Workload
Workload is also referred to as Active Time.
Workload is a measurement of the Oracle instance's net processing time, measured in seconds. Workload is calculated by aggregating the net activity (non-idle time) for all Oracle processes.
Performance Analysis considers an Oracle process active when it is either:
Consuming CPU
Queued by the operating system, waiting for CPU to become available
Marked by Oracle as active with a non-idle wait event
The Workload indication is used in various contexts to reflect application load; such contexts can be the overall Oracle instance load, individual session activity, program load over time, etc. and its interpretation may vary among the various totaling methods:
Total Workload is measured in seconds. This representation can be used to compare loads.
Average Workload Per Second Workload is measured by Average Active Sessions. This representation reflects the average number of sessions that were active during a specified timeframe. This is the default representation for timeline graphs as it best reflects the session load on the instance.
For example:
A value of 5 Average Active Sessions for the Oracle instances Workload indicates that during the specified timeframe, an average of 5 sessions were actively processing. Such an average can reflect:
10 sessions, each processing for only 50% of the time
20 sessions, each processing for only 25% of the time, or
5 sessions, each processing throughout the specified timeframe.
A value of 0.75 Average Active Sessions for a specific session indicates that during the specified timeframe, the session was active 75% of the time. Values greater than 1 indicate that the session has been parallelized (parallel query) and is using more than a single query slave.
A value of 3 Average Active Sessions for a specific SQL Statement indicates that during the specified timeframe, an average of 3 sessions ran the SQL statement for the entire duration. Such an average can reflect:
6 sessions, each running the SQL statement for 50% of the specified timeframe,
12 sessions, each running the statement for 25% of the specified timeframe, or
3 sessions, each running the SQL statement throughout the entire specified timeframe.
Average Workload Per Execution Workload is measured in Seconds Per Execution; Seconds Per Execution measures the average net active time for a particular SQL statement. This representation is useful for measuring or comparing the duration and impact of SQL statements. Note that this metric represents the average net processing time and therefore differs from the Average SQL Duration metric that measures the average elapsed SQL time.