Thank you all for your inputs!

Is MAX_ESTIMATED_EXEC_TIME resource plan directive parameter a 9i feature? We are currently on 8i. I was told by an Oracle rep yesterday that CPU_PER_CALL set in the PROFILE level will do the job.

We tested a query yesterday. Before running it, we SET TIMING ON to get the runtime of query. The time it took for the query to finish is 24 seconds. Initially we set the CPU_PER_CALL to 500 which is 5 seconds (just for testing purpose). Also, set RESOURCE_LIMIT = TRUE in session level. The query did NOT terminate at all after 5 secs. Why? Am I missing sth here? Or that parameter, CPG_PER_CALL is not the right one to use for my case.