Here's the book you need to prepare for the Oracle Database 10g Administration I exam, 1Z0-042. This Study Guide was developed to meet the exacting requirements of today's Oracle certification candidates. In addition to the consistent and accessible instructional approach that has earned Sybex the "Best Study Guide" selection in CertCities Readers Choice Awards for two consecutive years, this book provides: Clear and concise information on database administration with Oracle 10g Practical examples and insights drawn from the authors' real-world experiences Leading-edge exam preparation software, including a test engine and electronic flashcards You'll also find authoritative coverage of key exam topics, including: Installing Oracle Database 10g Software Creating and Controlling Oracle Databases Administering Users Managing Schema Objects and Data Implementing Oracle Security Features Monitoring Performance Performing Database Backup and Recovery Look to Sybex for the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in today's competitive IT marketplace

This book explains how to architect and deploy high availability (HA) solutions with Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) in a Sun™ Cluster 3.x environment. It presents information to help you decide when an Oracle RAC and Sun Cluster software solution is appropriate to satisfy the availability requirements of your business. In addition, this book explains the technology behind these products, describes successful customer deployments, and provides technical tips and preferred practice recommendations. This book features detailed case studies, including A large German bank that has implemented an Oracle RAC and Sun Cluster software solution to meet the ever-increasing business demands of the banking industry. One of the largest companies in Europe for alpine skiing that has implemented Oracle RAC and Sun Cluster software to support HA requirements in a consolidated environment. A benchmark case that describes the use of Oracle RAC with Sun’s Remote Shared Memory (RSM) technology to improve the performance of single-instance databases. A large financial institution that uses Sun Cluster’s HA Oracle agent to provide the necessary level of HA required for their database.

The newest addition to the OakTable Press series, PeopleSoft for the Oracle DBA, will teach you a range of techniques for maintaining a PeopleSoft system. You will then become able to implement techniques like indexing, implementing DDL, managing tablespaces, and fixing low-performing SQL queries. Author David Kurtz is a field expert and provides answers to common questions that arise when using PeopleSoft on an Oracle database. Kurtz begins the book with an architecture overview, then proceeds to BEA Tuxedo, PeopleSoft's application server. Kurtz transitions smoothly between subsequent chapters, explaining database structures, connectivity, keys and indexing, the PeopleSoft DDL, and tablespaces. Kurtz gives appropriate weight to advanced topics as well, like schemas, performance metrics, performance monitoring utilities, and SQL optimization techniques. The final chapters provide crucial, advanced information about Tuxedo.

Despite its wide availability and usage, few developers and DBAs have mastered the true power of Oracle SQLPlus. This bestselling book--now updated for Oracle 10g--is the only in-depth guide to this interactive query tool for writing SQL scripts. It's an essential resource for any Oracle user.The new second edition of Oracle SQLPlus: The Definitive Guide clearly describes how to perform, step-by-step, all of the tasks that Oracle developers and DBAs want to perform with SQL Plus--and maybe some you didn't realize you could perform.With Oracle SQLPlus: The Definitive Guide, you'll expertly: write and execute script files generate ad hoc reports extract data from the database query the data dictionary tables customize an SQLPlus environment and much moreIt also includes a handy quick reference to all of its syntax options and an often-requested chapter on SQL itself, along with a clear, concise, and complete introduction.This book is truly the definitive guide to SQLPlus. It's an indispensable resource for those who are new to SQL*Plus, a task-oriented learning tool for those who are already using it, and an immediately useful quick reference for every user. If you want to leverage the full power and flexibility of this popular Oracle tool, you'll need this book.

Customize Applications for Maximum Availability in Sun Cluster Environments The Sun Cluster 3 environment offers developers and administrators a powerful API for creating custom "data services" that maximize the availability and enhance the horizontal scalability of many enterprise applications. Now, here's an authoritative tutorial and reference to building custom data services with the Sun Cluster 3 API. In , three leading Sun Cluster experts systematically review the tools, programming interfaces, and features that make custom data services possible. Then, through a series of step-by-step examples, they demonstrate how to ensure that applications can recover smoothly from even the most serious failures. Sun Cluster 3 Programming This book Reviews every facet of "availability" and what it takes to make software available Provides extensive easy-to-understand code examples, all available for download Covers all areas of agent development, from quick basics to advanced techniques Covers all the APIs provided with Sun Cluster 3 Walks step-by-step through making existing applications available, scalable, and cluster-aware Until now, this information has been available only in a three-day Sun training course. Now, with the help of Sun's in-house experts, you have all the information you need to build Sun Cluster 3 custom applications that deliver unprecedented levels of application availability.

