Product Description

The Most Complete Guide to Maximizing Oracle Recovery Manager

Deploy a rock-solid data backup and disaster recovery strategy with the in-depth guidance of this authoritative volume. From the exclusive publishers of Oracle Press books, Oracle Database 10g RMAN Backup & Recovery shows you, step by step, how to set up RMAN-ready databases, create reliable backup tapes and discs, and perform accurate Oracle system restores. Find out how to use RMAN from the command line and from Enterprise Manager, generate meaningful lists and reports, and automate administrative tasks using third-party media management tools. Plus, you'll learn to perform incremental backups, Flashback recoveries, and database cloning.

• Set up, configure, and maintain Oracle Database 10g RMAN
• Use RMAN recovery catalogs, target database packages, and control files
• Centralize backup tape management using Oracle Secure Backup
• Perform online, offline, and incremental system backups
• Monitor and tune performance with Enterprise Manager Grid Control and Database Control
• Accomplish complete and partial RMAN database restores
• Improve functionality using VERITAS NetBackup, EMC NetWorker Module, and Tivoli Storage Manager
• Overcome human errors using Flashback Versions Query and Transaction Query
• Create clone and standby databases from tape and disc backups
• Work with Real Application Cluster (RAC) databases and sync-and-split hardware technologies

Customer Reviews (9)

RMAN Backup and Recovery
This purchase has become a great companion in my work place. The buying experience was great. Amazon is truly reliable.

A Comprehensive RMAN Book which will Remain on the Shelf in an Emergency
I finished reading this book about six months ago and delayed writing a review of the book until I had a chance to contrast the contents of the book with the Oracle 10g R2 RMAN documentation and other books on the same subject.I bought the book after reading recommendations by several individuals, and thought that this book was the perfect opportunity to refresh by memory of the Oracle 8i documentation of RMAN and bring me up to speed with the command line interface of RMAN in Oracle 10g R2.The Enterprise Manager Database Control in Oracle 10g R2 almost over simplifies the process of setting up backups, but there is always that nagging question... what if the GUI interface is down, underscoring why it is important to be familiar and comfortable with the command line interface when restore and recovery are needed.I was also preparing to give a presentation related to Oracle administration and performance tuning.This book did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the recommended resources for the presentation, and for that matter neither did any other RMAN book, with the possible exception of the Oracle documentation.

While the book excels at explaining what makes RMAN tick, I personally found that the book is actually a bit difficult to use when trying to implement a change to the Oracle configuration.The section on database cloning, for instance, is more difficult to follow than Oracle's own "Backup and Recovery Advanced User's Guide" documentation on the same topic.Maybe it is just me (and one or two other people).Flipping between several pages (seemed like a hundred or more) is not confidence inspiring had this been a real emergency.

I then decided to try a couple recovery scenarios.I set up an Oracle 10.2.0.4 database instance on a new box, used impdp to load a copy of the data from a production database, enabled archived redo log mode, and then scheduled a backup using the Enterprise Manager Database Control.The first test involved shutting down the Oracle instance, and renaming both copies of the control files.The first attempt in following the "Oracle Database 10g RMAN Backup & Recovery" book to recover from this problem resulted in "ORA-07445: exception encountered: core dump [ACCESS_VIOLATION] [unable_to_trans_pc] [PC:0x7c910CB0] [ADDR:0x4] [UNABLE_TO_READ] []".The book did not cover how to recover from the ORA-07445, which essentially means that Oracle Metalink support must be contacted - the database is down.Not too reassuring.The second attempt (after recreating the instance and database) of following the book to perform this procedure, after realizing that I should have specified RESETLOGS (if I recall correctly, it seems that information was located somewhere else in the book) resulted in "ORA-19698: ...\redo01.log is from different datadase: id=0, db_name=" following the execution of ALTER DATABASE OPEN RESETLOGS.Once again, scanning through this book I did not find the solution to this particular problem.Had this been a real emergency, this book would not have been the only object to hit the recycle bin.

Other miscellaneous notes about the book, in no particular order:
* 100+ pages of the book are devoted to setting up RMAN to work with various storage/media managers.
* RMAN workshops list steps to accomplish various tasks, often spread over 5+ pages in the book.Not all required information is located in close proximity to the RMAN workshops.
* Covers command line and Enterprise Manager GUI commands for RMAN.
* Demonstrates flashback versions queries, flashback table, flashback drop, flashback database
* Many screen shots, diagrams, RMAN Workshop break outs, large font - space filling section headings, seemingly wide margins.
* Some steps which should be straight forward, such as duplicating a database using RMAN, appear to be very simple when reading the book, yet when attempting to put those simple procedures into practice using the book as a guide, are in fact quite difficult due to all of the alternate syntax which is introduced to cover many different set ups.It might be necessary to flip between 50 different pages to successfully duplicate a database on the same server using this book as a guide.
* The book does not indicate what features described in the book require an Enterprise Edition license, nor what features require additional licenses beyond an Enterprise Edition license (this seems to happen in several books by different authors).
* In a crisis, the Recovery Case Studies in chapter 21, which could prove to be the most helpful section of the book, but that section only covers 13 scenarios, all with generally a long description to describe the recovery case study problem.

This book is spared a three star recommendation only by the fact that I enjoyed reading the book cover to cover.

Recently, I have been reading "RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 11g: A Problem-
Solution Approach" and have found that the book is better organized, locating the necessary information in the right places for accomplishing a task, although there is a bit of over repeating in the book (the same sentence appears in two adjacent paragraphs, for example).While the RMAN Recipes book states that it is designed for Oracle 11g, there are output captures which show that some of the sections of the book were written using Oracle 10.2.0.x.If you are considering the purchase of "Oracle Database 10g RMAN Backup & Recovery", you might first want to examine "RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 11g: A Problem-Solution Approach" through the Google books search to determine if it is a better fit for your anticipated backup and recovery scenarios.

A good option to buy
RMAN is the present and the future of Oracle solution for backup.
It has a simple concept, but a great variety of commands, by this way, as a solution for all the complexity inside the RMAN solution, Oracle Database 10g RMAN Backup & Recovery come as a special "friend" to help us discovering all posibilities inside Oracle RMAN software.

Makes backup & recoveryezeee
I had no idea about backup and recovery but after reading this book and trying out the examples, I can say with confidence I can recover a RMAN backed database. Written extremly well!!! One of the good technical boooks I have read....

Worth it's weight in Gold!
Backup and Recovery is one of the most critical tasks that a DBA has to perform. Sadly, it is also one of the most misunderstood. RMAN should be the tool of choice for backup and recovery for Oracle databases. There is so much that can be done with RMAN.

What Robert and Matthew do is break it down piece by piece. There is a great intro and they build on that in subsequent chapters. If you want to link RMAN directly with your backup software (i.e. Veritas, EMC, Legato, etc..) then the authors show you how. I used the Veritas piece to link RMAN in and it worked flawlessly. They go over the latest features including block changing files (for faster incremental backups), merging level 1 and level 0 backups (for faster recoveries without the overhead of backing up the whole database), and even cover what the flash recovery area is and how to use it. There is so much great material packed in this book. Yeah, you can try and read Oracle's docs, but rather than just show you how to do it, the authors also teach you why to do it.

You can read this book chronologically or use it as a reference. The authors writing style make this book a great joy to read. They also include a lot of great examples in case you like to learn by seeing.

I would highly recommend this book if you are an Oracle DBA, whether you use RMAN or not. Afterall, RMAN is what you should be using :). ... Read more

Product Description
PL/SQL, Oracle's programming language for stored procedures, delivers a world of possibilities for your database programs. PL/SQL supplements the standard relational database language, SQL, with a wide range of procedural features, including loops, IF-THEN statements, advanced data structures, and rich transactional control--all closely integrated with the Oracle database server.Learning Oracle PL/SQL offers the guidance you need to come up to speed on PL/SQL, whether you're a beginner or already experienced with another programming language.Topics include:

PL/SQL - what is it, and why use it?Syntax and examples of all core language constructsCreating and reusing stored procedures, functions, and packagesBuilding web-based applicationsSecuring PL/SQL programs Benefits of third-party developer toolsConnecting PL/SQL to email, Java, and the Internet

Customer Reviews (13)

Maybe use as reference with another book...
I bought this book, used, a couple of weeks ago since I needed a resource to learn Oracle... I wish the book would have started with Oracle commands instead of the PL/SQL aspect but I was not totally bothered with this...

