The following discusses the initialization parameters in Oracle 10g.

Simplified Initialization Parameters — Initialization parameters are now divided into two groups, basic and advanced. In the vast majority of cases, it is necessary to set and tune only the basic parameters, of which there are 20 to 30, to get reasonable performance from the database. In rare situations, modification of the advanced parameters may be needed to achieve optimal performance.

Old Initialization Parameters — Oracle 10g has deprecated 25 old parameters.

New Initialization Parameters — Oracle 10g has introduced more than 20 new parameters.

Basic Parameters

In previous releases of Oracle, all parameters were considerd equally important. This made the administration and tuning of the database very difficult because database administrators need to become familiar with more than 200 parameters. Oracle 10g introduces two classes of parameter: basic and advanced. In most cases, you need set up only the basic parameters for an Oracle 10g instance.

These basic parameters include:

    cluster_database 
    compatible
    control_files
    db_block_size
    db_create_file_dest
    db_create_online_log_dest_n
    db_domain
    db_name
    db_recovery_file_dest
    db_recovery_file_dest_size
    instance_number
    job_queue_processes
    log_archive_dest_n
    log_archive_dest_state_n
    nls_language
    nls_territory
    open_cursors
    pga_aggregate_target
    processes
    remote_listener
    remote_login_passwordfile
    rollback_segments
    sessions
    sga_target
    shared_servers
    star_transformation_enabled
    undo_management
    undo_tablespace

The following is an example of the parameter file generated by DBCR utility (The basic parameters are in bold):

###########################################
# Archive
###########################################
log_archive_dest_1='LOCATION=/u03/arch/grid'
log_archive_format=%t_%s_%r.dbf

###########################################
# Cache and I/O
###########################################
db_block_size=8192
db_cache_size=25165824
db_file_multiblock_read_count=16

###########################################
# Cursors and Library Cache
###########################################
open_cursors=300

###########################################
# Database Identification
###########################################
db_domain=world
db_name=grid

###########################################
# Diagnostics and Statistics
###########################################
background_dump_dest=/u01/app/oracle/admin/grid/bdump
core_dump_dest=/u01/app/oracle/admin/grid/cdump
user_dump_dest==/u01/app/oracle/admin/grid/udump
timed_statistics=TRUE

###########################################
# File Configuration
###########################################
control_files=("/u02/ctl/grid/control01.ctl", 
"/u02/ctl/grid/control02.ctl")

###########################################
# Job Queues
###########################################
job_queue_processes=10

###########################################
# Compatibility
###########################################
compatible=10.1.0.0.0

###########################################
# Optimizer
###########################################
query_rewrite_enabled=FALSE
star_transformation_enabled=FALSE

###########################################
# Pools
###########################################
java_pool_size=104857600
large_pool_size=8388608
shared_pool_size=104857600

###########################################
# Processes and Sessions
###########################################
processes=150

###########################################
# Redo Log and Recovery
###########################################
fast_start_mttr_target=300

###########################################
# Security and Auditing
###########################################
remote_login_passwordfile=EXCLUSIVE

###########################################
# Sort, Hash Joins, Bitmap Indexes
###########################################
pga_aggregate_target=25165824
sort_area_size=524288

###########################################
# System Managed Undo and Rollback Segments
###########################################
undo_management=AUTO
undo_retention=10800
undo_tablespace=UNDOTBS1

In Oracle9i (9.2.0.3), there are 258 parameters in the v$parameter view. In Oracle 10g (10.1.0.0), there are more than 250 parameters in the v$parameter view. There are 233 parameters in both Oracle9i Release 2 and Oracle 10g Release 1.

Old Parameters

Twenty-five of the 258 parameters no longer exist in Oracle 10g’s v$parameter view. These are:

New Parameters

There are twenty more new parameters in Oracle 10g Release 1: