Configuring Shared Server

We have recently configured shared server in some of our databases. Steps to follow to enable shared server are below.

The following configuration is on Enterprise Edition 9.2.0.5. The numbers used in the settings shown are only examples. We are running an OLTP system with about 2000 concurrent users with these parameters without any problem.

The parameters you need to set for the shared server and their default values are:

NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ----------
circuits 0
dispatchers
max_dispatchers 5
max_shared_servers 20
mts_circuits 0
mts_dispatchers
mts_max_dispatchers 5
shared_server_sessions 0
shared_servers 0

The ones starting with mts are for backward compatibility, setting circuits, dispatchers and max_dispatchers or mts_circuits, mts_dispatchers and mts_max_dispatchers is the same and is up to you.

If we go over these parameters one by one:

Circuits: This is a static parameter and it defaults to the sessions parameter when the shared server is used. You can leave it to the defalt value if your users are not using database links extensively. Because every session connected through the shared server adds to the circuits count for each distinct database link it opens. In our case we had sessions=3500 and circuits=3500 derived from that sessions parameter. But each user queried from two or three database links, so when the session count was about 1500 we exhausted circuits and began to get “error 18 creating virtual circuit” errors. So, you may need to set this parameter explicitly to a higher value if you are using database links.

Dispatchers: This parameter is said to be dynamic in Database Reference but if you have it as null in your database like the above settings you can not set it dynamically.

SQL> alter system set dispatchers='(protocol=tcp)(dispatchers=2)';
alter system set dispatchers='(protocol=tcp)(dispatchers=2)'
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00105: dispatching mechanism not configured for network protocol
(ADDRESS=(PARTIAL=YES)(PROTOCOL=tcp))

You can not even set it with scope=spfile.

SQL> alter system set dispatchers='(protocol=tcp)(dispatchers=2)' scope=spfile;
alter system set dispatchers='(protocol=tcp)(dispatchers=2)' scope=spfile
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-02065: illegal option for ALTER SYSTEM

If you have it null on your system, the only way to set this is to create a pfile from the spfile and put it in there and then shutdown the database, create a new spfile and startup.

Shared_servers: This is a dynamic parameter and defaults to 1 when shared server is used.

Max_shared_servers: This is a static parameter and defaults to 20 or 2*shared_servers.

The steps we followed were:

SQL> alter system set circuits = 10000 scope=spfile;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set max_shared_servers=200 scope=spfile;

System altered.

SQL> alter system set shared_servers=50 scope=spfile;

System altered.

SQL> create pfile from spfile;

File created.

We have inserted the following line to the pfile created.

dispatchers='(protocol=tcp)(dispatchers=5)'

Then shutdown, create spfile from pfile and startup the instance.