Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition

This product is no longer available.

Please consider the latest edition.

Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition

By: Rick Greenwald, Robert Stackowiak, Jonathan Stern
Publisher:: O'Reilly Media
Released:: June 2001
Pages:: 384

Product Editions

Description

Updated for Oracle's latest release, Oracle9i, Oracle Essentials is a concise and readable technical introduction to Oracle features and technologies, including the Oracle architecture, data structures, configuration, networking, tuning, and data warehousing. It introduces such major Oracle9i features as Real Application clusters, flashback queries, clickstream intelligence, Oracle Database and Web Cache, XML integration, the Oracle9i Application Server, Oracle9i Portal, and much more.

Full Description

The second edition of O'Reilly's bestselling Oracle Essentials has been updated to include the latest Oracle release, Oracle9i. Oracle Essentials distills an enormous amount of information about Oracle's myriad technologies and releases into a compact, easy-to-read volume filled with focused text, illustrations, and helpful hints. Oracle9i promises to be an even more significant upgrade than Oracle8i, offering such major features as Real Application Clusters, flashback queries, Oracle personalization, clickstream intelligence, and Oracle Database Cache and Web Cache; it also promises significant improvements in Oracle's business intelligence, XML integration, high availability, and management capabilities. The book includes overviews of these features, as well as the new Oracle9I Application Server (Oracle9iAS) and Oracle9i Portal. The book contains chapters on:

Oracle products, options, and overall architecture for Oracle9i and other recent releases
Installing and running Oracle: creating databases, configuring Net8 (known as Oracle Net in Oracle9i), starting up and shutting down Oracle
Oracle data structures, datatypes, and ways of extending datatypes
Managing Oracle: security, the Oracle Enterprise Manager, fragmentation and reorganization, and backup and recovery
Oracle networking, monitoring, and tuning
Multi-user concurrency, online transaction processing (OLTP), and high availability
Hardware architectures (e.g., SMP, MPP, NUMA) and their impact on Oracle
Data warehousing and distributed databases
Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and the Web, including the latest Java, web, and XML technologies, interMedia, Oracle9i Application Server, and Oracle9i Portal

For new Oracle users, DBAs, developers, and managers, Oracle Essentials is an all-in-one introduction to the full range of Oracle features and technologies, including the just-released Oracle9i features. But even if you already have a library full of Oracle documentation, this compact book is the one you'll turn to, again and again, as your one-stop, truly essential reference.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introducing Oracle
1. The Evolution of the Relational Database
2. The Oracle Family
3. Summary of Oracle Features
4. Database Application Development Features
5. Database Connection Features
6. Distributed Database Features
7. Data Movement Features
8. Performance Features
9. Database Management Features
10. Oracle Internet Developer Suite
11. Oracle Lite
Chapter 2 Oracle Architecture
1. Instances and Databases
2. The Components of a Database
3. The Components of an Instance
4. The Data Dictionary
Chapter 3 Installing and Running Oracle
1. Installing Oracle
2. Creating a Database
3. Configuring Oracle Net/Net8
4. Starting Up the Database
5. Shutting Down the Database
6. Accessing a Database
7. Oracle at Work
Chapter 4 Data Structures
1. Datatypes
2. Basic Data Structures
3. Additional Data Structures
4. Data Design
5. Constraints
6. Triggers
7. Query Optimization
8. Understanding the Execution Plan
9. Data Dictionary Tables
Chapter 5 Managing Oracle
1. Implementing Security
2. Management Through the Oracle Enterprise Manager
3. Options for Oracle Enterprise Manager
4. Fragmentation and Reorganization
5. Backup and Recovery
6. Working with Oracle Support
Chapter 6 Oracle Performance
1. Performance Tuning Basics
2. Oracle and Disk I/O Resources
3. Oracle and Parallelism
4. Oracle and Memory Resources
5. Oracle and CPU Resources
6. Avoiding Performance Problemswith Oracle9i
7. Real Application Clustersand Performance
Chapter 7 Multiuser Concurrency
1. Basics of Concurrent Access
2. Oracle and Concurrent User Access
3. Oracle's Isolation Levels
4. Oracle Concurrency Features
5. How Oracle Handles Locking
6. Concurrent Access and Performance
7. Workspaces
Chapter 8 Oracle and Transaction Processing
1. OLTP Basics
2. Oracle's OLTP Heritage
3. Architectures for OLTP
4. Oracle Features for OLTP
5. High Availability
6. Oracle Advanced Queuing
7. Object Technologies and Distributed Components
Chapter 9 Oracle and Data Warehousing
1. Data Warehousing Basics
2. Data Warehouse Design
3. Query Optimization
4. OLAP in the Database
5. Managing the Data Warehouse
6. Other Data Warehouse Software
7. The Metadata Challenge
8. Best Practices
Chapter 10 Oracle and High Availability
1. What Is High Availability?
2. System Crashes
3. Protecting Against System Crashes
4. Recovering from Disasters
5. Complete Site Failure
6. Data Redundancy Solutions
Chapter 11 Oracle and Hardware Architecture
1. System Basics
2. Uniprocessor Systems
3. Symmetric Multiprocessing Systems
4. Clusters
5. Massively Parallel Processing Systems
6. Nonuniform Memory Access Systems
7. Disk Technology
8. Which Hardware Solution?
Chapter 12 Distributed Databases and Distributed Data
1. Accessing Multiple Databases as a Single Entity
2. Two-Phase Commits
3. Moving Data Between Distributed Systems
4. Advanced Queuing
Chapter 13 Extending Oracle Datatypes
1. Object-Oriented Development
2. Extensibility Features and Options
3. Using the Extensibility Framework in Oracle
Chapter 14 Oracle and the Web
1. The Internet Computing Platform
2. Oracle as an Internet Server
3. XML
4. Dynamic Services
5. Oracle Internet Application Server
6. Oracle9iAS Portal

