Perl is a wonderfully powerful and efficient tool for database administrators. It can be used to manage, monitor and tune your Oracle database. But the challenge for most Oracle DBAs is that, in spite of the benefits of using Perl, they have neither the time nor the resources to become Perl experts. Fortunately, you don't need to be a Perl expert to use Perl scripts. Perl for Oracle DBAs includes everything you'll need to get started using this popular open source language to manage your database, from an introduction to Perl to a wealth of ready-to-use DBA scripts. If you've wanted to see what Perl can do for your development and database administration, this book will guide you step-by-step through the process. Perl for Oracle DBAs comes with a toolkit of more than 100 useful scripts that you can use to create databases and users, clone database DDL, maintain user data, compare schemas, monitor database performance, backup data, and perform many other tasks. Written by Oracle DBAs for Oracle DBAs, this book walks you through everything you need to know to put Perl to work for you right away.
User reviewOutstanding Coverage
These authors have taken two somewhat diverse topics and combined them into an easy-to-read and cohesive book.
The examples are especially helpful and the authors take great care to explain the issues in Plain English.
Overall, a highly recommended book.
User review
Great book about Oracle DBA utilities written in Perl
This is NOT a book for learning Perl if you're a DBA. The whole book is devoted to describe a lot of free DBA utilities written in this language, and it doesn't give you any roboust help to build your own Oracle-Perl scripts. There's a very little (about 40 pages) APPENDIX devoted to look at the language grammar and programming issues. The only chapter that deserve the only star I give for this book is CHP7 - OCI Calls with Oracle::OCI. But, is this a book written for DBA's or developers?
If someone publish a book saying `UNIX Korn shell scripts for Oracle DBA's`, what do I expect? Simply! learn about UNIX Korn shell and how to write DBA scripts for my Oracle system. But if the book talks about utilities written for Oracle in Korn shell scripts, then, clearly it fails its purpose.
Maybe those tools described can be useful for DBA tasks, specially because they're free,,. the bottom line is that this book doesn't teach you how to programm in Perl. Get something else, devoted just to Perl programming, like `Perl 6 Essentials` from Allison Randal.
User review
AS FINE AS A PEARL COULD BE
`Perl for Oracle DBAs` is indeed a real pearl. This 600-plus paged volume was designed to be a reliable friend of any administrator, whose responsibilities include the oiling of Oracle database machinery.
The book, which comes with a toolkit package that contains more than a hundred ready-to-use programs, bared all the mysteries that surround Oracle/Perl software: including Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Perl DataBase Interface (DBI), as well as all the other modules that commune with both software.
This book runs as smoothly as any pearl could run.
User review
Great book for DBAs wanting to take advantage of perl
I've always loved perl and wrote a lot of utilities to monitor and manage databases when I worked as a full time DBA (using oraperl & perl4). However, over the years as my focus shifted to wider software architecture I found it difficult to keep up with new releases, modules and so forth. From time to time I would visit CPAN but the sheer volume of modules and the limited time I had was preventing me from taking full advantage of modern perl.
Jared and Andy's book neatly solved this problem. Within an hour of opening their book I had fully upgraded my perl and added heaps of fantastic utilities that I never even knew existed. Sometimes perl can be hard to install and configure but this book makes it a breeze.
This book is indispensable if you are trying to get started with perl - and every DBA should! If you are already a perl user I'm sure you'll learn about new features or find utilities that will repay the cost of the book many times over.
User review
Must have for all oracle DBAs
The book is clear, concise and to the point. Style is excellent as I would expect from Andy and Jared. The book covers rare and hard to find topics like installing mod_perl and installing OWA toolkit. The PDBA collection of scripts is very comprehensive and enormously useful. This is certainly a must-have for any Oracle DBA. Great book!
