SORT_AREA_SIZE (Oracle)

This parameter specifies the amount of memory that can be used for sort operations. Sorting is needed for SQL statements which use ORDER BY, GROUP BY and SORT MERGE JOIN operations. Sorting is also done during index creation.

Sort operations requiring more sort area space than specified by this parameter will use temporary segments on disk. It is important to note that the memory specified in sort_area_size is assigned for every Oracle process that performs a sort operation, so the total memory used can add up quickly on an active system.

The SAP default for sort_area_size is 2097152 bytes. This value is normally sufficient.