Practical Oracle8i¿ Building Efficient Databases

What is really involved in building effective Oracle database systems, and how do you approach the endeavor in a way that increases your chances for success? Practical Oracle8itrade; offers a real-life approach to constructing Oracle databases--one that is geared toward solving important business problems. This book will help you devise appropriate strategies for database design that takes into account Oracle's technical underpinnings, hardware and user limitations, and tradeoffs between simplicity and efficiency. It discusses selecting the Oracle features needed to perform specific functions and demonstrates how to structure code most effectively for the features being implemented. Practical Oracle8itrade; presents an overview of Oracle that clearly explains the central functions that are key to Oracle's operation. In addition, the book presents the fundamentals of the system, covering the way in which data is stored, packed, and made visible, as well as the dynamic features involved in transactions and calculations. Specific topics covered include: A discussion of why Oracle projects fail Leveraging tablespaces Partitioning LOBs Autonomous transactions Row-level security for virtual private databases Parallel query and parallel server The new analytical functions introduced in Oracle 8.1.6 This book also provides a summary of the most useful new features of Oracle 8.1.5, practical tips for tuning performance and testing features, and information on the major space-management features of an Oracle database. Written by one of the world's most knowledgeable and experienced Oracle database designers and programmers, Practical Oracle8itrade; reveals the strategies, techniques, and insights that will enable you to understand the technology's full potential and put Oracle to work for successful database systems. 0201715848B04062001

Jonathan Lewis is a leading independent database consultant with over fifteen years' experience helping clients design and implement Oracle database systems. Much of his career has been spent working around the problems caused by the inappropriate use of the technology. In addition, he is the Director for Products and Services for the UK Oracle Users Group and maintains a Web site of Oracle tips and advice.

0201715848AB04062001

Why Another Book? Since there are so many books about Oracle already on the market, why have I bothered to sit down and add to the pile? In the age of Internet news groups and Web sites, it isn't for the fame. And given the specialized nature and likely circulation of such a tome, it probably isn't for the fortune. Every now and again, usually while I've been rattling on enthusiastically about some obscure and esoteric feature of the way in which Oracle works, I've been asked, Why don't you write a book about Oracle since you know so much about it? My answer has always been the same: If you write a technical book about Oracle, it will be out of date by the time you've finished writing it, and within a year of publication it will be 20% misleading, inappropriate, or just plain wrong. I have, however, finally given in to temptation because I've spent too long traveling around the world helping people to get the best out of their databases, and discovering time and again that the single biggest aid to success is to start well by picking the most appropriate features for the job. This book is my attempt to tell you about some of the more useful things I have discovered while designing or fixing a few of the more thought-provoking databases that I have come across. I'm writing it partly for the challenge, and partly because I enjoy making Oracle work well and want to pass on some of the interesting and entertaining insights I have had. I hope you enjoy reading it and, more important, I hope you get a better feeling for what the Oracle database can do for you. Who Is It For? There are four stages to doing a job well: Knowing what can be done Knowing whether it should be done Being able to do it in theory Being able to do it in practice Many of the books about Oracle currently on the market seem to focus on the finer points of the third and fourth steps. My aim is to help you with the first two, although this entails including practical observations relevant to the third and fourth steps. This book does not exist to thrill the hard-core specialists by supplying subtle secrets and technical tweaks that will allow them to squeeze an extra half of a percent from their database. This book is here to help everyone get to a stage where they can put together a system that gives response times that are reasonable, considering the investment made in hardware, software, and human effort. Whether you are a manager, designer, database administrator, or programmer, there is something in this book for you. For the manager it gives a wide-ranging view of what Oracle is capable of and what you can expect your team to achieve. For the designer it outlines the possibilities offered by the many features of the relational database management system. For the database administrator it describes how using the right features correctly can make managing the database much easier. For the programmer (who is always keen to know how things really work) it makes it possible to connect the code that he writes to the features he is using, so that he can structure his code in the most appropriate way. Which Version of Oracle? A couple of years ago, a collection of information technology directors in the United Kingdom were asked what they perceived to be the biggest problems they had in managing their departments. Somewhere in the top ten was this response: the rate at which Oracle Corporation produces upgrades and new versions of their products. If Oracle keeps moving that fast, how do you pick a target when writing a book about it? My strategy for tackling problems is the same regardless of the version of Oracle with which I'm working, so when you read this book you don't really have to worry about which version of Oracle you are using. However, I am going to focus as much as I can on Oracle 8.1.5--for the simple reason that it is the latest version (at least it was whe