From a CPU subsystem perspective, it is not possible to increase scalability by somehow splitting a single Oracle server process activity onto multiple CPU cores. Our only option is to decrease total service time to use faster CPUs. Because of cost and budgetary timing issues, we do not want to entertain this option unless absolutely necessary. So at this point, we will not seek to improve performance by increasing the CPU subsystem capacity.

Based solely on the v$sysstat performance view, the IO subsystem is receiving read requests at nearly 530 MB/s. Oracle read requests (db file scattered read) are being satisfied in less than 1 ms, which indicates the Oracle blocks reside in the operating system buffer cache! While not shown in Figure 9-22, the average IO device utilization is around 2%, meaning they are idle.

The Oracle and application tuning strategies are intended to reduce the number of IO read calls, making an increase in IO activity and subsequent IO performance issues highly unlikely.