Wait events vs wait classes

Did you know that all the wait events inside Oracle database are categorized into wait classes? Every wait event always belongs to a wait class. Even before you learn more about each and every wait event, you must be aware of wait classes.

• Wait Classes in Oracle

• Find Top Wait Classes

• Find Top Wait Events in a Wait Class

Oracle wait events are time where a sessions is waiting for something to happen

Wait Classes in Oracle

All the wait events are grouped under wait classes and here are the most important wait classes you must know.

Administrative: Waits resulting from DBA commands that cause users to wait (for example, an index rebuild)

Application: Waits resulting from user application code (for example, lock waits caused by row level locking or explicit lock commands)

Cluster: Waits related to Real Application Cluster resources (for example, global cache resources such as gc cr block busy

Commit: This wait class only comprises one wait event – wait for redo log write confirmation after a commit (that is, ‘log file sync’)

Concurrency: Waits for internal database resources (for example, latches)

Configuration: Waits caused by inadequate configuration of database or instance resources (for example, undersized log file sizes, shared pool size)

Idle: Waits that signify the session is inactive, waiting for work (for example, ‘SQL*Net message from client’)

Network: Waits related to network messaging (for example, ‘SQL*Net more data to dblink’)

Other: Waits which should not typically occur on a system (for example, ‘wait for EMON to spawn’)

Scheduler: Resource Manager related waits (for example, ‘resmgr: become active’)

System I/O: Waits for background process IO (for example, DBWR wait for ‘db file parallel write’)

User I/O: Waits for user IO (for example ‘db file sequential read’)

Find Top Wait Classes

User below query to get the top wait classes in Oracle database

Select wait_class, sum(time_waited), sum(time_waited)/sum(total_waits)
Sum_Waits
From v$system_wait_class
Group by wait_class
Order by 3 desc;

Find Top Wait Events in a Wait Class

From the above query, supply each wait class into below query to get the top wait events in database with respect to particular wait class

Select a.event, a.total_waits, a.time_waited, a.average_wait
From v$system_event a, v$event_name b, v$system_wait_class c
Where a.event_id=b.event_id
And b.wait_class#=c.wait_class#
And c.wait_class = '&Enter_Wait_Class'
order by average_wait desc;