Carlos Sierra's Tools and Tips

First things first: Do not rebuild Oracle indexes! … Unless you have to.

If you are even considering rebuilding indexes on an autonomous manner, please stop now, and first spend some time reading some of the many things Richard Foote has to say on his well-recommended blog.

A little side story: Many, many years ago, as I was supporting EBS at Oracle, one day I got a call from a guy with an aussie accent (even today I think it was Richard). He called Support simply to set the record straight (for me): I should not be promoting dropping, recreating or rebuilding indexes with a couple of nice notes/scripts I wrote for the delight of my then EBS customers. This guy educated me back then: such practices were no longer needed, as Oracle automatically reused index blocks after massive deletions (I was being a bad hombre!)… And I agreed with him. This was back before Y2K, and I still do agree with him today. But (there is always a but), there are some corner cases where we still have to rebuild indexes ourselves. And that is the reason of my story today.

Why would you even want to automate index rebuild?

Since my background is Oracle performance,  and “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”, I am a bit bias in that direction, and I would have to answer: because there are some valid performance reasons. There is also a lesser reason about disk space savings, which is not so relevant these days of cheap storage… Nevertheless, I will briefly justify below these two (performance and space) under my specific corner case. Maybe you have a similar case of your own to consider…

Performance

We have this key custom OLTP application installed in over 30+ servers and 700+ PDBs. It executes high-rate simple queries that due to current application constraints, often produce “optimal” executions plans with persistent fast full index scans operations on them, or some very long index range scans. The data is a time-based progressive window which contains anything between the last two hours and up the last few days of rapidly changing values (intense on inserts and deletes). All indexes are appended with a monolithically increasing numeric column seeded from a sequence.

If you are thinking “why doing fast full index scans on OLTP queries in the 1st place?” I would have to ask you to bare with me on that question for a few months (we do need to make some improvements on the application data model, but that is a story for a day in the far future yet to come). For now, we are stuck with large indexes growing on their far right (like many citizens today) of every value of their leading column(s), and we have to do something about them! One more thing worth mentioning: the number of reads exceeds by far the number of writes or deletes.

Take for example, the output of script indexes_2b_shrunk.sql (below). We can see that 4th index down WORKXXXXXXXTANCES_PK, has a current size of 114.9 MB (you may need to scroll to the right using a hidden bar at the bottom of the report), but if it were to rebuilt it, its size would go down to 43 MB, reducing then its space by 62.6%. This script basically lists indexes that consume more than 10 MB of disk space, and with a potential savings of at least 25% if they were to be rebuilt.

Output of similar script indexes_2b_shrunk_fast_full_scan.sql (which I executed but omitted from this post), includes the same index because in addition to the considerations of space and savings, such index is referenced by at least one execution plan as a full scan. Then, if I can reduce its size by 62.6%, at least some SQL performing full scans on it would benefit, performance wise. This second script is identical to the first one with one exception: it only includes indexes for which at least a recent execution plan references them with full scans.

These two scripts referenced above take no action on the database – they simply list indexes that could be rebuilt as per their current size and estimated space savings (and if they are referenced by full scans in the case of the latter). By the way, the estimated size if rebuilt is pretty accurate. Just saying.

