Digital Press Oracle High Performance Tuning for 9i and 10g

Book Description

There are three parts to tuning an Oracle database: data modeling, SQL code tuning and physical database configuration.

A data model contains tables and relationships between tables. Tuning a data model involves normalization and de-normalization. Different approaches are required depending on the application, such as OLTP or a Data Warehouse. Inappropriate database design can make SQL code impossible to tune. Poor data modeling can have a most profound effect on database performance since all SQL code is constructed from the data model.

Poorly written SQL code is often a culprit of performance problems and is expensive to rectify. However, tuning of SQL code is generally cheaper than changing the data model. SQL code tends to be contained inside independent blocks within applications or stored procedures.

Physical database tuning involves hardware resource usage, networking and various other Oracle things such as configuration and file distribution. Physical configuration is often a culprit of poor performance where Oracle is installed with defaults, and never altered by an expert.

*Includes all three aspects of Oracle database tuning: data model tuning, SQL & PL/SQL code tuning, physical plus configuration tuning
*Contains experienced guidance and real-world examples using large datasets *Emphasizes development as opposed to operating system perspective/p>

Reviews From AMAZON.COM

Excellent book for new DBA's and good review book for the experienced

This is an excellent book for the new someone new to performance tuning. It gives very clear and simple explanation to the approach to PT. It is a good mix of technical scripts and verbose. The author is not too chatty neither he is boring. He brings out complex ideas in a simple way without too much of mathematical jargons. Definately recommended.

Vague and primitive

I have read this book and regrettably found it primitive and obscure. The author seems to have a bit of Java and development knowledge but not much of knowledge as a designer or DBA. His explanation of various items are rudimentary and shallow. When he talks about Cost based optimizer and the way it is used in Oracle, it is pretty clear to me that the author is very light in understanding the basic concepts. There are also a lot of technical errors in describing various constructs and utilities. I think this book will be useful for newcomers but hardly is a "High Performance Tuning book" as the book's title says. There are much better books around. Any of Tom Kyte's books will leave this book standing.