Oracle DBA 101

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 563 pages
• Published by: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Edition: 1st Edition January 15, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0072121203
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0072121209
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.1 x 1.7 inches
• Weighs: 2.6 pounds

Product Review
Oracle DBA 101 offers a friendly place for budding Oracle professionals to learn critical database management skills. Refreshingly, the book's entertaining style doesn't preclude the authors from discussing advanced concepts.

The text opens with a discussion of everything an Oracle DBA is expected to do. It moves quickly into the particulars of the Oracle architecture, all the while maintaining a comfortable writing style that makes easy reading of material that is, because of its technical nature, very dry. It also includes great discussions of the valuable inner workings of Oracle such as the V$ views and tools such as the Optimizer and Explain Plan. This section, along with a later chapter on performance, provides techniques for diagnosing the causes of even mysterious performance symptoms. A chapter on backup and recovery is included, but it is fairly brief.

Oracle is a very complex product, and this book doesn't attempt to make a seasoned pro out of the reader. But it does provide a fine balance of big picture perspective and internal details to enable new DBAs to hit the ground running. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Database layout, installation and configuration, tablespaces, System Global Area, monitoring, DBA and V$ views, SQL*Plus overview, Optimizer, Explain Plan, TKPROF, Autotrace, performance tuning, backup and recovery.

Steve Vandiver, MAOP newsletter, April 2000
"I like this book because it is very different than all the other technical books on the market."

Reader Reviews
Oracle is not an easy product to master - You can not just read about the product - you need to understand and USE the commands that you read about and run the system. This is the first book that starts at the beginning and asks the user, why one wants to be a DBA and then goes on to layout what some of the job requires. The authors use enough detail to illustrate how commands are used, but the user ultimately must determine the "correct" command parameters that will be used. This does help the reader understand what the command and it's parameters really mean and do. You just can't cut and paste the commands. (See Oracle Scripts for this type of detail). The authors have made good use of basic examples as they attempt to explain how Oracle is structured and used. Users need an open mind to understand this - because it's not like other products. Each Oracle environment is unique and the DBA needs to know how to handle their environment and users. I don't think that this book is meant to be "a complete DBA reference". There are other more detailed books that do this. From the tasks identified, a DBA can easily create their own check list as to what duties they need to perform. I own over thirty Oracle Press and related Oracle books, DBA 101 is the first one to explain in laymans terms, why something is done. The book doesn't do the DBA job for me, but it helps me understand the job I must do - which is why Oracle DBAs are in great demand.