Preface

Oracle databases have a significant market share in the enterprise database market. Oracle Database 10g has made a major breakthrough in the database world, surpassing all previous hurdles with its ease of installation, administration, and performance. Oracle Corporation has brought this premier database product to the mass market to benefit organizations of all sizes. DBAs can now easily set up and administer their databases on traditional UNIX and Windows platforms as well as on the cheaper and robust Linux, making it appealing across all user platforms.

With more than 160 manuals in the Oracle Database 10g Documentation Library and more than 50 books from major publishers, novice database developers as well as experienced database administrators find it difficult and confusing to find a reliable, single source of information on this subject. The sheer volume of material presented in these books and manuals makes it tedious for any user to obtain the essential knowledge and get familiar with the database features. Also, small businesses as well as large IT organizations find that there is no single source of knowledge to judge how easily and reliably they could install or upgrade their databases to Oracle Database 10g. This book is the culmination of dedicated efforts by the authors to address all the major challenges and help the Oracle reader with a one-stop resource guide.

This book is conveniently divided into multiple parts, organized by topics of interest. Part I deals with getting started, while Part II moves quickly into how you use Oracle Database 10g for some quick wins. Part III deals with tuning, and Part IV deals with topics related to scaling and availability. We wrap things up with Part V, which is devoted to utilities and other features not covered elsewhere. We hope that this book will serve you well and end up dog-eared and well-thumbed!