Oracle Distributed Systems

Acknowledgments

Fortunately many people have supported me in the writing of this book; trite as it may sound, I definitely could not have done it by myself. While my name may appear on the byline, there are numerous people whose contributions, technical and otherwise, have been invaluable.

This is the second book I have written for O’Reilly & Associates, and my first solo effort. Debby Russell, my editor, has provided guidance and encouragement, as well as a measure of admonishment, all of which have led to a successful project. Debby has two abilities which result in great books for O’Reilly: motivating writers and envisioning a high-quality product. Many thanks as well to Steve Abrams, who converted files, did lots of preproduction work on the text, and otherwise helped move things along efficiently. And finally, thanks to the entire production staff; you did a great job.

My first line of support for solving intractable replication issues and one of the primary reviewers of this book was Jenny Tsai of Oracle Corporation. Jenny has been able to help me research issues with the utmost thoroughness and has devoted a significant amount of time to validating the accuracy of the material presented here. And most importantly, Jenny introduced me to Oracle’s advanced replication several years ago when she taught the symmetric replication class for Oracle Education.

Other folks at Oracle have been most generous with their time and have provided significant assistance with various portions ...