If this is the same version, that I have, there are numerous errors (or I believe them to be). For example, on page 160, there is an example of PL/SQL code using a cursor. I understand what they are trying to do but... The second line declares the variable favorite_play_title VARCHAR2(??); - is this legal? I thought VARCHAR2 needs a finite number. On the third line after the BEGIN statement, the statement FETCH bkcur INTO favorite_play_title, publication_date; is fine except he never defines bkcurs in the code (but looking a few pages back he has a script which it is defined - page 152)... It is not stated that the variable bkcur is automatically defined and initialized by the FETCH command (I found this out in another Oracle PL/SQL book that I own) which really confused me.

There are numerous examples like this that make the book hard to follow... There is not much description on the code that they wrote and it one types it in manually, they will be sure to run into the problems... And if you, download the samples online, good luck since they are bits and pieces of code some of which is missing the data so you really will struggle following the book...

I am not against the authors... When you are learning a programming language, software tools, and ... you will need to have the ability to put your resource into practice. If a book is not written, organized well or has examples that do not help the user to understand, missing data and/or have errors, it makes it harder for the user to pick up concepts however simple or complex they may be... If a person is going to spend good money, they deserve a good book...

The Oracle press series is a much better resource for learning Oracle. I have 2 of the books on order...

Not learning anything
This book is erroneously named. There's barely anything about PL/SQL. It's just a hodge-podge on oracle database server and oracle application server with minimum coverage on both.

PL/SQL is an Oracle proprietary language that is available in a variety of Oracle products, and is somewhat different and differently used in each Oracle product. If you want to learn Oracle database server PL/SQL get books by Alice Rischert or Scott Urman because their coverage of PL/SQL is well explained and in depth.

Learning Oracle Maybe, But Not PL/SQL
I've been developing with Sybase and SQL Server for about 5 years with very limited experience with Oracle in that time. I purchased this book hoping to get up to speed on the differences between Oracle's PL/SQL and the Sybase/Microsoft T-SQL syntax. From the title this book seemed appropriate for the job. In short, while the book might be an adequate, albeit SLOW, introduction to Oracle, it covers very little actual PL/SQL.

If you are a programer/engineer/dba looking to "learn Oracle PL/SQL", interested in practical applications of such fundamental topics as constraints, foreign keys, indexes, joins, cursors, views, triggers, corelated subqueries and the like, look elsewhere. Don't take my word for it--take a peek at the index or table of contents and you'll see that the focus of this book has very little to do with PL/SQL.

Overall very good
I've only read three chapters so far.It's been very good actually - I knew some SQL beforehand, although nothing very complicated, and it has been pretty easy for me to understand as well as very helpful for me in learning how to use PL/SQL.It has genuinely useful examples, and also provides tips as to how to perform unit testing on stored procedures and functions.

Another very useful thing the author does is list common and not-as-common mistakes that a programmer may make (which may not always result in errors or exceptions), hence possibly saving you the trouble of hours of debugging.

The only problem I've had with it is that he doesn't treat foreign keys as constraints.One of his sample column declarations is:"isbn VARCHAR2(100) FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES books (isbn)", but I kept getting an error until I changed it to:"isbn VARCHAR2(100), FOREIGN KEY (isbn) REFERENCES books (isbn)".I am not sure if this is a peculiarity of my installation (running Oracle 9i), but a check online reveals that many people also consider foreign keys a constraint.

Except for that problem, I would have given this book 5 stars.

Fair Guide for Learning PL/SQL
I use a self-taught approach to learn new things like most people. And, like most people, I get frustrated with the lengthy superfluous nature of how-to books which throw everything in, including the kitchen sink. This book starts off well, and you can learn from it at a comfortably progressive pace, but it could use a larger scope.The author leaves a lot of code out of the book, though he does explain parts of it.In the end, the project he uses to illustrate PL/SQL becomes more complicated than it needs to be for a tutorial exercise.Still, I haven't seen anything better. ... Read more

Product Description
Learn the ins and outs of 9i with the OCA/OCP: Introduction to Oracle9i SQL Study Guide. This release from Sybex will prepare you for Exam 1Z0-007, Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL. You get hundreds of challenging review questions in the book and on the CD and authoritative coverage of all exam objectives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (37)

Where is my book?
I really wish I could review this order but it has been 24 days and counting since I have not received this book. I don't know why it takes that long to receive a book in a major city in the US but this book is AWOL.

Generally, it is a good book, but there are some errors
Oracle 10g OCA requires 1Z0-007 test from 2009. I read this book and just passed the test with the score 92.5%. In general, this is the best book you can find in amazon to prepare the exam. However, it has couple of errors, and some descriptions make me so confused. For example, an updatable view should or should not have ORDER BY clause? Sometimes, this book says the clause is forbidden, and on the other page, it is allowed. My suggestion: please digest all the pages ,all the questions of each chapter, and all the bonus exams and flash cards in CD. Do not try to omit anything if you really want to pass the exam in one shot. Basically, you need not to purchase any other mock exams or flash cards.
Good luck to your exam.

ottimo libro
è arrivato un pò oltre i tempi di stima della spedizione, ma nel complesso tutto bene

You won't pass the 1Z0-007 exam with just this book.
I just passed 1Z0-007 a few hours ago making 90% (47 of 52) first try. Trust me, If I ONLY studied this book, I would have failed. This book has so many mistakes that it will make you go crazy. It's completely outdated. It doesn't have the current exam objectives. The wording and content placement of this book is terrible. I should have bought the oracle 9i OCP: sql studyguide by Oracle Press.

Get the Self Test Software. It will save you a retake.

I'm studying Oracle's 10g PL/SQL book and Self Test for the next test.

I can't wait to be an OCA!

Great Book for studying
I bought this book and i am still preparing for the certification. So can't really say how useful it will be for the exam. But while reading it, i think it has a great style and really pertinent information.
I am confident this book will help me successfully complete the exam.

... Read more

Product Description
The only study guide in the market for those taking the Oracle Database 10g: New Features for Administrators exam! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Better Than Nothing...
I had already begun using Oracle 10g, but had not used many of the new features before buying this book.I found this book useful in learning some of these new features, but frequently found myself flipping back and forth when contradictions appeared.Most often, there were contradictions and inaccuracies right next to each other on the same page.Even the Self-Tests had questions written wrong with respect to answers.

I found that I had to consult the Oracle documentation over and over again to figure out what was correct, and occasionally never found the right answer anyway.I almost ran out of ink correcting the mistakes in the book in the margins (Which should be made larger in future editions.)

I have bought several other better-written exam guides in the past - the Osborne 9i New features exam guide, and Sybex 8i full certification set.This 10g guide seems incredibly sloppy compared to my past experience.I am currently looking for an 11g Exam guide, and See that Sam Alapati has written that one for Osborne again.I will try to find something else if possible because I don't trust the Author or Editors of this book.

The only reason I give this book 2 stars and not 1 is that I did pass the exam.I did not feel like this book prepared me as well as it should though.

I failed the exam by reading this book
Not to blame the book as the reason I failed, I realized when I went to the testing room, there are alot of items that this book doesn't cover. I recommend you read some other books for your upgrade exam.

Good book
This is the only guide you need to pass the exam. It may not have the depth, but it covered the objectives well.

Then again, what kind of depth does one require for ASM? I've not seen it in use yet here.

10g Certification
If you are planning on taking the Oracle 10g upgrade exam this is the book I used to take the test, and I passed.A few questions on the test on nowhere to be found in the book and that could be because they are new questions or something along those lines.The practice exams are ok and may be a bit easier than the questions on the exam.I looked at some other publishers for Oracle exams and I say Sybex are the ones I am most comfortable with.I purchased this book and scheduled the exam for 6 weeks out.If I would have failed I would have blamed the book :)

As a reference book you will need additional sources as this book focuses on the Oracle exam.Good luck with the exam.

Typos, contradictions and poorly worded questions.
I just finished passing the test. I admit this guide helped me study for the test. The guide was well organized and covered the topics in enough depth. The writing was good. However, the typos, mispellings, contradictions, poorly worded questions and just plain bad sample questions and examples were annoying. The sample tests provided by the book were okay, but had typos and problems too. The end of chapter tests had several problems: some questions were poorly phrased or the answers contradicted the main text of the book.

I marginally recommend the guide, but you need another reference. I used the Oracle online documentation constantly to double-check the facts. My advice is buy the guide because it is well organized, but you need to be careful and double-check syntax and the facts.

... Read more

Product Description
Provides beginning DBAs and developers with a solid foundation in the database administration and programming basics needed to embark on an Oracle career. The focus is on Oracle Database 10g, but you'll get the fundamentals applicable to all Oracle database releases. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Well done!!!!
This vendor shipped the book well in advance of the expected, the book quality was excellent, and the vendor deserves more business!!Thank you for your prompt, high-quality service!