The Oracle SQL is a must-have for anyone working with Oracle databases, especially those looking to maximize the effectiveness of SQLPlus. As Oracle's long-standing interactive query tool, SQL Plus Pocket Reference Plus is available at every Oracle site, from the largest data warehouse to the smallest single-user system. Despite its wide use, however, SQLPlus is still often not completely understood or fully utilized.Database administrators and developers alike will therefore find the Oracle SQL to be extremely beneficial. In addition to summarizing all of the SQLPlus syntax and format options, including new Oracle Database 10 Plus Pocket Reference g features, this handy, on-the-job guide specifically shows readers how to: The new third edition of this book has been updated for Oracle Database 10 Differentiate between SQL and SQL Plus Interact with SQLPlus from both the command line and the web browser Select, insert, update, and delete data Format both text and HTML reports with SQL Plus Specify SQLPlus commands and format elements Tune SQL queries g to include information on both SQL Plus and SQL. New SQL information includes the SELECT statement's new MODEL clause, flashback queries, partition outer joins, and DBMS_XPLAN.With its quick-reference format and compact size, the Plus Pocket Reference follows in the long line of successful "pocket references" offered by O'Reilly. It also serves as the ideal companion to O'Reilly's larger, more comprehensive book on SQL Oracle SQL Plus, the bestselling Plus: The Definitive Guide.Author Jonathan Gennick is an editor for O'Reilly specializing in database and programming titles, having amassed some 17 years of programming and database management experience. Oracle SQL

The Oracle Utilities Pocket Reference is a handy, quick-reference guide to the multitude of Oracle utilities that database administrators (DBAs) use every hour of every day.As the undisputed leader among database products, Oracle is grasped conceptually by most DBAs. However, they understandably may not recall the specific utility to use for a given task, and, more commonly, won't in many cases remember the syntax to use. And that's exactly what the Oracle Utilities Pocket Reference supplies--the syntax and options for whatever utility a DBA needs to perform a given task.Some of the utilities documented in this guide include: Packed with information in an easy-to-read format, this valuable resource is ideal for any experienced DBA. Even database programmers who deal with Oracle will truly appreciate having the SQL*Loader, for loading data expdp and exp for exporting data to another database oradebug for use in troubleshooting loadjava and dropjava for loading and unloading Java programs Oracle Utilities Pocket Reference close at hand.Authored by Sanjay Mishra, a foremost authority on Oracle systems, this convenient and compact guide is focused and to-the-point, eliminating any potential guesswork or difficult memorization. The Oracle Utilities Pocket Reference is part of the strong-selling collection of O'Reilly "pocket reference" books.

The world of IT is always evolving, but in every area there are stable, core concepts that anyone just setting out needed to know last year, needs to know this year, and will still need to know next year. The purpose of the Foundations series is to identify these concepts and present them in a way that gives you the strongest possible starting point, no matter what your endeavor. Oracle Database Foundations provides essential knowledge about installing, configuring, maintaining, and querying Oracle 9i and 10g databases. What you learn here will benefit you in the short term, as you acquire and practice your skills, and in the long term, as you use them. Topics covered include: Basic relational database concepts Reporting and querying using SQLPlus and iSQLPlus Creating and maintaining a database Managing user access and security Understanding Oracle database functions Using multiple tables in a query Restricting, sorting, and grouping data Optimizing database performance Creating backups Troubleshooting database errors

Create dynamic client/server applications using PL/SQL and the comprehensive information contained in this authoritative volume. Expert Oracle insiders cover the features of PL/SQL, explain scripting semantics and syntax, and fully detail the PL/SQL functionality of Oracle Database 10 g. You’ll learn how to write powerful PL/SQL programs, interact with Oracle databases, perform complex calculations, and handle error conditions.

