Oracle Performance Tuning Exam

This exam focuses on the skills that you use to tune all components of an Oracle database application system. Expect to answer ~65 multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes or less. To pass the exam, you need to answer at least 46 questions correctly (70%). In general, the exam tests you about the following categories of information:

 the fundamental goals and strategies for Oracle database system and application tuning
 the components that you can tune to affect overall performance
 the roles that application designers, developers, database administrators, system administrators, and application end users play in the tuning process
 the steps in SQL statement processing (e.g., open a cursor, parse)
 registering application information in the data dictionary with the DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO package
 techniques for using shared SQL and maximizing application performance
 gathering optimizer statistics to ensure optimal execution plans
 revealing SQL statement execution plans with the SQL command EXPLAIN PLAN and the SQL*Plus    AUTOTRACE feature
 controlling optimizer behavior with initialization parameters, hints, and stored outlines
 monitoring SQL statement performance statistics in the dynamic performance views
 monitoring SQL statements using SQL tracing and TKPROF
 designing transactions
 controlling and monitoring data locks (e.g., table locks, row locks)
 avoiding deadlocks
 setting isolation levels and extending read consistency
 minimizing disk I/O with indexes (normal, bitmap, and function-based), index-organized tables, and clusters (indexed and hash)
 tuning host operating system memory and disk I/O
 tuning a database instance’s buffer cache
 configuring multiple buffer pools (default, keep, and recycle pools) in the buffer cache
 measuring dictionary cache and library cache hit ratios
 Oracle tuning a database instance’s shared pool for general use
 Oracle tuning a database instance’s shared pool for shared server sessions
 preventing fragmentation of shared pool memory
 monitoring database I/O using dynamic performance views
 using tablespaces and data files to reduce contention for database data
 tuning the database writer background process(es)
 tuning database checkpoints
 tuning temporary (sort) space allocations
 tuning redo log I/O with online log members and the redo log buffer
 using the UTLBSTAT and UTLESTAT utilities to gather tuning statistics
 using Oracle Expert to tune an Oracle database system