PHP Oracle connection randomly slow

Question

Hello,
I have a very strange problem concerning the connection to a oracle database with php. Sometimes the same SQL-Statement takes a very long time to load for no obvious reason (more than 5 minutes). But if you try it later it pops up at once. During the waiting time Toad is just showing "SQL*Net message from client" for the session.
Here the code:
$db = "<connection string>";
$c = oci_connect("user", "pwd", $db);
$s = ociparse($c, "select content from database WHERE CATEGORY = '$category'");
if(ociexecute($s)) {
while (ocifetch($s))
echo ociresult($s, "CONTENT");
Maybe I should also mention that I'm using a page with frames with a navigation bar on the left which loads the code in the frame on the right with the variable $category. We are using Oracle9i Release 9.0.1 .
I would really appreciate any help.

Answer 1

Perceived slowness is something that is dealt with by using process called "tuning". Tuning process requires an extensive knowledge because it should go from end to end, starting with the application. There may be an issue with your application, database, operating system, middle tier or network and one has to know all of the above to be able to tune the application properly. It's always the application one tunes, because it's the application that makes the end users unhappy. In your posts, there is not enough information to even begin thinking about tuning, so I will outline the tuning process for you. One always begins the tuning process by blaming the network and by letting the network engineers use sniffer and dig out the slow component. Typical response from the network people is "network is OK but the server XXX is slow with responses
and that's what causing the timeouts"). Now you know where the problem is so you can concentrate on a single server and figure out what the problem is. Whatever the problem is, it is usually solved by improving the cache hit ratio by increasing the SGA. Network engineers are
used to that and they do not mind, but if you want to be mr. nice guy, you can go directly to your boss and ask him for more memory. That is so called modified method C, by Cary Millsap. That is why it's called "method C".