Oracle designed its database products to be flexible and configurable so they would operate on a variety of hardware platforms, and they succeeded--Oracle software runs on more than seventy computer platforms, from mainframes to PC networks to handheld PDAs. The secret to this flexibility lies in the software's initialization parameters, whose numerous settings can be configured for top performance in countless environments. On the downside, however, improper settings can slow a system down; even grind it to a halt. And with so many parameters--which change from version to version of Oracle software--it's challenging for Oracle administrators to keep in mind the characteristics and optimal settings for each parameter.The Oracle Initialization Parameters Pocket Reference provides the crucial information you need to make key adjustments to your Oracle database. This concise guide is a mix of invaluable performance tips and a quick reference to Oracle's initialization parameters. The book describes each initialization parameter, indicates what category it's in--from auditing to multi-threaded server MTS--and whether it can be modified dynamically via the ALTER SESSION or ALTER SYSTEM command.In addition to the details about parameter characteristics and settings, you'll find performance tips, such as how the various parameters interact, and what the most advantageous settings are for different configurations. No other reference focuses exclusively on these initialization parameters--an absolute must for anyone working with an Oracle database.Presented in a handy, easy-to-use format, the Oracle Initialization Parameters Pocket Reference is a welcome alternative for anyone who's struggled to memorize the best configuration settings or gone back and forth to online resources, trying to figure out what works. O'Reilly's Pocket References put the information you need close at hand where you need it most. This guide will keep your Oracle databases operating at peak performance.

Troubleshoot, tune, and optimize your Oracle database efficiently and successfully every time. This book explains how to take full advantage of the revolutionary Oracle Wait Interface to quickly pinpoint--and solve--core problems and bottlenecks, and increase productivity exponentially.

Fast, easy automation for every Oracle 9 i and 10 g DBA! Quick access to real-world examples Installation, database creation, management, monitoring, tuning, and backup/recovery Oracle Universal Installer (OUI), Oracle Net Configuration Assistant (NetCA), and Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) The fast, practical Oracle 9 i/10 g automation reference for every DBA! Automate Oracle—and save your time for more important tasks! This is the Oracle automation reference every working Oracle DBA needs... concise, straightforward, and incredibly easy to use. Discover proven solutions for automating installation, database creation, management, monitoring, tuning, backup/recovery, and more. Keep this book by your desk, near your server...wherever you need fast, reliable automation solutions right now! Master scripting for both Oracle 9 i and Oracle 10 g! Use Oracle Universal Installer to create response files for automating any installation Use Oracle Network Configuration Assistant (NetCA) to configure network components during installation Use Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) to create and clone databases, and to reverse engineer them into templates and scripts Manage files and tablespaces, tune memory, perform backup/recovery, schedule automated administration tasks, and more Extend and customize any script to your own needs Includes concise reference to Perl DBI and its Oracle-specific components—with real-world examples and syntax

An enormous system comprising myriad technologies, options, and releases, Oracle's complexities have spawned numerous areas of specialization. For each area of specialization there are equally specialized how-to books and manuals. O'Reilly's Oracle Essentials claims a unique place among these books. Rather than focusing on one area, the book explains the foundational concepts of the Oracle technology and the core technical and business aspects of using it.The new edition of this classic book, Oracle Essentials, 3rd Edition: Oracle Database 10g, distills a vast amount of knowledge into an easy-to-read volume covering every aspect of the Oracle database. Readers of all levels will learn about Oracle's features and technologies, including the product line, architecture, data structures, networking, concurrency, tuning, and much more.Featuring focused text, abundant illustrations, and helpful hints, the new edition offers a valuable overview of Oracle's Database 10 g--the industry's first database to support grid computing. Recent releases such as Oracle 9 i and 8 i are also covered. The book contains chapters on: Oracle products, options, and overall architecture for Oracle 10 g and prior recent releases Installing and running Oracle: how to configure, start up, and shut down the database, and various networking issues Oracle data structures, datatypes, and ways of extending datatypes, with an introduction to Oracle objects (e.g., tables, views, indexes) Managing Oracle: security, the Oracle Enterprise Manager, fragmentation and reorganization, and backup and recovery Oracle performance: characteristics of disk, memory, and CPU 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 Network deployment: using Oracle as an Internet computing platform and for grid computing What's new in Oracle 10 g: a summary of the database changes described in the book Oracle Essentials, 3rd Edition: Oracle Database 10g was written for anyone whose job involves managing or building systems using Oracle DBMS technology or working with staff that uses Oracle technology. This book is the perfect all-in-one source for understanding the complexities and capabilities of Oracle.

