Expert Oracle Exadata [Paperback]

Kerry Osborne (Author), Randy Johnson (Author), Tanel Pőder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 9, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1430233923 | ISBN-13: 978-1430233923 | Edition: 1

Throughout history, advances in technology have come in spurts. A single great idea can often spur rapid change as the idea takes hold and is propagated, often in totally unexpected directions. Exadata embodies such a change in how we think about and manage relational databases. The key change lies in the concept of offloading SQL processing to the storage layer. That concept is a huge win, and its implementation in the form of Exadata is truly a game changer. 

Expert Oracle Exadata will give you a look under the covers at how the combination of hardware and software that comprise Exadata actually work. Authors Kerry Osborne, Randy Johnson, and Tanel Põder share their real-world experience, gained through multiple Exadata implementations with the goal of opening up the internals of the Exadata platform. This book is intended for readers who want to understand what makes the platform tick and for whom—"how" it does what it is does is as important as what it does. By being exposed to the features that are unique to Exadata, you will gain an understanding of the mechanics that will allow you to fully benefit from the advantages that the platform provides.

• Changes the way you think about managing SQL performance and processing
• Provides a roadmap to laying out the Exadata platform to best support your existing systems
• Dives deeply into the internals, removing the “black box” mystique and showing how Exadata actually works

What you’ll learn

• Configure Exadata from the ground up
• Optimize for mixed OLTP/DW workloads
• Migrate large data sets from existing systems
• Connect Exadata to external systems
• Support consolidation strategies using the Resource Manager
• Configure high-availability features of Exadata, including Real Application Clusters (RAC) and automatic storage management (ASM)
• Apply tuning strategies utilizing the unique features of Exadata

Who this book is for

Expert Oracle Exadata is for database administrators and developers who want to understand what makes Exadata unique so that they can take advantage of all the platform has to offer. It is also for anyone who needs to plan and execute migrations of systems to the Exadata platform. Finally, the book will be invaluable to those who support and maintain such systems.

Table of Contents

1. What Is Exadata?
2. Offloading / Smart Scan
3. Hybrid Columnar Compression
4. Storage Indexes
5. Exadata Smart Flash Cache
6. Exadata Parallel Operations
7. Resource Management
8. Configuring Exadata
9. Recovering Exadata
10. Exadata Wait Events
11. Understanding Exadata Performance Metrics
12. Monitoring Exadata Performance
13. Migrating to Exadata
14. Storage Layout
15. Compute Node Layout
16. Unlearning Some Things We Thought We Knew

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kerry Osborne began working with Oracle (version 2) in 1982. He has worked as both a developer and a DBA. For the past several years he has been focused on understanding Oracle internals and solving performance problems. He is an OakTable member and an Oracle Ace Director.. Kerry is a frequent speaker at Oracle conferences. He is also a co-founder of Enkitec, an Oracle-focused consulting company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. He blogs at kerryosborne.oracle-guy.com.

Randy Johnson is a principal consultant at Enkitec, a consulting firm specializing in Oracle. Randy has more than 18 years of experience with Oracle, beginning with Oracle 7 during the early 1990s. Much of his career has combined Oracle database administration with Unix administration duties. Over the last five years, Randy focused almost exclusively on real application clusters and automatic storage management. He is also an authority on Oracle backup and recovery via RMAN, having written a popular utility for automating RMAN scripts called Dixie. Randy occasionally blogs at http://blog.enkitec.com.

Tanel Põder is one of the leading Oracle performance specialists in the world, having helped solve complex problems for customers in more than 20 countries on five continents. He specializes in advanced performance tuning, end-to-end troubleshooting, and other complex (and therefore interesting) tasks, such as migrating very large databases with minimal downtime. Tanel has optimized the performance of Exadata installations, starting from Exadata version 1, and he plans to go even deeper with his current Exadata performance and troubleshooting research. He is one of the first Oracle Certified Masters in the world, an Oracle ACE Director, and a proud member of the OakTable Network. Tanel regularly speaks at conferences worldwide and publishes his articles, scripts, and tools in his blog at http://blog.tanelpoder.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 588 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (August 9, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430233923
• ISBN-13: 978-1430233923
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Exadata book worth twice the money !!! September 7, 2011

By Bert Scalzo

Format:Paperback

This is a fantastic technical tome on all things Exadata. Outstanding coverage includes intro of the technology, hardware configurations, administration tasks, performance monitoring and diagnostics, wait events, backup & recovery, and application SQL tuning. Quite easily one of the two best books I've ever read regarding any Oracle technology (The other being Guy Harrison's Oracle Performance Survival Guide). I've met some of the book's authors over the years at various Oracle events (e.g. Hotsos) and thus knew these guys were top notch. But this book still totally blew me away even expecting it to be great knowing who it was coming from. I've been doing Oracle databases for over 20 years, written nine book myself, taught for Oracle Education, and worked extensively with all things Oracle. In fact I'm an Oracle ACE. So I know a good book when I see one - and this book is tops. You will not be disappointed - worth every penny.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Update 7-Nov-2012, book is showing up on people's desks October 10, 2011

