Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Administration Handbook

SQL Tuning Best Practices

While efficient use of statement caching is going to improve performance, the key driver for improved performance in to ensure that you're using efficient SQL queries. Developers must also seek to remove most SQL from the middleware and move it to the back-end database tier, where it belongs. Here are some guidelines for improving SQL performance (mostly generic, but some recommendations pertain specifically to the Oracle database):

Use stored procedures Using stored procedures rather than individual SQL statements is much more efficient in most cases. You can often achieve dramatic performance improvements by taking ...