In this post I describe the Data Base Generator (DBGen) utility in terms of what it is, how to install it, and how to use it. This post assumes a Linux operating system. There are different build procedures for DBGen on Windows, but the concepts carry over. DBGen is used to create a TPC-H schema (i.e., it provides the CREATE TABLE statements) and to generate the data. DBGen is used in official TPC-H benchmarking, but it can also be used in informal TPC-H-like benchmarking. The schema and data is compatible with most 3 rd party benchmarking tools like HammerDB, so even if you plan to run a TPC-H-like test using HammerDB you may still use DBGen to create the schema and data. The CREATE TABLE statements are ANSI standard SQL and can be run in any DBMS without editing. There are no SQL statements for indexes or foreign key constraints provided by DBGen since those types of objects are not required. The data is created as delimited...
This blog post reviews all of the caching solutions available in Oracle Database 21c. I dive into several of the caching solutions, but I do try to keep things relatively short-and-sweet here. I have other blogs dedicated to each caching solution. I don't mean the Oracle SGA or PGA. I mean optional features you can enable to enhance performance. The content of this blog post is applicable to Oracle 12g, 18c, 19c, and 21c. Some of the caching solutions were available in Oracle 11g, but I did not regression test my examples back that far. There have been no new caching solutions in Oracle 12g R2 through 21c. One solution in particular, the In-Memory Column Store, has received some major enhancements. I briefly describe it here, but the deep dive is in another blog post. Summary of Oracle Caching Solutions Oracle 21c includes six caching features as listed in my table below. I've listed them in order from newest on top to oldest at t...
This post is Part 1 in a series about running benchmarks to measure the performance of relational databases. This post provides a very brief introduction to the popular industry standard benchmarks TPC-C, E, H, and DS and the software programs you can use to run a variation of each benchmark. The discussion here is generic and can be applied to any relational database like Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. The TPC has many benchmarks for non-relational databases not discussed here. The discussion here is also intended for informal benchmarking without publication. Why Benchmark? Benchmark tools can answer a variety of questions and help predict success or failure. Consider the following examples of why organizations perform internal benchmarking of database systems: Predict change impact . Organizations run benchmarks to see how a system change impacts performance. Run a benchmark to establish a baseline, make a system or ...