Useless and confusing
This book tells a lot of notions about oracle db, and this can be at first interesting for beginners, but without a logical order: there is no structure, there is no logical consequence in what is written, sometimes even in the same page

This aspect is particular evident in the bakup and recovery section: the authors have written a blob of informations totally unrelated with each other

The choice of the topics is very strange too: there is nothing about fundamental topics, like oracle installation (not even for windows) but there is place for very advanced topics, not so useful for beginners, like xml in oracle db and data partitioning.

The result: this book can be attractive for the large numbers of topics discussed, but it can be very, very confusing

Not a good book. Not a solution for any problem
I know beginners need a book wich talks about only a few topics, the most important. And it must be clear and not too deep way. But it doesn't mean you can take a time with each topic. This book passes over every chapter at the speed of light, leaving many issues unexplained.
To all of this, it must be added the fact that the book costs as much as other really wonderfull and longer books.
It's been frustrating that feeling I had while reading, as I have wasted my money and I'll have to buy another. Any search in google for oracle tutorials gives more information than that book.

Fails at its mission
The problem with this book is stated on page 4 " In order to work.... you will need to have the Oracle Database 10g software installed and the first database successfully created".Therein lies the problem.If you have the software installed and a database started you are way passed the beginning.

This is an intermediate and overview book of Oracle, it is not a beginner's book.When you install the software you will have at least 19 .exe files that will start certain portions of Oracle.Which one do you start with??This book will not tell you.There are default passwords you need to know to get started with Oracle. This book will not tell you.There are certain set ups you need to do with the DBA program to start using Oracle.This book will not tell what you need to do.

There are chapters on SQL, Database Administrator, Networking, Backup, PL/SQL, Java, XML and Large Database Features.There is not a single chapter on how to begin and set up Oracle.

This book was written by three authors and five associate authors that are all highly qualified at Oracle.Their knowledge is so far above the beginner, they have no idea or concept of what the beginner needs to know.Nowhere is there a step by step, mouse click by mouse click, command by command on how to start Oracle.As stated before there are at least 19 .exe files installed when you install Oracle.There is no chapter that tells you what these 19 plus programs do and which one to start with or how to set up Oracle.

The book does give some code snippets to use once Oracle is up and running, but they are completely useless if you cannot get Oracle up and running.Instead of having chapters on Networking, Java, XML and Large Databases, there should be chapters on Beginning,Install, Setup, Logging on, and First Database Definition.

At its stated mission or title, this book is a complete, absolute and total failure.If you want a beginning book, pass on this one.

Really poor...
Just like other reviewers have written, it is really a poor guide... from the fisrt pages you know that the book is missing it's target... ... Read more

Product Description

Real Application Clusters (RAC) and the Grid architecture are Oracle's strategy for scaling out enterprise systems to cope with bigger workloads and more users. Many books limit themselves by conceptualizing and theorizing about RAC technology, but this book is the first to portray implementing and administering an Oracle 10g RAC system in a Linux environment. This book features basic concepts underlying Linux and Oracle RAC, design strategies, hardware procurement and configuration, and many other topics.

The RAC-specific technologies described include configuration of the interconnect, OCFS, ASM, Cluster Ready Services, and Grid Control. The Oracle features RMAN and Data Guard are also discussed, along with available hardware options. The authors include practical examples and configuration information, so that upon reading this book, you'll be armed with the information you need to build an Oracle RAC database on Linux, whether it is on a single laptop or a 64-node Itanium cluster.

Customer Reviews (14)

Great Reference
Step by step guide for installing 10g RAC on Linux. Continue to use it as a reference when installing 11g RAC on Solaris 10 since the utilities are all the same.

Great Oracle/Linux FAQ
There are two approaches to learn about a new application. One is the traditional one - what a typical User Guide does - start with general overview and then methodically cover every little subject. The other way - think about a FAQ - brings you up to speed quickly by answering the most common questions, however the coverage maybe spotty.

This book is a hybrid but on a high level it's more a FAQ than a comprehensive user guide. It tells you the most common things you need to know about Linux, SAN, hardware and RAC. It requires some prior knowledge and doesn't teach you about Oracle or Unix very basics.

In general, this book would be perfect for someone who has some experience with Oracle and Unix but either lacking RAC or Linux knowledge and trying to fill in those gaps quickly. In my case it was an ideal book - I had some experience running older Oracle on Solaris and this book would let me catch up on RAC and Linux specific issues.

This book also is a nice quick reference to keep on your desk if you need to find a commonly used command or file.

The book is not a complete reference as I stated above and gives only a few most typical samples for the most typical situations. Italso shows some age and a lot of recent developments are missing (just a few examples: RHEL5, ocfs2 support on x86_64 and a lot of other things are missing) however because it is focused on the mainstream features and examples, most of the material will stay relevant for years to come.

Also, despite the lack of depth, the authors are trying to give you some rules of thumb and show you some right directions about what is good practice and what is not. A lot of guides and references provide you with endless options to choose from and leave you more confused than empowered. Here the authors are leaving the secondary details aside and try to bring to your attention what is really important and that's exactly the difference you would expect to see between a vendor technical guide and the professionals sharing their real life experience.

Overall, if you're looking for a certification prep material or planning to become a professional DBA you probably need to read more books and this one is not the best to start with. But as a quick crash course to give you some working knowledge you can get by with quickly - this book is really good.

Just the standard install
This book is good if you want to go directly through an installation using all the Oracle tools.However, it does not provide any consideration in terms of manually installing any of the components or going outside the lines.This is probably a good book for a beginner, but for seasoned installations, this book is not very helpful outside the basic Oracle GUI installation process.

Amazingly comprehensive and E2E coverage
Most of the RAC books focus only on RAC. This one covers ALL the aspects from network, server (CPU, memory, IO interface, NIC ...), storage, OS, Oracle and beyond. THE book you need for deploy Oracle and/or RAC.

The Magnum Opus on Oracle RAC
This book can easily be used as a college textbook on Oracle RAC. I am studying for the Oracle Certified Master exam and this is possibly the most high level book on Oracle I have read.

It has 3 major strengths which I found to be superior to any Oracle RAC books I have read (including the manual from Oracle).

1)Technical Depth
2)Comprehensive Overview and instructions
3)Quality of writing


1)Technical Depth
The authors write about Linux and Oracle and are high level experts in the subjects. For example, the authors have a very detailed description of how Oracle Cache Fusion handles locking across all the nodes in a RAC environment (probably the crown jewel of RAC technology). They also discuss, in detail, different types of CPU, memory, and storage and contains detailed description of each architecture. Lastly, it contains vast number of "how to" install, configure, change, analyze, backup/restore, and utilize Oracle RAC and Linux.

2)Comprehensive Coverage and Instructions
No small amount of detail has been skipped. The book contains every utility (there are many) provided by Oracle to implement RAC. It provides a good step-by-step coverage of Linux and Oracle RAC installation as well what each step is adding to the RAC environment. To top it off, it adds how to performance tune, administer, troubleshoot, backup/restore, and use Dataguard in a RAC environment. I can't think of a subject on RAC which the authors did not cover.

3)Quality of Writing
I was pleasantly surprised how well written this book is. Although far from a Pulitzer Prize material, it certainly belongs in that category amongst the Oracle books. Every praragraph has been well organized and written. The proofreader of this book deserves major praise for their work.
... Read more

Product Description

Master Oracle Recovery Master

Protect your databases from hardware, software, and operator failures using the detailed information in this Oracle Press guide. Oracle RMAN 11g Backup and Recovery explains how to configure databases, generate accurate archives, and carry out system restores. Work from the command line or Oracle Enterprise Manager, automate the backup process, perform Oracle Flashback recoveries, and integrate cloud computing technology. This authoritative resource also shows you how to create reports, optimize performance, and implement third-party administration utilities.

• Set up, configure, and maintain Oracle Recovery Manager (Oracle RMAN)
• Manage physical and virtual media with Oracle Secure Backup
• Work with Oracle RMAN catalogs, packages, and control files
• Use the Amazon Web Services cloud as an offsite storage solution
• Create online, offline, and incremental system backups
• Perform full and partial Oracle RMAN database restores
• Correct user-induced errors with Oracle Flashback
• Product clone and standby databases on local or remote servers
• Use Oracle Real Application Clusters and synch and split technology

For a complete list of Oracle Press titles, visit www.OraclePressBooks.com ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Nothing all that new but still a great reference
I have this book for Oracle 10g and use it so much that it is almost worn out.The 11g version is the exact same book with a couple of revisions, I mean the use the exact same jokes in the exact same places.If you are new to RMAN then this book is a must.It has clear step by step directions on how to setup your backups.If you have the 10g version then pass this up unless your 10g book is as worn out as mine.

