Uniquely parallel

Here’s a surprising (to me) execution plan from 12.1.0.2 – parallel execution to find one row in a table using a unique scan of a unique index – produced by running the following script (data creation SQL to follow):

set serveroutput off
set linesize 180
set trimspool on
set pagesize 60

alter session set statistics_level = all;

variable b1 number
exec :b1 := 50000

select /*+ parallel (3) */ id, v1 from t2 where id=:b1;

select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'allstats parallel'));

break on dfo_number skip 1 on tq_id skip 1 on server_type

select
        dfo_number, tq_id, server_type, instance, process, num_rows
from
        v$pq_tqstat
order by
        dfo_number, tq_id, server_type desc, instance, process
;

All I’ve done is enable rowsource execution statistics, set a bind variable to a value, query a table with a /*+ parallel(3) */ hint to find the one row that will be identified by primary key, and then reported the actual execution plan. When I first ran the test Oracle didn’t report the execution statistics correctly so I’ve also queried v$pq_tqstat to show the PX servers used and the flow of data through the plan. Here’s the plan, followed by the  results from v$pq_tqstat:

SQL_ID  0dzynh9d29pt9, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select /*+ parallel (3) */ id,v1 from t2 where id=:b1

Plan hash value: 247082613

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                         | Name     | Starts | E-Rows |    TQ  |IN-OUT| PQ Distrib | A-Rows |   A-Time   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                  |          |      1 |        |        |      |            |      1 |00:00:00.02 |
|   1 |  PX COORDINATOR                   |          |      1 |        |        |      |            |      1 |00:00:00.02 |
|   2 |   PX SEND QC (RANDOM)             | :TQ10001 |      0 |      1 |  Q1,01 | P->S | QC (RAND)  |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID    | T2       |      0 |      1 |  Q1,01 | PCWP |            |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   4 |     BUFFER SORT                   |          |      0 |        |  Q1,01 | PCWC |            |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   5 |      PX RECEIVE                   |          |      0 |      1 |  Q1,01 | PCWP |            |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   6 |       PX SEND HASH (BLOCK ADDRESS)| :TQ10000 |      0 |      1 |  Q1,00 | S->P | HASH (BLOCK|      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   7 |        PX SELECTOR                |          |      0 |        |  Q1,00 | SCWC |            |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|*  8 |         INDEX UNIQUE SCAN         | T2_PK    |      0 |      1 |  Q1,00 | SCWP |            |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   8 - access("ID"=:B1)

Note
-----
   - Degree of Parallelism is 3 because of hint

DFO_NUMBER      TQ_ID SERVER_TYP   INSTANCE PROCES   NUM_ROWS
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ------ ----------
         1          0 Producer            1 P003            0
                                          1 P004            1
                                          1 P005            0
                      Consumer            1 P000            0
                                          1 P001            1
                                          1 P002            0

                    1 Producer            1 P000            0
                                          1 P001            1
                                          1 P002            0
                      Consumer            1 QC              1

As you can see the table access follows a unique scan of an index and, although the rowsource execution stats report zero starts for the unique scan, we can see from v$pq_tqstat that slave P004 acquired a “row” (actually a rowid) and passed it to slave P001 which then acquired a row from the table and passed that row to the query coordinator. Oracle really did execute a parallel query, starting and stopping a total of 6 sessions to perform a single unique index access.

You’ll notice operation 7 is one you’ve only seen in the latest version of Oracle. The PX SELECTOR was introduced in 12c to reduce the number of times a complex parallel query would funnel into the query coordinator (parallel to serial) and then fan out again (serial to parallel) generating a new data flow operation tree (DFO tree) spawning one or two new parallel server groups as it did so. To stop this happening a step that needs to serialise in a 12c parallel plan can nominate one of the existing PX server processes (from each set, if necessary) to do the job so that the same set of PX servers can carry on running the query without the need for a new DFO tree to appear.

This enhancement to parallel execution plans is a good idea – except when it appears in my silly little query and turns something that ought to be quick and cheap into a job that is far more resource-intensive than it should be.

