Optimize Your Oracle Network Configuration

Oracle databases are often shared across geographical areas, so it's imperative that the
Oracle professional understand how database performance is affected by network
communications. The Transparent Network Substrate (TNS), provided by Oracle,
allows distributed communications between databases.

The TNS, which is a distributed protocol, allows for transparent database

communications between remote systems. The TNS serves as an insulator between
Oracle's logical data request and the physical communications between the remote
servers. As such, the network administrator is able to control much of the network
performance tuning. The Oracle administrator, then, has little control over the network
settings that can affect overall database performance:

You can improve the performance of distributed transactions by using some important
settings, several of which are discussed in this article. The init.ora parameters relate to
distributed communications, while the TCP parameters, such as tcp.nodelay, can be
used to change the packet-shipping mechanisms within the Oracle database.

I also discuss the parameters within the sqlnet.ora, tnsnames.ora, and protocol.ora
files. You can use these tools to change the configuration and size of TCP packets, and
they can have a profound impact on the underlying network transport layer to improve
the throughput of all Oracle transactions.

Oracle*Net does not allow the Oracle administrator to tune Oracle network
parameters to improve network performance. In fact, the majority of network traffic
can't be tuned from within the Oracle environment. Oracle*Net is a layer in the OSI
model that resides above the network-specific protocol stack. Almost all network
tuning, then, is external to the Oracle environment.

In response to a data request, Oracle*Net gets the data and hands it over to the
protocol stack for transmission. The protocol stack then creates a packet from this
data and transmits it over the network. Oracle*Net's sole task is to pass data to the
protocol stack, leaving little means for the DBA to improve network performance.

The DBA can, however, control the frequency and size of network packets. There
exists in Oracle a wealth of tools to change packet frequency and size. A simple
example involves changing the refresh interval for a snapshot to ship larger amounts
at less frequent intervals.

Oracle*Net connections between servers can be tuned using several parameters. Keep
in mind, though, that network tuning is outside the scope of Oracle, and a qualified
network administrator should be consulted for tuning the network. The frequency and
size of packet shipping across the network can be affected by using settings contained
in the following parameter files:

• protocol.ora file—tcp.nodelay
• sqlnet.ora server file—automatic_ipc
• sqlnet.ora client file—break_poll_skip
• tnsnames.ora file—SDU, TDU
• listener.ora file—SDU, TDU, and queuesize

These tuning parameters will affect the performance of the Oracle*Net layer only.
Let's examine them in detail and see how they can be adjusted to improve Oracle*Net
throughput.

The tcp.nodelay parameter in protocol.ora

Oracle*Net, by default, waits until the buffer is full before transmitting data.
Therefore, requests are not always sent immediately to their destinations. This is most
common when large amounts of data are streamed from one end to another, and
Oracle*Net does not transmit the packet until the buffer is full. Adding a protocol.ora
file, and specifying a tcp.nodelay to stop buffer flushing delays, can remedy this
problem.

The protocol.ora file can be specified to indicate no data buffering for all TCP/IP
implementations. The parameter can be used both on the client and server. The
protocol.ora statement is:

tcp.nodelay = yes

Specifying this parameter causes TCP buffering to be skipped so that every request is
sent immediately. Keep in mind, however, that network traffic can increase due to
smaller and more frequent packet transmission, therefore causing slowdowns in the
network.
The parameter tcp.nodelay should be used only if TCP timeouts are encountered.
Setting tcp.nodelay can cause a huge performance improvement in high-volume
traffic between database servers.

The automatic_ipc parameter of sqlnet.ora

The automatic_ipc parameter bypasses the network layer, thereby speeding local
connections to the database. When automatic_ipc=on, Oracle*Net checks to see if a
local database is defined by the same alias. If so, network layers are bypassed as the
connection is translated directly to the local IPC connections. This is useful on
database servers, but absolutely useless for Oracle*Net clients.

The automatic_ipc parameter should be used on the database server only when an
Oracle*Net connection must be made to the local database. If local connections are
not needed or required, set this parameter to off, improving the performance of all
Oracle*Net clients.

SDU and TDU parameters in tnsnames.ora and listener.ora

The session data unit (SDU) and transport date unit (TDU) parameters are located in
the tnsnames.ora and listener.ora files. SDU specifies the size of the packets to send
over the network. Ideally, SDU should not surpass the size of the maximum
transmission unit (MTU). MTU is a fixed value that depends on the actual network
implementation used. Oracle recommends that SDU be set equal to MTU.

Note: Prior to release 7.3.3, both SDU and TDU were fixed at 2K and couldn't be
changed.

The TDU is the default packet size used within Oracle*Net to group data together.
The TDU parameter should ideally be a multiple of the SDU parameter. The default
value for both SDU and TDU is 2,048, and the maximum value is 32,767 bytes.

The following guidelines apply for SDU and TDU:

• You should never set the SDU greater than TDU because you'll waste network
resources by shipping wasted space in each packet.

