Book Review: Oracle 10g/11g Data and Database Management Utilities

One Minute Bottom Line

Review

This book is most suitable for entry-level to advanced Oracle Database professionals; it offers something for everyone. It covers all of the 10g/11g utilities, Data Pump, SQL*Loader, External Tables, Recovery Manager Advanced Techniques, Recovery Manager, Session Management, The Oracle Scheduler, Oracle Wallet Manager, Database Configuration Assistant, Automatic Storage Management, Oracle Universal Installer, Oracle Universal Installer, and Enterprise Manager Configuration Assistant.  Although it is well detailed on most of the utilities, I wish it would have covered Automatic Storage Management in more detail.

This not only describes how to use the Oracle utilities but gives lots of tips on efficient use of them.  For example using external tables for other than ETL processing, you can extend the use of the external tables concept to analyze log files such as the alert log or the network log files inside the database.

It has lots of screen shoots taking you through all of the utilities step-by-step and covers the concepts’ behind what you are doing with the utility and which problem it solves.  An example is in Session Management it covers user sessions and what it implies to kill one.  It teaches best practices in the industry and offers some of the more seasoned Oracle Professionals a new way of doing things.