About Determining a Value for SHARED_SERVERS
The SHARED_SERVERS initialization parameter specifies the minimum number of shared servers that you want created when the instance is started. After instance startup, Oracle Database can dynamically adjust the number of shared servers based on how busy existing shared servers are and the length of the request queue.
In typical systems, the number of shared servers stabilizes at a ratio of one shared server for every ten connections. For OLTP applications, when the rate of requests is low, or when the ratio of server usage to request is low, the connections-to-servers ratio could be higher. In contrast, in applications where the rate of requests is high or the server usage-to-request ratio is high, the connections-to-server ratio could be lower.
The PMON (process monitor) background process cannot terminate shared servers below the value specified by SHARED_SERVERS. Therefore, you can use this parameter to stabilize the load and minimize strain on the system by preventing PMON from terminating and then restarting shared servers because of coincidental fluctuations in load.
If you know the average load on your system, you can set SHARED_SERVERS to an optimal value. The following example shows how you can use this parameter:
Assume a database is being used by a telemarketing center staffed by 1000 agents. On average, each agent spends 90% of the time talking to customers and only 10% of the time looking up and updating records. To keep the shared servers from being terminated as agents talk to customers and then spawned again as agents access the database, a DBA specifies that the optimal number of shared servers is 100.
However, not all work shifts are staffed at the same level. On the night shift, only 200 agents are needed. Since SHARED_SERVERS is a dynamic parameter, a DBA reduces the number of shared servers to 20 at night, thus allowing resources to be freed up for other tasks such as batch jobs.
Comments
Post a Comment