Identify resource intensive sessions in heterogeneous database environments with TOAD The modern database administrator (DBA) is under pressure. Here are some points of the challenges he has today: Varying Database Platforms Changing Base Technology Virtualization, Cloud, Storage Less Control Increase Demand for Improved Performance Big Data Exponential Growth DBA Lower Costs Beside his daily tasks he has to take these challenges, especially to deliver support for different types of databases. In the old days in most cases there was only one database vendor in the company like for example Oracle or DB2. Since several years we see the growth of MS SQL Server databases and several Windows server or clients hosted this database type now, similar for MySQL. With the Big Data hype a new kind of database style is born No SQL databases like Hadoop, MongoDB and others for saving your unstructed data. And who has to support this - as the DBA of the relational databases in your company it comes to you! So when one of these databases is slow and it looks like a performance issue, then you have to identify the resource intensive sessions. Toad can help you here to cover your heterogeneous database environments. I want to show you, how this works with some database examples and will start with DB2. Here Toad can help for DB2 z/os as well for DB2 LUW. In Toad for IBM DB2 on z/os in the Database Explorer you will find under your DB2 subsystem the threads view. With the help of the display command all your active threads will be shown and you get an overview on the sessions are running here. Also here you can find, which DB2 utility is just running or how my dynamic statement cache looks: TOAD for Databases Side 1
Under Toad for IBM DB2 on LUW you will find similar information under Database in the Database Explorer, but here you will find the active sessions under the Applications tab: Under Oracle, MS SQL Server and Sybase you will use the Session Browser in Toad to get information about your resource intensive sessions. Starting with Toad for Oracle you will find the Session Browser under the Database menu: TOAD for Databases Side 2
After starting the Session Browser you will get a nice overview of all the sessions, which are running on your Oracle database: Toad for SQL Server has also a Session Browser and shows the sessions on your MS SQL Server databases. Nice to have here also some chart views: TOAD for Databases Side 3
Under Sybase you will get with Toad for Sybase a similar Session Browser: In all Toads are more possibilities to help you to find resource intensive sessions or other performance issues in heterogeneous database environments. TOAD for Databases Side 4
Spotlight as a real time diagnostic tool is a great add-on to your Toad installation to get a general survey over his homepage and detail information with his drill-down capabilities. A short hint - the easiest way to get Spotlight is over the Toad DBA Suite license. Here as an example a look on Spotlight on Oracle Exadata. Homepage: Drill-Down: TOAD for Databases Side 5
Toad and Spotlight feature can help you for the real time diagnose. If you like to be a more pro active DBA and get a single overview on your heterogeneous database environments, then you should look for Foglight, which is a 24x7 application performance monitoring solution. The database dashboard of Foglight give you are great overall view: Just let you know, that Foglight covers more than only database monitoring. It delivers the whole application performance monitoring stack including database performance, application and end user monitoring. I hope this document gives you a good overview, how Dell Software can help you to identify resource intensive sessions in heterogeneous database environments. About the Author Udo Brede is Senior Solutions Architect Databases at Dell Software. Before joining Quest/DELL in 2001, Udo worked as a presales consultant at Compuware, supporting the File-AID products. Currently, Udo works primarily with Dell tools for BI, Oracle, DB2 z/os and DB2 LUW. He supports customers across Europe and speaks at IDUG Europe and regional DB2 and Oracle user groups meetings. TOAD for Databases Side 6