Oracle SLOB: The Silly Little Oracle Benchmark

NOTE: I am not the author of SLOB!

There are a host of different benchmarking tools for generating workloads on an Oracle database. For example, there are “dumb IO” generators like Orion, there are free “TPC-like” tools such as HammerDB or Swingbench and there are license-requiring full-suite applications like Quest’s Benchmark Factory.

My favourite, for reasons I will blog about another time, is Kevin Closson’s Oracle SLOB – the Silly Little Oracle Benchmark. This page contains links to all of the bits and pieces I’ve written or contributed to the SLOB project. When I say “contributed”, I’m talking about wrap-around scripts and such like, rather than anything in the core of SLOB itself, which is maintained by Kevin. Although there is one exception, because the official SLOB mascot (right) was drawn by my daughter 🙂

Why SLOB?

I could write a whole load of stuff here about the benefits of SLOB, the drawbacks of the TPC-like tools and the false sense of security that comes with using Orion, but instead I’m simply going to direct you to words of the author who covers it all better than I could:

Introducing SLOB: The Silly Little Oracle Benchmark

In short, it’s not just a tool, it’s a complete toolkit for generating I/O through an Oracle database. If you are trying to analyse the I/O capabilities of your Oracle database there simply isn’t a better tool out there.

Where Do I Get It?

Here.

How Do I Install It?

You could always read the documentation? Or look at the picture tutorial here.

Which Version?

I could tell you here – but then I’d always run the risk of my site being out of date. So, don’t trust my site to be up-to-date… go straight to the source.

What Can I Do With It?

Generate lots of I/O! It’s a toolkit rather than just a tool, so you can come up with all sorts of interesting tests… use your imagination. However, I have a few standard tests that I like to use, so I will share them here:

Physical I/O Testing – finding the upper limits of your database’s storage system in terms of latency and throughput.

Sustained Throughput Test – testing the ability of your (flash) storage system to offer sustained performance over time

Other Articles About SLOB

You can find more stuff I’ve written about the Silly Little Oracle Benchmark by searching via the SLOB category.