When I wrote Practical Oracle 8i, there was a three-week lag between publication and the first e-mail asking me when I was going to produce a 9i version of the book—thanks to Larry Ellison’s timing of the
launch of 9i. That question has been repeated many times (with changes in version number) over the
last 12 years. This book is about as close as I’m going to come to writing a second edition of the book—
but it only covers the first chapter (and a tiny bit of the second and third) of the original.
There were two things that encouraged me to start writing again. First, was the number of times I
saw questions of the form: How does Oracle do XXX? Second, was the realization that it’s hard to find
answers to such questions that are both adequate and readable. Generally, you need only hunt through
the manuals and you will find answers to many of the commonly-asked questions; and if you search the
internet, you will find many articles about little features of how Oracle works. What you won’t find is a
cohesive narrative that put all the right bits together in the right order to give you a picture of how the
whole thing works and why it has to work the way it does. This book is an attempt to do just that. I want
to tell you the story of how Oracle works. I want to give you a narrative, not just a collection of bits and
pieces.
Oracle Core: Essential Internals for DBAs and Developers by Jonathan Lewis provides just the essential information about Oracle Database internals that every database administrator needs for troubleshooting—no more, no less.
Oracle Database seems complex on the surface. However, its extensive feature set is really built upon upon a core infrastructure resulting from sound architectural decisions made very early on that have stood the test of time. This core infrastructure manages transactions and the ability to commit and roll back changes, protects the integrity of the database, enables backup and recovery, and allows for scalability to thousands of users all accessing the same data.
Most performance, backup, and recovery problems that database administrators face on a daily basis can easily be identified through understanding the essential core of Oracle Database architecture that Lewis describes in this book.
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Provides proven content from a world-renowned performance and troubleshooting expert
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Emphasizes the significance of internals knowledge to rapid identification of database performance problems
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Covers the core essentials and does not waste your time with esoterica
What you’ll learn
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Oracle's core architectural foundations
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How much overhead is reasonable
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How to recognize when you're doing too much work
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How to predict bottlenecks and why they will happen
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How to minimise contention and locking
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Why concurrency can slow things down significantly
Who this book is for
Oracle Core: Essential Internals for DBAs and Developers is aimed at database administrators ready to move beyond the beginning stage of doing work by rote towards the mastery stage, in which knowledge of what needs to be done comes not from a set of recipe-style instructions, but rather from the intimate knowledge and understanding of the system to be managed. Experienced database administrators will also find the book useful in solidifying their knowledge and filling in any missing pieces of the Oracle Database puzzle.
