Rating: 
Summary: Gret Oracle DBA book
Review: Finally, I bought a book which really explains how the Oracle9i database works. I have sevral other 9i books, but Sam Alapati's book is outstanding in it's coverage of the 9i DBA material. The material is explained well, so I can see how the database works. Chapter 19 on Instance Tuning is quite good and helped me understand difficult material like parsing and the wait interface.
A small investment that goes a long way.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much / Too Little
Review: For some reason my previous less than glowing review never made it, so I will try again but unfortunately I don't have time to cite all the specific examples I did before.
I feel the author made a very good attempt to write a comprehensive useful reference on Oracle 9, but the information is very often: a) too cursory, b) rife with mistakes or typos that are serious.
What is needed is very simple: the author must sit down with a novice Oracle user/developer such as myself and observe the user try to apply the information in the book to actual tasks. Then the book should be rewritten to clarify / correct the information in the book.
In the few areas I have tried to apply the information in the book, I have inevitably had problems where key information was missing, confusing, or wrong.
In setting up tables for gathering statistics for the optimizer, the author seems to confuse the concept of the actual data dictionary statistics table with a holding table that is not immediately applied.
In describing the imp and exp import and export utilities, try to find where the author tells you how to export data from one database and import it into another database on the same server. Where do you specify the database?
Here's another one I am editing into this review based on recent experience:
In chapter 18 "Improving Database Performance: SQL Query Optimization", the author discusses the "Explain Plan" facility to reveal the plan that the optimizer has chosen for your query. The plan should be a vital tool to help you tune your query and troubleshoot performance problems.
However, the examples the author gives us are woefully inadequate because the plan information does not include the filter (WHERE clause) information for each index scan, table scan, etc. operation. If your query is at all complicated, you will be immediately lost as to which part of your query the operation pertains to or what it is doing.
However, the filter information is indeed available in the "plan_table" (in the ACCESS_PREDICATES and FILTER_PREDICATES columns) -- Alapati simply neglects to tell us about it or use it.
Even worse, he fails to point out the supplied utility which provides the best presentation of the plan and also the simplest and easiest way to get it -- the "utlxpls.sql" script in the "$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin" directory. Run that and you are home free.
These are the gems that an author should steer you to, but time and again he misses them. A great book should cut to the chase and save you time and effort. Perhaps in his 10g book he has improved things. In this 9i book he repeatedly falls short.
I would never rely on this book to get a job done. But it probably makes a good "survey" read to identify topics and issues to explore further. However, given that, the book should either be 1/3 as long (survey) or 3 times a long (thorough reference) to be useful.
Some areas I like the most were the discussions of optimization (which seemed to cover more than expected, but I haven't gone too deeply into it. Note my critique of "Explain Plan") and operating system specific advice, such as uninstalling under Windows. But the OS advice should probably be a separate book, there are so many gotchas and hidden rules as to how Oracle decides where certain files are, etc.
This book is just not enough for actual use. But I think it could be if the author sat down with real users and really understood the problems encountered and discussed all the pertinent cases that arise. Again, you might end up with three volumes.
Rating:
Summary: Too much / Too Little
Review: For some reason my previous less than glowing review never made it, so I will try again but unfortunately I don't have time to cite the specific examples I did before.I feel the author made a very good attempt to write a comprehensive useful reference on Oracle 9, but the information is very often: a) too cursory, b) rife with mistakes or typos that are serious. What is needed is very simple: the author must sit down with a novice Oracle user/developer such as myself and observe the user try to apply the information in the book to actual tasks. Then the book should be rewritten to clarify / correct the information in the book. In the few areas I have tried to apply the information in the book, I have inevitably had problems where key information was missing, confusing, or wrong. In setting up tables for gathering statistics for the optimizer, the author seems to confuse the concept of the actual data dictionary statistics table with a holding table that is not immediately applied. In describing the imp and exp import and export utilities, try to find where the author tells you how to export data from one database and import it into another database on the same server. Where do you specify the database? I would never rely on this book to get a job done. But it probably makes a good "survey" read to identify topics and issues to explore further. However, given that, the book should either be 1/3 as long (survey) or 3 times a long (thorough reference) to be useful. Some areas I like the most were the discussions of optimization (which seemed to cover more than expected, but I didn't try to apply it) and operating system specific advice, such as uninstalling under Windows. But the OS advice should probably be a separate book, there are so many gotchas and hidden rules as to how Oracle decides where where certain files are, etc. This book is just not enough for actual use. But I think it could be if the author sat down with real users and really understood the problems encountered and discussed all the pertinent cases that arise. Again, you might end up with three volumes.