THE De facto book on RMAN
I learned RMAN by going through the first version of this book "Oracle9i RMAN Backup & Recovery". This book takes the same step-by-step technique for the most recent release, 11g R2.
The use of "RMAN Workshops" to reinforce the lessons learned in the chapters is something I wish EVERY Oracle Press book would do. The chapters related to working with 3rd Party products (Veritas NetBackup, HP Data Protector, and Tivoli Storage Manager) increases the value of this book. This book is BEYOND just the Oracle Documentation.

Get this book learn the fundamentals of RMAN.
If you are a seasoned DBA get this book and learn what is new.

Oracle RMAN 11g Backup and Recovery
Hi all,

I can recommended this book to all IT staff that responsible for backup/restore operations (Includes DRP).
Also, Oracle DBA's may find this book interesting and a best practice tool for backup/restore scenarios.
I hope that the next release will add information on other backup solutions, like Symantec Backup Exec 2010, CA BrightStor ARCserve r15 etc.

Yuval ... Read more

Product Description

Oracle Performance Survival Guide

A Systematic Approach to Database Optimization

The fast, complete, start-to-finish guide to optimizing Oracle performance

Oracle Performance Survival Guide offers a structured, systematic, start-to-finish methodology for optimizing Oracle performance as efficiently as possible. Leading Oracle expert Guy Harrison shows how to maximize your tuning investment by focusing on causes rather than symptoms, and by quickly identifying the areas that deliver the greatest “bang for the buck.”

Writing for DBAs and developers with all levels of experience, Harrison covers every area of Oracle performance management, from application design through SQL tuning, contention management through memory and physical IO management. He also presents up-to-the-minute guidance for optimizing the performance of the Oracle 11g Release 2. 

You’ll start by mastering Oracle structured performance tuning principles and tools, including techniques for tracing and monitoring Oracle execution. Harrison illuminates the interaction between applications and databases, guides you through choosing tuning tools, and introduces upfront design techniques that lead to higher-performance applications. He also presents a collection of downloadable scripts for reporting on all aspects of database performance.

Coverage includes

     •    “Tuning by layers,” the most effective, highest-value approach to Oracle performance optimization

     •    Making the most of Oracle’s core tools for tracing, monitoring, and diagnosing performance

     •    Highly efficient database logical and physical design, indexing, transaction design, and API use

     •    SQL and PL/SQL tuning, including the use of parallel SQL techniques

     •    Minimizing contention for locks, latches, shared memory, and other database resources

     •    Optimizing memory and physical disk IO

     •    Tuning Real Application Cluster (RAC) databases

guyharrison.net

informit.com/ph

Customer Reviews (3)

Great book!
I like Guy's writing style and he always reveals fun details about Oracle.

This is a real-world book for real working Oracle DBA's, not one of those "theory" books that fill the pages with listings from non-reproducible "test cases".

His systematic approach is very similar to my own, and it was nice to see my own guidelines validated.

At first, I wondered if this was just a plug for the Oracle tools that he sells through his employer, but there is enough fresh content in this book to justify its price!

Encyclopedic overview of all aspects of Oracle performance, with a layered approach
Mr. Harrison has been a respected author in this field for more than a decade. His writing back in the days of version 8 first opened my eyes to the world of Oracle performance tuning. When I learned that he published this new book, updated and greatly expanded in scope, I just had to read and devour it.

This book is an encyclopedic overview of all aspects of Oracle performance. Mr. Harrison takes a layered approach, starting at the top with application and data model design where the focus is minimizing the demand for database resources. He then moves down into database code internals, where the focus is maximizing concurrency through reduction of lock, latch, and mutex contention. The next step is to optimize memory usage to minimize the need for physical IO. Finally, he moves to the bottom layer, where the focus is on optimizing physical IO at the disk layer.

Each of these layers is worthy of its own book, so to combine all these topics in a single book is an ambitious goal. Indeed, experienced readers will often want a bit more detail, or wonder why their favorite optimization was not mentioned. However, Mr. Harrison strikes a very good balance between depth and coverage. He also provides a very useful bibliography, including the Oracle documentation, books, and Internet sites and blogs.

For each chapter, Mr. Harrison provides extraordinarily clear, concise, and helpful introductions and summaries. He also uses boxed borders to highlights particularly important points within the text. One can learn a great deal by simply reading these summaries and boxed items, and these can also be used to help the reader find relevant sections, which is especially valuable in a book of this length.

This book is not the last word on SQL tuning, optimizer internals, Oracle troubleshooting, the SGA, nor latch contention. However, its coherent approach, useful summaries and highlights, and efficient organization, make it a valuable and essential guide to anyone wishing to expand their Oracle performance skill set.

The target audience includes both application developers and DBAs. It covers 10g, 11g, 11gR2, with context from 8i and 9i.

by far the most useful oracle tuning book
Great book - illuminating and immediately useful. By far the most practical book on Oracle tuning. ... Read more

Product Description

What makes seasoned IT professionals run for cover?Answer: Forecasting Oracle performance! Craig Shallahamer is an Oracle performance expert with over 18 years of experience. His book is the first to focus, not on the problem of solving today's problem, but squarely on the problem of forecasting the future performance of an Oracle database. Other Oracle performance books are good for putting out fires; Craig's book helps you avoid all the heat in the first place.

Application over mathematical proofs…

If you’re an IT practioner who appreciates application over mathematical proofs than you’ll be pleasantly surprised!Each chapter is filled with examples to transform the theory, mathematics, and methods into something you can practically apply.Craig's goal is to teach you about real-word Oracle performance forecasting.Period.There is no hidden agenda.

A practical and hands-on training course in a book…

This book is a kind of training course.After reading, studying, and practicing the material covered in this book, you to be able to confidently, responsibly, and professionally forecast performance and system capacity in a wide variety of real-life situations.

How to avoid being on the Wall Street Journal’s front page…

If you are more management minded (or want to be) you will be delighted with the service level management focus.Forecasting makes good business sense because it maximizes the return on IT investment and minimizes unplanned down time.To those who think forecasting is a waste of money.Well…obviously they’ve never been on the evening news because their company lost millions of dollars in revenue and brand destruction because of poorly performing or unavailable systems.

It’s about equipping you…

Without a doubt you will be equipped to deal with the realities of forecasting Oracle performance.But this book gives you more.Not only will you receive a technical and mathematical perspective, but also a communication, a presentation, and a management perspective.This is career building stuff and immensely satisfying!

What you’ll learn

This book is a “how to” book filled with examples to transform theory and mathematics into something you can practically apply. You will learn how to use a variety of forecasting models, which will enable you to methodically:

• Help manage service levels from a business value perspective,
• Identify the risk of over utilized resources,
• Predict what component of an architecture is at risk,
• Predict when a system will be at risk,
• Develop multiple risk mitigating strategies to ensure service levels are
• maintained
• Characterize a complex Oracle workload.

Who is this book for?

I.T. professionals who must ensure their production Oracle systems are meeting service levels, in part, through forecasting performance, identifying risk, and developing solutions to ensure systems are available without wasting budget.Readers include database administrators, I.T. managers, developers, capacity planners, systems architects, systems integrators.

Customer Reviews (5)

delivery to italy
I ordered 2 of these books at end of may, they arrived this week. Everything was ok even after a long trip to italy.
Thanks

Fantastic!
A fantastic book.Not one of those that you'll be able to get through over a weekend but is one of those books that you constantly go back to for reference or validation.Some of the techniques take the mystery out of capacity planning and forecasting performance.Excellent.

Very good
This is not a book about Oracle Performance tuning.This is a book about Oracle Performance Forecasting.This should be evident after carefully reading the book.

Good books, like good professionals, are rare.This is why I have developed a tendency to choose carefully before buying one and, in the Oracle area in particular, I can smell the author's intellectual honesty and trustworthiness from the first page.

Forecasting Oracle Performance is one of those.I enjoyed the fluid style and closeness of the author.I enjoyed the simplicity and clarity, almost reminding me of Wittgenstein's famous quote ("everything that can be said can be said clearly").I also enjoyed these short touches of humanism (cf Erlang Krarup's life).
On the forecasting subject, I liked the book construction and the quality of the examples.

