840


The output shows that the undo tablespace currently has size of 50GB allocated to it.
In the prior query, you used 900 seconds as the amount of time to retain information in the undo tablespace. To retain undo information for 900 seconds, the Oracle Undo Advisor estimates that the undo tablespace should be around 35G . In this example the undo tablespace is sized adequately. If it were not sized adequately, you would have to either add space to an existing data file or add a data file to the undo tablespace.

Here is perfect query to get the Current undo retention and optimal undo retention  from site Akadia

SELECT d.undo_size/(1024*1024) "ACTUAL UNDO SIZE [MByte]",
       SUBSTR(e.value,1,25) "UNDO RETENTION [Sec]",
       ROUND((d.undo_size / (to_number(f.value) *
       g.undo_block_per_sec))) "OPTIMAL UNDO RETENTION [Sec]"
  FROM ( SELECT SUM(a.bytes) undo_size FROM v$datafile a,
  v$tablespace b, dba_tablespaces c
         WHERE c.contents = 'UNDO' AND c.status = 'ONLINE' AND 
b.name = c.tablespace_name AND a.ts# = b.ts#) d,
v$parameter e, v$parameter f, (
SELECT MAX(undoblks/((end_time-begin_time)*3600*24)) undo_block_per_sec FROM v$undostat) g
WHERE e.name = 'undo_retention' AND f.name = 'db_block_size'
/


Output :

ACTUAL UNDO SIZE [MByte]
------------------------
51200

UNDO RETENTION [Sec]
--------------------
10800

OPTIMAL UNDO RETENTION [Sec]
----------------------------

14580


Find the sessions using view - v$session and v$transaction to get sessions consuming UNDO Segments :


select s.sid, s.serial#, s.osuser, s.logon_time ,s.status, s.machine
,t.used_ublk, t.used_ublk*16384/1024/1024 undo_usage_mb
from v$session s ,v$transaction t where t.addr = s.taddr;




You can use below query using view – v$SQL to get SQL statement associated with a user/session consuming undo space.

select s.sid, s.serial#, s.osuser, s.logon_time, s.status ,s.machine, t.used_ublk ,
t.used_ublk*16384/1024/1024 undo_usage_mb ,q.sql_text from v$session s,
v$transaction t ,v$sql q where t.addr = s.taddr and s.sql_id = q.sql_id;





"Do something (anything).  If you don't do anything, you won't get anywhere. 
Make it your hobby, not a chore, but above all have fun!"  😊


Monday 26 March 2018

Wait Events : checkpoint busy waits or archiver busy waits



While such wait events occur  in AlertLog file, one must consider to proceed with ARCHIVER TUNING


1. Check the number of Online Redolog Members and size of the online redo logs. 
Excessive size and the number of online redo log groups will give archiver more time to catch up. Hence Adding more online logs does not help a situation where the archiver cannot keep up with LGWR process.
It can help if there are bursts of redo generation since it gives ARCH more time to average its processing rate over time.


2. In such cases you can add multiple archiver (ARCh) processes
Create 'alter system archive log all'. This will spawn archive processes at some fixed interval may be required. These processes once spawned will assist archiver in archiving any un-archived log in that thread of redo. Once it has been completed, the temporary processes will go away.


3. Evaluate checkpoint interval and frequency
There are several possible actions include adding DBWR processes,  increasing db_block_checkpoint_batch, reducing db_block_buffers. Turning on or allowing async IO capabilities definitely helps alleviate most DBWR inefficiencies.

4. Check OS supportability of asynchronous I/Os
Async reads should help tremendously. Async writes may help if OS supports asynchronous I/Os on file systems.
You can check with your vendor if the current version of your operating system supports async IO to file systems (ufs).

5. Check for system or IO contention.
Check CPU waits and usage, disk  level bottlenecks. Also check operating system manuals for the appropriate commands to monitor system performance.
For example, you can use UNIX  commands such as "sar  5 5 5"  “sar –d ”or "iostat" to identify disk bottlenecks.




Sunday 11 March 2018

Accessing a schema without knowing the password



Most of the times that you may need to logon to a database user / schema owner, to do so emergency maintenance,,  but you don’t know the password.

There is an alternative where you can use alter session set current schema “Schema-Name” ;

Other than this you can use the below process, where you record the current password encryption, change the password, logon and do your maintenance.

Let’s try an example here
      

Create an account:

SQL> conn / as sysdba

Connected.

 

SQL>  create user nikhil identified by mypass1 ;

User created.

