Initialization Parameters (12c)

 There are close to 260 initialization parameters in Oracle 12c

 These parameters can be broadly divided in the following 22 categories
 ANSI Compliance
 Archiving
 Backup and Restore
 Cache and I/O
 Diagnostics and Statistics
 Distributed, Replication & Snapshots
 File Configuration
 Shared Server
 Miscellaneous
 NLS
 Network (Listener)
 Optimizer
 PL/SQL
 Parallel Execution
 Processes & Sessions
 Redo & Recovery
 SGA & Pools
 Security & Auditing
 Sort, Hash & Bitmap Indexes
 Standby Databases
 System Managed Redo and UNDO
 Transactions
Archiving Parameters

log_archive_dest Name of the directory where archive files are generated.

Log_archive_dest=’/u01/app/oracle/admin/GPDB92/arch’
Do not use this parameter. Use log_archive_dest_n instead. It is used
for backward compatibility
log_archive_dest_n
Log_archive_format Arch_%s.log
Log_archive_duplex_dest Log_archive_duplex_dest=’/u01/app/oracle/admin/GPDB92/arch2’
Secondary destination for archiing
Log_archive_dest_state_n Valid values are “Enable, defer, alternate”. Enable is default.
Log_archive_start This parameter is valid only when the database is setup in a archive
log mode by running “alter database archivelog” command. Valid values
are “ true, false”. If set to true, arch processes will be started
automatically during the instance startup. “archive log start” command
can also be used to start arch processes
Log_archive_min_succeed_dest Default value is 1,
Log_archive_trace Controls the output generated by the arch process. Default value is 0,
which disables archive log tracing. Value of 1 will track archival of
redo file. Valid values, 0, 1, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64,128. Check Oracle docs
for the meaning of these values.
Log_archive_max_processes Default value is 1. You can specify up to 10 for arch0… arch9. This
is the max limit. The actual number of arch process may vary depending
on the workload
 Important initialization parameters

1) Sga_max_size
2) Lock_sga Default value is false. If set to true, entire SGA is
locked in the physical memory (RAM) of the machine. Make
sure that the size of SGA is smaller than the RAM size.
3) Db_cache_size
4) Db_keep_cache_size
5) Db_recycle_cache_size
6) Shared_pools_size Default value is 8MB for 32 bit OS. Specifies (in bytes)
the size of the shared pool. The shared pool contains
shared cursors, stored procedures, control structures, and
other structures
7) Shared_pool_reerved_size Default value is 5% of shared_pool_size.

specifies (in bytes) the shared pool space that is

reserved for large contiguous requests for shared pool
memory.

You can use this parameter to avoid performance degradation

in the shared pool in situations where pool fragmentation
forces Oracle to search for and free chunks of unused pool
to satisfy the current request.

8) Large_pool_size
9) Java_pool_size
10) Log_buffer
11) Pga_aggregate_target
12) Sort_area_size
13) Sort_area_retained_size
14) Hash_area_size Maximum amount of memory in bytes to be used for hash join.
Used for backward compatibility. It is relevant in parallel
query execution. The value is derived = 2 * hash_area_size.
Do not use. Use pga_aggregate_target instead. It is part of
PGA.
15) Hash_join_enabled Default is true. If set to false, hash joins are not used
by optimizer. If set to true, optimizer user hash join
instead of other joins (nested loop, merge join etc.) if
the cost is low. Set the value to true for data warehousing
systems
16) Log_checkpoint_interval=3 Time in seconds when incremental checkpoint happens. At
incremental checkpoint data is written from redo buffer to
redo log file. No datafile headers are updated – that
happens only when a checkpoint happens. This parameter also
signifies that no buffer will remain dirty (in the cache)
for more than 3 seconds.
17) Log_checkpoint_timeout=50 Check point will happen every 50 OS blocks (not every 50 DB
blocks). Check point will happen at every log switch if
this value is larger than the size of the redo log file.
18) Fast_start_mttr_target=4 This parameter controls the duration of startup after the
instance failure. In this case, recovery (roll forward and
 backward) will not take more that 4 seconds because Oracle
check-pointed frequently to meet the target of 4 seconds.

Whenever you set fast_start_mttr_target to a nonzero value,

and while MTTR advisory is ON, Oracle recommends that you
disable (set to 0) the following parameters:

Log_checkpoint_timeout, Log_checkpoint_interval

19) Max_dispatchers
20) Max_servers
21) Dispatchers
22) Shared_servers
23) Object_cache_optimal_size=102400 The object cache is a memory block on the client that
(i.e. 100 K) allows applications to store entire objects and to navigate
among them without round trips to the server.
24) Object_cache_max_size_percent=20 Object cache can grow 20% more than
Object_cache_optimal_size if required. When additional
cache space is not required, object cache will shrink to
100K i.e. to Object_cache_optimal_size
25) Optimizer_mode Default is choose. Valid values are choose, rule,
first_rows_n (where is can be 1 10 100 1000) , first_rows
means first few rows, all_rows.

Optimizer used rule based when no statistics is collected.

