No detailed documentation for AWR report

One of my coworkers asked a really good question:
“Where is the documentation that explains all the sections of the AWR report?”

The answer is that there is no comprehensive section-by-section documentation of an AWR report.

But, there is a note on Oracle’s support site that gives examples of how to use AWR reports:

FAQ: How to Use AWR reports to Diagnose Database Performance Issues [ID 1359094.1]

The AWR report contains the difference between two snapshots of the V$ views.  So, to understand what is listed on a section of the AWR report you must find the V$ view it is based on.  The snapshots of the V$ views are visible in the DBA_HIST views.

Here is an example of a mapping of a section of an AWR report to the V$ view:

“SQL ordered by Elapsed Time” -> DBA_HIST_SQLSTAT -> V$SQL

You find this mapping by reviewing the DBA_HIST and V$ views and comparing what they contain with what the AWR report contains.  You make a guess based on the contents of the report and the descriptions of the columns.

I had discussed this and appreciate the input from the people on these two forum threads:

Orafaq thread

OTN thread

– Bobby