Oracle Database Connectivity

Oracle Connectivity

Oracle provides Oracle Net Services which is a suite of components that provides a connectivity solution. Oracle Net Service consist of

Oracle Net - software component that initiates, establishes and maintains connections between client and servers, it contains two components
- oracle network foundation layer - responsible for establishing and maintaining connections
- oracle support protocol - responsible for mapping Transparent Network Substrate (TNS)
Oracle Net Listener - Listens for incoming requests from users
Oracle Connection Manager - GUI based utility
Oracle Net Configuration Assistant - GUI based utility , configure network components
Oracle Net Manager - GUI based utility, configures various naming methods and listeners
Oracle Enterprise Manager - can do everything

Database Service Name

Databases logically appear as services, you identify each database in your system by its service name. The database instance name refers to the SGA and processes that make up the instance, this is commonly referred as the Oracle System Identifier (SID), normally a database is only associated with one instance apart from when using a RAC environment. You can uniquely identify each database by using a global database name which is in the format of database_name.database_domain (sales.us.acme.com).

Connection

You need two pieces of information to connect to a database

Name of the database server - name of the service that oracle is supplying
Location of the address - need to supply the protocol type (default TCP) , hostname and the port number (default 1521)

Oracle supports a number of protocols TCP, SDP, TCP with secure sockets and named pipes. There are two ways to connect to oracle dedicated or Shared Server, both could be running at the same time on the same server. There are 4 connection types

Dedicated - direct handoff (client and server are on the same computer)
Dedicated - redirect (client and server are on different computers)
Shared server - direct handoff (client and server are on the same computer)
Shared server - redirect (client and server are on different computers)

To connect to a oracle service you would use a connect string

Connect String

connect scott/tiger@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=sales)(PORT=1521))
(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=sales.us.acme.com)))

connect scott/tiger@sales

Listener

Oracle listener only runs on the server and listens for incoming client connections, a utility called lsnrctl is used to manage the listener process. The listeners role is

The database registers information about the services, instances and service handlers with the listener
The client makes the initial connection with the listener
The listener receives and verifies the connection and forwards it to the service handler, once the listener hands off the request, the listener is out of the picture.

The listener.ora file contains the listener configuration details, with oracle 10g the listener can automatically register itself with the database, The PMON process updates the listener.ora file with any new databases.

Dynamically register the default listener

1. Register the default listener to the instance

# alter system set instance_name = P01;
# alter system set service_names = P01;

Note: port 1521 is assumed, you do not need to update the listener.ora file

Dynamically register a non-default listener

1. Create the listener (use Net Manager)
2. Create the Net Service name (Use Net Configuration Assistant)
3. Register the service with the instance

# alter system set local_listener = 'P01_1522';
# alter system register;

Note: you need to update the listener.ora and tnsnames.ora files

The listener utility lsnrctl can be used to manage the listener

starting	lsnrctl start
stopping	lsnrctl stop
status	lsnrctl status
Reloading configuration	lsnrctl reload
Display Services	lsnrctl services
Save the configuration	lsnrctl save_config
Set tracing ON	lsnrctl trace
Help	lsnrctl help
Number of set/show commands	current_listener displaymode inbound_connection_timeout log_status log_file log_directory trc_level trc_file trc_directory password (only set is available)

An example listener.ora file

listener.ora

# listener.ora Network Configuration File: C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\NETWORK\ADMIN\listener.ora
# Generated by Oracle configuration tools.

SID_LIST_LISTENER =
(SID_LIST =
   (SID_DESC =
      (SID_NAME = PLSExtProc)
      (ORACLE_HOME = C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1)
      (PROGRAM = extproc)
   )
)

LISTENER =
(DESCRIPTION_LIST =
   (DESCRIPTION =
      (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = IPC)(KEY = EXTPROC1))
   )
   (DESCRIPTION =
      (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = laptop)(PORT = 1521))
   )
)

Naming and Connectivity

Oracle also several types of naming services

local naming - uses a file called tnsnames.ora on the client
host naming - uses host file or DNS to resolve hostname, you must use TCP.
easy connect naming - can supply the service information on the command line
external naming - Use third party naming services to resolve service names i.e. NIS
directory naming - centralized LDAP-compliant directory server to resolve service names

Host Naming

c:\> set ORACLE_SID=P01

c:\> sqlplus vallep/secret@laptop

Note: DNS will resolve the laptop name

Easy Connect

c:\> sqlplus vallep/secret@laptop:1522/P01
c:\> sqlplus vallep/secret@//laptop/P01

Local Naming

Add an entry in the tnsnames.ora file

P01 =
(DESCRIPTION =
   (ADDRESS_LIST =
      (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = laptop)(PORT = 1521))
   )
   (CONNECT_DATA =
      (SERVER = DEDICATED)
      (SERVICE_NAME = P01)
   )
)

Note:can use the TNS_ADMIN environment variable to point to different tnsnames.ora files

The sqlnet.ora file specifies which order to try (bit like the nsswitch.conf file in unix)

sqlnet.ora

NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH=(TNSNAMES,EZCONNECT,HOSTNAME)
NAMES.DEFAULT_DOMAIN=DATADISK.CO.UK

