Improved Scalability

Parallel Processing Enhancements

Multiprocessor computer systems and parallel processing environments are often necessary to support the most demanding types of business applications. The following sections explain the Oracle8 enhancements to Oracle's parallel query and parallel server features.

Parallel. Query Enhancements

Parallel query processing allows Oracle to take full advantage of all available server processors and provide excellent response times for even the most CPU and 1/0 intensive application queries. For example, DSS and data warehousing applications typically submit demanding queries to an Oracle database server. To return quickly to a user, Oracle divides a SQL request into subtasks, then allows multiple processors to process subtasks in parallel Oracle merges results from each subtask and returns them quickly to the user.

With Oracle8, Oracle supports the execution of all DML operations in parallel, including INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE operations. All queries, including those based on index scans, can also be run in parallel. To further reduce response times for SQL requests, Oracle8 automatically takes advantage of partitioned table and indexes should they be available.

Oracle8 can perform intra-partition parallelism--parallelize operations that occur within a specific table partition.

Oracle8 can perform inter-partition parallelism-parallelize operations that occur among different table partitions.

Oracle8's optimizer is partition aware. That is, Oracle8 automatically eliminates searches of partitions that could not possibly contain data for a query's result set to reduce unnecessary disk 1/0 and boost application performance.

Parallel Server Enhancements

Oracle's Parallel Server option allows multiple database servers, instances, running on different nodes in a closely-clustered multiple processor system, to concurrently access a single physical Oracle database. By creating multiple avenues of database access should an parallel server can provide fault-tolerance for database access should an individual node experience a software failure.

Several new Oracle8 features improve system performance and availability in an Oracle Parallel Server configuration:

A new distributed lock manager coordinates database updates among the nodes of a massively parallel machine or clustered SMP machines.

• Reverse-key indexes eliminate block contention among the nodes of a parallel server.

• Transparent application failover automatically migrates user connections from a failed node to an intact node. Consequently, a parallel server can provide continuous application availability and connectivity for mission-critical application, even in the wake of unscheduled outages.

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