Secrets of the Oracle Database (Expert's Voice in Oracle) eBook Download
Covering useful but little?known features from Oracle9i Database through Oracle Database 11g, this book will improve your efficiency as an Oracle database administrator or developer.
The book doesn't really have any solid structure and the author is pains to state that you simply dip into the book when you have time and pick up another titbit of info, which might come in useful one day.
The book is not for beginners, so if you are a casual user of Oracle don't bother, you will not not find it useful at all and will waste your money, it is aimed squarely at slightly more experienced DBA and a developer with serious interest in the internals of Oracle, may find it useful.
Another great quality release from Apress, I have yet to find an Oracle book from Apress that I have not thoroughly enjoyed and have not got my money's worth from!
Useful Book Even without a Lot of Real Undocumented Secrets
The "Secrets of the Oracle Database" book with the subtitle of "Advanced administration, tuning, and troubleshooting using undocumented features" follows the same pattern as most of the other Apress books, with very well researched and verified information with careful references to well regarded books and external resources. The topics in this book reminded me a bit of the topics discussed in the book "Oracle 10g Insider Solutions," except for the fact that the "Secrets of the Oracle Database" book actually makes an effort (a very thorough effort) at indicating which features are available with each version of Oracle (through 11.1.0.7), which features require additional cost licenses (such as the use of AWR), and provides a good enough example of the features so that the feature may be utilized with an understanding of why the feature should be used.
* Several Oracle features/behavior which are described as undocumented are in fact fairly well documented and/or discussed in Metalink notes, on various Oracle related blogs, and various Internet forums: Page 143 describes ALTER USER IDENTIFIED BY VALUES as being undocumented while it is documented in Metalink (279355.1 last modified 27-OCT-2008 and 1051962.101 last modified 16-OCT-2008) and on several websites. Page 337 states that DBMS_SYSTEM is undocumented while it is documented in a couple Metalink notes (286496.1 last modified 21-APR-2009 and 103267.1 last modified 20-NOV-2002 and 436036.1 last modified 09-MAR-2009 and DBMS_SUPPORT is described in 62294.1 last modified 25-OCT-2002), several books, and several websites. Pages 271 and 371 state that the 10046 trace file format is undocumented while it is documented in a couple Metalink notes (39817.1 last modified 09-DEC-2008 and 376442.1 last modified 25-JUN-2009), two books referenced by this book ("Optimizing Oracle Performance" and "Troubleshooting Oracle Performance"), and several websites.
There also appear to be a couple errors, or at least exceptions to some of the broad rules discussed in the book:
* Page 29 states that "V$PARAMETER is built in such a way that it lists documented (non-hidden) parameters only," with documented parameters being those which do not begin with one or two underscore characters.
Given the title and subtitle of the book, I expected much more insight into the internals of Oracle databases. The back cover of the book indicates that this book should be read after "Troubleshooting Oracle Performance" and/or "Expert Oracle Database 11g Administration". Reading either of these two books before reading the book "Secrets of the Oracle Database" might make some of the secrets disclosed in the book seem quite ordinary.
In summary, this book's contents would likely seem as "secrets" for those DBA who have worked with Oracle for only a couple years and for those DBAs whose last book read was an Oracle 8.0.5 administrator's guide. This book contains a great collection of disconnected information about Oracle (no building process from one item to the next), but it sometimes stops short of providing undocumented secrets to those DBAs who have read a couple good books recently, read a couple good blogs, and followed along on the discussions of a couple Oracle related forums.
The book doesn't really have any solid structure and the author is pains to state that you simply dip into the book when you have time and pick up another titbit of info, which might come in useful one day.
The book is not for beginners, so if you are a casual user of Oracle don't bother, you will not not find it useful at all and will waste your money, it is aimed squarely at slightly more experienced DBA and a developer with serious interest in the internals of Oracle, may find it useful.
Another great quality release from Apress, I have yet to find an Oracle book from Apress that I have not thoroughly enjoyed and have not got my money's worth from!
Useful Book Even without a Lot of Real Undocumented Secrets
The "Secrets of the Oracle Database" book with the subtitle of "Advanced administration, tuning, and troubleshooting using undocumented features" follows the same pattern as most of the other Apress books, with very well researched and verified information with careful references to well regarded books and external resources. The topics in this book reminded me a bit of the topics discussed in the book "Oracle 10g Insider Solutions," except for the fact that the "Secrets of the Oracle Database" book actually makes an effort (a very thorough effort) at indicating which features are available with each version of Oracle (through 11.1.0.7), which features require additional cost licenses (such as the use of AWR), and provides a good enough example of the features so that the feature may be utilized with an understanding of why the feature should be used.
* Several Oracle features/behavior which are described as undocumented are in fact fairly well documented and/or discussed in Metalink notes, on various Oracle related blogs, and various Internet forums: Page 143 describes ALTER USER IDENTIFIED BY VALUES as being undocumented while it is documented in Metalink (279355.1 last modified 27-OCT-2008 and 1051962.101 last modified 16-OCT-2008) and on several websites. Page 337 states that DBMS_SYSTEM is undocumented while it is documented in a couple Metalink notes (286496.1 last modified 21-APR-2009 and 103267.1 last modified 20-NOV-2002 and 436036.1 last modified 09-MAR-2009 and DBMS_SUPPORT is described in 62294.1 last modified 25-OCT-2002), several books, and several websites. Pages 271 and 371 state that the 10046 trace file format is undocumented while it is documented in a couple Metalink notes (39817.1 last modified 09-DEC-2008 and 376442.1 last modified 25-JUN-2009), two books referenced by this book ("Optimizing Oracle Performance" and "Troubleshooting Oracle Performance"), and several websites.
There also appear to be a couple errors, or at least exceptions to some of the broad rules discussed in the book:
* Page 29 states that "V$PARAMETER is built in such a way that it lists documented (non-hidden) parameters only," with documented parameters being those which do not begin with one or two underscore characters.
Given the title and subtitle of the book, I expected much more insight into the internals of Oracle databases. The back cover of the book indicates that this book should be read after "Troubleshooting Oracle Performance" and/or "Expert Oracle Database 11g Administration". Reading either of these two books before reading the book "Secrets of the Oracle Database" might make some of the secrets disclosed in the book seem quite ordinary.
In summary, this book's contents would likely seem as "secrets" for those DBA who have worked with Oracle for only a couple years and for those DBAs whose last book read was an Oracle 8.0.5 administrator's guide. This book contains a great collection of disconnected information about Oracle (no building process from one item to the next), but it sometimes stops short of providing undocumented secrets to those DBAs who have read a couple good books recently, read a couple good blogs, and followed along on the discussions of a couple Oracle related forums.
Computer science students, get this computer ebook by download itSecrets of the Oracle Database (Expert's Voice in Oracle) from Rapidshare/Megaupload/Hotfile for free.
Publisher: Apress
ISBN: 1430219521 / 9781430219521
Pages: 450
Publication Date: Jun 3, 2009
eBook Subject: Computer & Internet