26) Optimizer_feature_enable=8.1.7 Use it if you have upgraded you db to 9.0.2 and want to use
 lower (8.1.7) optimizer
27) Optimizer_index_caching=20 You can modify the optimizer's assumptions about index
caching for nested loops joins and IN-list iterators by
setting this parameter to a value between 0 and 100 to
indicate the percentage of the index blocks the optimizer
should assume are in the cache. Setting this parameter to a
higher value makes nested loops joins and IN-list iterators
look less expensive to the optimizer. As a result, it will
be more likely to pick nested loops joins over hash or
sort-merge joins and to pick indexes using IN-list
iterators over other indexes or full table scans. The
default for this parameter is 0, which results in default
optimizer behavior
28) Parallel_min_servers
29) Parallel_max_servers
30) Query_rewrite_enabled
31) Recovery_parallelism=2 Number of server processes to be used in the recovery
process. This value cannot exceed parallel_max_servers
32) Rollback_segments=rbs1, rbs2 Ignored when UNDO_MANAGEMENT=AUTO
33) Statistics_level Valid values are ALL, TYPICAL, BASIC. Default is Typical.
Sets the statistics collection level of the database
34) Timed_statistics= (true or false) specifies whether or not statistics related to time are
collected.

Default values are

 If STATISTICS_LEVEL is set to TYPICAL or ALL, then true

If STATISTICS_LEVEL is set to BASIC, then false

35) Undo_management
36) Undo_retention
37) Undo_tablespace
38) Trace_enabled
39) Transactions Default is 1.1 * SESSIONS.
Specifies maximum number of concurrent transactions
40) Transactions_per_rollback_segments specifies the number of concurrent transactions you expect
each rollback segment to have to handle. The minimum number
of rollback segments acquired at startup is TRANSACTIONS
divided by the value for this parameter. For example, if
TRANSACTIONS is 101 and this parameter is 10, then the
minimum number of rollback segments acquired would be the
ratio 101/10, rounded up to 11.
41) Workarea_size_policy
42) Create_bitmap_area_size
43) Bitmap_mearge_area_size

44) Shared_memory_address Sga starting address for 32 bit OS

45) Hi_shared_memory_address Sga starting address for 64 bit OS
46) Instance_name
47) Db_name
48) Ifile
49) Local_listener
50) Remote_listener
51) Sessions = Default value is (1.1 * Processes) + 5
In a shared server environment, the value of PROCESSES can be
quite small. Therefore, Oracle recommends that you adjust the
value of SESSIONS to approximately 1.1 * total number of
connections
Values of TRANSACTIONS and ENQUEUE_RESOURCES are derived from
SESSIONS.
52) Processes
53) License_max_sessions=100 Maximum number of concurrent that can connect to the database.
After this limit is reached no one can connect to DB except user
with “restricted session” privilege. Default value is 0, means
no limit. Dd not use this parameter if license_max_users is
used.
54) License_session_warning=80 When 80 concurrent sessions are connected to DB, additional
users upto 100 can connect to DB but alert file will start
logging a warning message
55) License_max_users=200 DBA can create upto 200 users in the database. Dd not use this
parameter if license_max_sessions is used.
56)
57) Log_checkpoint_to_alert Default value is false. If set to true, checkpoints are logged
to the alert file. Doing so is useful for determining whether
 checkpoints are occurring at the desired frequency
58) Open_cursors=70 Default is 50. specifies the maximum number of open cursors
(handles to private SQL areas) a session can have at once. You
can use this parameter to prevent a session from opening an
excessive number of cursors.
59) Open_links=6 Default is 4. specifies the maximum number of concurrent open
connections to remote databases (db link & call to external
procedure like a C program) in one session.
If you set OPEN_LINKS to 0, then no distributed transactions are
allowed
60) Os_authnent_prefix=OPS$ The default value of this parameter is OPS$ for backward
compatibility with previous versions. However, you might prefer
to set the prefix value to "" (a null string), thereby
eliminating the addition of any prefix to operating system
account names. This parameter is case sensitive on UNIX.
61) Os_roles=true Default value is false. Determines whether Oracle (false) or the
operating system (true) identifies and manages the roles of
each username. When set to true, OS completely manages the role
grants for all database usernames. When a user attempts to
create a session, the username's security domain is initialized
using the roles identified by the operating system
62) Remote_os_roles specifies whether operating system roles are allowed for remote
clients. The default value, false, causes Oracle to identify and
manage roles for remote clients.
63) Max_enabled_roles specifies the maximum number of database roles that users can
enable, including roles contained within other roles. The actual
 number of roles users can enable is 2 plus the value of
MAX_ENABLED_ROLES, because each user has two additional roles,
PUBLIC and the user's own role. For example, if
MAX_ENABLED_ROLES is set to 5, user HR can have seven roles
enabled: the five enabled by MAX_ENABLED_ROLES, plus PUBLIC and
HR.
64) Remote_login_passwordfile Exclusive, shared, none
65) User_dump_dest
66) Background_ dump_dest
67) Core_dump_dest
68) Audit_file_dest
69) Background_core_dump=partial
70) Max_dump_file_size=10M
71) Db_files
72) Control_files
73) Instance_name
74) Circuits
75) Shared_server_sessions
76) Compatible
77) Cpu_count=1
78) Control_file_record_keep_time
79) Max_enabled_roles
80)

Processes  Sessions  transactions