Customer Reviews

Oracle9i UNIX Administration Handbook

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

 

 

Usually I never buy Oracle Press Books simple because in the past the books told you how Oracle "Should" work... not how it actually "Does". So I was extremely weary when a fellow Oracle DBA recommended this book to me.

This book has radically changed my view on Oracle Press Publications (yes, some are worth the money). This is a very interesting read for any Unix DBA, full of comprehensive explanations and diagrams on the way in which Oracle interacts with the Unix server. There are many detailed Unix Scripts to help you monitor your instances, which can be run via Statspack (dbms_job) and/or via the Unix cron. There is additional information on some more complicated UNIX commands, and copious small tips and tricks that will help in everyday Database Administration tasks. The book also covers commands for all different Unix environments Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, AIX etc and help you interpret results from vmstat, sar and other Unix admin utilities.

The only issues I have with the book a few simple errors and a small number of spelling mistakes. Apart from these minor blemishes, I'd have no hesitation recommending this publication to fellow Unix based DBAs.

I support Oracle 8i and 9i on Windows, HP-UNIX, Solaris and LINUX. This book has become my only UNIX reference. It not only explains how to interact with UNIX but also details the differences between the different major UNIX dialects. The focus is not on tuning Oracle so much as establishing and monitoring the UNIX platform to support an Oracle Database. The author explains UNIX administration from a DBA's point of view and details those commands a DBA needs to understand to insure that Oracle operates optimally in the UNIX environment. The scripts allow a DBA to proactively monitor UNIX and anticipate problems. If you are looking for a book on installing UNIX this is not it. If you are a DBA supporting Oracle in a UNIX environment you should always have this book close at hand.

I really needed this book because I am a DBA from an NT environment and new to UNIX. This book is heavily Oracle-centric, and has a focus on managing Oracle in a UNIX environment, which is very different fron Windows NT. This is one of the few Oracle books that I found worthy of reading from end-to-end.

The only shortcoming that I noted was that it did not have enough scripts for Unixware and DEC-UNIX, but the coverage of Solaris, HP-UX and AIX is suberb.

The books starts at a beginner-level and moves on in a steady progression to advanced concepts, which I found really helpful.

I do read a lot of books from Don and other fellows. If we'll talk about minor mistakes and minor details, that will be waste of time. No one expected very serious book like One-on-One or similar. If you're new in Admin, that book is very good. If you don't know UNIX and want to care Oracle on it, than that book is very helphful. And if you're looking for "New Features" of 9I on UNIX - some utilities, or different outputs and results ( for example even Oracle is not tells about that export/import are working now is very different if compare from 7 to 9I, not just features only ), than this book is not for you (it is print of UNIX scripts, article about StatsPack - looks like from his other book, and UNIX lessons ).
I will recommend this book only to junior-middle level people.

Where's the 9i??? With this book having a copyright of 2002, I would've thought that the material would be more up to date. Most of the material is 8i and even 8. If you are hoping to gain insight into 9i and UNIX...don't waste your money on this book!!!!

I have a whole shelf of Oracle books and I can tell by the fraying the ones that I actually use regularly to solve problems.

The book is well organized and has become a nice way for me to remember Unix commands. I also used the scripts successfully and I'm quite happy with the book.

I think this book has some important information, but boy the errors are annoying. Here's two blatant ones within two pages:

Page 88 - Under the heading "Counting Semaphores", the author says that "The ipcs UNIX command has a -sa option that can be used to display semaphores. The total number of semaphores is determined by summing the NSEMS column in the ipcs display. In the example that follows, you see that there are four semaphores held by the root user and 475 semaphores held by the oracle user in three database instances:

root> ipcs -as|grep oracle
IPC status from /dev/kmem as of Mon Sep 10 17:25:21 2001
T ID KEY MODE OWNER GROUP CREATOR CGROUP NSEMS
s 15 0x0000000 --ra-r----- oracle dba oracle dba 400"

Huh? First of all, you said in the example that the option was -sa, but in the command you show -as. Then, I only see a single line showing 400 semaphores held by a single instance.

Here's another example from the bottom of page 89:

"In Oracle8i and beyond, you can use SQL*Plus to perform the same function:

root> sqlplus /nologin
SQL*Plus: Release 3.3.2.0.0 - Production on Mon Sep 10 17:27:04 2001
Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 1979, 1994. All rights reserved.

SQL> connect system/manager as sysdba;
Connected

Since you cannot get the semaphore set number for the crippled database, you must determine the semaphore set using the process of elimination. You issue the above commands for each live database on the server, and the unclaimed semaphore set will belong to the crippled instance."

Huh? The example showed me how to log into SQL*Plus as sysdba, but I already knew how to do that! The commands he references in his last paragraph are completely missing from the book! What do I do now?

Jeez, take your time and freakin' edit the book. It feels like it was thrown together rapidly. Don Burleson is one of the names that pops up most frequently when doing searches for Oracle advice online, but my confidence in him has erroded significantly. You can find similar errors to those in his book in his online resources.

Hi,

I will recommend this book for every Oracle and UNIX starter. Book is more on using and managing Oracle easily and efficiently on UNIX server. If you just looking for UNIX administration book than this might not be the book you looking for.
All in one book will be really useful for newbie to intermediate level of DBA using UNIX server.

Regards,
Nirmal

I'd worked with Oracle 7.x on AIX boxes before but my most recent experience has been with Oracle on Windows. Our production system (9.2.0.3) was moving to an AIX box and one of the other DBAs thought that this would make a nice Christmas gift.

A nice thought.

The major problem is that most of the examples are wrong. The technical editing was incomplete. In the example comparing MS-DOS and UNIX commands, half of the examples are placed in the wrong column. I kept going throught the book, hoping that the examples would clear up or that I could find a systematic error so that I would know what errors to expect. The errors are random and persistent. An erratta sheet would be basically republishing the book.

It sits on the shelf unopened. I have not used it to bring our Windows DBAs up to speed on UNIX because I would first have to unteach them the flaws that they saw in the examples.

The text itself is perfectly good. Excellent. If you know Oracle and you know UNIX and you can ignore the examples then it's a fine book.

But for someone going from Windows to UNIX I predict that it will lead to much frustration.

Excellent content, concepts and depth of knowledge. The author explains Oracle as it pertains to AIX, HP and Solaris. There are also many ready to run scripts to help monitor and tune a system. It even shows how to extend STATSPACK.