Oracle9i RAC: Oracle Real Application Clusters Configuration and Internals (Oracle In-Focus series) [Paperback]

Mike Ault (Author), Madhu Tumma (Author), Don Burleson (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Oracle In-Focus series | Publication Date: August 1, 2003

A reference for RAC and TAF technology, this book demonstrates how to optimize Oracle clustered server environments for optimal performance and flexibility. Covering all areas of RAC continuous availability and transparent application failover, this book is indispensable for Oracle DBAs who are responsible for configuring and implementing RAC clusters databases. The secrets for successful design of RAC clusters and the expert internals of shared disk technology, raw devices, and RAID with RAC are described. The internal concurrency and PCM locking mechanisms within RAC are exposed, and the configuration of Transparent Application Failover is explained. Also provided are tips for monitoring and tuning RAC applications and tricks for using Oracle9i RAC Cluster Guard.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mike Ault is a senior technical management consultant with TUSC, holds five Oracle master certificates, and is the author of 14 Oracle-related books. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Madhu Tumma has been a software developer, IT manager, database administrator, and technical consultant and has worked on a wide variety of projects and environments, including mainframe, client-server, eBusiness, and managed services. He has consulted a variety of clients on database clusters, business continuity, and high availability solutions. He is a frequent speaker at Oracle World and IOUG, where he presented many technical papers. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Product Details

• Paperback: 606 pages
• Publisher: Rampant Techpress; 1 edition (August 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972751300
• ISBN-13: 978-0972751308
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,569,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, January 11, 2004

By 

Sudha Iyer (NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oracle9i RAC: Oracle Real Application Clusters Configuration and Internals (Oracle In-Focus series) (Paperback)

I purchased this based on Madhu Tumma's review (Madhu you have changed your identity to MTM). I agree with some of the sections like quorum disk and split brain architectures are well explained, the rest of the book is not worth it.

Chapters are not complete (like other reviewers have also indicated), most of the contents are referenced to outside material. Do a search for the string 'step-by-step' on metalink and you will get everthing this book contains. The book contains many incomplete sections and several errors. I searched all possible sources for 'automated freelist' could not find it, what's this? Similarly, cache fusion is better explained in the Oracle concepts document. Overall quality of printing is also bad.

Mike I have purchased your earlier books and have liked them however this one is disappointing.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This book is poor in quality!, December 5, 2003

By 

Victor Smith (Springfield, ID, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oracle9i RAC: Oracle Real Application Clusters Configuration and Internals (Oracle In-Focus series) (Paperback)

At the outset I thought this was a great book, however as I read through the various chapters found this is to be more like a kludge. Most of information is incomplete; the topics are good, however they hang loose and or is misleading.

The installation and configuration chapter has all the platforms covered, it is good to have such details in one book, however when you read it its utterly confusing. There is no clean transition between sections. For example under Linux the authors discuss system details, then they move to interconnect and clustered software and then they kind of get lost, they talk about shared storage volumes followed by configuring NAS then comes OCFS. The fundamental question that came to a DBA in our group - are all these related? Do we need setup shared storage volumes, configure NAS etc to configure OCFS. Can we not configure OCFS on SAN? Is our configuration wrong?

The authors discuss the watchdog process required with 9.1 and mention that in 9.2 you have to replace this with hangcheck timer however the configuration file output in the cluster manager configuration section show watchdog parameters. In the end of this section, the authors suggest referring to metalink for step-by-step instructions (Similar notes are found elsewhere also).

The performance-tuning chapter, it's poorly done. The authors have provided listings from a STATSPACK report however; there is absolutely no explanation. Authors have provided screens shots from OEM that are not clear nor contain any explanation.

Lots of material is cramped into one book however nothing is complete, you have a feeling you are left to hang of a cliff. The production of the book is also bad; the book came apart in about a week. The producers have tried to save some trees by making the pages crowded and not leaving any margin space on pages. It's good for the environment but hard for the reader's eyes. There are all these reasons why readers love books from publishers such as O'Reilly.

The width of the book is small compared to normal book sizes, with no compromise on the price.

One should think twice before buying this book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unsatisfactory!!, December 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Oracle9i RAC: Oracle Real Application Clusters Configuration and Internals (Oracle In-Focus series) (Paperback)

The book has lots of incomplete sections and misleading statements, to list a few..

The architecture chapter contains marketing performance measurements from vendors such as HP, Intel that claim the RAC has linear scalability. Every time a new node is added, the cluster interconnects have latency factors that reduce true scalability. RAC provides horizontal scalability would be more appropriate.

The installation and configuration covers all hardware platforms, however it's confusing, most sections have links to other sites most commonly metalink for further information. Similarly, the chapter on application deployment regarding SAP has a note to check with the vendor.

The performance-tuning chapter contains OEM material and screen shots that are not clear and there is no explanation on what they mean. What's this `automated freelist' feature referred in the conclusion?

The chapter called `Internals of Real Application Clusters' contains no internals, all the information in this chapter can be found in the RAC concepts guide. Hmmm! Did the book get its `internals' title from this chapter?

The chapter on `TAF' is just an overview and very poorly done by the authors.

The book has good titles, however incomplete and misleading sections. The book is only good as a cross reference to get to the appropriate material elsewhere. Nothing more.

Buy at your own risk.