Oracle Essentials, 3e: Oracle Database 10g [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Rick Greenwald (Author), Robert Stackowiak (Author), Jonathan Stern (Author)
Key Phrases: web cache, cache fusion, heterogeneous services, Oracle Database, Real Application Clusters, Oracle Net (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The new edition of this classic book, Oracle Essentials, 3rd Edition: Oracle Database 10g, distills a vast amount of knowledge into an easy-to-read volume covering every aspect of the Oracle database. Readers of all levels will learn about Oracle's features and technologies, including the product line, architecture, data structures, networking, concurrency, tuning, and much more. Featuring focused text, abundant illustrations, and helpful hints, the new edition offers a valuable overview of Oracle's Database 10g --the industry's first database to support grid computing. Recent releases such as Oracle 9i and 8i are also covered. More comprehensible than a large reference, and more detailed than mot primers, this book covers all the information you'll need to install and run the Oracle databases, as well as the conceptual background you'll want to understand how they work. If you're new to Oracle or upgrading to Oracle 10g, you'll find this all-in-one guide essential.

About the Author
Rick Greenwald has been active in the world of computer software for nearly two decades, including stints with Data General, Cognos, and Gupta. He is currently an analyst with Oracle Corporation. He's published six books and countless articles on a variet

Robert Stackowiak is Senior Director of E-Business Intelligence for Oracle Corporation's Enterprise Technology Center. He works with Oracle's largest customers in North America, providing insight into the company's products and data warehousing strategy.

Jonathan Stern has more than 13 years of IT experience, including senior positions in consulting, systems architecture, and technical sales. He has in-depth experience with the Oracle RDBMS across all major open systems hardware and operating systems, cov

Product Details

• Paperback: 394 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 3 edition (February 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596005857
• ISBN-13: 978-0596005856
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #154,504 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars everything oracle, May 2, 2004

By	Jeanne Boyarsky (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

As with most O'Reilly books, Oracle Essentials is crammed full of information. The book is geared for DBA's, system admins and developers. The book assumes some general knowledge of databases, but most concepts are explained as they come up. For example, there are sidebars for normalization and RAID.

The third edition is updated for Oracle 10g. Since the authors point out which features are specific to Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g, this book is just as useful for older versions of Oracle. For readers of previous editions, the book has an appendix directing the reader to the new 10g content.

For developers, using Java with Oracle is explained. There are good sections on SQLJ, JDBC, EJBs and Java stored procedures. For DBA's and system admins, the book covers architecture, failover and deployment.

The book uses a good mix of text, diagrams and examples. Many cutting-edge topics are explained with a non-platform specific background of the topic and examples. These topics include OLTP, Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence and of course - Grid Computing.

I found the list of major technologies to be extremely useful. Chapter 1 has a paragraph on Oracle features in the database, application server and standalone development tools. The rest of the book focuses on the database itself. This book covers almost everything you would want to know about Oracle and provides references for more detail on each topic. If you are only going to buy one Oracle book, this is the one to buy.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Effective quick introduction to Oracle, January 31, 2005

By	Paul Filipski (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've used a number of different database systems before, but never had the pleasure of working with Oracle's software. I installed a development version of 10g and was somewhat taken aback when the installer proudly announced "169 products installed." I glumly thought "Gee, hope the database server is in there somewhere."

I picked up a copy of Oracle Essentials and found it to be an excellent introduction to Oracle. The book is short enough to read end-to-end, but it is packed with information about Oracle's architecture and most of those 169 products. The authors write lucidly, in an easily accessible style. Even though the book is eminently readable, it doesn't "talk down" to the reader, nor skimp on details. There is surprising depth in so short a book with such broad scope!

As another reviewer mentioned, there is essentially nothing about SQL and PL/SQL in this book. That's okay with me - there are plenty of excellent texts on those two topics.

Oracle Essentials claims it is "What you need to know about Oracle Database architecture and features." I agree completely!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent theory, but no details, May 6, 2005

By	Ron (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews

I agree with the good things my fellow reviewers have to say about this book - it is an excellent introduction to the Oracle architecture. But be advised that although the book is rich in theory, there is virtually no hands-on, how-to information. As a result I sometimes spent hours researching how to implement a feature described in the book, when the author could have explained it in a couple of sentences. I highly recommend it - but if you plan on working with the database yourself you will need to supplement it with a good hands-on book, the Oracle on-line documentation, and a lot of trial and error.