* Chapter 4, Identifying and Understanding Operating System Contention: This chapter focuses on each subsystem (I/O, memory, CPU, and network), teaching you how to quantify both throughput and contention (entire system and top processes) using standard Unix/Linux tools. If you want to effectively fight performance fires, you must be able to quickly find the operating system bottleneck and relate that to Oracle.

* Chapter 5, Oracle Performance Diagnosis: This chapter rounds out and digs very deep into, among other things, gathering performance statistics, avoiding myths and pitfalls, dealing with the realities of modern Oracle architectures, and taking advantage of advanced Oracle data collection capabilities. It also introduces Oracle's built-in kernel-level data collector, known as active session history, or ASH for short.

* Chapter 6, Oracle Buffer Cache Internals: Oracle's buffer cache operation must be smooth, contention-free, and speedy for optimal performance. There are a large number of Oracle wait events surrounding the buffer cache. The buffer cache is an amazing Oracle technical accomplishment, and it's our job to ensure it is running optimally. I will go deep into the key algorithms, including how to diagnose real problems and resolve them.