Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Refe (Paperback)

by David Kreines (Author), Brian Laskey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'If you want a good, solid, practical reference guide covering both Oracle 7 and 8, look no further.' Dave Rutlidge, Cvu, February 2001

Product Description
This book provides a concise reference to the enormous store of information an Oracle database administrator needs every day. It's crammed full of quick-reference tables, task lists, and other summary material that both novice and expert DBAs will use time and time again. For both Oracle8 and Oracle7, it covers:

DBA tasks--chapters summarizing how to perform critical DBA functions: installation, performance tuning, preventing data loss, networking, security and monitoring, auditing, query optimization, and the use of various Oracle tools and utilitiesDBA reference--chapters providing a quick reference to the Oracle instance and database, the initialization (INIT.ORA) parameters, the SQL statements commonly used by DBAs, the data dictionary tables, the system privileges and roles, and the SQL*Plus, Export, Import, and SQL*Loader syntax

Oracle Database Administration is the single essential reference you'll turn to again and again. If you must choose only one book to use at the office, keep at home, or carry to a site you're troubleshooting, this will be that book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 580 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 1st edition (April 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565925165
• ISBN-13: 978-1565925168
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #428,305 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is very useful - I don't understand some comments, November 2, 1999

By A Customer

I really don't understand where some of the other comments on this book come from - I find it to contain lots of information I need, and I've been a DBA for 10 years. The source material of all Oracle books is ultimately the documentation, but these guys seem to have done a very good job of extracting what we need from the docs and presenting it in a useful form. The title is "Reference", so of course it will duplicate some Oracle material. To me, it looks like the init.ora chapter is pretty close to the docs, but they did cut out some unecessary words, and I'm not sure I could write those (boring) descriptions any better than Oracle already did, so why take a chance on introducing new errors? I think the book deserves 5 stars and the reviews that rate it low don't understand its purpose or have unrealistic expectations.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very useful reference book. Keep it to hand !, June 23, 2000

By	Andre Whittick Nasser (Niteroi, RJ Brazil) - See all my reviews

This book serves it purpose very well. As the title says, it is an essential reference, and that is exactly what I use it for.

As some other reviewers point out, there is a lot of copy-and-paste work in it. But I think that is not a problem.

In fact, very often it is much practical than navigating the bulk of on-line books, when you have to wait for the browser to load, search for a word or topic, or even when there's no computer at hand. Not to mention I can carry it around in my bag when necessary.

I especially would like to emphasize the coverage of SQL commands, init.ora parameters, data dictionary views and utilities.

Although I agree there are some inconsistent topics in this book and some mistakes as well, I think the people who complain about it either expected something very different or did not understand how useful it can be.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the greatest book since sliced bread, June 4, 1999

By A Customer

In this one book, the authors have distilled at least five Oracle manuals. Want SQL*Plus syntax? It's here. SQL syntax in a concise layout? Here. Every init parameter, descriptions of the various tools DBA's use most, plus a great summary of Oracle starting with an overview, all the way through installation, tuning, backup, and security. The list of steps for creating a new database is wonderful for new DBA's who's primary experience in this area is probably the Oracle course. As a new DBA, this one book will save me lots of time looking through PDF files of Oracle documentation. A great find - this book you'll pry from my cold dead fingers!