High-Performance Oracle: Proven Methods for Achieving Optimum Performance and Availability

`Geoff Ingram has met the challenge of presenting the complex process of managing Oracle performance. This book can support every technical person looking to resolve Oracle8i and Oracle9i performance issues.`
-Aki Ratner, President, Precise Software Solutions
Ensuring high-performance and continuous availability of Oracle software is a key focus of database managers. At least a dozen books address the subject of `performance tuning`-- that is, how to fine-tune the Oracle database for its greatest processing efficiency. Geoff Ingram argues that this approach simply isn't enough. He believes that performance needs to be addressed right from the design stage, and it needs to cover the entire system--not just the database.
High-Performance Oracle is a hands-on book, loaded with tips and techniques for ensuring that the entire Oracle database system runs efficiently and doesn't break down. Written for Oracle developers and DBAs, and covering both Oracle8i and Oracle9i, the book goes beyond traditional performance-tuning books and covers the key techniques for ensuring 24/7 performance and availability of the complete Oracle system.
The book provides practical solutions for:
* Choosing physical layout for ease of administration and efficient use of space
* Managing indexes, including detecting unused indexes and automating rebuilds
* SQL and system tuning using the powerful new features in Oracle9i Release 2
* Improving SQL performance without modifying code
* Running Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) for performance and availability
* Protecting data using Recover Manager (RMAN), and physical and logical standby databases
The companion Web site provides the complete source code for examples in the book, updates on techniques, and additional documentation for optimizing your Oracle system.

User review
new approach may annoy old school DBAs
I love this book! It covers many subjects areas in depth that other books just don't, see contents list. Oracle brags about why 9.2 can reduce admin overhead by 40% and this book shows you how. Old school DBAs that spend all their time on defrag, obsessed with file placement, STATSPACK for tuning etc probably won't like it. I finally stopped using dd and tar for backup and started using RMAN as a result of this book. Now i wish i did it years ago. If you want to manage Oracle in the future not the past, buy this book.

User review
new approach may annoy old school DBAs
i love this book! It's maybe the first book to cover the end to end management of Oracle completely not just the server, in a modern way. Oracle brags about how admin is easier these days and this book shows why it's true. But there should be a warning on the cover. Old school DBAs who spend lots of time on row chaining, microplacement of database files, fragmentation, STATSPACK (which is covered) for performance etc won't like it. I finally ditched tar and dd for backups and started using RMAN based on the RMAN chapter in this book. I just wish i'd done it years ago, but i guess I was stuck in denial. If you want your eyes opened on how to manage Oracle in the future not the past buy this book!

User review
Wealth of Knowledge and Guidance,,.
Geoff Ingram's book is one of the best Performance-based texts out on the market. Very few books provide the wealth of knowledge that Geoff Ingram does in this book. The sections on SQL tuning and Indexes provided information rarely covered in other Oracle books.

What I liked most from this book was Geoff's comments about Oracle and the ISV (Independent Software Vendor). I'm a performance engineer from a respected ISV that primarily uses Oracle as its RDBMS. His commentary was so on about how the ISV in most cases does not understand the role of Oracle in their solution as it relates to tuning,,.

I hope to see more books from Geoff Ingram in the future. It would be nice to see a follow-up book dedicated to SQL tuning,,.

Regards,

Steve

User review
great 9.2 coverage and fantastic DbCool software
this book is pretty much the only Oracle book I've seen that covers 9.2 features in depth. Ingram's DbCool GUI software from author's website is a great companion to the book, but not mandatory. I use it daily alongside TOAD but DbCool is free (!?). DbCool explain plain shows the incredibly useful filter and access predicates new in 9.2 plan.
Buried away on the website for the book (see back page of book)is loads of free stuff which some Oracle consultants charge for, audit, healthcheck, jpeg space charts and nice doc on Change Manager and native compiling for PL/SQL and Java. Hats off to the author for all the free stuff and long may it continue. Book worth every penny.

User review
SAVE YOURSELF MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT -- DON'T BUY IT!!!
This book tries to do too many things at once. It succeeds at none.
For the informed reader, the skimpy chapters are at best overviews of well-known concepts. No new ideas are proposed. Ninety percent of the meager code centers around the author's useless dba_cool package: proactive object monitoring is much easier via excellent code provided in the 8i/9i Handbooks, and performance trending is a joy with scripts by Burleson. Bottleneck tuning must center on hardy SQL (Lewis, Adams), not on some esoteric package installed only on the author's databases. How many of you will be called to a site with a performance problem that has the author's package installed? Will you waste time installing it once you're there? Successful crisis management cannot rely on such methods. Serious texts on this subject must focus on efficient, time-tested methods applicable anywhere with very little effort. At times, it seems the book is one big advertisement to download dba_cool (don't!!!).

For the less knowledgeable reader, High-Performance Oracle is simply not a tutorial-style book, and does not contain sufficient explanations and examples for the reader to learn anything. Its choice of material is questionable, and -- before I threw it out in disgrace -- i often wondered who it was written for (despite the author's statement that it was aimed at both the dba and the developer). Important concepts are brushed aside for irrelevant comparisons between expensive tools of questionable relevancy for most DBAs. Advanced topics such as RAC aren't seriously covered. (Don't be mislead by the table of contents.),,.