Oracle RMAN Pocket Reference is a handy guide for DBAs who intend to use Oracle Recovery Manager for database backup and recovery. Because Recovery Manager (RMAN) is a relatively new tool, many DBAs are just becoming familiar with it. They will welcome a timely book that explains clearly and concisely how to use RMAN for common backup and recovery tasks that are infrequent, yet extremely vital.
The first portion of the book is primarily task-oriented. After a short section on RMAN architecture, the book shows (in checklist style) how to perform common backup and recovery tasks such as:
Implementing a recovery catalog
Creating and running RMAN scripts
Configuring input/output channels
Taking a full database backup
Backing up tablespaces and datafiles
Taking incremental backups
Recovering lost datafiles
The second portion of the book consists of a handy syntax reference to the many RMAN commands. Having a quick reference to RMAN commands is a great convenience to DBAs who otherwise, often under the pressure of a recovery situation, would have to wade through Oracle's online documentation.
Darl Kuhn, an Oracle DBA and software developer with 14 years experience, is a senior DBA with Sun Microsystems. Before joining Sun, his work as a consultant ranged from database administration to custom application development. For the past four years, Darl has served as a volunteer DBA and developer for the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group. He also taught Oracle database administration and software development courses for the graduate department of Computer Information Systems at Regis University. Darl has an MBA from Colorado State University and currently lives in Denver, Colorado.
Scott Schulze, a senior DBA for Level(3) Communications, worked with Oracle technologies since 1990 both as a developer and as a database administrator, and served as a consultant in the telecom and data storage industries. Scott also taught numerous courses, ranging from relational concepts to PL/SQL development for the graduate department of Computer Information Systems at Regis University. He has an MBA from New Mexico State University, and currently lives in Littleton, Colorado.
Comments about O'Reilly Media Oracle RMAN Pocket Reference:
This book is succint and to the point (I wish most of the tech books are).The authors get to the point and if you are in a hurry to set up RMAN there is no better book than this. Most topics of RMAN are covered. Don't expect this book to teach RMAN concepts. Get another book for that purpose. Half of this is book is on RMAN command reference which is very handy. With this book you may be able to setup and start taking backups using RMAN in less than an hour but the authors leave certain subtle things that could leave you stranded sometimes.