SQL> grant connect , resource to nikhil ;

Grant succeeded.

 




Now if I want to change the password, then I should know the ‘Old Password’


SQL> conn nikhil/mypass1 ;
Connected.


SQL> password 

Changing password for NIKHIL

Old password:

Oops..!



In such cases you can use the user$ view under sys user which will give us the encrypted password so that we will preserve the old password
Let’s see..


SQL> conn / as sysdba

Connected.



SQL> select name,'alter user '||name||' identified by values '''||spare4||';'||password||''';' command from sys.user$ where name = 'NIKHIL';



NAME

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

COMMAND

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

NIKHIL

alter user NIKHIL identified by values 'S:2549CDA4335FCEF7814FD9832AD653A937AAE8

7105AB962A873A59A576E8;FD135DE4875002BA';


Now I will set a temporary password for the account to perform the activity.. Later will set the old password using this encrypted values.


SQL> alter user nikhil identified by demopassword ;

User altered.


SQL> conn nikhil/demopassword ;

Connected.



Now connect as sysdba,  and revert the password using the encrypted values


SQL> conn / as sysdba

Connected.



SQL> alter user NIKHIL identified by values 'S:2549CDA4335FCEF7814FD9832AD653A937AAE87105AB962A873A59A576E8;FD135DE4875002BA';

User altered.



SQL> conn nikhil/mypass1 ;

Connected.

SQL>

Alternatively, we can use the DBMS_METADATA package to get the encryption;



SQL> set long 10000

select dbms_metadata.get_ddl('USER','NIKHIL') command from dual;SQL>



COMMAND

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



   CREATE USER "NIKHIL" IDENTIFIED BY VALUES 'S:2549CDA4335FCEF7814FD9832AD653A9

37AAE87105AB962A873A59A576E8;FD135DE4875002BA'

      DEFAULT TABLESPACE "USERS"

      TEMPORARY TABLESPACE "TEMP"

Friday 26 January 2018

Find sessions performing sort operations : TEMP Tablespace occupants



Most of the time, user will ask you to check long running sessions in database and you will figure out the query which the session is performing sort/join operation – reading the query you can say the query is related to sorting. But  you will also see the high usage of Temporary segments or will see wait events such as “Direct Path Temp Read” Or “Direct Path Temp Write”.

To rectify this you can use views such as  V$SORT_USAGE and V$SORT_SEGMENT to identify the other sessions performing sort operation


Oracle provides two basic dynamic performance views for online monitoring of temporary tablespace usage.

These are v$sort_usage to query online sessions using temporary segments and v$sort_segment to query the size of the temporary segments in the database.


V$SORT_USAGE has below main columns  which can be useful here:

USERNAME       –              Session User name.
SQL_ID                –              unique identifier of the SQL that requires the sort.
EXTENTS           –              number of extents in the temporary segment being used by particular sessions.
BLOCKS              –              number of blocks in the temporary segment being used by particular sessions.
SESSION_ADDR – address of the session, can be used to identify the session in V$SESSION according to the SADDR column.

--Use below query to find the sessions consuming temp segments


SELECT S.sid || , || S.serial# sid_serial, S.username, S.osuser, P.spid, S.module,
P.program, SUM (T.blocks) * TBS.block_size / 1024 / 1024 mb_used, T.tablespace,
COUNT(*) statements
FROM v$sort_usage T, v$session S, dba_tablespaces TBS, v$process P
WHERE T.session_addr = S.saddr AND S.paddr = P.addr
AND T.tablespace = TBS.tablespace_name GROUP BY S.sid, S.serial#, S.username, S.osuser, P.spid, S.module,
P.program, TBS.block_size, T.tablespace ORDER BY sid_serial;
 




This will give the sid and serial# which be used to find current query that is taking temp segment using view v$sqltext and passing sql_id of the sid and serial#

using  V$SORT_SEGMENT



SELECT A.tablespace_name tablespace, D.mb_total,
SUM (A.used_blocks * D.block_size) / 1024 / 1024 mb_used,
D.mb_total-SUM (A.used_blocks * D.block_size) / 1024 / 1024 mb_free
FROM v$sort_segment A,
( SELECT B.name, C.block_size, SUM (C.bytes) / 1024 / 1024 mb_total
FROM v$tablespace B, v$tempfile C
WHERE B.ts#= C.ts# GROUP BY B.name, C.block_size ) D WHERE A.tablespace_name = D.name
GROUP by A.tablespace_name, D.mb_total;



Saturday 6 January 2018

How to identify the applied patche-set of your Oracle Home



Many a times you will need to find the patch level of your database.

