This blog is a continuation of a series about test running the SQL statements in the Tuning Lab in Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle to find the best performing SQL statement in your database environment. It covers why the run time of a SQL statement may vary from one execution to the next.

When you execute a SQL statement several times in Quest SQL Optimizer, you may notice that the run time will vary from one execution to the next. This adds an additional challenge to picking out the best SQL statement from a group of alternative statements.

The run time varies because each time the SQL statement is executed it is sharing the database and CPU processing with other jobs running on the computer. It is especially true for the first time you execute your SQL statement, since some data may be cached into memory. So it is normal that the first execution will take longer than the following executions. When you execute a SQL statement in the Quest SQL Optimizer, the run time (Total Elapsed Time) is the “clock time” from the moment that the SQL statement starts executing on the CPU to the moment it is finished. So since the execution of the SQL statement is sharing the CPU with other processes, the “clock time” is likely to vary from one execution to the next depending on how much sharing of the CPU occurred while the SQL statement was executing.

 

There is no overall solution to this challenge. To perform the run time testing of the SQL statements when there is less of a workload on the system is a good practice.

 

For SQL statements that run in sub-second times, it is recommended to run each SQL alternative several times using the Multiple-Execute option: Tuning Lab | Execution | Execution Method | Number of times to execute each scenario. See the previous blog Executing SQL In Tuning Lab – Part 3 – Equal Comparison for Run Times: Minimizing the Effect of Other Activities on the CPU for more information.

 

If you would like to learn more about Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle, please visit the Inside SQL Optimizer for Oracle community.