Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Refe: A Quick Reference for the Oracle DBA

I really didn't like this book in the beginning. Why? Most of the time I'm using an on-line documentation for quick reference and original Oracle documentation set for studying material larger than a few pages. In the old days (do you remember Oracle Book ? ;-) this kind of reference guide would be a rescue for any DBA. Now days?Perhaps... The organization of the book is quite good, index is excellent and some chapters are more than just reference on the subject. When I'm not working on the site where I can easily reach on-line documentation or paper manuals then this book goes with me. One drawback at the time of writing this review is that this edition doesn't cover Oracle8i so you should at least wait for the second edition.

Nowadays countless books are blamed for duplicating manuals. UNIX books copy man pages, Java books list JAVA APIs and Oracle books lump together Oracle manuals. Most readers feel uncomfortable buying such books. Others question what alternative there is. Here's the alternative. Let's say you want to talk about vmstat in a UNIX system admin book. You can say "the w column under procs should always be 0 otherwise...". Or in an Oracle book "in reality, some people set pctincrease to 1 just for the purpose of coalescing extents; some argue it's unnecessary because... Our opinion is...". I guarantee these words won't show up in manuals. But these words "The following section talks about...", "This chapter will discuss..." are typically used in product documentation.This book apparently is overly verbose in uttering what is obvious to every junior DBA. What's not obvious is not obvious to them either. Take "SQL queries to monitor SGA utilization" (Chapter 6) as an example. The authors stopped when they need to talk about what the columns in those views mean (even if we can find this information in manuals) and what kind of values count as warnings to DBAs (this info is not likely in manuals). Whatever computer book you write, if you list the source code, you have the responsibility to talk about the code, at least the hard part of it. If you think that's going to make the book too big and that content should go to a Tuning book, well, there's already so much fat, i.e. verbose talk on easy things. If a big portion of your book is free somewhere, lower the price. There're some good books falling into this category such as Java in a Nutshell, VB&VBA in a Nutshell. But those books are also full of author's wisdom and tips accumulated over the years. How can this book compare?

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.

I've worked on Oracle before, but I certainly wished I had this handybook back then. It helped that I had an Oracle project to work on so Icould apply what I read. It was also helpful using the book as areference to troubleshoot during my project.Assuming the reader has a solid understanding of database principles,this text is a great tool to have handy in your shop. The focus of thebook is squarely on Oracle 7 and 8. Those looking for help with 8i andabove need to look elsewhere.The book is a great companion to Oracle's Metalink site and is notintended on replacing any existing references. Any Oracletroubleshooting should start with this companion to get a generalunderstanding of the issue with followup requiring other resources. Interms of troubleshooting, I doubt many will find solutions in this text,however it will provide some background and insight into most issues.The text is written in a concise manner and does a good job inexplaining the many Oracle tools without being too wordy. An area Ifound sorely lacking was the installation chapter which glossed overoptions and made assumptions that did not always apply to real-worldsituations. However to be fair, an accurate coverage of Oracleinstallations and all the pitfalls would probably take several books.The first part of the book serves it's purpose in getting anyone withsome DBA knowledge up and running on Oracle. Practice is vital tounderstanding the concepts explained in this section. I highlyrecommend executing the queries and peeking into the INIT.ORA files whennecessary or else most of the concepts will escape you.The second part of the book consists of DBA Reference chapters.Particularly valuable is the SQL syntax and Oracle Data Dictionarychapters. Again, very concise and does a good job of explaining thesubject without being confusing.All in all, a useful book to have around, especially for thosesupporting older Oracle installations. Relies heavily on otherresources, although it does help in navigating the Oracle course.--------------------- ...

I am a Sybase DBA and I found this book very useful in terms of knowledge and information. This book is perfect! Don't listen to the other reviewers saying not so good things about this book. They should have read the back cover before they bought it!

This is an excellent reference book. I am an experienced Oracle DBA and I use it as a quick reference. The topics are well organized and to the point. David Kreines and Brian Laskey have done an excellent job.