Customer Reviews

Oracle Essentials: Oracle8 & Oracle8i: Oracle8 and Oracle8i

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

2 years as a DBA... just switching from Microsoft to Oracle... know about databases but needed something to teach me how to see the world through Oracle eyes. Couldn't have picked a better book. Won't make you an expert in any area, but you'll be conversant in all of them-- gives you the framework you so desperately need in order to be able to hold all the other pieces you learn into place. And, unlike VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER BOOK on this subject, skinny enough to carry in my backpack and read on the train to & from work every morning. A+.

This book has excellent "general concepts". As a DBA and consultant, something that separates you from everyone else is the ability to understand the 'what' and 'how' of Oracle. This book also has appendices that give you 6-7 books per chapter for the gritty details and the 'how-to'(ex: Oracle Parallel server, Oracle Application Server). I recommend this book to junior-midrange people and anyone going for a job interview!

This book provides an excellent explanation of the Oracle architecture (not only of Oracle 8 but also of previous releases). At the end I was able to understand what is the SGA, a redo log, a data buffer, RAID, a listener, a datawarehouse application, a star schema, a Java-language trigger, an Oracle Application Server ... and much more, all with the necessary details, not too few and not too much; indeed, I think that density is the main quality of this book. Everything is carefully and clearly explained, making this a valuable resource for everyone who wants to learn Oracle from scratch or simply to assemble the pieces learnt in years of practical experience (as it was my case). In short, for example, for the latest tricks on query optimization, go elsewhere, but if you want to grab a general detailed and clear idea of how Oracle processes your query (which is 70% of what is needed in everyday work), this book is for you. I was greatly satisfied of my purchase, and I think the 'return on investment' is vastly superior than the cheap price of this book!

This book has some excellent sections, and was almost exactly what I needed. I came to Oracle via other RDBMSs (Sybase, PostgreSQL), so I cannot give a novice view, but the book does explain well how Oracle works. My big(!) complaint with the book is the gushing over the wonders of Oracle that are interjected throughout the book. For instance, page 65, has Oracle as the company that "pioneered client-server programming." After about 60 pages, I got to a point where I finally read the bios of the authors, and sure enough, a couple of Oracle employees. No wonder the sales pitch! So I *do* recommend this book, but you have to be prepared to grit your teeth on the occasions when the authors tell you that life itself wouldn't be worth living without the miracle of Oracle.

The book is fairly comprehensive, but truthfully, I use my Oracle Admin Guide more than I use 'Essentials.' In my opinion, the Admin Guide covers all the same stuff, is better organized and is actually written in a more readable/less dry manner. There's nothing wrong with 'Essentials,' but in retrospect I wouldn't buy it again. There's nothing new, and it's a bit of a yawner. I realize this is yawn material to begin with, but I'd still prefer more personality in the writing. Give the Admin Guide a shot, not all delivered docs are trash... just most of it.

If you're looking for an overview of Oracle and how it works - either because your DBA experienced on other products or know some areas of Oracle and want the big picture - this is an excellent starting point. The blurb describes it as 'an invaluable, all-in-one introduction' it lives up to that description

The text style is lucid and brief - with useful diagrams and references to relevant views/tables throughout. The bibliography also provides lots of useful areas to follow up.

This book doesn't pretend to be the last word on Oracle - it aims to be a starting point - if that's what you're after then you could do much worse than this.

If you're already familiar with Oracle and looking for detailed answers to specific problems with your database you probably wont find them here - the clue was in the title!

Excellent book and exactly what I was looking for.

I had experience with both Oracle 6 and 7. Given that Oracle has become very massive I was looking for a book that would give me an overview of the Oracle 8 architecture and capabilities. This book does this very well. It actually does not limit itself to Oracle 8 and is surprisingly detailed as well. People that are purely looking for practical information might be disappointed but otherwise I would recommend this book to everyone.

A review of Oracle Essentials

Oracle Essentials provides a thorough, concise, and above all clear description of how Oracle 8 and 8I work. Oracle Essentials discusses everything from standard data structures to data security to concurrent transaction processing to Web Architecture. Each topic contains invaluable information for the DBA and the data architect. This is not a SQL or PL/SQL programming guide.

It is not easy to write a technical book about a wide variety of complex database topics. It is even more difficult to make those topics clear and understandable. The 3 authors (and their editors) have all done a spectacular job.

The book was designed to discuss Oracle architecture features. However, this book would be better suited as a graduate level text on the state of database design and Internet architecture. It gives programmers, DBAs, and data warehouse architects details on topics they need to understand to do their jobs better. It also an excellent high-level reference for the occasional topic the IT manager needs to brush up on.

I have read 5 Oracle books in the past year. I also read books on Unix, Java, and Perl. This book has been the most valuable.

Read the oracle documentation you can find at technet.oracle.com. It is far better. Or pick up any book on oracle database administration or pl/sql. The material here is too elementary. Also, too much time is spent on obscure and rarely used topics at the expense of the 'meat' or oracle.

If your looking for a concepts book then this may be a good purchase for you ... if you want to know details of Oracle and "how to" you should think about purchasing another book.