At this point, of course, you’re probably wondering what kind of idiot would put a parallel() hint into a query that was doing nothing but selecting one row by primary key – the answer is: “the Oracle optimizer in 12c”. I discovered this anomaly while creating a demonstration of the way that a distributed parallel query has to serialise through a single database link even if the operations at the two ends of the link run parallel. Here’s the SQL I wrote for the full demonstration:

rem     Script:         distributed_pq.sql
rem     Author:         Jonathan Lewis
rem     Dated:          May 2016

define m_remote='test@loopback'
define m_remote='orcl@loopback'

create table t1
nologging
as
with generator as (
        select  --+ materialize
                rownum id
        from dual
        connect by
                level <= 1e4
)
select
        cast(rownum as number(8,0))                     id,
        cast(lpad(rownum,8,'0') as varchar2(8))         v1,
        cast(rpad('x',100) as varchar2(100))            padding
from
        generator       v1,
        generator       v2
where
        rownum <= 1e5
;

create table t2
as
select  *
from    t1
where   mod(id,100) = 0
;

alter table t2 add constraint t2_pk primary key(id);

begin
        dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(
                ownname          => user,
                tabname          =>'T1',
                method_opt       => 'for all columns size 1'
        );

        dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(
                ownname          => user,
                tabname          =>'T2',
                method_opt       => 'for all columns size 1'
        );
end;
/

set serveroutput off

select
        /*+ parallel(3) */
        t1.v1, t2.v1
from
        t1,
        t2@&m_remote
where
        mod(t1.id,10) = 0
and     t2.id = t1.id
and     mod(to_number(t2.v1),10) = 1
;

select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'allstats parallel'));

If you want to run this demo you’ll need to do something about formatting the output; more importantly you’ll have to create a database link (with a loopback link) and set up a define identifying it at the line where I’ve got orcl@loopback and test@loopback (which are my 12c and 11g loopback links respectively).

Here’s the plan (with rowsource stats) I got from the 12c test:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation             | Name     | Starts | E-Rows |    TQ  |IN-OUT| PQ Distrib | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers | Reads  |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT      |          |      1 |        |        |      |            |      0 |00:01:14.67 |       7 |      0 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS         |          |      1 |     10 |        |      |            |      0 |00:01:14.67 |       7 |      0 |
|   2 |   PX COORDINATOR      |          |      1 |        |        |      |            |  10000 |00:00:00.11 |       7 |      0 |
|   3 |    PX SEND QC (RANDOM)| :TQ10000 |      0 |   1000 |  Q1,00 | P->S | QC (RAND)  |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |      0 |
|   4 |     PX BLOCK ITERATOR |          |      3 |   1000 |  Q1,00 | PCWC |            |  10000 |00:03:17.72 |    1745 |   1667 |
|*  5 |      TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1       |     39 |   1000 |  Q1,00 | PCWP |            |  10000 |00:00:00.06 |    1745 |   1667 |
|   6 |   REMOTE              | T2       |  10000 |      1 |        |      |            |      0 |00:01:14.44 |       0 |      0 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   5 - access(:Z>=:Z AND :Z<=:Z)
       filter(MOD("T1"."ID",10)=0)

Remote SQL Information (identified by operation id):
----------------------------------------------------
   6 - SELECT /*+ SHARED (3) */ "ID","V1" FROM "T2" "T2" WHERE "ID"=:1 AND MOD(TO_NUMBER("V1"),10)=1
       (accessing 'ORCL@LOOPBACK' )

Note
-----
   - Degree of Parallelism is 3 because of hint

I have hacked this output a little – the “Remote SQL” section didn’t get reported by display_cursor(), so I’ve inserted the remote sql I got from a call to dbms_xplan.display() after using explain plan to generate a plan. Note the /*+ shared(3) */ hint that appears in the remote SQL – that’s the internal version of a parallel(3) hint.

In 11g the query complete in 2.4 seconds, in 12c the query took nearly 75 seconds to run thanks to the 12c enhancement that allowed it to obey the hint! Looking at the time column (and ignoring the anomalous 3:17 at operation 4 – which might roughly be echoing 3 * 1:14) we can see that the time goes on the calls to the remote database (and a check of v$session_event shows this time spent in “SQL*Net message from db link”), so the obvious thing to do is check what actually happened at the remote database and we can do that by searching the library cache for a recognizable piece of the remote SQL – here’s the SQL to do that, with the results from 11g followed by the results from 12c:

SQL> select sql_id, child_number, executions, px_servers_executions, sql_text from v$sql
  2  where sql_text like '%SHARED%' and sql_text not like 'select sql_id%';