Rating:
Summary: its worth the money!
Review: I am a beginner and had difficulties of starting Oracle 9 in Windows on my computer. Then i got this book i managed to start it in a very short time. Besides every little thing i try to look for is in that book. Last but not the least 1200 pages book appeared to be less clumsy then i thougt it would be.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the beginners
Review: I am a MS SQL DBA learning Oracle and this was the first book I read after going through the Oracle's official curriculum. Here are my thoughts. 1)This book is definitely not for the beginners. I highly recommend you start with a more basic book that gives you an overview of Oracle. Oracle tools are highly unintuitive and using them can be a frustrating experience especially for MS SQL DBAs *smirk*. Learning to just to connect to an Oracle database is a learning experience that will take knowledge on how Oracle's network and security function. 2)If you already have a working knowledge on how to operate an Oracle database, this book will no doubt provide a more solid foundation for your knowledge (except RAC). I particularly found its chapters on RMAN and IMPORT/EXPORT utilties particularly helpful. 3)Perhaps the best part of this book is that it encompasses what the author believes is the most essential knowledge to becoming a highly competent Oracle DBA. The book does not try to be a reference for every Oracle topic. Instead, the author has smartly picked the most important information needed and presented them in a readable format. 4)My only issue with this book is that it is wordy. The book is 1200 pages long and it could easily have been 1000 pages or fewer.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the beginners
Review: I am a MS SQL DBA learning Oracle and this was the first book I read after going through the Oracle's official curriculum. Here are my thoughts. 1)This book is definitely not for the beginners. I highly recommend you start with a more basic book that gives you an overview of Oracle. Oracle tools are highly unintuitive and using them can be a frustrating experience especially for MS SQL DBAs *smirk*. Learning to just to connect to an Oracle database is a learning experience that will take knowledge on how Oracle's network and security function. 2)If you already have a working knowledge on how to operate an Oracle database, this book will no doubt provide a more solid foundation for your knowledge (except RAC). I particularly found its chapters on RMAN and IMPORT/EXPORT utilties particularly helpful. 3)Perhaps the best part of this book is that it encompasses what the author believes is the most essential knowledge to becoming a highly competent Oracle DBA. The book does not try to be a reference for every Oracle topic. Instead, the author has smartly picked the most important information needed and presented them in a readable format. 4)My only issue with this book is that it is wordy. The book is 1200 pages long and it could easily have been 1000 pages or fewer.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Oracle 9i DBA Companion
Review: I am pleasantly surprised at how practicallly useful the entire book is. I assumed, because of it's size, that a large part of it will be stuff that I won't need. Instead, the book turned out to be full of information that I need on a daily basis as an experienced Oracle DBA.
I found the book very helpful in understanding complex topics like external tables and several other 9i new features. The book helped be implement some new features without any stress - features I stayed away because the Orackle manuals were too wordy and too complex for me to follow.
I have several other Orcle DBA books, bu this volume is definitely the msot useful one that I have, because the author seems to be a real Oracle DBA and not just an author of books.
Rating:
Summary: A Solid Book on Oracle 9i
Review: I just got this book from the library and I decided to read through it before I buy. I think I will buy a copy of it. The book touched pretty much all the areas of Oracle 9i. It is a book to have on your desk as key reference. I will recommend this book to new DBA. The author did a pretty good job. The book seems too big but very useful. I give 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I'm a fairly new Oracle DBA and have bought a few books and this one is by far the best I've seen. It boils things down to what you really need to know and is well written (although I've seen a few typos). I needed to create an instance/database in 9i using scripts instead of the DB Config Assistant and it helped me right away. It reads much better than other Oracle books that all seem to aspire to sound like the Oracle doc set.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I'm a fairly new Oracle DBA and have bought a few books and this one is by far the best I've seen. It boils things down to what you really need to know and is well written (although I've seen a few typos). I needed to create an instance/database in 9i using scripts instead of the DB Config Assistant and it helped me right away. It reads much better than other Oracle books that all seem to aspire to sound like the Oracle doc set.
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