Over the years, Oracle has provided a number of techniques to help you control the execution plan for a SQL statement, such as Store Outlines and SQL Profiles but for me, the only feature to truly give you plan stability is SQL Plan Management (SPM). It’s this true plan stability that has made me a big fan of SPM ever since it was introduced in Oracle Database 11g.
With SPM only known or accepted execution plans are used. That doesn’t mean Oracle won’t parse your SQL statements, it will. But before the execution plan generated at parse is used, we will confirm it is an accepted plan by comparing the PLAN_HASH_VALUE to that of the accepted plan. If they match, we go ahead and use that plan.
Continue reading “SQL Plan Management – Selective Automatic Plan Capture Now Available!”