Configuring for Materialized Views

Without Oracle materialized views you may see unnecessary repeating large-table full-table scans, as summaries are computed, over and over:

• trusted:  Assumes that the Oracle materialized view is current.
  
• enforced (default):  Always goes to Oracle materialized view with fresh data.
   
• stale_tolerated:  Uses Oracle materialized view with both stale and fresh data

Next, you must grant several system privileges to all users who will be using the Oracle materialized views. In many cases, the Oracle DBA will encapsulate these grant statements into a single role and grant the role to the end users:

grant query rewrite to scott;
grant create materialized view to scott;
alter session set query_rewrite_enabled = true;

Invoking SQL query rewrite

Once Oracle materialized views have been enabled, Oracle provides several methods for invoking query rewrite. Query rewrite is generally automatic, but you can explicitly enable it by using Isession, alter system, or SQL hints: 

• ALTER {SESSION|SYSTEM} DISABLE QUERY REWRITE

• Select /*+REWRITE(mv1)*/...

Refreshing materialized views

In Oracle, if you specify REFRESH FAST for a single-table aggregate Oracle materialized view, you must have created a materialized view log for the underlying table, or the refresh command will fail. When creating an Oracle materialized view, you have the option of specifying whether the refresh occurs manually (ON DEMAND) or automatically (ON COMMIT, DBMS_JOB). To use the fast warehouse refresh facility, you must specify the ON DEMAND mode. To refresh the Oracle materialized view, call one of the procedures in DBMS_MVIEW.

The DBMS_MVIEW package provides three types of refresh operations: 

• DBMS_MVIEW.REFRESH:  Refreshes one or more Oracle materialized views

• DBMS_MVIEW.REFRESH_ALL_MVIEWS:  Refreshes all Oracle materialized views

• DBMS_MVIEW.REFRESH_DEPENDENT:  Refreshes all table-based Oracle materialized views

Manual complete refresh

A complete refresh occurs when the Oracle materialized view is initially defined, unless it references a prebuilt table, and a complete refresh may be requested at any time during the life of the Oracle materialized view. Because the refresh involves reading the detail table to compute the results for the Oracle materialized view, this can be a very time-consuming process, especially if huge amounts of data need to be read and processed.

Manual fast (incremental) refresh

If you specify REFRESH FAST (which means that only deltas performed by UPDATE, INSERT, DELETE on the base tables will be refreshed), Oracle performs further verification of the query definition to ensure that fast refresh can always be performed if any of the detail tables change. These additional checks include the following: 

• An Oracle materialized view log must be present for each detail table.

• The RowIDs of all the detail tables must appear in the SELECT list of the MVIEW query definition.

• If there are outer joins, unique constraints must be placed on the join columns of the inner table.

You can use the DBMS_MVIEW package to manually invoke either a fast refresh or a complete refresh, where F equals Fast Refresh and C equals Complete Refresh:

EXECUTE DBMS_MVIEW.REFRESH('emp_dept_sum','F');

Automatic fast refresh of materialized views

The automatic fast refresh feature is completely new in Oracle, so you can refresh a snapshot with DBMS_JOB in a short interval according to the snapshot log. With Oracle, it's possible to refresh automatically on the next COMMIT performed at the master table. This ON COMMIT refreshing can be used with materialized views on single-table aggregates and materialized views containing joins only. ON COMMIT MVIEW logs must be built as ROWID logs, not as primary-key logs. For performance reasons, it's best to create indexes on the ROWIDs of the MVIEW. Note that the underlying table for the MVIEW can be prebuilt.

Below is an example of an Oracle materialized view with an ON COMMIT refresh.

CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW
   empdep
ON PREBUILT TABLE
REFRESH FAST ON COMMIT
ENABLE QUERY REWRITE
  AS SELECT empno, ename, dname, loc,
         e.rowid emp_rowid,
         d.rowid dep_rowid
    FROM emp e, dept d
   WHERE e.deptno = d.deptno;

1. Set the initialization parameters and bounce the database.
2. Create the materialized view table. Here, we specify that the materialized view will be refreshed every two hours with the refresh fast option. Instead of using DBMS_MVIEW, you can automatically refresh the MVIEW (Snapshot) using Oracle DBMS_JOB Management.
3. Create the optimizer statistics and refresh the materialized view.
4. Test the materialized view.
5. Create the MVIEW log(s) MATERIALIZED VIEW.
6. Execute a manual complete refresh.

Monitoring materialized views

Oracle provides information in the data dictionary to monitor the behavior of Oracle materialized views. When you?re monitoring Oracle materialized views, it?s critical that you check the refresh interval in the dba_jobs view. Here is a SQL statement to check the generated job status for Oracle materialized views: