Oracle Insights: Tales of the Oak Table (Oaktable Press)

I really don't know where I should begin writing this review to give the book a proper credit that it deserves. Hmm...FUN - I think that this word best describes this collection of essays (eleven prominent authors instead of more usual one or two, certainly helped a lot).Can't remember when was the last time that I read technical book that kept me reading and reading, and reading - simply because all essays were *fun* to read. To be clear, yes I'm an Oracle geek, but I don't think you have to be an expert to understand 'the point' in the majority of the book, on contrary, if you're by any chance an Oracle newbie you have an opportunity to learn from the true experts (from their work done on the "projects from hell") and pick up some good habits and techniques to start your Oracle career (this book is not really about internals as much as it's about proper design and importance of understanding technology before using it - and using it to the full extent - you'll probably never again write DB agnostic applications, if this was your sin in the past :-).So, being an expert or not, I'm sure you'll get the true 'message' from this book that will stick with you for the rest of your life (of course experts will enjoy reading it slightly more, they'll finally learn, what AFIEDT.BUF is really all about ;-).Finally, thank you guys for writing this book, and Mr. Mogens Noorgard (you lucky *****), thank you for "networking" Oak Table members together.Thank you for reading this review.

This book delivers the fun "back stories" on both Oracle databases in particular, and database-oriented application development in general. For example: why did Oracle personnel -- in sheer desperation -- start instrumenting the DBMS? Because they couldn't figure out what their highly-complex software was doing either! Now it's public knowledge how to track every step of Oracle execution.Why do projects fail despite Oracle being highly-scalable? Because people *assume* they know what the Oracle DBMS will do, so they never test for scalability before throwing the project into production! Tale after tale prove you can't optimize what you never tested: only ignorance and hubris are infinitely scalable!

As an Oracle and SQL Server DBA for the last seven years I found this book an excellent and very refreshing change from technical manuals and books on Oracle database design and administration. The first few chapters are priceless from Oracle history to the useful read on Oracle tuning using Wait events. I really enjoyed learning how the product evolved from inception to the new version of 10g. All in all money well spent and nice to know that even such gurus as the Oak Table guys are human and have shared tough DBA experiences. Someday I want to meet and work with these guys!

Outstanding. Many very intetesting stories

If you wanna do Oracle DBA/architecture professionally, you'll end up reading this one. Sooner is better than later. Similar in world view to the AskTom site and oracle-l. Database work from the inside....

The book starts off with "A Brief History of Oracle" that lasts 68 of the 395 pages of this book...Then it proceeds with various chapters by noted Oracle gurus that have serious flaws of being too superficial and random in their coverage of Oracle technologies. No aspect of Oracle is covered in depth.Worse yet, some of the authors have devoted far too little of their time on their chapters. Some of the chapters are nothing more than a bunch of philosophical rantings about Oracle and database management.If you are interested in Oracle performance tuning, I recommend books specifically devoted to the subject by a highly regarded author (Cary Milsap and Jonathan Lewis comes to mind). If you are interested in reading half motivated essays by Oracle gurus, then this book fits the bill.If you are unfamiliar with Oracle performance tuning and architecture, this book will offer a lot of interesting insights. But finding good technical nuggets of Oracle architecture and performance tuning will require some lengthy, and often unneccessary, reading.

I have 14 years of Oracle Experience with some of the busiest and largest transaction systems in the world. This book really hit home for me and brought back a lot of memories of painful times as well as gave me new insights. I have re-read this book twice since getting it amonth ago. It is that good.The Tales of the Oaktable is a skeptic's work of technological history that is funny and hard to put down, but which also provides experienced database professionals roadmaps to solve their pressing problems ( or even see that they have a problem.)The authors take an empirical, rational approach to diagnosing and discovering the most serious problems while providing amusing revelations about the people and organizations they have worked with. Along the way they lift Oracle's skirts and take us out back to show us the dirty laundry and other junk in Oracle's back yard. They provide methods to diagnose and reapir problems in oracle performance as well as enumerate the known pitfalls in project management and database design. Seasoned IT types will groan and laugh during these chapters.They also look at larger architectural, economic, psychological, and philosophical issues which have a direct impact on databases and large information systems. Norgaard's history of computing is quite depressing. And I agree that many of the "new" blood wants to focus on .NET and J2EE - when the real heart and soul is still the data.Oracle Insights DOES require both deep thought and deep, hard-won knowledge of Oracle in order to fully enjoy it. So, if at first you don't like it, then you don't know what you don't know.

"ORACLE Insights" ist eine Sammlung von Artikeln zum Thema ORACLE von verschiedenen Mitgliedern des OakTable Netzwerks (ein Netzwerk von hervoragenden ORACLE Spezialisten).Die Artikel kann man grob in drei Kategorien einordnen:- Wie tunt man die ORACLE DB richtig (Kapitel 2, 4, 5, 6, 7) und worauf sollte man dabei achten- Beispiele wie man eine Applikation nicht designt und Workarounds falls man doch auf solche Applikationen trifft (Kapitel 3, 8, 10, 11)- Metartikel zur Geschichte von ORACLE (Kapitel 1) und zu Risk Management Testing und Projekt Management (Kapitel 9)Die Zielgruppe dieses Buches ist ganz klar der ORACLE Spezialist mit viel Erfahrung. Die Informationen zum größten Teil spezifisch für ORACLE (Ausnahmen im Bereich Systemarchitektur) und nicht auf andere DB System zu übertragen.Mir hat das erste Kapitel zur Geschichte von ORACLE sehr gut gefallen. Der Autor "Dave Ensor" beschreibt unter anderem Codd's 12 Regeln zu relationalen Datenbanken und deren Implementation in ORACLE (sehr gut meiner Meinung nach). Da ich ORACLE erst mit Version 7.0 richtig kennengelernt habe, war die Geschichte der vorherigen Releases und deren Probleme für mich lehrreich.Die verschiedenen Tuning Kapitel kann man kurz zusammenfassen mit:- Hit Ratios und Tuning nach diesen ist schlicht falsch- ORACLE 10046 Trace verwenden- ORACLE Wait Interface verwenden- Tuning nur nach gemeldeten Applikationsproblemen (Responsetime Tuning)Ich halte die beschriebenen Methoden und Ansätze für sehr richtig. Das Kapitel 7 über CTD = Compulsive Tuning Disorder ist zum Teil sehr lustig.Die Kapitel zum den schlechten Applikationen sind sehr lehrreich und zum Teil sehr lustig, wenn man selbst so etwas nicht schon gesehen hätte. Die Lehre aus diesen Kapitel könnte sein:- keine Datenbankunabhängigen Applikationen einsetzen- Testen, Testen mit Last, Testen unter ProduktionsbedingungenIch mag dieses Buch unter anderem, weil es verschiedene recht kurze Artikel mit verschiedenem Focus enthält, die man einzeln und recht schnell lesen kann. Die Artikel sind locker geschrieben und zum Teil sogar lustig. Ich kann dieses Buch sehr empfehlen. Als Zusatz zu diesem Buch sollte man "Optimizing ORACLE Performance" (O'Reilly Verlag) lesen.