Special Edition Using Oracle8/8I

Special Edition Using Oracle8/8i delivers a well-balanced mix of tutorials, upgrade information, and administration instruction. As such, this book serves well as an overview to Oracle concepts and a daily reference for DBAs in the field.

Instead of simply covering the features of Oracle, author William Page--with help from a number of other authors--puts the elements in good general perspective with introductory discussions of key topics. The book opens with a series of excellent chapters on the basics of database management and relational databases, including, of course, Oracle's approach. The book covers the entire spectrum of Oracle subjects (from tablespaces to tuning), and in addition to its coverage of Oracle 8i, there are several chapters dedicated to the architecture of Oracle7 as well as technical comparisons and migration issues.

The text is subtly highlighted with blue headings and page labels for a very readable format. The "Contents at a Glance" section is right on the cover page, offering quick lookups to favorite chapters. The CD-ROM includes a copy of Oracle8i Personal Edition 8.1 for Microsoft Windows NT, sample code, and an electronic chapter on using Oracle on Linux. If you're looking for a single book to explain Oracle and serve as a survival guide, this is a fine choice. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Principles of DBMS's; database normalization; Oracle 7.x, 8.x, and 8i architectures; performance optimization; security; recovery; Oracle tools; Oracle Application Server (OAS); parallel and distributed database management.