Objectives

These notes introduce the Oracle server architecture. The architecture includes physical components,
memory components, processes, and logical structures.

Primary Architecture Components

The figure shown above details the Oracle architecture.

Oracle server: An Oracle server includes an Oracle Instance and an Oracle database.

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  An Oracle database includes several different types of files: datafiles, control files, redo log files and
archive redo log files. Oracle database also contains User and server processes.

 The database server must manage large amounts of data in a multi-user environment.
 The server must manage concurrent access to the same data.
 The server must deliver high performance. This generally means fast response times.

Oracle instance: An Oracle Instance consists of two different sets of components:

 The first component set is the set of background processes (PMON, SMON, RECO, DBW0, LGWR,
CKPT, D000 and others).
o These processes perform input/output and monitor other Oracle processes to provide good
performance and database reliability.
 The second component set includes the memory structures that comprise the Oracle instance.
o When an instance starts up, a memory structure called the System Global Area (SGA) is
allocated.
o At this point the background processes also start.
 An Oracle Instance provides access to one and only one Oracle database.

Oracle database: An Oracle database consists of files.

 Sometimes these are referred to as operating system files, but they are actually database files that
store the database information that a firm or organization needs in order to operate.
 The redo log files are used to recover the database in the event of application program failures,
instance failures and other minor failures.
 The archived redo log files are used to recover the database if a disk fails.
 Other files not shown in the figure include:
o The required parameter file that is used to specify parameters for configuring an Oracle
instance when it starts up.
o The optional password file authenticates special users of the database – these are
termed privileged users and include database administrators.
o Alert and Trace Log Files – these files store information about errors and actions taken that
affect the configuration of the database.

User and server processes: The processes shown in the figure are called user and server processes.
These processes are used to manage the execution of SQL statements.
 A Shared Server Process can share memory and variable processing for multiple user processes.
 A Dedicated Server Process manages memory and variables for a single user process.

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Connecting to an Oracle Instance – Creating a Session

System users can connect to an Oracle database through SQLPlus or through an

application program. This connection enables users to execute SQL statements.

The act of connecting creates a communication pathway between a user process and
an Oracle Server. As is shown in the figure above, the User Process communicates
with the Oracle Server through a Server Process. The User Process executes on the
client computer. The Server Process executes on the server computer, and actually
executes SQL statements submitted by the system user.

The figure shows a one-to-one correspondence between the User and Server
Processes. This is called a Dedicated Server connection. An alternative
configuration is to use a Shared Server where more than one User Process shares a
Server Process.

Sessions: When a user connects to an Oracle server, this is termed a

session. The User Global Area is session memory and these memory structures are
described later in this document. The session starts when the Oracle server validates
the user for connection. The session ends when the user logs out (disconnects) or if
the connection terminates abnormally (network failure or client computer failure).

A user can typically have more than one concurrent session, e.g., the user may
connect using SQLPlus and also connect using Internet Developer Suite tools at the
same time. The limit of concurrent session connections is controlled by the DBA.

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If a system users attempts to connect and the Oracle Server is not running, the system
user receives the Oracle Not Available error message.

Physical Structure – Database Files

As was noted above, an Oracle database consists of physical files. The database itself
has:
 Datafiles – these contain the organization's actual data.
 Redo log files – these contain a chronological record of changes made to the
database, and enable recovery when failures occur.
 Control files – these are used to synchronize all database activities and are
covered in more detail in a later module.

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Memory Management and Memory Structures
Oracle Database Memory Management
Memory management - focus is to maintain optimal sizes for memory structures.
 Memory is managed based on memory-related initialization parameters.
 These values are stored in the init.ora file for each database.

Three basic options for memory management are as follows:

 Automatic memory management:
o DBA specifies the target size for instance memory.
o The database instance automatically tunes to the target memory size.
o Database redistributes memory as needed between the SGA and the
instance PGA.

 Automatic shared memory management:

o This management mode is partially automated.
o DBA specifies the target size for the SGA.
o DBA can optionally set an aggregate target size for the PGA or managing
PGA work areas individually.

 Manual memory management:

o Instead of setting the total memory size, the DBA sets many initialization
parameters to manage components of the SGA and instance PGA
individually.

The memory structures include three areas of memory:

 System Global Area (SGA) – this is allocated when an Oracle Instance starts up.
 Program Global Area (PGA) – this is allocated when a Server Process starts up.
 User Global Area (UGA) – this is allocated when a user connects to create a
session.