Chapter 1 gives a landscape picture of Oracle forecasting and puts the reader in scope and context.
Chapter 2 introduces the reader to the basics of forecasting and the basic concepts over which the book is built: Transactions, response time, arrival time and basic formulas are described here.
Chapter 3 shows the limits of basic forecasting (essential formulas) and the problem of baseline and model selection.It shows how to increase forecasting precision with ErlangC or weighted averages.Most importantly, it shows why it is essential to understand the concepts and implications of the application of a given formula, model or method.The author is very careful in the choice of terms and always clears potential ambiguities.Those who know how difficult it can be to forecast will appreciate it.
Chapter 4 introduces to statistics applied to forecasting.
Chapter 5, on practical queuing theory, is probably the biggest chapter of the book.After a brief introduction to queuing theory, Little's law and Kendall notation, this chapter provides such a diverse set of examples (27!) making the topic very intuitive to non-specialists.
Chapters 6 & 7 describe forecasting methodology and workload characterization.The first describes the steps across a solid performance forecasting methodology, from the initial question to the actual forecast.The second deals with workload characterization: how to get system and Oracle data, how to choose the source and peak.It describes the workload modelling and the risks of data collection.
Chapters 8 and 9 are about models: ratio and linear regression models.They describe their respective foundations, limitations and advantages.Each chapter also contain several examples and case studies to illustrate the subject.
The last chapter deals with scalability models and their relationship with forecasting models.

Overall, I found this book very useful.You will find additional resources at the author's website (there is also a discussion forum on forecasting).The errata page is always up-to-date and some examples have even been extended.Great work!

Outstanding coverage of an important topic
I've always been a fan of Craig Shallahamer, an author who explains complex concepts in plain English.

This is not a trivial book, but it's an excellent book for performance tuning, a worthy book for the worthy scholar.

Oracle STATSPACK and the automated workload repository have provided a gold mine for the Oracle DBA to forecast future performance, and this is a great "get started" book to the statistical techniques that are required to perform performance forecasting.

Not a tunning book
This is a great book to do FORECASTING, that is, if you already have a tunning problem you will not find the solution here. If you are in calm times regarding your application speed, this is when you have to do Performance Forecasting, for which this book is excelent. Very practical and just enough technicall to grasp the priciples. ... Read more

Product Description
The evolution of Oracle has led to a revolution in design practices. For Oracle 10g, database physical structures have become more complex than ever before and database designers face multiple ways to implement their logical models. IS students studying database design and administration need to be able to implement management systems in a way that enables fast performance while preserving logical data structures.Physical Database Design Using Oracle correlates logical data models with the physical implementation structures that Oracle provides. It allows students to learn how to take logical data models and convert them into a series of data structures that permit fast and easy logical access to data. Oracle 10g offers object-oriented data structures, pure relational data structures, and specialized data structures such as index-organized tables. Given so many choices, future DBAs and Oracle designers must understand the approprate use of each physical technology and how it maps to their data models.This textbook is targeted at undergraduate and graduate IS students working to become the Oracle professionals of the near future. It is expected that they already have exposure to basic Oracle database administration. The expert guidance provided by this textbook offers the insight needed to choose appropriate physical models for mission-critical applications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good suggestions but ... sexist... !
Noticed this book, as it is a recently-published book on database design.Not as detailed and researched as one of the typical O'Reilly publisher books, but nonetheless, still pretty interesting in the reccomendations and suggestions the author had to say.

Was somewhat perplexed by the sexist remarks on page 19, however.The author described what an "Educated Idiot" is, someone with a PhD and that is given a role in database design, but has "no real-world experience", and "lacks necessary technical skills".In addressing such a person, the author uses the word "she" multiple times, as if this person must be a woman.There is a reference again on the next page too...Amusing...

Good Review
This is a great book if you were a DBA and trying to find out what the upgrades were since 7.3.I would not consider this a reference book, but a good refresher.If a novice were to pick it up, he still would have no idea what objects are, or how to normalize the data.What I didn't like was the Ph.D. bashing, there was no need for that.the writer should have stayed on a positive note.The commentary belongs in a commentary.

Really quite good
Very little has been written on how important the physical design can be to Oracle performance.This book describes these exact issues and has some excellent examples of the best methods for chosing the best underlying physical structures for your Oracle data.

Poorly Written and Researched
Not sure where the good rating came from, but this book is poorly written and seems to not have been researched much, if at all.Limited test cases show that material was probably grabbed from some other publication, with little application to the application at hand.It is now a table leveller in the office.

Something for all DBAs
Every DBA will benefit from this book.It is an often overlooked area by most dba's under a deadline to take a data model into physical layout.The information on 10g is worth the price of the book alone. ... Read more

Product Description

Pro Oracle Spatial for Oracle Database 11g shows how to take advantage of Oracle Databases built–in feature set for working with location–based data. A great deal of the information used in business today is associated with location in some way, and analysis of that data is becoming ever more important in todays mobile and highly connected world. In Pro Oracle Spatial for Oracle Database 11g, authors Ravi Kothuri and Albert Godfrind address

• The special nature of spatial data and its role in professional and consumer applications
• Issues in spatial data management such as modeling, storing, accessing, and analyzing spatial data
• The Oracle Spatial solution and the integration of spatial data into enterprise databases
• How spatial information is used to understand business and support decisions, to manage customer relations, and to better serve private and corporate users

When you read Pro Oracle Spatial for Oracle Database 11g, you’re learning from the very best. Ravi Kothuri is a key member of Oracle’s Spatial development team. Albert Godfrind consults widely with Oracle clients on the implementation of Oracle Spatial, develops training courses, and presents frequently at conferences. Together they have crafted a technically sound and authoritative fountain of information on working with spatial data in the Oracle database.

What you’ll learn

Pro Oracle Spatial for Oracle Database 11g delivers in helping you fully understand Oracles spatial data feature set. In reading the book, you’ll learn

• About new Oracle Spatial features in Oracle Database 11g, including support for the European Petroleum Standards Group (EPSG) data model, the ability to publish to Google Earth, integration with Google Maps, and much more
• The use of Oracles built-in SDO_GEOMETRY data type for storing location–based data
• How to geocode your data, beginning with postal addresses and ending with SDO_GEOMETRY objects that enable future analysis as well as forming the foundation of working with spatial data within Oracle
• How to create and display maps to help you visualize and analyze your geocoded data
• About network modeling, which is useful in computing routes, travel distances, and proximity based upon travel time
• How to optimize analysis of your spatial data by creating spatial indexes and custom operators

Who is this book for?

Customer Reviews (5)

A bit underwhelming
This book has some good stuff and it is great that this book exists but the value for the size and cost is not there. You can read 50 pages and learn one new thing that you cannot pickup by using the tools.I expected more on tuning and understanding of the indexer but not great for that.

The best I've seen
This book is the best that I've seen of its kind. It covers just about every aspect of Oracle Spatial, from spatial metadata right through to indexing and querying. It contains many quality examples that are easy to follow if you already have a simple understanding of the concepts behind spatial information.

It paid for itself in the first weekk of having it.

Recommended for everyone that uses Oracle Spatial 10g onwards.

Essential Purchase For Oracle DBers Working With Spatial Data
'Pro Oracle Spatial for Oracle Database 11g' is one of those books that take a niche topic and then focus on it.For this book by Apress the topic is the spatial package that comes for Oracle 11.With nearly 800 pages of content spread over 17 chapters you will learn all the ins and outs of this important technology.Used extensively for geographical analysis but also for anything else that reads in spatial data this is a necessary purchase for anyone working with said types of data.

Great work by Apress as per usual and a must buy for any Oracle admins and/or developers that need this package.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Oracle Spatial
this book has all you need to know about Spatial, chapters are easy to read....and the advanced subjects are very well explained....certainly a must have one....

Must a read book
I am currently working on system, the involves Oracle Spatial technology. This book was going to be me first step (almost) towards getting familliar with Spatial. I was little anxious about the level expected from the book's reader: "Intermediate-Advanced"; I haven't exactly felt like "advanced" in Oracle technology. It wasn't so bad; the book is really well written and I had no problems with understanding anything.

The book consists of six parts (including appendices). All the parts cover following subjects:
- Introduction to the technology. Technologies, to be exact; architectures of both, Spatial and Locator options are described -
differences between them.
- Basic concepts - basic know-how. The part, I needed the most met my expectations in 100%. It helped me to start coding really fast.
- Network analysis - more advanced subjects covered, the mostly ARE NOT available in Locator option (one I have access to); network analysis and routing engine, geometry engine. Also indexes and operators are described in one chapter of the book.
- Map Visualisation and creation - a lot of knowlege about MapBuilder, MapViewer and it's API - really helpful for anybody, who needs to visualize maps stored in Spatial.
- Sample applications and case studies - I always look for such chapter in every IT book I read. This is the place, where programmer might find a lot of answers to one's questions. There is also a chapter in this part, the belongs to the category "MUST read" - "Tips, common mistakes and common errors".

There is also sample code available for the readers - to be downloaded from the publisher's web page. It is really helpful to have it while reading the book. There is only one "but" - was, to be exact. About two weeks after the book had been published, the code wasn't available on the page. At least, I couldn't find it. Now it is possible to download it from here.

