Perhaps no single aspect of the DBA’s job consumes as much time as tuning. Successful Oracle tuning requires a blend of knowledge and experience, and can be both challenging and frustrating—often at the same time! Entire volumes have been written on Oracle tuning (see the appendix, Resources for the DBA), and we cannot hope to cover all aspects of tuning in a single section. Instead, as we mentioned earlier, we will outline for you an approach to tuning that can be applied to a variety of situations.