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|
Overview |
Morgan's book reviews are conducted by a team of three, or more reviewers.
Books reviews are be published only if the we believe the book makes a significant contribution and is not just a
rehash of existing materials. New listings have a colored background.
The order of the books, below, does not constitute a rating system nor is it intended to convey any information. If
we didn't think these books belonged on your bookshelf we wouldn't even mention their names. |
| Book reviews are ongoing books so please submit suggestions and recommendations. |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Oracle Insights Tales of the Oak Table |
| Author /Publisher |
Mogens Norgaard, Dave Ensor, Tim Gorman, Kyle Hailey, Anjo Kolk, Jonathan Lewis,
Connor McDonald, Cary Milsap, James Morle, David Ruthven, Gaja Krishna Vaidyanatha |
Review
 |
The cover says: "Eleven leading authorities on Oracle's database engine share their unique insights on how best to
exploit the software. We can't think of a better description of this book in which each of the eleven writers has authored a chapter. Here are some
of the chapter titles as they speak for themselves.
- You probably don't tune right
- Compulsive tuning disorder
- Testing and risk management
- Design disasters
Chapter 1 by Dave Ensor alone is worth the price of admission. While this book can
be read by the novice ... the more years of Oracle experience you have ... the more valuable this book will be. Enjoy!
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Practical Oracle 8i / 0-201-71584-8 |
| Author /Publisher |
Jonathan Lewis |
Review
|
Don't let the fact that this book was written for 8i discourage you. If you are
one of those developers or DBAs that doesn't need a book for syntax. But rather looking for books to help you
make decisions on which syntax to choose, and why, this book is essential. Jonathan's knowledge of Oracle is
at the top of the trade and this book contains some of the most valuable advice available anywhere.
With Oracle 8i this book was essential, and it is good enough that it survived without revision through Oracle's
9i. We sincerely hope Jonathan will do a complete rewrite for 11g.
But even without it ... get yourself a copy.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Expert one-on-one Oracle / 1-861004-82-6 |
| Author /Publisher |
Tom Kyte
/ APress |
Review
|
You should not be allowed to put 'developer' and 'PL/SQL' on your resume if you
haven't read this book. Tom deals with the most important aspects of working with Oracle ... rarely covered
in other books that focus more on syntax than successful implementation of applications utilizing the syntax.
The first three chapters are mandatory reading for anyone coming to Oracle from SQL Server, DB2, Informix,
or Sybase.
This book is, without a doubt, the most referenced book on
the shelf for development.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Effective Oracle By Design / 0-07-223065-7 |
| Author /Publisher |
Tom Kyte
/ Oracle Press |
Review
|
As one of my former students recently remarked: "Syntax is boring." And it is.
Anyone can go to the web and find the syntax to do something. Knowing what to do, and perhaps more importantly,
what not to do is what separates the amateur from the professional.
If you aren't using Oracle to build single-user systems, if you have need to be concerned with performance and
scalability, add this book to your reading list. One of the many things we like about this book is the emphasis
on testing code for performance and scalability the demonstrations related to hard parses and soft parses, and
the fact that some soft parses are softer than others.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Oracle In A Nutshell / 0-613912-17-9 |
| Author /Publisher |
Rick Greenwald
and David C. Kreines / O'Reilly |
Review
|
As an Oracle developer, I have been frustrated reading all
the Oracle documentations. It's hard to locate what you want
to know in those big and thick documentations. I was
thrilled to find this book -- it really is a great reference
and it can basically replace my collection of some other
Oracle books. This book is very well-organized into
different topics including architecture, data dictionary,
SQL, PL/SQL, JAVA and much more. Some topics like PL/SQL and
Java, (imagine they are in one book!) look more like a
dictionary. You can easily look up for the syntax/commands.
It gives you a few lines coding as example followed by a
brief explanation --All in a concise manner.