11g results
SQL_ID        CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PX_SERVERS_EXECUTIONS
------------- ------------ ---------- ---------------------
SQL_TEXT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c0f292z5czhwk            0      10000                     0
SELECT /*+ SHARED (3) */ "ID","V1" FROM "T2" "T2" WHERE MOD(TO_NUMBER("V1"),10)=1 AND "ID"=:1


12c results
SQL_ID        CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PX_SERVERS_EXECUTIONS
------------- ------------ ---------- ---------------------
SQL_TEXT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7bk51w7vtagwd            0      10000                     0
SELECT /*+ SHARED (3) */ "ID","V1" FROM "T2" "T2" WHERE "ID"=:1 AND MOD(TO_NUMBER("V1"),10)=1

7bk51w7vtagwd            1          0                 59995
SELECT /*+ SHARED (3) */ "ID","V1" FROM "T2" "T2" WHERE "ID"=:1 AND MOD(TO_NUMBER("V1"),10)=1

It’s not surprising to see that the query has executed 10,000 times – that’s what we were told by the Starts statistic from dbms_output.display_cursor(), but 12c has 60,000 (with a little error) PX Servers executions of the statement. That’s 10,000 executions * degree 3 * the 2 slave sets we saw in my original execution plan. (It’s an odd little quirk of the two versions of Oracle that the order of predicates in the remote SQL was reversed between 11g and 12c – leading to two different SQL_IDs).

By enabling rowsource execution stats at the system level I was able to capture the remote execution plan with its stats:

SQL_ID  7bk51w7vtagwd, child number 0
-------------------------------------
SELECT /*+ SHARED (3) */ "ID","V1" FROM "T2" "T2" WHERE "ID"=:1 AND
MOD(TO_NUMBER("V1"),10)=1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                         | Name     | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                  |          |      0 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   1 |  PX COORDINATOR                   |          |      0 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   2 |   PX SEND QC (RANDOM)             | :TQ10001 |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID    | T2       |  29983 |      1 |      0 |00:00:22.21 |    1000 |
|   4 |     BUFFER SORT                   |          |  29995 |        |    999 |00:00:21.78 |       0 |
|   5 |      PX RECEIVE                   |          |  29924 |      1 |    994 |00:00:21.21 |       0 |
|   6 |       PX SEND HASH (BLOCK ADDRESS)| :TQ10000 |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   7 |        PX SELECTOR                |          |  29993 |        |    999 |00:00:06.08 |   19992 |
|*  8 |         INDEX UNIQUE SCAN         | T2_PK    |  29999 |      1 |   1000 |00:00:00.24 |   20000 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter(MOD(TO_NUMBER("V1"),10)=1)
   8 - access("ID"=:1)

Unlike the test case I started with, this output did show the number of starts (with a few missing) and the work done across the slaves. Our index probe had to do two buffer gets on every execution, and we have 10,000 executions of the query so 20,000 buffer gets on the index unique scan. Even though only one slave actually does any work with the PX Selector, all three slaves in that set seem to “start” the relevant operations. The definition of the data meant that only one index probe in 10 was successful so we only visited 1,000 buffers from the table. If you’re familiar with reading plans with rowsource execution stats you’ll appreciate that something has gone wrong in the reporting here – that 1,000 at operation 3 should read 21,000 because it ought to include the 20,000 from the index scan (at least, that’s what a serial plan would do).

If you’re still wondering why running this query as a parallel query should take so long – after all it’s only 10,000 executions in 70 seconds – bear in mind that Oracle has to allocate and deallocate 6 PX servers to new sessions each time it starts; the instance activity stats showed “logons cumulative” going up by 60,000 each time I ran the driving query: that’s about 850 logons (and log offs) per second. I don’t think my test machine would give a realistic impression of the impact of a couple of copies of this query running simultaneously, but when I tried the contention introduce increased the run time to 93 seconds.

tl;dr

Watch out for poor performance becoming disastrous for distributed parallel queries when you upgrade from 11g to 12c

 

 

.

Distributed Sets

In an earlier post I’ve described how a distributed query can operate at a remote site if it’s a simple select but has to operate at the local site if it’s a CTAS (create as select) or insert as select. There’s (at least) one special case where this turns out to be untrue … provided you write the query in the correct fashion. I discovered this only as a result of doing a few experiments in response to a question on the OTN database forum.

Distributed Queries – 3

A comment I’ve made many times in the past about distributed queries is that Oracle doesn’t try to retrieve histogram information from remote databases when optimizing a query. Checking back through previous posts, though, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it on the blog – so here’s an example demonstrating the point.

