Preface

This guide describes how to monitor and optimize performance, use multiple components for optimal performance, and write highly performant applications in the Oracle Application Server environment.

This preface contains these topics:

• Intended Audience

• Documentation Accessibility

• Organization

• Related Documentation

• Conventions

Intended Audience

Oracle Application Server Performance Guide is intended for Internet application developers, Oracle Application Server administrators, database administrators, and Web masters.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

Organization

This document contains:

Chapter 1, "Performance Overview"

This chapter provides an overview of Oracle Application Server performance and tuning concepts.

Chapter 2, "Monitoring Oracle Application Server"

This chapter introduces the available performance monitoring tools, including Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console and the built-in Oracle Application Server performance monitoring tools.

Chapter 3, "Monitoring Oracle HTTP Server"

This chapter discusses monitoring the Oracle HTTP Server using Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console and the built-in performance tools available with Oracle Application Server.

Chapter 4, "Monitoring OC4J"

This chapter discusses monitoring Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE(OC4J) using Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console and the built-in performance tools available with Oracle Application Server.

Chapter 5, "Optimizing Oracle HTTP Server"

This chapter discusses optimizing HTTP server.

Chapter 6, "Optimizing J2EE Applications In OC4J"

This chapter discusses optimizing J2EE applications running on Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE.

Chapter 7, "Optimizing OracleAS Web Cache"

This chapter discusses optimizing Web Cache.

Chapter 8, "Optimizing PL/SQL Performance"

This chapter discusses optimizing code using mod_plsql.

Chapter 9, "Instrumenting Applications With DMS"

This chapter describes the Oracle Dynamic Monitoring Service (DMS) that enables application developers, support analysts, system administrators, and others to measure application specific performance information. The chapter also shows how to use DMS to instrument Oracle Application Server Java applications.

Chapter 10, "Database Tuning Considerations"

This chapter describes some of the init.ora parameters that you may need to tune in a backend Oracle Database Server.

Appendix A, "Performance Metrics"

This appendix discusses the statistics and metrics used to monitor and analyze the performance of Oracle Application Server components.

Appendix B, "Component Performance Links"

This appendix provides links for performance information on additional Oracle Application Server components.

Related Documentation

For more information, see these Oracle resources:

• Oracle Application Server Concepts

• Oracle Application Server Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Security Guide

• Oracle HTTP Server Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE User's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Web Cache Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE Enterprise JavaBeans Developer's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE Servlet Developer's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE JSP Tag Libraries and Utilities Reference

• Oracle Database Performance Tuning Guide, 10g

• Oracle Application Server PL/SQL Web Toolkit Reference

In North America, printed documentation is available for sale in the Oracle Store at

http://oraclestore.oracle.com/

Customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) can purchase documentation from

http://www.oraclebookshop.com/

Other customers can contact their Oracle representative to purchase printed documentation.

To download free release notes, installation documentation, white papers, or other collateral, please visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). You must register online before using OTN; registration is free and can be done at

http://www.oracle.com/admin/account/index.html

If you already have a username and password for OTN, then you can go directly to the documentation section of the OTN Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation

For more information, see these Oracle resources:

• For this release, see information on OracleAS Portal performance at:

  http://www.oracle.com/technology
  
  

  From the Oracle Technology Network main page:

  • Choose the Product link

  • Choose OracleAS Portal under Oracle Application Server

Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this documentation set. It describes:

• Conventions in Text

• Conventions in Code Examples

• Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

Conventions in Text

We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

Convention	Meaning	Example
Bold	Bold typeface indicates terms that are defined in the text or terms that appear in a glossary, or both.	When you specify this clause, you create an index-organized table.
Italics	Italic typeface indicates book titles or emphasis.	Oracle9i Database Concepts Ensure that the recovery catalog and target database do not reside on the same disk.
UPPERCASE monospace (fixed-width) font	Uppercase monospace typeface indicates elements supplied by the system. Such elements include parameters, privileges, datatypes, Recovery Manager keywords, SQL keywords, SQL*Plus or utility commands, packages and methods, as well as system-supplied column names, database objects and structures, usernames, and roles.	You can specify this clause only for a NUMBER column. You can back up the database by using the BACKUP command. Query the TABLE_NAME column in the USER_TABLES data dictionary view. Use the DBMS_STATS.GENERATE_STATS procedure.
lowercase monospace (fixed-width) font	Lowercase monospace typeface indicates executable programs, filenames, directory names, and sample user-supplied elements. Such elements include computer and database names, net service names and connect identifiers, user-supplied database objects and structures, column names, packages and classes, usernames and roles, program units, and parameter values. Note: Some programmatic elements use a mixture of UPPERCASE and lowercase. Enter these elements as shown.	Enter sqlplus to start SQL*Plus. The password is specified in the orapwd file. Back up the datafiles and control files in the /disk1/oracle/dbs directory. The department_id, department_name, and location_id columns are in the hr.departments table. Set the QUERY_REWRITE_ENABLED initialization parameter to true. Connect as oe user. The JRepUtil class implements these methods.
lowercase italic monospace (fixed-width) font	Lowercase italic monospace font represents placeholders or variables.	You can specify the parallel_clause. Run old_release.SQL where old_release refers to the release you installed prior to upgrading.