Bottom line, this is a very comprehensive resource covering
lots of topics, pretty much whatever you need is all in
there, in one book!! I have been benefit a lot from having
this book at my desktop for quick and easy reference.
Review by Connie Zhao on Amazon.com |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Oracle Security Step-by-Step / 0-9724273-4-1
|
| Author /Publisher |
Pete Finnigan |
Review
|
If part of your job responsibility is securing databases this book should
definitely be on your list. Unlike far too many treatments this book goes far beyond the simple reliance in userid and
password and provides hundreds of concrete and specific ideas on where security holes can be found and how to plug them.
The books biggest weakness is the lack of an index. What you are looking for is likely here ... finding it, however, may be
a bit of a challenge.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
The Art and Science of Oracle Performance Tuning / 1-904347-01-0 |
| Author /Publisher |
Christopher Lawson |
Review
|
The author has written this book from the standpoint that it will be read
by DBAs: It should be read by everyone. Developers should not throw any garbage they can write over the cubicle wall and
expect their DBA to sort things out after it is implemented in production. So there is a lot of material in here that will
be new for developers and should not be, but likely is, new for many DBAs.
One part of this book we really appreciate is the fact that the book is giving advice oriented toward version 9i and beyond
rather than rehashing old version 7 - 8i advice that, in many cases, is obsolete. Be sure not to miss the sections devoted
to the new magic views such as V$PGA_TARGET_ADVICE.
The one thing this book is missing is DBMS_PROFILER. Hopefully the author will add this critical tuning tool to future editions.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Relational Database Index Design and the Optimizers /
0-471-71999-4 |
| Author /Publisher |
Tapio Lahdenmaki,
Mike Leach / Wiley |
Review
 |
Before I start commenting on
this book, I should point out that I have been using,
running, designing, or trouble-shooting Oracle database
systems for most of the last 20 years - but the authors have
a background in DB2.
Having said that, the difference in RDBMS really doesn't
matter. If you are responsible for making databases perform
well you should read this book.
It tells you why you need to create indexes - and the answer
is a little more subtle than just "to make things go
faster"; it tells you how to decide on the columns to
include in your indexes; it tells you how to choose the best
order for those columns; and it describes the compromises
you make between a reasonable set of pretty good indexes and
the complete set of ideal indexes
Experienced DBAs may read this book and decide that it's not
telling them anything new. Even if you fall into this group,
don't use that as an excuse for putting the book to one
side. The clarity of explanation, the rational
justification, and the numerical approximation methods
supplied by this book should give you a better insight -
hence greater effectiveness - into what may at present be an
intuitive approach to deciding on indexing strategies.
The book gives you useful models for working out the benefit
of adding, or modifying, an index in terms of how much work
you do as you walk through the index and visit the table. It
gives you a simple system for classifying an index with one,
two, or three stars, and then offers an insight into when
you may or may not, want to create the ideal index for a
query.
Specifically for the Oracle practitioner, I found a few minor details that required a slight mental adjustment: the
authors tend to talk about 4Kb block sizes with relatively large index entries whereas many Oracle systems tend to use
8Kb block sizes with relatively small index entries; there were points where the experienced Oracle DBA would want to
think about allowing for the background workload due to UNDO and REDO; there were details where I could see some
difference between DB2 and Oracle technology; and the authors also have a section discussing when to rebuild
indexes (an activity generally viewed as anathema in the Oracle world).
Given the common Oracle view about index rebuilding - and my background - I feel it is important to say that the authors'
arguments are perfectly sound, and I would be quite happy to follow their guidelines; but I would only expect the argument
to apply to a very small percentage of the indexes in a typical Oracle (OLTP) system. This is because there was one detail
that I thought needed to be raised more explicitly - despite being implicit in a large fraction of the writing - the authors'
were talking about small blocks with large index entries for indexes that have been engineered so that critical queries did
most of their work IN THE INDEX, making "one more random block read" a significant fraction of the total workload.
These are minor details, though, that have no impact on the general principles; at most they move the boundary line at
which you decide whether the cost of any structural change is worth the benefit offered by that change.
