Understand the Business Logic influencing Oracle Segment Growth is Essential

The database comprises various segments, each one taking up a certain amount of disk-space. Space management is the administration, manipulation, and control of space consumption of segments within the database. The rate of growth of segment has a direct impact on space consumption. Thus, space and growth management consists of estimating the initial size and growth of segments and ensuring that adequate space exists for segments to grow as required by the business.

Usually, there is a lot of ignorance about space consumption within Oracle database. A lot of fallacies are perpetuated by ill-informed database specialists and publications that have not been made up to date, causing them to be inaccurate. Methodical analysis and planning, mentioned in the Service Level Agreement, are sadly missing because usual the hurry to deploy overcomes the need for systematic analysis. Not paying sufficient attention to growth patterns and not adequately understanding the business drivers that control such growth results in eventual punishment in the form of badly manifested segment growth.

It is seldom possible to most accurately predict growth. Accordingly, one can only estimate growth on the basis of broad business parameters and perform the necessary capacity planning to allow a certain degree of growth within a specific time period. Accordingly, the more in-depth understanding of these business drivers, the more accuracy may be derived. In fact, one needs to reconcile the physical model in hand at the time of capacity planning, getting as close to the actual physical mode as feasible, with the appropriate business drivers. Getting business analysis, possibly knowledgeable end-users such as accountants and senior sales personnel, to predict growth is essential.

Drawing on discussion with such business folks and the designers of the applications, one needs to reconcile different segments within the Oracle database with the business drivers and accordingly comprehend growth patterns. For example, take the case of a simple manufacturing application. Such an application mainly consists of tables of ITEMS, WORK IN PROGRESS, etc. These segments may have varied names in the physical design, depending on the conventions used. However, each of these core tables directly corresponds to specific business logic such as product currently being manufactured or in progress, existing raw materials, and making up each order, respectively. Once business logic is identified, one may use specific business records and goals to introduce a high degree of accuracy in growth analysis.