Appendix A What's New in This Book for Oracle9i
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
Appendix B Additional Resources
1. Web Sites
2. Books and Oracle Documentation
Colophon

Product Details

Title:

Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition

By:

Rick Greenwald, Robert Stackowiak, Jonathan Stern

Publisher:

O'Reilly Media

Formats:

Print Release:

June 2001

Pages:

384

Print ISBN:

978-0-596-00179-7

| ISBN 10:

0-596-00179-7

Customer Reviews

About the Authors

Rick Greenwald

has been active in the world of computer software for nearly two decades, including stints with Data General, Cognos, and Gupta. He is currently an analyst with Oracle Corporation. He has been a principal author of ten books and countless articles on a variety of technical topics, and has spoken at conferences and training sessions across six continents. In addition to Oracle in a Nutshell, Rick's books include Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and Oracle8 (principal author with Robert Stackowiak and Jonathan Stern, O'Reilly & Associates, 2001), Oracle Power Objects Developer's Guide (principal author with Kasu Sista and Richard Finklestein, Oracle Press, 1995); Mastering Oracle Power Objects (principal author with Robert Hoskins, O'Reilly & Associates, 1996); Using Oracle Web Server (principal author with many others, Que Publishing, 1997); The Oracle WebDB Bible (principal author with Jim Milbery, IDG Books Worldwide, 1999); and Administering Exchange Server (principal author with Walter Glenn, Microsoft Press, 1999).

View Rick Greenwald's full profile page.
Robert Stackowiak

Oracle Power Objects Developer's Guide, principal author with Kasu Sista and Richard Finklestein (Oracle Press, 1995) Mastering Oracle Power Objects, principal author with Robert Hoskins (O'Reilly & Associates, 1996) Special Edition: Using Oracle Web Server, principal author with many others (Que Publishing, 1997) The Oracle WebDB Bible, principal author with Jim Milbery (IDG Books Worldwide, 1999) Administering Exchange Server, principal author with Walter Glenn (1999) Robert Stackowiak has worked for 20 years in IT industry related roles that have included software development, management of software development, systems engineering, sales and sales consulting, and business development. He currently is recognized worldwide as a field sales expert in data warehousing at Oracle, and previously was well recognized for his work at IBM's RISC System/6000 Division, Harris Computer Systems, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bob has spoken at numerous computer related conferences and has conducted briefings with companies based around the world. His papers regarding data warehousing and computer and software technology have appeared in publications such as The Data Warehousing Institute's Journal of Data Warehousing, Informix Tech Notes, and AIXcellence Magazine.