The easiest way to get this information is from the OPatch utility.  The OPatch utility can be found under $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch directory.

The command below will list out all the currently applied patches to your Oracle environment using the files in the oraInventory.

Example:

$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/opatch lsinventory



The same information can be seen from dynamic views

Example:

SQL>select * from sys.v$version ;
SQL>select * from sys.registry$history;



Sunday 31 December 2017

Worth Sharing: Things you should NOT do when you are angry


 Things you should NOT do when you are angry  😼

*Hit your phone/gadgets on the wall.
*Punch the door/wall multiple times until your knuckles start to bleed.
*Verbally abuse people who love you and care for you, online or offline.
(All these things will only add up to the pain and will hurt you even more later.)


Things you can do when you get angry 😊

*Punch a pillow/cushion/a pile of blankets. (Find a punching bag if these are too soft for you).
*Use this anger to better yourself and do a ton of crunches/pushups/your fav. exercise at home/gym.
*Go on a long drive, preferably alone and notice the beauty of nature that surrounds you. You can also simply walk or run.
*Grab a pen and write the hell out of your thoughts. It's not childish. It's one of the smartest things you can do to yourself. Don't hesitate, no one except you is going to see that.
(Vent your anger. Don't contain it. Anger is like poison. You need to let it You need to let it out and make sure you don't hurt yourself in the process.)
Best of luck. Share to others in need. ðŸ’™ 😊

Happy New Year
May this new year bring all your dreams and happiness come true.. 
Stay Blessed



Steps to Schedule any RMAN Jobs In Windows Server



This post is about the backup configuration made in Windows server and what are the backup strategies mainly used in most of production databases.

Backup strategy followed in most of  production Databases.
1) Weekly RMAN full backup
2) Daily Archive log backup
3) Daily incremental backup

In windows server environment, we use “scheduler” (such as cronjob in UNIX) to schedule any job.


The important steps to configure a scheduler are as follows :

Taking Database backup weekly(incremental level 0):
First create a cmd file (command file ) in windows: 

Let us create a file name week_backup.cmd using a text file editor(any editor) write the rman script to take the backup.

Assume, I want to take full backup (i.e, LEVEL 0 Backup)
-        Then the script for taking the weekly Level 0 backup would be like this, (here controlfile autobackup is off(default)).

Step 1.
week_backup.cmd



RMAN>run{ 
Allocate channel ch1 type disk format '\path of taking backup_\%d_data_%U'; 
Backup incremental level=0 database tag=full_backup'; 
Release channel ch1; 
Allocate channel t1 type disk format '\ backup location \%d_ctrl_%U'; 
Backup current controlfile; 
Release channel t1; 
}




Step 2.

Create the .bat file (Batch file is for batch job execution by scheduler)
Let us create a batch file week_backup.bat

The script looks like as below:


week_backup.bat 

rman target sys/db1@db1

cmdfile=\Path of cmd file\week_backup.cmd   <-------- you need to mention the file location we created at Step 1 above.
log=E:\Path of log file\Full_DB_Backup_%date:~4,2%_%date:~7,2%_%date:~10%.log
The file will be created as follows
Full_DB_Backup_<Current_Date>.log

This batch file is used executing this file through schedule.



Step 3.
Here comes the scheduling part. We have to use scheduler for scheduling job:
Goto- Start Menu>
 control panel >scheduler tasks >Add scheduler task >command prompt >Perform this task > weekly >choose day and timings when you want to run this job weekly >specify your administrator username and password >finish
 

Configuring  Database backup Daily(incremental LEVEL 1)

For this activity, all the above steps remains same, but the scripts and scheduler task option changes here:

1. backup_incr_1.cmd  

run{
allocate channel ch1 type disk format '\path of backup location_\%d_data_%U';
backup incremental level=1 database tag=Level_1_Backup';
release channel ch1;
}

2. backup_incr_1.bat 


rman target sys/db1@DBNAME 
cmdfile=\Path of cmd file created in Step1 above\ backup_incr_1.cmd 
log=E:\Logfile location\Level_1_Backup_%date:~4,2%_%date:~7,2%_%date:~10%.log

Now, Configure the scheduler as we did above in Step 3 and  simply  change the Scheduler option > as ‘daily’ and timings whichever  you want.


 -


For information on  UNIX System Commands you can check an article here – UNIX for DBA's


Click here for RMAN recovery scenarios





Everything comes to us that belongs to us, if we create the capacity to receive it

-Rabindranath Tagore