• If your users are connecting via dial-up modem lines, you may want to set
SDU and TDU to smaller values because of the frequent resends that occur
over modem connections.

• On fast network connections (T1 or T3 lines), you should set SDU and TDU
equal to the MTU for your network. On standard Ethernet networks, the
default MTU size is set to 1,514 bytes. On standard token ring networks, the
default MTU size is 4,202 bytes.
 • If a Multi-Threaded Server (MTS) is used, you must also set the
mts_dispatchers with the proper MTU TDU configuration.

• For Streams replication and for using Oracle in a WAN environment, Oracle
recommends that you increase the SDU to 32k. Also, the Oracle docs note:

To take advantage of an increased SDU for Streams propagation, the

receiving side sqlnet.ora file must include the DEFAULT_SDU_SIZE
parameter. The receiving side listener.ora file must indicate the SDU
change for the system identifier (SID). The sending side tnsnames.ora
file connect string must also include the SDU modification for the
particular service.

For Streams, the SEND_BUF_SIZE and RECV_BUF_SIZE

parameters in the listener.ora file increase the performance of
propagation on your system. Oracle internal testing of Oracle Data
Guard on a WAN has demonstrated that the maximum setting of 32K
(32768) performs best on a WAN. The primary gain in performance
when setting the SDU is a result of the reduced number of calls to
packet the data.

In addition to setting the SDU parameter, network throughput can often

be substantially improved by using the SQLNET.SEND_BUF_SIZE
and SQLNET.RECV_BUF_SIZE Oracle Net parameters to increase
the size of the network TCP send and receive I/O buffers.

The listing below shows an example of these parameters on a token ring network with
an MTU of 4,202 bytes.
listener.ora
SID_LIST_LISTENER =
(SID_LIST =
(SID_DESC =
(SDU = 4202)
(TDU = 4202)
(SID_NAME = ORCL)
(GLOBAL_DBNAME = ORCL.WORLD)
)
)
tnsnames.ora
ORCL.WORLD =
(DESCRIPTION =
(SDU=4202)
(TDU=4202)
(ADDRESS =
(PROTOCOL = TCP)
(HOST = fu.bar)
(PORT = 1521)
)
(CONNECT_DATA = (SID = ORCL))
)

The SDU and TDU settings are a direct function of the connection speed between the
hosts. For fast T1 lines, set SDU=TDU=MTU. For slower modem lines, experiment
with smaller values of SDU and TDU.
Since Oracle8i, the database will automatically register instances in the listener.ora
file unless you implement one of the following actions:

• Disable automatic service registration. To do this, you must set the init.ora
parameter local_listener to use a TCP port other than the one defined in your
listener.ora file.

• Implement the MTS (not recommended unless absolutely necessary) and

define the mts_dispatchers in your init.ora file, like this:
MTS_DISPATCHERS="(DESCRIPTION=(SDU=8192)(TDU=8192)\
ADDRESS=(PARTIAL=TRUE)(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=supsund3)))\
(DISPATCHERS=1)"

Use service_name=global_dbname in the Connect_Data section of the

tnsnames.ora file, where global_dbname is configured in listener.ora. Note that this
setting will disable the use of Transparent Application Failover (TAF), which is not
supported using global_dbname. For details, see "Configuring Transparent
Application Failover" in the Oracle*Net Administrator's Guide.

The queuesize parameter in listener.ora

The number of requests the listener can store while Oracle is working to establish a
connection is determined by the undocumented queuesize parameter. This parameter
is used only for very high-volume databases, where the listener spawns thousands of
connections per hour. The number of expected simultaneous connections should be
equal to the size of the queuesize parameter. Here's an example of this parameter in
the listener.ora file:
LISTENER =
(ADDRESS_LIST =
(ADDRESS =
(PROTOCOL = TCP)
(HOST = marvin)
(PORT = 1521)
(QUEUESIZE = 32)
)
)

A disadvantage of this parameter is that it preallocates resources for anticipated

requests, therefore using more system memory and resources. You may want to
consider using MTS and prespawned Oracle connections if you have high-volume
connections into a dedicated listener. Also, note that some versions of UNIX do not
allow queues greater than five, and there are some restrictions of the MTS queue size.

The break_poll_skip parameter of sqlnet.ora

This client-only sqlnet.ora parameter indicates the number of packets to be skipped

before checking for a user-initiated break. This parameter affects the amount of CPU
resources used by the Oracle*Net client and functions only with servers that support
in-band breaks. The default value is four, and the results of modifying the value are as
follows:
 • The higher the break_poll_skip value is set, the less frequently the checking
for CTRL-C occurs and the less CPU is consumed.

• Conversely, the lower the value is set, the more frequently the CTRL-C
checking is done and the more CPU is consumed.

External network tuning

In this brief discussion of network-related parameters, I've given you a sense of the
scope and complexity of network tuning. It's important to understand that Oracle*Net
is simply a layer in the OSI model lying above the network-specific protocol stack,
and that virtually all network tuning is therefore external to Oracle.