View Robert Stackowiak's full profile page.
Jonathan Stern

Jonathan Stern has over 11 years of IT experience, including senior positions in consulting, systems architecture, and technical sales. He has in-depth experience with the Oracle RDBMS across all major open systems hardware and operating systems, covering tuning, scaling and parallelism, Parallel Server, high availability, data warehousing, OLTP, object-relational databases, N-tier architectures, and emerging trends such as Java and CORBA. He is the Central USA Technical Team Leader at Ariba, Inc., the leading vendor of electronic commerce solutions for strategic procurement. Previously, he led a team of highly experienced database specialists at Oracle Corporation providing technical depth and strategic assistance to Oracle's largest customers in the North Central USA. Jonathan has authored papers and presented at internal and external conferences on topics such as scaling with Oracle's dynamic parallelism and the role of reorganizing segments in an Oracle database.

View Jonathan Stern's full profile page.

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animals on the cover of Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and Oracle8 are cicadas. There are about 1,500 species of cicada. In general, cicadas are large insects with long, thin wings that are perched above an inch-long abdomen. Their heads are also large and contain three eyes and a piercing and sucking mechanism with which to extrude sap from trees. Cicadas are known for their characteristic shrill buzz that is actually the male's mating song, one of the loudest known insect noises.

Cicadas emerge from the ground in the spring or summer, molt, and shed their skin in the form of a shell. They stay near trees and plants, where they live for four to six weeks with the sole purpose of mating. The adult insects then die, and their young hatch and burrow into the ground. They attach to tree roots and feed off the sap for 4–17 years, after which time they emerge and continue the mating cycle. Cicadas have one of the longest life spans of any insect; the most common species is the periodical cicada, which lives underground for 13–17 years. Rachel Wheeler was the production editor and proofreader for Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and Oracle8. Sarah Jane Shangraw provided quality control and Sada Preisch provided production assistance. John Bickelhaupt wrote the index.

Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original 19th-century engraving from Cuvier's Animals. The cover layout was produced by Emma Colby with QuarkXPress 4.1 using the ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. Anne-Marie Vaduva implemented the design in FrameMaker 5.5.6 using tools created by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book; the code font is Constant Willison. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Rhon Porter using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. This colophon was written by Nicole Arigo.

Service and support by Satisfaction

O'Reilly Books & Videos

Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition

Chapter 1 Introducing Oracle

The Evolution of the Relational Database

The Oracle Family

Summary of Oracle Features

Database Application Development Features

Database Connection Features

Distributed Database Features

Data Movement Features

Performance Features

Database Management Features

Oracle Internet Developer Suite

Oracle Lite

Chapter 2 Oracle Architecture

Instances and Databases

The Components of a Database

The Components of an Instance

The Data Dictionary

Chapter 3 Installing and Running Oracle

Installing Oracle

Creating a Database

Configuring Oracle Net/Net8

Starting Up the Database

Shutting Down the Database

Accessing a Database

Oracle at Work

Chapter 4 Data Structures

Datatypes

Basic Data Structures

Additional Data Structures

Data Design

Constraints

Triggers

Query Optimization

Understanding the Execution Plan

Data Dictionary Tables

Chapter 5 Managing Oracle

Implementing Security

Management Through the Oracle Enterprise Manager

Options for Oracle Enterprise Manager

Fragmentation and Reorganization

Backup and Recovery

Working with Oracle Support

Chapter 6 Oracle Performance

Performance Tuning Basics

Oracle and Disk I/O Resources

Oracle and Parallelism

Oracle and Memory Resources

Oracle and CPU Resources

Avoiding Performance Problemswith Oracle9i

Real Application Clustersand Performance

Chapter 7 Multiuser Concurrency

Basics of Concurrent Access

Oracle and Concurrent User Access

Oracle's Isolation Levels

Oracle Concurrency Features

How Oracle Handles Locking

Concurrent Access and Performance

Workspaces

Chapter 8 Oracle and Transaction Processing

OLTP Basics

Oracle's OLTP Heritage

Architectures for OLTP

Oracle Features for OLTP

High Availability

Oracle Advanced Queuing

Object Technologies and Distributed Components

Chapter 9 Oracle and Data Warehousing

Data Warehousing Basics

Data Warehouse Design

Query Optimization

OLAP in the Database

Managing the Data Warehouse

Other Data Warehouse Software

The Metadata Challenge

Best Practices

Chapter 10 Oracle and High Availability

What Is High Availability?

System Crashes