Comments about O'Reilly Media Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Refe:

I've worked on Oracle before, but I certainly wished I had this handy

book back then. It helped that I had an Oracle project to work on so I

could apply what I read. It was also helpful using the book as a

reference 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 the

book is squarely on Oracle 7 and 8. Those looking for help with 8i and

above need to look elsewhere.

The book is a great companion to Oracle's Metalink site and is not

intended on replacing any existing references. Any Oracle

troubleshooting should start with this companion to get a general

understanding of the issue with followup requiring other resources. In

terms 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 in

explaining the many Oracle tools without being too wordy. An area I

found sorely lacking was the installation chapter which glossed over

options and made assumptions that did not always apply to real-world

situations. However to be fair, an accurate coverage of Oracle

installations and all the pitfalls would probably take several books.

The first part of the book serves it's purpose in getting anyone with

some DBA knowledge up and running on Oracle. Practice is vital to

understanding the concepts explained in this section. I highly

recommend executing the queries and peeking into the INIT.ORA files when

necessary 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 Dictionary

chapters. Again, very concise and does a good job of explaining the

subject without being confusing.

All in all, a useful book to have around, especially for those

supporting older Oracle installations. Relies heavily on other

resources, although it does help in navigating the Oracle course.

---------------------

Steve Rodolfich is a Software Developer / Systems Administrator for FGM,

Inc. [http://www.fgm.com] Steve has a BBA in Management Information

Systems and MBA from the University of Hawaii. He works with various

technogies developing 3-tier architecture solutions. The three greatest

joys in his life is his wife, daughter, and TiVo. Steve can be reached

at [...]

Comments about O'Reilly Media Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Refe:

Marc-Oliver, don't hold your breath. O'Reilly appears intent on not updating the important books in the Oracle series, and instead publishing [a] new titles on minor/side topics, and [b] Incredibly And Yet Another PL/SQL books.

Whatever. I'm glad to have had advantage of the key books when they were still mostly relevant.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Refe:

A Must have for every DBA ! It has more coffee-stains than any other of my books !

Serves both as a reference for everything Oracle and as a quick-start-guide for selected topics (e.g. tkprof or SQL*Loader).

I only miss chapters about oracle built-in-packages (I use "Harrison: Oracle Desk Reference" for this).

Waiting impatiently for the new release to cover 8i/9i !

Comments about O'Reilly Media Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Refe:

This is a very good reference book. As a new DBA, I have found the material on database configuration, installation and administration to be very informative and straight-forward.

This book along with Oracle Security: Protecting Oracle Databases, is a great reference combination for the successful of a new DBA.