Conventions in Code Examples

Code examples illustrate SQL, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, or other command-line statements. They are displayed in a monospace (fixed-width) font and separated from normal text as shown in this example:

SELECT username FROM dba_users WHERE username = 'MIGRATE';

The following table describes typographic conventions used in code examples and provides examples of their use.

Convention	Meaning	Example
[ ]	Anything enclosed in brackets is optional.	DECIMAL (digits [ , precision ])
{ }	Braces are used for grouping items.	{ENABLE | DISABLE}
|	A vertical bar represents a choice of two options.	{ENABLE | DISABLE} [COMPRESS | NOCOMPRESS]
...	Ellipsis points mean repetition in syntax descriptions. In addition, ellipsis points can mean an omission in code examples or text.	CREATE TABLE ... AS subquery; SELECT col1, col2, ... , coln FROM employees;
Other symbols	You must use symbols other than brackets ([ ]), braces ({ }), vertical bars (|), and ellipsis points (...) exactly as shown.	acctbal NUMBER(11,2); acct CONSTANT NUMBER(4) := 3;
Italics	Italicized text indicates placeholders or variables for which you must supply particular values.	CONNECT SYSTEM/system_password DB_NAME = database_name
UPPERCASE	Uppercase typeface indicates elements supplied by the system. We show these terms in uppercase in order to distinguish them from terms you define. Unless terms appear in brackets, enter them in the order and with the spelling shown. Because these terms are not case sensitive, you can use them in either UPPERCASE or lowercase.	SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees; SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES; DROP TABLE hr.employees;
lowercase	Lowercase typeface indicates user-defined programmatic elements, such as names of tables, columns, or files. Note: Some programmatic elements use a mixture of UPPERCASE and lowercase. Enter these elements as shown.	SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees; sqlplus hr/hr CREATE USER mjones IDENTIFIED BY ty3MU9;

Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

The following table describes conventions for Windows operating systems and provides examples of their use.

Convention	Meaning	Example
Choose Start > menu item	How to start a program.	To start the Database Configuration Assistant, choose Start > Programs > Oracle - HOME_NAME > Configuration and Migration Tools > Database Configuration Assistant.
File and directory names	File and directory names are not case sensitive. The following special characters are not allowed: left angle bracket (<), right angle bracket (>), colon (:), double quotation marks ("), slash (/), pipe (|), and dash (-). The special character backslash (\) is treated as an element separator, even when it appears in quotes. If the filename begins with \\, then Windows assumes it uses the Universal Naming Convention.	c:\winnt"\"system32 is the same as C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32
C:\>	Represents the Windows command prompt of the current hard disk drive. The escape character in a command prompt is the caret (^). Your prompt reflects the subdirectory in which you are working. Referred to as the command prompt in this manual.	C:\oracle\oradata>
Special characters	The backslash (\) special character is sometimes required as an escape character for the double quotation mark (") special character at the Windows command prompt. Parentheses and the single quotation mark (') do not require an escape character. Refer to your Windows operating system documentation for more information on escape and special characters.	C:\> exp HR/HR TABLES=emp QUERY=\"WHERE job='REP'\"
HOME_NAME	Represents the Oracle home name. The home name can be up to 16 alphanumeric characters. The only special character allowed in the home name is the underscore.	C:\> net start OracleHOME_NAMETNSListener
ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_BASE	In releases prior to Oracle8i release 8.1.3, when you installed Oracle components, all subdirectories were located under a top level ORACLE_HOME directory. The default for Windows NT was C:\orant. This release complies with Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) guidelines. All subdirectories are not under a top level ORACLE_HOME directory. There is a top level directory called ORACLE_BASE that by default is C:\oracle\product\10.1.0. If you install the latest Oracle release on a computer with no other Oracle software installed, then the default setting for the first Oracle home directory is C:\oracle\product\10.1.0\db_n, where n is the latest Oracle home number. The Oracle home directory is located directly under ORACLE_BASE. All directory path examples in this guide follow OFA conventions. Refer to Oracle10i Database Installation Guide for Windows for additional information about OFA compliances and for information about installing Oracle products in non-OFA compliant directories.	Go to the ORACLE_BASE\ORACLE_HOME\rdbms\admin directory.