Distributed Queries – 2

I have often said that the optimizer “forgets” that it is dealing with a distributed query once it has collected the stats that it can about the objects in the query, and that as a consequence the driving site for a distributed query will be the local database unless you use the /*+ driving_site */ hint to change it.

While investigating an oddity with a distributed query between two 11.1.0.7 databases a few days, I noticed something in the 10053 trace file that made me change my mind, and go back to look at earlier versions of Oracle.

Distributed Objects

I recently came across a tidy solution to a common problem – how to minimise code maintenance in a procedure while maximising flexibility of the procedure. The task was fairly simple – create a ref cursor for a calling program to return data that (a) followed complex selection rules and (b) allowed the user to specify numerous types of input.

The principle was simple – the final ref cursor was driven by a list of (say) order ids – and the details to be returned about those orders required some fairly complex SQL to execute. To separate the complexity of constructing the list of columns from the complexity of identifying the required rows the developers had split the procedure into two stages. First, select the list of relevant order ids using one of several possible statements – the appropriate statement being derived from analysis of the inputs to the procedure; secondly open a ref cursor using that list of order ids. In this way if a new set of rules for selection appeared the only new code needed was a new query to select the ids – the main body of code didn’t need to be modified and re-optimised.

Distributed Pipelines

In an article that I wrote about the /*+ driving_site */ hint a few months ago I pointed out that the hint was not supposed to work with “create table as select” (CTAS) and “insert as select”. One of the people commenting on the note mentioned pipelined function as a workaround to this limitation – and I’ve finally got around to writing a note about the method.

The idea is simple. If you can write a distributed select statement that takes advantage of the /*+ driving_site */ hint to work efficiently, you can wrap the statement in a pl/sql cursor loop and stick that loop into a pipelined function to maximise the efficiency of create or insert as select. Here’s some sample code (tested on 11.1.0.6) to demonstrate the principle:

Ignoring Hints

I’ve previously published a couple of notes (hereand here) about the use of the driving_site() hint with distributed queries. The first note pointed out that the hint was deliberately ignored if you write a local CTAS or INSERT that did a distributed query. I’ve just found another case where the hint is ignored – this time in a simple SELECT statement.

Try running an ordinary distributed query from the SYS account, and then try using the driving_site() hint to make it run at the remote site. When I tried this a few days ago I ended up wasting half an hour translating some SQL from ANSI to Oracle dialect because I thought that the ANSI was making Oracle transform the query in a way that lost the hint – then I discovered that both versions of the code worked correctly if I logged in as a different user.

I was running my queries between two databases using 11.1.0.7 – I won’t guarantee you get the same results on other versions, but it looks like SYS doesn’t honour the driving_site() hint. I can’t think of a robust argument why this should be the case, but if I were forced to do some vague hand-waving I’d probably mumble something about potential security loopholes.

Footnote: I should, of course, have mentioned that there are all sorts of things that behave in unexpected ways if you are logged on as SYS, and that you shouldn’t be logged on as SYS – especially in a production system.

[Further reading on “ignoring hints”]

Distributed Queries

Some time ago I wrote a note about distributed DML, pointing out that the driving_site() hint works with distributed queries but not with DML based on distributed queries; so insert as select, or create as select and so on will “ignore” the hint.

This is just a little follow-up to give you an  idea of what execution plans for distributed queries look like so that you can tell whether your query is going to work locally or remotely.

Distributed DML

Someone recently sent me a request about a piece of SQL they could not optimise. I don’t usually respond to private requests – it’s not an effective use of my time – but their example was something that pops up relatively frequently as a “bug” – so I thought I’d mention it here.

The SQL looked like this:

insert into tab3
select 				-- small result set
	*
from
	tab1@dblink	t1	-- large data set
where
	tab1.col1 in (
		select
			col1
		from
			tab2	-- small data set
	)

 

Distributed Oddity

An interesting side-effect of blogging (rather than writing up a more formal document for my web site) is that it feels perfectly reasonable to throw out some odd observations without necessarily having to supply an explanation or solution.

So here’s the bare bones of an oddity relating to distributed queries that someone emailed me a couple of days ago:

INST1 -  9.2.0.6:  Insert data into table X and commit 
INST2 - 10.2.0.1:  select from X@DB1,dual;