“Tuning By Layers”

I was looking through Steve Adams' Ixora site the other day and I came across this presentation that talks about another approach to Oracle tuning.

Entitled "Tuning By Layers", it's a couple of years old now but puts forward the idea that a system consists of a number of layers, with each layer putting a load on the layer beneath it. According to the presentation notes,

"The top layer is the application, followed by the database, then the operating system and finally the hardware. To tune by layers, you work out how to measure the load of layer 1 on layer 2, and so on. You then tune to minimize the load of layer 1 on layer 2, and so on, until you have worked down all the layers.

At the highest level, you first concentrate on the application, and try to reduce its load on the database.

You then tune the database to reduce its load on the operating system.

And you finally, you tune the operating system to reduce its load on the hardware."

The presentation comes with notes that go into a bit of detail about what each tuning step would comprise of, although of course the specifics of exactly how you'd tune each bit is where someone like Ixora would come in. Nonetheless, it's an interesting presentation and worth taking a few minutes to read through.