SYSTEM GLOBAL AREA (SGA)

SGA is a shared storage area in memory that is the center of Oracle activity while the
database is running. The size of the SGA (and performance of the system) depends on the
values of the variable initialization parameters. The SGA provides communication
between the user and the background processes.

When you start a database, Oracle allocates a memory area (the System
Global Area, or SGA)

shared by all of the database users. The two largest

areas of the SGA are the database buffer

cache and the Shared Pool; their size will directly

impact the memory requirements for the

database and the performance of database operations.

Their sizes are controlled by parameters

in the database’s initialization file.

The database buffer cache is an area in the SGA used

to hold the data blocks that are read

from the data segments in the database, such as tables,

indexes, and clusters. The size of the

database buffer cache is determined by the DB_CACHE_SIZE

parameter (expressed in terms of

number of bytes) in the initialization parameter file for

the database. The default size for the
database blocks is set via the DB_BLOCK_SIZE parameter specified in the
parameter file

during database creation. Managing the size of the

database buffer cache is an important part

of managing and tuning the database.

The database has a default block size, but you can

establish cache areas for different database

block sizes and then create tablespaces to use those

caches. For example, you can create a 4K

database block size database with some tablespaces set to

8K. The size of the 8K cache would be

set via the DB_8K_CACHE_SIZE parameter. To create

tablespaces to use that cache, specify

blocksize 8K as part of the create tablespace command. If

the default block size for the database
 is 4K, you would not set a value for DB_4K_CACHE_SIZE;
the size specified for DB_CACHE_SIZE

would be used for the 4K cache.

The different cache areas can be resized while the

database is running. The caches must be

increased or decreased in granules. For a database with

an SGA less than 128M, the granule size

is 4M—so DB_8K_CACHE_SIZE can be 4M, 8M, 12M, and so on.

If you attempt to use any other

setting, Oracle will round it up to the next granule

size. The following listing shows the setting of

the DB_8K_CACHE_SIZE parameter.

alter system set DB_8K_CACHE_SIZE = 8m;

If you create a tablespace that uses a non-default

database block size, you must be sure that

the related cache size parameter (such as

DB_8K_CACHE_SIZE) is updated in your database

parameter file. If you are using an init.ora file, you

must update it with the new value. If you are

using a system parameter file, it will be automatically

updated when you execute the alter system

command.

NOTE

You cannot alter the SGA_MAX_SIZE or JAVA_POOL_SIZE

parameter

values while the database is open.

Typically, the data block buffer cache is about 1 to

2 percent of the allocated size of the

database. Oracle will manage the space available by using

an algorithm that keeps the most
 actively used blocks in memory for as long as possible.
When free space is needed in the cache,

the new data blocks will either use the space occupied by
infrequently accessed blocks or the

space occupied by a modified block once it has been

written out to disk.

If the SGA is not large enough to hold the most

frequently used data, different objects will

contend for space within the data block buffer cache.

This is particularly likely when multiple

applications use the same database and thus share the

same SGA. In that case, the most recently

used tables and indexes from each application constantly

contend for space in the SGA with the

most recently used objects from other applications. As a

result, requests for data from the data

block buffer cache will result in a lower ratio of “hits”

to “misses.” Data block buffer cache

misses result in physical I/Os for data reads, resulting

in performance degradation.

The Shared Pool stores the data dictionary cache

(information about the database structures)

and the library cache (information about statements that

are run against the database). While the

data block buffer and dictionary cache enable sharing of

structural and data information among

users in the database, the library cache allows the

sharing of commonly used SQL statements.

The Shared Pool contains the execution plan and

parse tree for SQL statements run against

the database. The second time that an identical SQL

statement is run (by any user), Oracle is able