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If SQL*NET Message from client is the top subroutine in the profile, how do you diagnose that component outside of the database? This could be scattered on the other 2 tiers!

People are usually surprised by how often you DON'T need instrumentation from other tiers to solve problems that manifest in our profiles as "SQL*Net message from client". (I'll call it "SNmfc" from here on out to save typing.)

In cases where there are many short-duration SNmfc calls, it's usually an indication of a badly designed/coded application that's parsing inside of a loop or failing to use Oracle's array processing features.

However, sometimes the SNmfc time comes from a small number of long-duration calls, where "long" is defined as more time than a network round-trip plus a miniscule bit of code path on another tier should consume. In this case, the prescription is indeed for you to instrument the tiers outside of Oracle where the time is being consumed.

Different architectures require different instrumentation techniques. In the session, I mentioned that one source of information about instrumentation about Apache (for example) is http://logging.apache.org. Another article you should consider spending some time with is http://www.hotsos.com/e-library/abstract.php?id=83.