Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Oracle8/8I

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Simply, this books coverage of 8 and 8i features is poor. If you want something to review the new features of Oracle, this book is not it. Do not waste your time.

I am extremely unhappy with this book. I found several errors. Some of the parameters that it suggests using on an Oracle 8/8i do not work as they are now obsolete. Although they work in an Oracle 7.x environment, they will cause your 8.x database to not startup! (Yes, I tested them before I posted this message) The rest of the book is vague and generally unhelpful. I am extremely disappointed and not sure that I will EVER purchase another book from QUE again!

Considering that most of the Oracle DBA books on the market are simply horrible, filling hundreds of pages with unneeded info, this book is the first attempt to make a purely technical, no nonesense reference guide for DBAs to use. Those new to Oracle 8 will get a good introduction to new features. However, do not look for a recipe to install Oracle on Unix, do backup and recovery, set up the OS environment, etc. For these critical and complex tasks the book follows the old industry tradition: it gently touches upon these topics... and moves on.

I bought the book because I thought it would cover 8i. It gave highlights, but no real details or examples of the authors using it. However, the coverage of Oracle8 is very good and it handles the issue of practical tuning very well.

This is a wonderful book which covers all the aspects of Oracle, including all the interfaces with Oracle. A really excellent book for DBAs and Programmer Analysts. It helped me a lot in understanding DBA part. Am excellent Que publication. I appreciate the structure and contents of the book

Granted...I am a junior DBA but this book is very good at presenting the basics with enough detail that I would definitely recommend it over many other general Oracle DBA books (including the Handbook by Oracle Press). It really helped in spelling out the exact steps to creating a database as well as installing Oracle (which for some reason many books neglect). With that said, whether you use this book or another book, it is a good idea to also purchase topic specific books (eg. Backup and Recovery, Tuning, etc.) when more detail is needed.

User-level is listed as intermediate-advanced, certainly cannot be used as a beginner's only handbook, will not give the beginner a reliable grounding in the topic. Supposedly can be used as a learner's or a reference book, in my opinion, is neither. Which is the problem with this sort of work. Much valuable information contained, but with so many different authors there is no clear development or common style, rather atomic chapters, at times repeating the same information in a somewhat different fashion. Index is spotty. (Maybe this is an appropriate style for Oracle DBMS?). Is worth a read, does cover 8/8i and does contain Oracle 8i Personal Edition CD.

If you're a newcomer in the DBA-field, this book provides a good overview of Oracle8. If you're an experienced Oracle7 DBA, looking to enhance you're knowledge of Oracle8, you won't find the indepth information you're looking for in this book. More so, because the co-authors have different styles of writing about their own subjects. For instance, I found the information about "materialized views" (only mentioned ones) too short. Instead, a subject like Designer was too elaborate for my taste. Still, if you're new in the field and looking for a comprehensive guide, this book is good value for money.

I think the author knows the material but is isn't presented very well. The book doesn't seem to flow. It is interesting to read and the author gives tips (the best part) that you don't see in other books but it is not good enough to be used as a valuable Oracle reference. Better books exist for that.

As a Solaris admin I have little knowledge of Oracle. I really did not want to know much either. However, I must know something of it's design and layout. I also need to know what services/daemons do what. However, all the books I found covered Oracle on NT/2000. Who in their right mind would do such a thing! Anyway, this book as sufficient coverage of Oracle on Solaris that it helped get me up to speed on Oracle enough to understand an Oracle DBA when they speak!