Complete tutorial for database developers! Thorough coverage of PL/SQL Practical "cookbook" techniques Effectively create and manage complex databases with Oracle! Systems and database expert Kevin Owens explores PL/SQL, Oracle's answer to the Structured Query Language (SQL), and teaches you what you need to know to build robust and complex databases for your business. Using easy-to-follow instructions and examples, this book presents techniques to take advantage of Oracle features such as triggers and stored procedures-features that allow your databases to incorporate business rules which are easy to manage and modify as the business evolves. Topics covered include: Viewing constraints in the data dictionary Complex rule enforcement PL/SQL program units and language features Data types and composite structure Error handling and exceptions Inter-process communications Declarative constraints, including primary key, unique, foreign key, check, and much more Programming Oracle Triggers and Stored Procedures, Third Edition, is an invaluable resource for database developers, designers, and project leaders looking to build and maintain truly intelligent, complex databases

Oracle system performance inefficiencies often go undetected for months or even years--even under intense scrutiny--because traditional Oracle performance analysis methods and tools are fundamentally flawed. They're unreliable and inefficient.Oracle DBAs and developers are all too familiar with the outlay of time and resources, blown budgets, missed deadlines, and marginally effective performance fiddling that is commonplace with traditional methods of Oracle performance tuning. In this crucial book, Cary Millsap, former VP of Oracle's System Performance Group, clearly and concisely explains how to use Oracle's response time statistics to diagnose and repair performance problems. Cary also shows how "queueing theory" can be applied to response time statistics to predict the impact of upgrades and other system changes. Optimizing Oracle Performance eliminates the time-consuming, trial-and-error guesswork inherent in most conventional approaches to tuning. You can determine exactly where a system's performance problem is, and with equal importance, where it is not, in just a few minutes--even if the problem is several years old. Optimizing Oracle Performance cuts a path through the complexity of current tuning methods, and streamlines an approach that focuses on optimization techniques that any DBA can use quickly and successfully to make noticeable--even dramatic--improvements.For example, the one thing database users care most about is response time. Naturally, DBAs focus much of their time and effort towards improving response time. But it is entirely too easy to spend hundreds of hours to improve important system metrics such as hit ratios, average latencies, and wait times, only to find users are unable to perceive the difference. And an expensive hardware upgrade may not help either.It doesn't have to be that way. Technological advances have added impact, efficiency, measurability, predictive capacity, reliability, speed, and practicality to the science of Oracle performance optimization. Optimizing Oracle Performance shows you how to slash the frustration and expense associated with unraveling the true root cause of any type of performance problem, and reliably predict future performance.The price of this essential book will be paid back in hours saved the first time its methods are used.

Tom Kyte of Oracle Magazine’s “Ask Tom” column has written the definitive guide to designing and building high-performance, scalable Oracle applications. The book covers schema design, SQL and PL/SQL, tables and indexes, and much more. From the exclusive publisher of Oracle Press books, this is a must-have resource for all Oracle developers and DBAs.

The definitive, real-world guide to Oracle data warehousing Maximizing performance, flexibility, and manageability in production environments Hardware/software architectures, star schema design, partitioning, and more Industrial strength data loading and query optimization techniques By the world-renowned architect of 7-Eleven's multi-terabyte datawarehouse Maximize Oracle data warehouse performance, flexibility, and manageability Oracle DBAs finally have a definitive guide to every aspect of designing, constructing, tuning, and maintaining star schema data warehouses with Oracle 8i and 9i. Bert Scalzo, one of the world's leading Oracle data warehousing experts, offers practical, hard-won lessons and breakthrough techniques for maximizing performance, flexibility, and manageability in any production environment. Coverage includes: Data warehousing fundamentals for DBAs--including what a data warehouse isn't Planning software architecture: business intelligence, user interfaces, Oracle versions, OS platforms, and more Planning hardware architecture: CPUs, memory, disk space, and configuration Radically different star schema design for radically improved performance Tuning ad-hoc queries for lightning speed Industrial-strength data loading techniques Aggregate tables: maximizing performance benefits, minimizing complexity tradeoffs Improving manageability: The right ways to partition Data warehouse administration: Backup/recovery, space and extent management, updates, patches, and more