The book is really good - "must have" of every Oracle Spatial user. It might be helpful for the beginner and advanced developers as well. I would recommend it to everyone, who needs to get to know Oracle Spatial well. All the 756 pages (excluding index) are filled with reliable knowledge, especially that one of the authors - Ravi Kothuri is a member of Oralce spatial development team, where he works as software architect and team leader. ... Read more

Product Description
The traditional division of labor between the database (which only stores and manages SQL and XML data for fast, easy data search and retrieval) and the application server (which runs application or business logic, and presentation logic) is obsolete. Although the books primary focus is on programming the Oracle Database, the concepts and techniques provided apply to most RDBMS that support Java including Oracle, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. This is the first book to cover new Java, JDBC, SQLJ, JPublisher and Web Services features in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (the coverage starts with Oracle 9i Release 2). This book is a must-read for database developers audience (DBAs, database applications developers, data architects), Java developers(JDBC, SQLJ, J2EE, and OR Mapping frameworks), and to the emerging Web Services assemblers.

* Describes pragmatic solutions, advanced database applications, as well as provision of a wealth of code samples
* Addresses programming models which run within the database as well as programming models which run in middle-tier or client-tier against the database.
* Discusses languages for stored procedures: when to use proprietary languages such as PL/SQL and when to use standard languages such as Java; also running non-Java scripting languages in the database
* Describes the Java runtime in the Oracle database 10g (i.e., OracleJVM), its architecture, memory management, security management, threading, Java execution, the Native Compiler (i.e., NCOMP), how to make Java known to SQL and PL/SQL, data types mapping, how to call-out to external Web components, EJB components, ERP frameworks, and external databases.
* Describes JDBC programming and the new Oracle JDBC 10g features, its advanced connection services (pooling, failover, load-balancing, and the fast database event notification mechanism) for clustered databases (RAC) inGrid environments.
* Describes SQLJ programming and the latest Oracle SQLJ 10g features , contrasting it with JDBC
* Describes the latest Database Web services features, Web services concepts and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) for DBA, the database as Web services provider and the database as Web services consumer.
* Abridged coverage of JPublisher 10g, a versatile complement to JDBC, SQLJ and Database Web Services. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Rating the Reviewers
I have read all the Amazon reviews for this book, which I have purchased, but not yet completed reading.In brief, its content is excellent, but its English is weak and nonstandard.

It is noteworthy that all of the Amazon 5* reviews employ broken, marginal English, while those of less than 5* rating, save for this one, employ readable English.

This book is worth buying only if your tolerance of Third World English is high.Frankly, it reflects (not represents) the current state of the IT profession.Walk into most IT shops and written English capability is at 3rd, 4th grade level.Once upon a time, badly formulated English was verboten in professional ranks.Now, it is normal.Once upon a time, badly formulated English was absolutely verboten in publication ranks.Now, even publishers bastardize English, and think nothing of it.A sorry state of affairs.

Credit to the author for a book with valuable content.Zero credit to the publisher for complete negligence in failing to edit.

Needs complete revision
I have 2 bookcases filled with computer science and engineering texts.This is by far the worst of all of them... as far as the writing is concerned.The grammar is horrible.Obviously no spell check was used.Some books require reading sections a couple of times, just because the concepts are difficult to grasp.This book requires re-reading of sections just because the wording is so poor, despite the concepts being fairly straight-forward.On the positive side, the book presents lots of useful ideas and practical examples.

Outstanding
I've been doing Oracle database-related application design and development since before Java even existed.As time progressed, Java became more and more prevalent in the Enterprise environment, web servers became application servers, and before you knew it, Java was being run right in the database.

It has always been difficult and confusing to figure out the various Java technologies and tools and implementations when it comes to a complete Enterprise system... until now.

Kuassi does a remarkable job of providing keen and detailed insight into all aspects of Java in the Oracle Database realm.

A nice, logical technical progression as well as very detailed code samples make this book useful for those wishing to introduce themselves to the basic concepts, or write a specific implementation.

The detailed case studies that show real code used in real world solutions are invaluable.(We've already implemented one of them for a new project we're starting on!)

All in all, it's an excellent book and should be on the shelf of any DBA/Developer that has anything to do with Java in their environment.

Nice but Incomplete
This book has a good deal of information that is accessible. However, several coding examples are incomplete and in some cases misleading. Given the strengths of the book, they are probably oversights or space limitations. The missing code segments are too frequently in the wrong places.

The code examples predominate the book. Hidden gems are nested where readers only find them searching out topics. On a bright note, the index is good at locating what is in the book.

For Java programmers looking to exploit Oracle, indeed!
I've been programming in C++, Corba and Java for years and was looking for a book to develop agaisnt the Oracle database. First of all this book is well written and at a glance, it covers all the API and utilities that a Java developer may use to exploit the Oracle database including Java in the database, JDBC, SQLJ, JPublisher and Database Web services ( Corba folks like myselfwill love the Web services part). You will be amazed reading through this book all the possibilities that Java in the database allows ; the Groovy and Jython stored procedures are just well presented. I am right now digging into Part-II dedicated to JDBC, the Rowset API, RAC support, etc. This book will provide great career advancement opportunities. I strongly recommend this book to my Java developers fellows. ... Read more

Product Description
Perl is a wonderfully powerful and efficient tool for database administrators. It can be used to manage, monitor and tune your Oracle database.But the challenge for most Oracle DBAs is that, in spite of the benefits of using Perl, they have neither the time nor the resources to become Perl experts.Fortunately, you don't need to be a Perl expert to use Perl scripts.Perl for Oracle DBAs includes everything you'll need to get started using this popular open source language to manage your database, from an introduction to Perl to a wealth of ready-to-use DBA scripts.If you've wanted to see what Perl can do for your development and database administration, this book will guide you step-by-step through the process. Perl for Oracle DBAs comes with a toolkit of more than 100 useful scripts that you can use to create databases and users, clone database DDL, maintain user data, compare schemas, monitor database performance, backup data, and perform many other tasks.Written by Oracle DBAs for Oracle DBAs, this book walks you through everything you need to know to put Perl to work for you right away. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Outstanding Coverage
These authors have taken two somewhat diverse topics and combined them into an easy-to-read and cohesive book.

The examples are especially helpful and the authors take great care to explain the issues in Plain English.

Overall, a highly recommended book.

Great book about Oracle DBA utilities written in Perl
This is NOT a book for learning Perl if you're a DBA. The whole book is devoted to describe a lot of free DBA utilities written in this language, and it doesn't give you any roboust help to build your own Oracle-Perl scripts. There's a very little (about 40 pages) APPENDIX devoted to look at the language grammar and programming issues. The only chapter that deserve the only star I give for this book is CHP7 - OCI Calls with Oracle::OCI. But, is this a book written for DBA's or developers?
If someone publish a book saying "UNIX Korn shell scripts for Oracle DBA's", what do I expect? Simply! learn about UNIX Korn shell and how to write DBA scripts for my Oracle system. But if the book talks about utilities written for Oracle in Korn shell scripts, then, clearly it fails its purpose.
Maybe those tools described can be useful for DBA tasks, specially because they're free... the bottom line is that this book doesn't teach you how to programm in Perl. Get something else, devoted just to Perl programming, like "Perl 6 Essentials" from Allison Randal.

AS FINE AS A PEARL COULD BE
"Perl for Oracle DBAs" is indeed a real pearl. This 600-plus paged volume was designed to be a reliable friend of any administrator, whose responsibilities include the oiling of Oracle database machinery.
The book, which comes with a toolkit package that contains more than a hundred ready-to-use programs, bared all the mysteries that surround Oracle/Perl software: including Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Perl DataBase Interface (DBI), as well as all the other modules that commune with both software.
This book runs as smoothly as any pearl could run.

Great book for DBAs wanting to take advantage of perl
I've always loved perl and wrote a lot of utilities to monitor and manage databases when I worked as a full time DBA (using oraperl & perl4).However, over the years as my focus shifted to wider software architecture I found it difficult to keep up with new releases, modules and so forth.From time to time I would visit CPAN but the sheer volume of modules and the limited time I had was preventing me from taking full advantage of modern perl.

Jared and Andy's book neatly solved this problem.Within an hour of opening their book I had fully upgraded my perl and added heaps of fantastic utilities that I never even knew existed.Sometimes perl can be hard to install and configure but this book makes it a breeze.

This book is indispensable if you are trying to get started with perl - and every DBA should!If you are already a perl user I'm sure you'll learn about new features or find utilities that will repay the cost of the book many times over.

Must have for all oracle DBAs
The book is clear, concise and to the point. Style is excellent as I would expect from Andy and Jared. The book covers rare and hard to find topics like installing mod_perl and installing OWA toolkit. The PDBA collection of scripts is very comprehensive and enormously useful. This is certainly a must-have for any Oracle DBA. Great book! ... Read more

Product Description

With growing reliance on spatial components for making critical and strategic decisions, there is great incentive to maximize the added value of spatial data. Enter: Pro Oracle Spatial. This highly anticipated book examines the potential for organizations to exploit spatial information by way of Oracle Spatial.

