Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition

Audience for This Book

We wrote this book for people at all levels of Oracle expertise: database administrators (DBAs) who spend most of their workday interacting with Oracle; application developers who build their systems on the data available in an Oracle database; and system administrators who are concerned with how Oracle will affect their computing environments. Of course, some users interact more peripherally with the actual Oracle product, from IT managers to end users. On the one hand, anticipating the appropriate technical level of all our potential readers presented difficulties; on the other hand, we’ve tried to build a solid foundation from the ground up and believe that some introductory material benefits everyone. We’ve also tried to ensure that every reader receives all the fundamental information necessary to truly understand the topics presented.

If you’re an experienced Oracle user, you may be tempted to skip over material in this book with which you’re already familiar. But our experience has shown us that some of the most basic Oracle principles are sometimes overlooked, even by experts. We’ve also seen how the same small “gotchas” trip up even the most experienced Oracle practitioners and cause immense damage if they go unnoticed. After all, an ounce of prevention tempered by understanding is worth a pound of cure (especially when you’re trying to get a system up and running). So we hope that even experienced Oracle users will find valuable information in every ...