This book provides a powerful set of tools for Oracle database administrators and developers. During their many years of administering, tuning, and troubleshooting Oracle databases, the authors have developed hundreds of useful scripts. Now you can instantly take advantage of their experience by putting these scripts to work at your own site. DBAs and developers are constantly reinventing the wheel. Most Oracle sites have similar requirements, problems, and crises, and at most of these sites DBAs and developers find themselves reinventing the wheel by writing the same kinds of scripts -- and too often they're writing them under pressure, in hit-or-miss and error-prone fashion. The scripts in this book are tried-and-true. They've been thoroughly tested in many different environments. You can use them right now to simplify the tasks you perform each day -- monitoring databases for reliability, protecting your database against data loss, improving performance, increasing security, and building reports that provide insight into the inner workings of Oracle databases. You can also turn to these scripts in emergencies to diagnose system problems and repair databases when the pressure is on. The book includes: Scripts for DBAs -- The ways that DBAs structure files, allocate disk space, tune systems, and enforce security have an enormous impact on how efficiently and effectively systems will operate. The scripts in this category analyze performance, check database reliability, produce security and auditing reports, perform backups and restores, and work with the Oracle Applications. Scripts for developers and designers -- These scripts help to create, analyze, report, and reverse-engineer the objects in the database. They also allow developers to easily create EXPLAIN PLAN reports on SQL statements, and they provide a front end to RCS (the Revision Control System). Utility scripts -- These scripts perform a variety of operating system, file, directory, and memory operations (aimed particularly at UNIX sites). You can customize these scripts for your own operating system. The accompanying CD-ROM provides a comprehensive resource for DBAs and developers. It contains complete source code for all of the scripts described in this book, as well as additional software that you will find helpful in monitoring and improving the performance of your databases. A brief table of contents follows: Part I: Overview Introduction Part II: Scripts for DBAs Database Control Utilities Database Performance and Trend Analysis Utilities Database Reliability Monitoring Utilities Database Security Reports and Utilities Database Backup Utilities Oracle Applications Utilities Part III. Scripts for Developers and Designers Database-Design/DDL Utilities Database Developer Utilities IV: UNIX Utility Scripts General System Utilities Directory and File Management Utilities Memory Usage Reports Part V. Appendixes A. SQL Scripts That Create Oracle Tables B. Tables Created by SQL Scripts C. SQL Scripts That Create Output Files D. Output Files Created by SQL Scripts
As an Oracle Certified Professional DBA, I found this book to be worth every cent. The scripts are comprehensive, covering almost every area that could possibly need attention. Although the O/S specific scripts will need some modifications to run on O/S's other than Unix, the SQL portions are exactly the same across any imaginable platform. You could find some of the same functionality in many of the enterprise management tools, but these enterprise management tools cost orders of magnitude more than this book AND you have to be a rocket-scientist to configure and use them. Brian and David, please keep up the good work!
This book saved my job!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
I just bought this book and installed the scripts, and the "every5" script has already warned me of an impending disaster and as a result literally saved my job! I can't believe such a wide array of useful scripts is available for such a reasonab le price! O'Reilly is to be commended again!
Bread on the Table
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
About three years ago I was an Informix contractor, but Oracle8's arrival killed off the market. The dribble of contracts left were of the "Informix Project Converting to Oracle" variety. Extracting my head from the sand, I leapt across into Fortress Oracle before the drawbridge lifted. As a born-again Oracle DBA, I then encountered SQL*Plus; which was not spirtitually uplifting. The best thing in Informix for me had been the 'isql' tool. While Uncle Larry had poured his energy into sales development, Informix had created lots of lovely tools. Without the crutch of 'isql', all sorts of awkward people now asked me devilish questions, such as "Why am I paying you, when you know nothing?". But after scouring bookshelves for help, "Oracle Scripts" fell into my grasping hands. Like Indiana Jones on the bridge in 'The Last Crusade', its broad scattering of SQL made the way clear. Hundreds of well-written front-end scripts, covering every area of Oracle an old Informix hacker could wish for, easily manipulated into your own favourite toolset. As for back-end background coverage, the book's "every5" script series cuts out blood-pressured calls from suits, giving you advance bad news via email. When the calls come now, I've already sorted the problem (touch wood). Which is a big improvement from living in Panic-Reaction city, Arizona.Andy Duncan, Oracle Certified Professional DBA
This book is a lifesaver! The novice should be careful.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
This is a great book, full of useful scripts that will make the DBA's life easier in many ways, and occasionally save his/her hide as well! The book is not geared towards the novice, and certainly is not a tutorial on Oracle database administration, but the scripts cover the entire range of DBA tasks. The reader should pay careful attention to the introduction, where the authors lay out the need for some customization and care - some of the other comments posted here are from people who obviously didn't pay attention to this section. There is no way a book of scripts will work "out of the box" for every environment, and they make no pretense about this. This book is a great value for the price, but it won't replace using your brain!
Usual O'Reilly quality (do I get my ten quid?)
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
Excellent range of scripts a few of which we have used in production. Well documented, easy to install, well written. Check their web site for a couple of updates, but generally very useful. Some duplication in the book (lot of cross referencing!) but one scrpt would take more than an hour to write - which pays for the book.
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