It is Totally Amazing...

I will begin blogging with a few thoughts on the time and energy other "experts" put into questioning everything said. I find it amazing the folks such as Howard J. Rogers can spend so much time and energy beating dead topics to death. Most of us have moved beyond arguments about index rebuilding and coalescing. I suggest them when it is indicated that it will help, it is one tool in a tuning experts arsenal. When I suggest a rebuild or a coalesce of an index in Oracle database systems it is only after a complete analysis points to the index as a problem.

Business must be slow down under for Howard to have so much free time. I have to grab a few minutes between running for the plane, working with customers all across the country and trying to keep up with my remote monitoring and tuning committments to swat at this annoying gadfly.

As to the whole debate (well, at least from Howards viewpoint it is a debate, for me it is just a tool to use when indicated) about reordering a column order in a concatenated index, again, Howard and others seem to feel that once an index is created it is sacred and can't be touched. Obviously they have never worked with a poorly crafted, poorly indexed third-party or custom generated application, for that matter, they must have never worked with Oracle's own Applications. I have seen applications where a table had 29 indexes. If I followed Howards way of thinking each would be a sacred object that I shouldn't touch because obviously the need for each was carefully considered and it would bring down the entire application to change it. Hog wash.

It merely shows that Howard spends too much time with theory and not enough in real-world tuning situations. I have been at over 24 client sites in the last 6 months doing tuning, optimizing and database evaluations. I find things that work and apply them as needed. My job is to help an ailing database back to health and to improve peformance of client applications. If this means that I drop, rebuild or otherwise change an index, then that is what it means. Heaven forbid, I even suggest adding an index occasionally!