1.52 CPU_COUNT

CPU_COUNT specifies the number of CPUs available for Oracle Database to use.

Property Description

Parameter type

Integer

Default value

0

Modifiable

ALTER SYSTEM

Modifiable in a PDB

Yes

Range of values

0 to unlimited

Basic

No

On CPUs with multiple CPU threads, it specifies the total number of available CPU threads. Various components of Oracle Database are configured based on the number of CPUs, such as the Optimizer, Parallel Query, and Resource Manager.

If CPU_COUNT is set to 0 (its default setting), then Oracle Database continuously monitors the number of CPUs reported by the operating system and uses the current count. If CPU_COUNT is set to a value other than 0, then Oracle Database will use this count rather than the actual number of CPUs, thus disabling dynamic CPU reconfiguration.

When Resource Manager is managing CPU (RESOURCE_MANAGER_PLAN is set), then the database's CPU utilization is limited to CPU_COUNT CPU threads. This feature is called Instance Caging. If Resource Manager is enabled at the CDB level, then the PDB's CPU utilization is limited to the PDB's CPU_COUNT.

Note:

Setting CPU_COUNT to a value greater than the current number of CPUs results in an error. However, if CPU_COUNT is set to a value greater than the current number of CPUs in the initialization parameter file, then CPU_COUNT is capped to the current number of CPUs.

Note:

When a value is not explicitly set for CPU_COUNT, the maximum default value for CPU_COUNT is 2 for an Oracle ASM Proxy instance, 4 for an Oracle ASM instance, and 8 for an Oracle IOServer instance.

See Also:

  • Oracle Database VLDB and Partitioning Guide for information about how CPU_COUNT is used to determine the default degree of parallelism for a single instance or Oracle RAC configuration when the PARALLEL clause is specified but no degree of parallelism is listed

  • Oracle Database Administrator’s Guide for an example of how CPU resources are allocated if you enable instance caging and set a maximum utilization limit in a resource plan