Oracle Monitoring Moment: Stop Slow Oracle EBS SQL Code in Its Tracks with Top I-O Monitoring

Oracle is running slow. Again!

Oracle Apps DBA and Oracle EBS administrators are all too familiar with that phrase. Although Oracle E-Business Suite is certainly a best-of-breed ERP solution, too many organizations still struggle to get EBS out of second gear.

And that’s a bit surprising given that Oracle launched the product in 2001!

But more often than not, chronic sluggish Oracle EBS performance can be traced to a single root cause: Inefficient SQL code.

Yes, it might seem strange to chalk up poor performance of a major enterprise system to something as mundane as poorly programed SQL, but the truth is that inefficient SQL programs can end up consuming  almost all available system resources such as CPU, memory, and disk IO. Worse yet, as system resources get scarcer and scarcer, programs must wait to access those resources, further compounding delays.

Picture multiple outbound aircraft lining up for take off on a crowded tarmac and that gives you a good visualization of an Oracle EBS queuing delay.

The first response to slow ERP performance is to throw hardware or other system resources at the problem. But with Oracle E-Business Suite that approach rarely works, because inefficient programs consume system resources at an exponentially higher rates than their efficient counterparts.

In that light, it is easy to see why fixing one inefficient program benefits the entire system, because the inefficient program is no longer there to over-consume resources needed by the end-users and other programs.

That sounds simple enough. But finding a few lines of inefficient SQL code in an E-Business Suite solution that contains thousands of lines of code is literally like finding a needle in a haystack. And wouldn’t it be nice if Oracle EBS administrators had the equivalent of a high-power magnet to pull that needle out of a haystack?

Fortunately, that magnet exists, and it is called Syntax EnterpriseCare®.

Syntax EnterpriseCare® Top-IO Monitor at a Glance

As mentioned above, the hardest part of fixing inefficient SQL is finding it. Syntax’s Top-IO Monitor automatically detects inefficient SQL so that it can be repaired. Every hour, our Top-IO monitor automatically reviews all SQL activity and efficiency over time at the SQL ID level.

That information is available for clients to see via the Syntax Customer Hub where clients view detailed SQL information, and can see where the troublesome SQL originates and trace its impact on system performance. When the Top-IO monitor detects an inefficient SQL statement, our monitoring solution automatically creates a ServiceNow Incident and a Syntax DBA takes action. For issues related to seeded code, the DBA will open an SR with My Oracle Support. For custom code “CEMLI” issues, the Syntax team will work with the client directly.

Streamline SQL and Deliver the Robust Performance Your Company Deserves

How much of a difference can streamlining SQL make? Well, at Bluescope Buildings North America, running Cost Rollups used to take a full week. After moving to the Syntax Enterprise Cloud, BBNA cut those run times down to a day and a half and EnterpriseCare was a key tool that facilitated that improvement.

To learn more about Syntax EnterpriseCare®, click here. To read more about Bluescope Building’s experience click here or, to deliver robust Oracle E-Business Suite performance to your organization, contact us today and we’ll schedule a 1-1 meeting with one of our specialists.