By Kevin Meade

Format:Kindle Edition

Update 7-Nov-2012, book is showing up on people's desks

It has been a year now since I initially reviewed this book. As my company moves forward with EXADATA I see this book making its way around the buildings. DBAs in particular are heavy on it. I walk around and see the serious people with a copy of it. I am not a spokesman for this book but because I have used it to such good effect, I felt a need to comment further after seeing that it was making its way around the company. I hope Tanel Poder and the other authors do another one.

Hail Flavius!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE 29-NOV-2011

Here is an example of why this book works for people in the trenches. My boss recently asked me for proof that the EXADATA platform was benefiting the applications and database we were migrating to it. "Kevin, I need proof we are getting benefit from EXADATA before we continue to push systems to this platform.". Well... I knew exactly what to do. In demostrating EXADATA the book has pages that shows how to do this (for this question it was page 53 I think?). I went back to the chapter I remembered, read up to the page, and then ran the scripts and queries suggested. I then had the proof my boss needed. "See Boss, even on the poor side, our queries are getting a 5 to 1 lift in reduced I/O because of EXADATA. EXADATA is passing back only 1/5th the data it would have been required to move around on 9i.". He was surprised, and happy at the same time. So this is one example of what I mean when I say the book is for practitioners. The book gives you knowledge and then provides examples of typical ways you use that knowledge. It is the kind of book that changes the way you think and also gets you up and running.

Hail Flavius!

---------------------------------------------------

This book is completely different from the other book on EXADATA (the one by Oracle Press and the Oracle Product Managers). The other books is not bad, just for a different audience. Expert Oracle EXADATA is very practitioner oriented.

The first six chapters are to some extent introductory. Still, these may be the most important chapters in the book. These six chapters will change how you view application development for relational databases. In particular it will make you start looking at SQL a different way. You will look at a SQL statement, and start evaluating it almost immediately for its fitness to the EXADATA paradigm. Things like:

1) does the query contain constant tests that will allow EXADATA to use storage indexes to eliminate I/O?
2) will the joins in the query support pre-join bloom filter early elimination?
3) is the table partitioned (maybe by date) and if so are some partitions static such that EHCC (column compression) can be exploited?
4) does the query fetch data which when stored in a non-EXADATA environment, contains the inefficiencies that EXADATA SMARTSCAN can remove?
5) would the query benefit from less indexes (yep, you sill need indexes in EXADATA, particularly UNIQUE ones, but you need less of the others, maybe lots less)?

The first six chapters will introduce you to all the above and more.

The second best thing you get from the book is access to lots of new scripts for 11gR2 and for EXADATA. They give you a website you can visit. Cool Stuff and real timesavers. SNAPPER.SQL of course is the best. But my favorite is Name: ESFC_HIT_RATIO.SQL Description: Useless script for calculating an incorrect EXADATA Smart Flash Cache hit ratio (hehe), it seems they even include the junk for completeness.

No book is everything to everyone of course. One thing you won't find in this book is direct help on migration issues you will have with your applications and third party tools. Certainly the book gives information that can be used to work on problems you encounter. But this book is not a book of case studies. Chasing down answers to questions like why do my Informatica loads not all run faster? Why are many of my Business Objects reports which were timing out before, still timing out on EXADATA? There simply would not be enough room in one book to cover EXADATA directly, and these logical followon topics as well.

All in all, this is an excellent choice for an EXADATA practitioner. EXADATA is so new that there are so far only two books anyway. If you are going to be migrating, designing, or developing on EXADATA, you should get this book and if nothing else read and understand the first six chapters. Let it change the way you look at your SQL and your applications.

As an indication of the practical value of the book, consider this: I am currently lucky enough to be working intermitently with Tanel Poder, one of the books authors. This guy may very well be one of the Top-10 EXADATA practitioners on the planet. Every day we meet, he goes over various items, and much of what he talks about is the same material contained in this book. Other stuff can be derived from what is in the book. So this book is about real information and techniques, not just a recapitulation of the manuals. For example, Tanel uses daily, various scripts you will see in the book. SNAPPER.SQL is really good. He shows us how these scripts help us to understand what EXADATA is doing for us and possibly more importantly, what it is not.
Hail Flavius!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars revealing September 23, 2011

By Jeff

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Written in a surprisingly readable style, this one took me off the fence regarding Exadata. Here you will find thorough research well-presented. If you are at all interested in this technology and would like to know more, and get it in a non-whitepaper, non-hyped way, this book won't disappoint. My congrats to the author on a great job.