Included are case studies of advanced spatial applications in healthcare, telecom, retail, and distribution industries. Further, the content is based on extensive feedback from training courses, discussion lists, and customers. This talented author team will also suggest best-practice approaches to common problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

This is it. . . until . . . the. . .
For RIGHT now, this is the definitive guide to Oracle Spatial. There is another book coming out soon (also by Apress) for Oracle 11g. I bought this book as a beginner. It presents the concepts and provides detail very well. Being an Oracle DBA I find that this book is more oriented towards Developers. Nevertheless, I found this book a great starting point and feel that it brought me to the point of being able to understand Oracle Spatial to a point where I can hold an intelligent conversation. The use of example in every chapter brings theory to reality in a tangible manner. I look forward to purchasing Pro Oracle Spatial for Oracle Database 11g (Pro) when released.

Need to get started with Spatial ? Get this book.
Excellent book. I have been using Oracle Spatial for years but found various useful insights in this book. It is well laid out, accessible and covers pretty much all the bases. Good examples and case studies. Tackles the thorny issues around spatial indexing as well as I have seen.

Why can't Oracle do documentation like this ?!

Only drawback is that I found some errors in the discussion of transportable tablespaces WRT Spatial data.

Excellent Book
Lack of discounts aside, the book is a tremendous value.It's well-written, indexed, and edited and a pleasure to read.It's been great fun for me to work through the examples.I only have 2 significant complaints: (1) there were far too few diagrams (i.e., maps), particularly in chapter 7 where they would have helped greatly and (2) there should have been more discussion about mapping basics including map projections since this is a subject about which most DBA's and developers have little knowledge and an area where mistakes in storing, manipulating, and displaying geographic data are often made. I know there are cartography books dedicated to this sort of thing, but I suspect many Oracle users would not even know enough to bother with them.
I would recommend the book, Mapping Hacks published by O'Reilly as a nicely complementary addition to your library.
In short a fantastic book well worth the price.

Good book, no discounts
First off this book seems to be excellent for the topic at hand. However I am giving it 1 star since the publisher has put a restriction on it that it can only sell for the full book price. Retailers are not allowed to sell this book for less than the publisher price of $69.99

How do I know this? I tried to purchase it in a Barnes and Noble and was told that the Publisher has put a restriction on retailers for this title.

Therefore buying it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookpool or anywhere else will not get you a discount.

Instead it will have to be read in a Barnes and Noble store over coffee.

Simply because of the publisher not allowing the price to flex I am giving this book a rating of 1 star.

Publishers please pay attention and remove this restriction.

Get up and Go: Oracle Spatial!
I had a very bad accident back over the Christmas (2004)/New Year (2005) period and while confined to bed, a copy of "Pro Oracle Spatial" arrived in the mail.

Loving a good book, I quickly scanned the Table of Contents (nice to see it has a good Index as well!) and decided this was worth a read.

Well, it is no novel, so it took me a few months to digest; but digest it I did. No "heart burn" here: rather more it "lit the inner fires" of one of my passions: database-based spatial!

I started out in computing nearly 20 years ago on mainframe databases migrating to GIS within 5 years as it was a more interesting field of computing than business computing (and it allowed me to combine my computing science qualifications with my geomatics degree). However, the thing I missed the most was the solidity of the science underlying databases which allowed for logical separation of application from internal implementation: the GIS world was fixated on physical data formats (1960s computing).It took many years before the work of people like Michael Stonebraker and the science and math underlying Abstract Data Types (ADTs) finally hit the work of relational database management (RDBMS) to give us ORDBMS.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Oracle Spatial has come a long way since the days of Multi-Dimension.The hard working team of dedicated developers up there in New Hampshire have built a rock solid piece of technology and deserve recognitition for it. Books like this go a long way to giving them that recognition and widen the audience for database-based spatial to a group of people who will appreciate what they have done because it is "familiar territory" and mainstream.

As a GIS professional and long standing database expert, I found this book covered much familiar territory, but even I found it gave a fresh perspective on what can be the tedious read of online documentation (no offence to the Oracle documentation team intended). In other words: I learned a few things I didn't know!

The more familar base concepts that are covered in the book are clear and lucid and a great adjunct to the manuals. The will make it easy for non-spatially literate people to "get up to speed".

I particularly liked the Case Studies as it is always enlightening to see how others made the rubber hit the ground.

The Common Mistakes and Errors chapter (14) had me nodding in ascent. I was "tickled pink" to discover that the original Multi-Dimension roots of Oracle Spatial are still there in the HHENCODE function described in "Reorganize the Table Data to Minimise I/O". My only regret was that I have wasted time implementing a version of the PEANO space curve (linear_key) in Java and PL/SQL and deployed it into 8.1.7.4 when I hadn't needed to do it all along! The discovery of the HHENCODE function (page 582) came at a time I was dusting off the old Peano code for the organisation of some Lidar data for my current employer. Thanks Oracle Spatial team for leaving the function in the product even at 10g!

I found the MapViewer and Network Analysis chapters clear and accessible and I particularly liked the Appendix on "Additional Spatial Analysis Functions" as this was an "eye opener" that confirmed for me that the Oracle team really do understand the uses for spatial data. Again, I could see immediate application at my workplace.

If you are their target audience ie [... application developers who are familar with Oracle technolgies and want to enhance their applications with spatial information ... but ... do not know much about spatial data] ("Who Should Read This Book?", page xxx) then this book is for you. If you are from a more traditional GIS background (and want to know what all the fuss is about) then you should get a copy of this book because the sort of technology that is described within it is part of the future of the geospatial data management and processing.For more seasoned Oracle and GIS veterans: even you will find something in it that is worth the price.

Order one today.

Simon Greener
GIS Manager, Oracle Spatial enthusiast
Allens Rivulet, Tasmania, Australia.
Longitude: 147.2048
Latitude: -43.0141


... Read more

Product Description

Build and manage a scalable storage infrastructure with Oracle Automatic Storage Management

Customer Reviews (11)

GOOD REFERENCE, NEEDS QC
I continue to be underwhelmed with the quality control of these texts by Oracle.Just spending a little time checking syntax would make a world of difference.Like most of these books, syntax errors in SQL commands are everywhere.Also, important subjects should have more examples with commands actually run (so the syntax errors would get caught and corrected).Overall, a good reference and still the only game in town, but needs work.

a good Oracle ASM read
This is a definitelya good book. Contains plenty of useful info. However don't be misguided by "covers oracle 10g and 11g". As of 11.2 a lot of things have changed like introduction of Grid Infrastructure, etc that makes installation and management a bit different, but I believe the concepts will stay the same. An updated online chapter on new 11.2 features would be nice, but for lack of anything else I would give my both thumbs up for this book, especially if you deal with 10.2-11.1 versions.

No, it won't make you an expert...
I bought this book hoping to get details which I couldn't find in Oracle manuals and the Metalink Notes. I was attracted by the subtitle: "Under-the-Hood...". I'm through the most part of this book and I'm disappointed. The authors definitely know what they are talking about. However, some parts of this book seem like they have been written for the authors themselves or people who already know this material well beyond the manuals. In some cases the description of the operations inside ASM is unclear and not well illustrated by a drawing or an example, which leads me to believe the authors gave very little thought about their target audience, and I don't mean novice DBAs.
With all that said, currently, this is the only book on ASM, it is quite useful, but could have been much better.

Excellent Book
In my opinion this is the best book available in market for ASM. It covers basic of ASM as well as deep troubleshooting. No one can beat Nitin's knowledge, he is an expert when it comes to storage and ASM. You would not be disappointed to have this book.

This is funny . . .
The official documentation is Oracle® Database Storage Administrator's Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1) B31107-05 which is 154 pages. This book is over 300 how is that? ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Great jump start.
Hi, this book's title is definitely not a misnomer.I bought it because I was more or less thrust into a position where I had to learn Oracle - quickly.Time and time again as I searched the internet for this and that I came across tips and excerpts from the author.He's always been pretty good about being short and sweet teaching me what I need to know the first go around.So, (although I didn't realize that there were a series of books) I sprang for this book which was on sale at the time.It is informative - but a jumpstart in every sense of the word.If you have a friend or coworker that owns a copy, borrow it -- I'm not sure I'd tell anyone to invest a few dollars for their own copy.Great crash course though. Thanks!

Easy Read - Good content
This book was easy to read and provided me with the skills and information I needed to get started with Oracle.It does a great job of explaining the basics of starting and managing an Oracle database.

