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Expert Oracle Database Architecture: 9i and 10g Programming Techniques and Solutions Review by Michael Wehrle
Must Have Book For Anyone Oracle
If you work with the Oracle database, or write software that utilizes the Oracle database, you must read this book and apply the knowledge therein to utilize the database to its highest potential. The majority of developers would probably learn a lot about Oracle just by reading through the first chapter. I would recommend anyone who assumes the database is a black box simply to store data to read this book if they want to effectively use Oracle.
This book is not a "how-to" or a "check your syntax" reference manual, but I find myself going back to it time after time for answers concerning design, or production problems that I have encountered. I think the book acts as this sort of reference inherently because of the nature of the author's step by step detail of each problem domain. For example, in the chapter on concurrency and multi-versioning, the author is explaining Oracle's read consistency model. In the code examples, he shows you how to quickly and easily prove exactly how Oracle works by giving the code sample to open one session, perform tasks, then open another session and perform tasks to see for yourself exactly what happens in different scenarios. You can believe what he says in this book is true, simply because he puts the code right in front of you, and even provides all of the code samples from the book online for free on the Apress website.
The author provides in this book details on all aspects of Oracle database. You get a full explanation of the architecture of the database system itself, to behavior of the database such as locking, concurrency, transactional controls. After you understand what the database does, the book goes into details of how to use it. A typical Oracle book, including the Oracle reference, will just give you the options that you have, for example, listing the types of tables that are available for use. What this book does is give you complete detailed analysis of each implementation, along with examples and common pitfalls. It will help you choose the right tool for each implementation.
This is not a DBA handbook! Kyte often writes something to the effect of "but I don't want to get into the details of the DBA world". While it is not a detailed reference or handbook for DBAs, it still provides the best overview of the Oracle database that I have read anywhere, and would do all DBA's a favor to read it.
Of all the books in the pile on my desk, this one stays near the top!