One of the frustrating parts of my work is when people (and sometimes students) want nothing but Oracle internals knowledge. Without exception, they are the ones who, when faced with a case study or a real Oracle system, stare at the screen wondering where to start, spend time on nonproductive analysis, and have extreme difficulty communicating to others what they are doing and why they are doing it. Therefore, in this book, I will take the liberty to abstract where I feel it is best for real-life production Oracle database system performance analysis.

In this book, references to methodology, performance diagnosis, and communication apply to all Oracle versions since Oracle 6. They are not affected by Oracle version changes. This is great news, because it allows a consistent and proven approach that spans time. And we'll use that to our advantage!

Core Oracle internal algorithms are covered up until the printing of this book. But don't let that stop you from enjoying and gleaning what this book has to offer. Most of the core Oracle algorithms that I present are so central to Oracle's interworkings that their relation to real-life production Oracle system performance analysis remains constant. Sure, you can find exceptions, but with 99.9% of Oracle performance issues, this is not the case. This book is focused on real systems, not laptop test cases designed just to make a point.