Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Reference

Oracle database administration requires a vast amount of information and an ability to perform a myriad of tasks--from installation to tuning to network troubleshooting to overall daily administration. Oracle provides many tools for performing these tasks; the trick is knowing what tool is right for the job, what commands you need to issue (and when), and what parameters and privileges you need to set. And, as every DBA knows, you need to know how do all this under pressure, while you face crisis after crisis. This book provides a concise reference to the enormous store of information an Oracle DBA needs every day (as well as what's needed only when disaster strikes). 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. It covers the commands and operations new to Oracle8, but also provides Oracle7 information for sites still running earlier versions. Oracle Database Administration provides two types of material:

• 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 utilities
• DBA 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

The book also includes a resource summary with references to additional books, Web sites, and other online and offline resources of special use to Oracle DBAs. 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.

Brian Laskey is a senior database administrator for Management Information Consulting (MIC), a Virginia-based consulting firm that specializes in assisting Fortune 1000 companies in ERP systems integration and e-commerce. Brian has been an Oracle database administrator for 11 years, working with Oracle on MVS, VMS, UNIX, NT, DOS, and Windows. He is an Oracle Certified Professional, certified as a DBA for both Oracle 7.3 and Oracle 8.0. He has presented papers at the IOUW and IOUG-A Live! conferences, as well as at regional conferences. He is currently serving his second term as vice president of finance of the International Oracle Users Group-Americas, and has been a member of the board of directors of the IOUG-A for the past two years. He has just been re-elected to the IOUG-A board for a term to expire in 2001.