In summary - any DBA should read this book if they need to get better performance from a badly indexed database.
~Jonathan Lewis from Amazon.com |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Optimizing Oracle Performance / 0-59600-527-X |
| Author /Publisher |
Cary Milsap & Jeff Holt / O'Reilly |
Review
|
If you want a quick checklist of what's wrong with your Oracle systems - do not buy this book.
If you want validation of your existing tuning techniques - so not buy this book.
If you want to be told what to do without thinking - do not buy this book.
If on the other hand you are fed up with received wisdom that does not work, you recognize that performance tuning is
a valuable skill for your business and you wish to learn an effective scientific and repeatable approach to improving
the performance of your business systems, don't just buy this book but live it. Cary and Jeff take a rigorous,
scientific approach to performance tuning that is especially suited to Oracle systems and by both formal proof and real
world example show that the mystery of Oracle performance is controllable by you.
The only downside comes from explaining to your boss that the thousands you spent on automated performance tools were wasted.
A word about the Math. 2/3 of the book has no math at all in it. The remainder of the book was perfectly understandable
to this reader, whose academic background is Economics and Philosophy not math or computer science. Don't be put off by
the idea that the book has equations, a competent High School student can follow the relevant mathematical arguments.
~ Niall Litchfield from Amazon.com |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Cost Based Oracle Fundamentals / 1-59059-636-6 |
| Author /Publisher |
Jonathan Lewis
/ APress |
Review
|
If there is only room for a single book on your bookshelf ... DBA or Developer ... this is it.
If you are, or expect to be a DBA, and you do not have a copy of this book on your shelf you should be taken out to the woodshed. It is that simple.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Oracle Data Guard 11g Handbook / 007-162-1113 |
| Author /Publisher |
Larry Carpenter, Joseph Meeks, Charles Kim, Bill Burke, Sonya Carothers, Joydip Kundu,
Michael Smith, Nitin Vengurlekar / Oracle Press |
Review
|
Written by Data Guard experts with years of implementation experience in
addition to Oracle Data Guard Product and Development Managers, this
comprehensive book approaches Data Guard from a real-life perspective,
sharing industry experiences, providing comprehensive coverage on best
practice configurations, day-to-day monitoring and maintenance, tips and
techniques, architecture, and extensive automated scripts to enable the
reader to successfully setup and manage Data Guard.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Pro Oracle Database 10g RAC on
Linux: Installation, Administration, and Performance / 978-1-59059-524-4 |
| Author /Publisher |
Julian Dyke and Steve Shaw /
APress |
Review
|
Many books around Oracle's advanced topics simply parrot the manuals. Julian avoids that. Instead, he describes Real
Application Cluster technology from the ground concepts up to full implementation, with practical notes and tips. He
gets into topics that the manuals never touch, and much of what he writes can be useful in any RAC environment, not just Linux.
I whole-heartedly recommend this book and own both the paper and eBook version which I often reference.
~ Oracle ACE Director Hans Forbrich's review on Amazon.com |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Troubleshooting Oracle
Performance /
978-1-59059-917-4 90000 |
| Author /Publisher |
Christian
Antognini /
APress |
Review
|
Recommended by Tanel Poder as
"the best Oracle performance-tuning book out there" in his
Community Peer-to-Peer Interview in the January-February
2010 Oracle Magazine.
That's a good enough review for me. There will be a copy on
my bookshelf in a week at the most.
~ Morgan |
| Book Name / ISBN |
Oracle PL/SQL
/ 978-0596514464 |
| Author /Publisher |
Steven Feuerstein and
Bill Pribyl /
O'Reilly |
Review
 |
This is the classic text on
PL/SQL updated. It is the one I used, for many years, as one
of the text books for the second quarter of the PL/SQL class
I taught at the University of Washington.
The reason, simply put, is that it contains indispensable
advice not available from any other source.
~ Morgan |
|
