Concepts Guide: 2 of 27

The figures (diagrams) in this chapter really help explain the basic structures of blocks, which are in themselves basic building blocks for understanding how Oracle works. After reading this chapter, I am quite unclear what the purpose of the extent is. But I'll get to that shortly.

The discussion about high water marks is good, but slighlty misleading due to the fact that Oracle does not have a water mark, but rather two; a low high water mark (LHWM) and a high high water (HHWM). *grin* And the space above the LHWM is not guartanteed to be free (only above the HHWM).

I rather enjoyed the section on data blocks (starting 2-3). While the bit about data being stored in a byte on the OS is a tad confusing, the pictures and discussion really helps one to gain a toehold as one starts the journey up this monstrous moutain. I did not realize the "overhead" section was actually so small, considering all the information stored in the header. This section left me want more details, which I hope are forthcoming in later chapters. *grin*

With the many advantages of ASSM (automatic segment space management), I am surprised that Manual mode is even available. Perhaps there is a use case for particular warehousing applications that need to manually control the freespace? Might as well throw LMT (Locally managed Tablespaces) in as well - if Oracle has such a strong recommendation against the older, more manual methods. =)

On 2-6, I found myself appreciating the information about free space and the various storage parameters and row chaining/migration. Again, the figures really help here, and I can only hope that they continue throughout the rest of this Guide. I did learn that Oracle only coalesces free space at the time of DML when needed - Oracle does not even attempt to coalesce during "idle" times. Which is interesting - why not?

So on 2-9 we finally get to extents. They seem like middlemen in this game, acting as a second layer of abstraction between "blocks" and "segments". Why? What role do extents play? While I did not find a clear answer by reading this chapter, I would have to assume that the most important role they do play is to allocate a group of blocks together for a particular segment (ergo, segment type), kinda make them sticky. Could not segment headers be made a little larger and subsume all the responsibilities of extents? Just curious. Perhaps I am missing something fundamental here. Maybe the whole point is to keep the respective object headers small? I did find one page that does not answer the question what-so-ever. *grin* I also see a short blurb about the Segment Space advisor (in the context of Extents, keep in mind) - call me naive, but I would expect Oracle to automatically resolve fragmentation quietly, internally, automatically.

The subsequent explanations of the various segment types were good, and I liked the way the Undo concept was spelled out. The way Temporary extents/segments and Undo retention is detailed is excellent! Again, a great overview of some very basic things (and not so basic, appropriately).