Summary

In this chapter, you learned that

• Tuning is the process of making your SQL statements run faster.

• There are a number of tips you can use to tune your SQL statements.

• The optimizer is a subsystem of the Oracle database software that generates an execution plan.

• An execution plan is a set of operations used to perform a particular SQL statement.

• Hints may be passed to the optimizer to influence the generated execution plan.

• There are a number of additional software tools you can use to tune SQL statements. One tool is the Statspack package, which is a set of SQL, PL/SQL, and SQL*Plus scripts that allow you to collect and view performance data.

Apart from the final appendix, that s the end of this book. I hope you ve found the book informative and useful, and I hope I ve held your interest! As you ve seen, SQL is a very large subject. But armed with this book, I have every confidence you will master the subject.