System Global Area

The SGA is a read/write memory area that stores information shared by all database
processes and by all users of the database (sometimes it is called the Shared Global
Area).
o This information includes both organizational data and control information used by
the Oracle Server.

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 o The SGA is allocated in memory and virtual memory.
o The size of the SGA can be established by a DBA by assigning a value to the
parameter SGA_MAX_SIZE in the parameter file—this is an optional parameter.

The SGA is allocated when an Oracle instance (database) is started up based on

values specified in the initialization parameter file (either PFILE or SPFILE).

The SGA has the following mandatory memory structures:

 Database Buffer Cache
 Redo Log Buffer
 Java Pool
 Streams Pool
 Shared Pool – includes two components:
o Library Cache
o Data Dictionary Cache
 Other structures (for example, lock and latch management, statistical data)

Additional optional memory structures in the SGA include:

 Large Pool

The SHOW SGA SQL command will show you the SGA memory allocations.
SQL> connect system/ system as sysdba
Connected.

SQL> show sga

Total System Global Area 1610612736 bytes

Fixed Size 2084296 bytes
Variable Size 1006633528 bytes
Database Buffers 587202560 bytes
Redo Buffers 14692352 bytes

Early versions of Oracle used a Static SGA. This meant that if modifications to
memory management were required, the database had to be shutdown, modifications
were made to the init.ora parameter file, and then the database had to be restarted.

Oracle 11g uses a Dynamic SGA. Memory configurations for the system global area
can be made without shutting down the database instance. The DBA can resize the
Database Buffer Cache and Shared Pool dynamically.

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The size of the SGA cannot exceed the parameter SGA_MAX_SIZE minus the
combination of the size of the additional
parameters, DB_CACHE_SIZE, LOG_BUFFER, SHARED_POOL_SIZE,LARGE_PO
OL_SIZE, and JAVA_POOL_SIZE.

Memory is allocated to the SGA as contiguous virtual memory in units termed

granules. Granule size depends on the estimated total size of the SGA, which as was
noted above, depends on the SGA_MAX_SIZE parameter. Granules are sized as
follows:
 If the SGA is less than 1 GB in total, each granule is 4 MB.
 If the SGA is greater than 1 GB in total, each granule is 16 MB.

Granules are assigned to the Database Buffer Cache, Shared Pool, Java Pool, and
other memory structures, and these memory components can dynamically grow and
shrink. Using contiguous memory improves system performance. The actual number
of granules assigned to one of these memory components can be determined by
querying the database view named V$BUFFER_POOL.

Granules are allocated when the Oracle server starts a database instance in order to
provide memory addressing space to meet the SGA_MAX_SIZE parameter. The
minimum is 3 granules: one each for the fixed SGA, Database Buffer Cache, and
Shared Pool. In practice, you'll find the SGA is allocated much more memory than
this. The SELECT statement shown below shows details of the granules allocated to
BUFFER_POOL.

SELECT name, block_size, current_size, prev_size, prev_buffers

FROM v$buffer_pool;

NAME BLOCK_SIZE CURRENT_SIZE PREV_SIZE

PREV_BUFFERS
-------------------- ---------- ------------ ---------- --------
----
DEFAULT 8192 560 576 7
1244

Program Global Area (PGA)

A PGA is:
 a nonshared memory region that contains data and control information
exclusively for use by an Oracle process.

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  A PGA is created by Oracle Database when an Oracle process is started.
 One PGA exists for each Server Process and each Background Process. It
stores data and control information for a single Server Process or a
single Background Process.
 It is allocated when a process is created and the memory is scavenged by the
operating system when the process terminates. This is NOT a shared part of
memory – one PGA to each process only.
 The collection of individual PGAs is the total instance PGA, or instance PGA.
 Database initialization parameters set the size of the instance PGA, not
individual PGAs.

The Program Global Area is also termed the Process Global Area (PGA) and is a
part of memory allocated that is outside of the Oracle Instance.

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The content of the PGA varies, but as shown in the figure above, generally includes
the following:

User Global Area

The User Global Area is session memory.

A session that loads a PL/SQL package into memory has the package state stored to
the UGA. The package state is the set of values stored in all the package variables at
a specific time. The state changes as program code the variables. By default, package
variables are unique to and persist for the life of the session.

The OLAP page pool is also stored in the UGA. This pool manages OLAP data
pages, which are equivalent to data blocks. The page pool is allocated at the start of
an OLAP session and released at the end of the session. An OLAP session opens
automatically whenever a user queries a dimensional object such as a cube.

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