File locations

adaptors	$oracle_home/bin/adapters
listener	$oracle_home/network/admin/listener.ora
tnsnames	$oracle_home/network/admin/tnsnames.ora
sqlnet	$oracle_home/network/admin/sqlnet.ora
listener log	$oracle_home/network/log.listener.log
server tracing	$oracle_home/network/trace/listener.trc

Dedicated Connection

Oracle will create a new process when you log on, this is commonly know as the dedicated server process, the process will exists as long as the connection exists. For every session a new dedicated server process will be created. This process will receive SQL and execute it, read data files and look in the database cache for data. It will also perform update statements and run any PL/SQL code. The flow of this process is seen below:

Shared Server Connection

The big difference between dedicated and shared server is that the client process never talks directly to the shared server process. Oracle employs a process called dispatcher which will put clients requests into a request queue in the SGA (1), the first shared server process that is not busy will pick up the request and process it (2), upon completion the shared server will place the response in the response queue (3). The dispatcher process is monitoring this queue and upon seeing a result, will transmit it to the client (4), the flow of this action is seen below:

Normally one shared server process should be able to handle between 10-20 users. A dispatcher should be able to handle about 100 shared server processes. A good rule to thumb when setting the parameter values (pfile or spfile) should be the following:

SHARED_SERVERS should be set for slightly greater than the expected number of shared servers that will be needed when the database is at an average load.

MAX_SHARED_SERVERS should be set for slightly greater than the expected number of shared servers that will be needed when the database is at an peak load

Add dispatcher processes while Oracle is running with the SET option of the ALTER SYSTEM statement to increase the value for the DISPATCHERS initialization parameter.

The total number of dispatcher processes is limited by the value of the initialization parameter MAX_DISPATCHERS. You might need to increase this value before adding dispatcher processes. The default value of this parameter is five, and the maximum value varies depending on your operating system

The big picture

The following diagram details what we have seen before, connection via shared server and dedicated server. It also shows that an Oracle instance may use both connections type simultaneously:

A circuit is a piece of shared memory that the client connections are bound to during communications it is called a virtual circuit.

The background process PMON notifies the listener as to which dispatcher is responsible for servicing each virtual circuit. This information is supplied when you run "lsnrctl services" and has 4 values established, refused, current and max.

Connectivity Setup
Setup Dispatchers	# alter system set dispatchers="(protocol=TCP)(dispatchers=2)"; # alter system set dispatchers="(protocol=IPC)(dispatchers=2)"; # alter system set dispatchers="(protocol=TCP)(dispatchers=2)(pool=on)(tick=1)(connections=500)(sessions=1000)"; # alter system set max_dispatchers = 10; pool - provides connection pooling tick - number of 10 minute intervals of inactivity for a connection to be considered idle connections - maximum number of concurrent sessions sessions - maximum number of sessions per dispatcher listener - address of listener to which PMON sends info to when listener is non-local and the local_listener is not set
Shared Server	# alter system set shared_servers = 5; # alter system set shared_server_sessions = 2; # alter system set max_shared_server = 20; shared_servers - the system will initially start this many (default = 1) shared_server_sessions - maximum number of shared server sessions max_shared_server - shared servers will grow to this limit Note: If at anytime you get ORA-00018 errors (Logging in or EM reports this error) this is because "shared_server_sessions" has been set too low
Circuits	# alter system set circuits = 300;
Useful Views
V$DISPATCHER	displays information about the dispatcher processes
V$DISPATCHER_CONFIG	displays information about the dispatcher configurations and their attributes
V$DISPATCHER_RATE	displays rate statistics for a number of activities performed by the dispatcher processes
V$QUEUE	contains information on the shared server message queues
V$SHARED_SERVER	contains information on the shared server processes
V$SHARED_SERVER_MONITOR	contains information for tuning the shared server
V$CIRCUIT	contains information about virtual circuits, which are user connections to the database through dispatchers and servers
V$SESSION	lists session information for each current session
Useful SQL Code
List the dedicated server processes	select a.spid dedicated_server, b.process clientpid from v$process a, v$session b where a.addr = b.paddr and b.audsid = userenv('sessionid'); Note: remove the last line for all dedicated processes
List the dispatchers	Select * from v$dispatcher;
List the shared server processes	select count(*) "Shared Server processes" from v$shared_server where status != 'QUIT';
Display average wait time per request	SELECT DECODE(TOTALQ, 0, 'No Requests',WAIT/TOTALQ \|\| ' HUNDREDTHS OF SECONDS') "AVERAGE WAIT TIME PER REQUESTS" FROM V$QUEUE WHERE TYPE = 'COMMON';
Display levels and maximum levels	select 'session count from v$session', count(*) from v$session union select 'session utilization from v$resource_limit', current_utilization from v$resource_limit where resource_name = 'sessions';

Best Practices

When using shared server make sure that transactions are short in duration, they can be frequent but short, otherwise it will appear to be a total system slowdown due to the shared resources being monopolized by a few processes. So shared server is highly appropriate for an OLTP system (short, frequent transactions). Do not used shared server for data warehousing.

So shared server does 3 things for us:

Reduces the number of O/S process/threads
Allow you to artificially limit the degree of concurrency
Reduces the memory needed on the system

Unless your system is overloaded, or you need to use shared server ( if you want to talk to a EJB database) then a dedicated server will serve best.