If you work with Oracle, then you don't need to be told that the data dictionary is large and complex, and grows larger with each new Oracle release. It's one of the basic elements of the Oracle database you interact with regularly, but the sheer number of tables and views makes it difficult to remember which view you need, much less the name of the specific column. Want to make it simpler? The Oracle Data Dictionary Pocket Reference puts all the information you need right at your fingertips. Its handy and compact format lets you locate the table and view you need effortlessly without stopping to interrupt your work Oracle Data Dictionary Pocket Reference gives DBAs and developers at any level quick and easy access to the data dictionary in Oracle's latest database, Oracle9i. This pocket-sized book provides a complete list of the most commonly used tables and views in the Oracle9i data dictionary, intelligently arranged for quick reference. It also includes column names and descriptions for each of the tables and views, as well as helpful tips, warnings, and usage examples.O'Reilly's Pocket References have become a favorite among developers and database administrators everywhere. By providing a wealth of important details in a concise, well-organized format, these handy books deliver just what you need to complete the task at hand. When you've reached a sticking point in your work and want to check your facts quickly, the Oracle Data Dictionary Pocket Reference is the book to have close by.

Introduced a quarter-century ago, the Oracle database remains the leading enterprise relational database management system (RDBMS) in the world. Oracle is a complex system, offering a myriad of products, languages, and tools. Frequent updates, releases, and editions complicate the ability of Oracle users to keep up with the huge amounts of frequently changing information about the database and its capabilities.The goal of Oracle in a Nutshell is to pull together the most essential information on Oracle architecture, syntax, and user interfaces. The content and format of this book, an admirable addition to O'Reilly's respected In-a-Nutshell line, combine to boil down vital Oracle commands, language constructs, parameters, and file formats in a succinct and highly accessible desktop reference. Oracle in a Nutshell covers the information that database administrators PL/SQL and Java developers, and system, network, and security administrators need as they manage Oracle databases and write code for these databases. It includes: Oracle Foundations--Overview of the Oracle architecture (memory structures and fundamental concepts), Oracle's various editions and packaging options, summary of the initialization file parameters and data dictionary views, and fundamentals of Oracle's concurrency scheme, security mechanisms (privileges, profiles, roles), and networking files (TNSNAMES.ORA, SQLNET.ORA, LISTENER.ORA, DAP.ORA, NAMES.ORA, CMAN.ORA) and options. Oracle Languages--Syntax summary for SQL language statements, SQL function calls PL/SQL language statements and characteristics, PL/SQL built-in package headers, and Java (JDBC and SQLJ) interfaces to the Oracle database. Oracle Tools--Commands provided with SQLPlus, SQLLoader, Import and Export, Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) and other backup/recovery methods, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and various performance tuning tools (Explain Plan, TKPROF, AUTOTRACE, UTLBSTAT, UTLESTAT, Statspack). Appendixes--Summary of Oracle datatypes, operators, expressions, conditions, numeric and date formats, and resources for additional reading.

If you write programs to run against an Oracle database, you spend a lot of time and mental energy writing queries to return the data your programs need. Knowledge of SQL, and particularly of Oracle's implementation of SQL, is the key to writing good queries in a timely manner. In this book, the authors share their knowledge of Oracle SQL, and show you many creative techniques that you can use to advantage in your own applications. This book shows you how to: Leverage Oracle's vast library of built-in SQL functions Query time-based data, and write joins involving date and time ranges Use Oracle SQL's hierarchical query features to deal with data best represented in a tree format Use DECODE and CASE to implement conditional logic in your queries Use Oracle's new, analytic SQL features to write ranking queries, lag and lead queries, windowing queries, and more Join data from two or more tables using the newly supported SQL92 join syntax In addition, you'll see how SQL can best be integrated with PL/SQL. You'll also learn various best practices to help you write SQL queries that perform efficiently. Precious few books on the market today go beyond discussing syntax and the barest rudiments of using Oracle SQL. This book changes that, showing you how to creatively leverage the full power of SQL to write queries in an Oracle environment.