Plans (query and work)

One of our customers has a possible problem with a data discrepancy. Two queries that should return the same results don’t. We should get copies of the queries early next week so we can tear the two apart. We need to analyse whether the results should be the same. And if they should be the same then what is going wrong. As a first step I captured the user’s SQL and got the explain plan. I don’t often see query plans with so much going on: the first few lines tell me it is a star transform, there is materialized view query rewrite as the fact table in the plan is not the original table in the query, three bitmap indexes are filtering the results (only to be expected in a star transform), a bit of partition elimination and for good measure a dose of parallel query. Almost 700 lines of plan; I think a good exercise in analysis for one of my team on Monday morning.

One of my appraisal objectives for the next six months is to recruit a replacement for myself, or at least a part of myself. The part up for grabs is manager of our three Oracle development teams. In a way this is sad in that I become even less hands on than now but there will be a lot of challenge (potentially, I don’t know what yet!) for me in the summer. Cryptically, I have been asked to look out for a new job within the company and apply for it when I see it advertised. I would know which job they mean when I see the advert.