REPORT_DATE
-------------------
2017-10-07T12-55-01
please wait...
PDB: SOMEPDB
---
TABLE_NAME               OWNER.INDEX_NAME                          SAVING %  CURRENT SIZE ESTIMATED SIZE  COMMAND
------------------------ --------------------------------------- ---------- ------------- --------------  --------------------------------------------------------------------
XXXXINSTANCES            XXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXINSTANCES_PK              50.6 %       647.7 MB       320.0 MB  ALTER INDEX xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxinstances_pk REBUILD ONLINE;
XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS      XXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS_PK        95.9 %    18,391.6 MB       752.0 MB  ALTER INDEX xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxtransactionkeys_pk REBUILD ONLINE;
HISTOXXXXXXXXIGNMENT     XXXXXXXXXXXX.HISTOXXXXXXXXIGNMENT_PK       55.1 %       783.8 MB       352.0 MB  ALTER INDEX xxxxxxxxxxxx.histxxxxxxxignment_pk REBUILD ONLINE;
WORKXXXXXXXTANCES        XXXXXXXXXXXX.WORKXXXXXXXTANCES_PK          62.6 %       114.9 MB        43.0 MB  ALTER INDEX xxxxxxxxxxxx.workxxxxxxxtances_pk REBUILD ONLINE;
XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS      XXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS_AK        96.9 %    23,896.1 MB       752.0 MB  ALTER INDEX xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxtransactionkeys_ak REBUILD ONLINE;
XXXXGCWORKSPACE          XXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXGCWORKSPACE_PK            31.3 %       745.1 MB       512.0 MB  ALTER INDEX xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxgcworkspace_pk REBUILD ONLINE;
WORKXXXXXXXTANCESINDEX   XXXXXXXXXXXX.WORKXXXXXXXTANCESINDEX_PK     51.8 %        70.5 MB        34.0 MB  ALTER INDEX xxxxxxxxxxxx.workxxxxxxxtancesindex_pk REBUILD ONLINE;

Space

Take same output above, and look now at 5th index down XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS_AK, currently consuming 23,896.1 MB of space. This is on an X5-2 with NVMe SSD, where space is kind of premium. If we can reduce the size of this index by a factor of 96.9% to only 752 MB, even if there are no execution plans referencing this index with a full scan, we would simply recover close to 23 GB of space! This is good news for operations DBAs who get paged when a Tablespace is running short (kind of annoying, specially at night!).

Of course there are two follow-up questions here, which I may just mention and leave for future blog posts: 1) do we really need to append every index with a monolithically increasing numeric column based on a sequence? (most probably a “no”); and b) considering that most leading columns have moderate cardinality and super wide values, would index compression help to reduce index size? (spoiler alert: definitely a “yes”).

Autonomous Online Index Rebuild for Oracle Multitenant

Script iod_indexes_rebuild_online.sql is what I use today to automate indexes rebuild, through a weekly Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) job executed in +30 12c Oracle multitenant CDBs (with +700 PDBs). This script rebuilds indexes that are referenced by full scans, are larger than 10 MB, and with an estimated space reduction of at least 25%. It excludes one particular table that for a very sticky reason needs to be avoided (an explicit lock that produces kind of an ugly concurrency contention)… The script also includes the indexes of a known big table, even if its indexes are not referenced by full scans. Both, the one exclusion and the one inclusion, are clearly marked on the script. You may need your own exclusions and inclusions (like I do on my ThanksGiving dinner), in case you decide to write your own script based on this.

This rebuild script is written in such a way that can be executed at the root container level either through OEM or SQL*plus, or at the PDB level, also from OEM or SQL*Plus.

Output of the autonomous online index rebuild script is recorded in 3 places: a spool file directed to the tmp directory, a trace file, and into the alert log. The content of each varies. The shortest is on the alert log, so we can see we ran something in the event we need to audit that timeframe. And the longest is the trace, which records accurate times and messages. Edited output below is from a sample trace file. On it we can see how an index with a size of 21,973.1 MB was reduced to 809.8 MB (96% reduction). Such index took 36 seconds to be rebuilt online. The estimated time is rubbish, but the estimated size is very accurate in my opinion.

+++ DBE IOD +++ iod_indexes_rebuild_online.sql begin
+++ DBE IOD +++ host: iod-db-xxxx-99999.node.xxx.xx
+++ DBE IOD +++ trace: /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/xxxx1xx2_c/xxxx1xx2/trace/xxxx1xx2_ora_40444_iod_indexes_rebuild_online.trc
+++ DBE IOD +++ report: /tmp/iod_indexes_rebuild_online_2017-10-06T20-11-36.txt
...
*** MODULE NAME:(IOD_INDEXES_REBUILD_ONLINE (15) XXXXX_XX) 2017-10-06 20:32:32.618
*** ACTION NAME:(SELECTING PDB INDEX CANDIDATES) 2017-10-06 20:32:32.618
*** CONTAINER ID:(15) 2017-10-06 20:32:32.618
...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CON_NAME:XXXXX_XX CON_ID:15 DB_NAME:xxxx1xx2 DB_UNIQUE_NAME:XXXX1XX2_C SERVER_HOST:iod-db-xxxx-99999 TIME:2017-10-06T20:32:32
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
*** 2017-10-06 20:32:45.307
*** ACTION NAME:(XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS_PK {COST}) 2017-10-06 20:34:46.527
...
TABLE_NAME                     OWNER.INDEX_NAME                                         SIZE BEFORE REBUILD       ESTIMATED SIZE  EST SAVING EST SECONDS   SIZE AFTER REBUILD  ACT SAVING ACT SECONDS
------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- --------------------  ---------- ----------- --------------------  ---------- -----------
XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS            XXXXXWFR2XX2.XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS_PK                              21,973.1 MB             880.0 MB      96.0 %       11.0s
...
*** 2017-10-06 20:37:22.683
*** ACTION NAME:(XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS_PK {DONE}) 2017-10-06 20:37:22.683

XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS            XXXXXWFR2XX2.XXXXTRANSACTIONKEYS_PK                              21,973.1 MB             880.0 MB      96.0 %       11.0s             809.8 MB      96.3 %       36.0s
*** ACTION NAME:(HISTORICALASSIGNMENT_PK {COST}) 2017-10-06 20:37:22.688
...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL                          PDB NAME                                                 SIZE BEFORE REBUILD       ESTIMATED SIZE  EST SAVING EST SECONDS   SIZE AFTER REBUILD  ACT SAVING ACT SECONDS
------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- --------------------  ---------- ----------- --------------------  ---------- -----------
TOTAL                          XXXXX_XX                                                         53,101.1 MB           2,585.0 MB      95.1 %       28.0s           2,505.2 MB      95.3 %      101.0s
...
+++ DBE IOD +++ DB_INDEXES:63 DB_BEFORE:130,111.0MB(127.1GB) DB_AFTER:12,608.1MB(12.3GB) DB_SAVING:90.3%
+++ DBE IOD +++ report: /tmp/iod_indexes_rebuild_online_2017-10-06T20-11-36.txt
+++ DBE IOD +++ trace: /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/xxxx1xx2_c/xxxx1xx2/trace/xxxx1xx2_ora_40444_iod_indexes_rebuild_online.trc
+++ DBE IOD +++ host: iod-db-xxxx-99999.node.xxx.xx
+++ DBE IOD +++ iod_indexes_rebuild_online.sql end
+++ DBE IOD +++ duration: 8301 seconds

Companion scripts

Besides the two “change-nothing” indexes_2b_shrunk*.sql scripts, and the actual rebuild script, there are two more that are part of the set and can be handy.

The first one is iod_indexes_rebuild_online_mon.sql, and it helps to monitor progress when executed on a separe SQL*Plus sessions of its own. This monitoring script executes a query that if you simply keep entering the “/” command, it keeps telling you the PDB and index that is getting rebuilt (or just ended, or is next). This is kind of “are we there yet?”, but for some reason sometimes I just need to know which PDB and particular index I am working on, just in case I see something like a suspicious spike on my OEM window. I do recommend this at least during the first couple of cycles.

The seconds one is iod_indexes_rebuild_online_kill_job.sql, and before you freak out and close this page, let me state that the “kill” script does nothing but interrupt the execution of the rebuild script on a nice manner, meaning between the rebuild of two indexes, or in other words: after it completes the index getting rebuilt. This is kind of important se we do not end with half-baked indexes which may need to get recreated. I am planning on never have to use the “kill” script, but if I do, I already have a OEM job ready with it: This is like a “poisson pill”. A word of unsolicited advice here: prepare always for the worst, and hope for the best!

Disclaimer

Before you rush to implement these scripts, please review them extensively, justify their use, and fully digest them. Make them yours, customize them as needed, then test, test and test again. Only then consider implementing an “autonomous index rebuild job” on a production environment. Best wishes!