Is there anything good to say about this work?
The author describes this book as his first and it clearly shows throughout.Everyone has to start somewhere, so I can cut some slack for the lack of polish in the work.But not for the identified team of 'experts' who assisted him and who should hide their heads in shame as having let him down so badly.A book on any technical subject with as much breadth and depth as Oracle clearly needs to be well thought out and planned.There is precious little evidence of either in this work.But on top of that - it is just plain painful to read.

This is not an exaggeration - almost any page has something wrong with it - either grammatically, technically, graphically or any other way you care to look.It is downright torture to read this book.

Worst of all - it is shameless in hyping the company the author works for and their other so-called consultant experts.Most chapters actually refer you to Google to find something written (usually very poorly) by someone connected to the book, the publisher, or the consultant house.

I cannot over-emphasize that this book should be avoided.The only reason I have it is because (disappointingly to me) the community college where I am learning Oracle uses it.In my opinion the faculty needs to re-examine (better yet, try to learn from) this work for its value.It leaves this reader gagging; but then, let me tell you how I truly feel ...
... Read more

Product Description
Attain real solutions for current availability challenges. Based on a "DBA-centric" approach to High Availability, Oracle Database 10g High Availability concentrates on explaining Oracle Database 10g technologies and practices to database administrators, covering general availability, real application clusters (RAC), disaster planning and recovery, and distributed database solutions. Hardware and application needs are also taken into account. While Oracle Database 10g is the main focus, many of the options discussed are available in earlier database releases. Organized to provide conceptual understanding of High Availability, included are "HA Workshops," step-by-step instructions to get you through certain implementations, plus real-world inspired case studies ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

10g High Availability
Unlocks the secret to keeping your Database available and running smooth.
Great buying experience

Great Book On HA
I like this book. It does not go into details but gives you at least the basic you need to deploy quickly RAC, DG, Flashback, and Streams. The author also spent time defining HA from the DBA point of view.
Overall, I recommend this book and gives 5 stars

Not detailed enough- lacks implementation coverage
I agree with one other poster that this book attempts to cover all major HA features in Oracle in one small book. It is ok for a very high level overview hence the 1 star but falls flat for major details on the individual HA features. Instead my advice is to get The Oracle 9i RAC book from Rampant Press, Oracle Streams book and Oracle Data Guard book all from Rampant Press and read the Oracle concepts manuals for these HA features.

Good book for intermediate DBA's
It is one of the few good books available in the market which covers RAC, DataGuard and Flashback features all in one.

One of the drawbacks of this book is the fact that too much has been packed into one single book and it seems to loose its focus and lacks in detail.

Overall, I still recommend this to my students who undergo my RAC and DG courses.


Arif Khan
Oracle Consultant, (...)

Just overview of Oracle HA technology
The writers like to subsitute the Oracle manual in OTN but make no difference . eg, I wanted to setup the Dataguard through EM10g Grid Control. In fact , the creation standby database wizard was filled of bugs and user can't make use of it till patching and huge manual works. It's no doubt that writers never tried on this features. The book is rather splotchy and winding. ... Read more

Product Description
Oracle has the largest market share in database management software and is the world's second largest software company.With the release of Oracle8, it has delivered software that goes well beyond normal database functionality.This book addresses some of the most common and complex issues facing database administrators.The questions in this book have been compiled from a variety of sources including Oracle forums, the Internet, and the author's personal experiences.It covers the technical details and new features available in Oracle8 such as Partitioning, Oracle8 objects, PL/SQL8, Net 8, Parallel execution and much more.It also contains hundreds of tested scripts that can be customized and reused to address the specific needs of any database environment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Excellent!
I already read many Oracle books from Oracle Press & other publications. They are very good. This book takes different approch of How-to Style content which is very much practical & solves day to day administrative needs. Topics are covered in detail. Most importantly examples given are from grounds up. Excellent! This book is also helpfull for all who know a little bit of Oracle Database & want to know more in depth

The book pays itself many times
We all know, especially here in Brazil, the money that one pays to have a good Oracle trainning. If you already have a little knowledge of Oracle and its jargon and are self estimulated, this book will take you to high level of expertise without a pain . Want to know Oracle ? Start with it.

Most useful DBA book I've read so far
As an Oracle Instructor and DBA I've had the opportunity to review numerous Oracle texts for DBA's and have to say I've been quite disappointed with most of them.Mr. Yuhanna's book however is an exception.Out of the many DBA texts I have on my shelf this is the one I goto most frequently.Unlike other texts which spend excessive amounts of time covering uncommonly used features and little to no time covering commonly used features this books covers almost all the basics in a hands on approach.The book is setup in a step by step how-to format.Although it doesn't discuss concepts much that is not its purpose and the best concepts book is the Oracle Documentation anyway.I've have yet to see a good how-to DBA book until I came across this one.As a consultant/instructor I recommend it quite frequently.

The most useful and practical Oracle8i Reference Book
Among all the Oracle reference books, I found this one to be the mostuseful and practical book.This book is very well written and has an easyto read format.The detailed step-by-step instructions in Q&A sectionhelped me solve problems quickly.This saved me much time and effort thangoing through piles of other reference books and trying to pull pieces ofinformation here and there together to get a complete picture.I highlyrecommend this book to Oracle DBA's in all levels.

The best DBA book for new and experienced DBAs
The book is very useful for both new and experienced DBAs because it has alot of practical examples.I especially like its Q&A format withscripts which makes reading very interesting. ... Read more

Product Description
Everything a DBA needs to know in one volume--this is the must-have reference for anyone working with the Oracle database, and it's been fully revised and updated for Oracle Database 10g. Co-author Kevin Loney is the all-time, best-selling Oracle Press author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

DBA Handbook
Great purchase experience and a great book for any dba making a transition from 'i' to 'g'

Fantastic Quality!!!
The provider of this book was honest, fast in shipment, and the book was in outstanding condition!Please purchase from this vendor!!!I would definitely buy again from the vendor!!Great Job!

Never mind!
If you're not familiar with Oracle this book won't help you one bit.
If you are, it's useless because you won't find anything on the topic you're looking for.

Excellent Reference
This book thoroughly describes storage structures, day-to-day tips for installing, maintaining, and upgrading 10g databases.I refer to it often when performing DBA functions.It can also be read as a primer from cover-to-cover to get an excellent understanding of 10g.

Great book!
This book can't be out of your office! It's an excelent, faster, complete reference that helps you in your every-day Oracle DBA work, It cover from the basic topics to RAC and high-availability configuration in only 708 pages. Obvious, It's a handbook reference and doesn't give you the complete solution for one problem, but if You had been working for 2 or 3 years as DBA, or if You are and OCA or OCP DBA, the book is a great reference for you. ... Read more

Product Description
Oracle 10g Database Administrator II: Backup/Recovery uses the most current database release from Oracle to provide thorough coverage of an Oracle database through the day-to-day duties of a database administrator.This text drills down key tools and techniques for Oracle database backup, recovery and network administration and provides good preparation for the update Oracle certification exam, Database Fundamentals I (#1Z0-043).In addition to extensive review material, the end of chapter content also includes comprehensive coverage of the exam objectives and exam-like practice questions.This text is the perfect compliment to the Oracle 10g: Database Administrator: Implementation and Administration (DBA1) text and the 1Z0-042. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Tameka/EXCELLENT!
This was a well written book from beginning to end, I could read it over again.The exercises in the book worked to completion.This is a self help reference book that helps you understand Backup/Recovery to the fullest.Cudos to Claire!She needs to write all the literature for Oracle Database.

Oracle 10g Admin2
The Oracle 10G Admin 2 book was more concise on database recovery and gave a much clearer description on what is involved in recovery than the Oracle 10G Admin 1 book. I found the book much easier to read and understand. The subject matter is really presented well and a student can appreciate the time saved by a clear and well thought out description of Globalization and resource management chapters.


The exercises in the book were very helpful in mastering the concepts on configuration and Automatic database management. I especially liked the chapter on Recovery Manager and the exercises were excellent. This book has helped me learn Oracle 10G and I would recommend it to other students trying to learn Oracle 10G.

Awesome Book
This book was very well written. I found the hands on examples to be especially helpful. The examples provided in the book were very detailed. Wonderful book!!

Best ever IT book!
Claire Rajan has very skillfully made an IT book interesting to read.It is an exceptional learning tool, chocked full of clearly written hands-on exercises. I plan to always keep it handy as a reference guide.

Excellently balanced book!
Claire Rajan has put together an exceptionally put together book. She has carefully simulated both in-class and 'on the job' sessions while craftfully meshing both theoretical and practical knowledge for all modules.I HIGHLY recommend all aspiring, junior and seasoned DBAs have a copy of this book.

Great book written by an exceptional author! ... Read more