This book is well written and organized. It provides a comprehensive overview of Oracle features and technologies, including the latest Oracle database 11g for begineers. The focus is on principles rather than syntax, such as Oracle security & auditing, performance, multiuser concurrency, transaction processing and high availability.

The 4th updated edition of ORACLE ESSENTIALS is a must for any library strong in databases in general and Oracle in particular, offering an easily-read reference packed with tips on data structures, installation, networking, and customization processes. Features beyond the Oracle database: Express, Fusion Middleware, and more - compliment specifics on the latest Oracle Database 11g, providing a comprehensive reference for new and old users alike!

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Oracle Essentials, Oracle Database 11g, 4th edition
Rick Greenwald et al.
O'Reilly - 4th Edition (11g)
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514549/index.html

This is a very detailed overview of the inner workings of Oracle. Each chapter is a small book in itself going into the detail of the subject. This might be confusing to those without a clear understanding of how databases work in general, and a background in computer science would help. Overall, the author does a nice job of explaining each topic in such a way that it would be reasonably clear either way though. There are many diagrams, tables, lists, and pictures to help explain the material. This would not be so much a reference for programming Oracle as it explains what is available in Oracle and how Oracle provides its features. The book should be usefully to Oracle DBAs and system administrators. It will also appeal to those that want a book that goes beyond stating what Oracle can do and shows how Oracle actually does what it can do.

Generally chapters cover:

Overview
Architecture
Installation and Running
Data Structures (B*-trees, etc.)
Management
Security
Performance
Concurrency
Transactions
Warehousing, Business Intelligence
Availability
Hardware
Distributed Databases
Object Oriented Development
New Features of 11g

Summary:

- The internal workings of Oracle are clearly explained through out.
- A great book for system administrator, DBAs, and those who take care of Oracle databases.

This book is for people of all levels of Oracle experience and includes database administrators, system administrators, and application developers. Even though there is some introductory material that more experienced people might be tempted to skip over, it is probably best to go through the book from beginning to end just to make sure you don't miss some minute point of Oracle. It does not try to teach database theory, though. You need to be familiar with that in a general sense before you read this book.

The main purpose of this fourth edition is to add information relevant to the newest release, Oracle Database 11g. Appendix A is handy in that it contains, in a condensed form, what is new for 11g. The book manage to concentrate on the most important Oracle issues and principles. It isn't possible to write one book that encompasses everything about Oracle, particularly syntax details, so you'll need to refer to Oracle documentation for complete details. The following is the table of contents of the book, which is currently not included in the product description:

Chapter 1. Introducing Oracle
Section 1.1. The Evolution of the Relational Database
Section 1.2. The Oracle Database Family
Section 1.3. Summary of Oracle Database Features
Section 1.4. Database Application Development Features
Section 1.5. Database Connection Features
Section 1.6. Distributed Database Features
Section 1.7. Data Movement Features
Section 1.8. Database Performance Features
Section 1.9. Database Management Features
Section 1.10. Database Security Features
Section 1.11. Oracle Development Tools
Section 1.12. Embedded Databases

Chapter 2. Oracle Architecture
Section 2.1. Databases and Instances
Section 2.2. Deploying Physical Components
Section 2.3. Instance Memory and Processes
Section 2.4. The Data Dictionary

Chapter 3. Installing and Running Oracle
Section 3.1. Installing Oracle
Section 3.2. Creating a Database
Section 3.3. Configuring Oracle Net
Section 3.4. Starting Up the Database
Section 3.5. Shutting Down the Database
Section 3.6. Accessing a Database
Section 3.7. Oracle at Work

Chapter 4. Oracle Data Structures
Section 4.1. Datatypes
Section 4.2. Basic Data Structures
Section 4.3. Additional Data Structures
Section 4.4. Extended Logic for Data
Section 4.5. Data Design
Section 4.6. Constraints
Section 4.7. Triggers
Section 4.8. Query Optimization
Section 4.9. Understanding the Execution Plan
Section 4.10. SQL Advisors
Section 4.11. Data Dictionary Tables

Chapter 5. Managing Oracle
Section 5.1. Manageability Features
Section 5.2. Oracle Enterprise Manager
Section 5.3. Fragmentation and Reorganization
Section 5.4. Backup and Recovery
Section 5.5. Working with Oracle Support

Chapter 6. Oracle Security, Auditing, and Compliance
Section 6.1. Security
Section 6.2. Auditing
Section 6.3. Compliance

Chapter 7. Oracle Performance
Section 7.1. Performance Tuning Basics
Section 7.2. Oracle and Disk I/O Resources
Section 7.3. Oracle and Parallelism
Section 7.4. Oracle and Memory Resources
Section 7.5. Oracle and CPU Resources
Section 7.6. Database Resource Manager

Chapter 8. Oracle Multiuser Concurrency
Section 8.1. Basics of Concurrent Access
Section 8.2. Oracle and Concurrent User Access
Section 8.3. Oracle's Isolation Levels
Section 8.4. Oracle Concurrency Features
Section 8.5. How Oracle Handles Locking
Section 8.6. Concurrent Access and Performance
Section 8.7. Workspaces

Chapter 9. Oracle and Transaction Processing
Section 9.1. OLTP Basics
Section 9.2. Oracle's OLTP Heritage
Section 9.3. Architectures for OLTP
Section 9.4. Oracle Features for OLTP
Section 9.5. High Availability
Section 9.6. Oracle Streams and Advanced Queuing
Section 9.7. Object Technologies and Distributed Components

Chapter 10. Oracle Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
Section 10.1. Business Intelligence Basics
Section 10.2. Data Warehouse Design
Section 10.3. Query Optimization
Section 10.4. Analytics, OLAP, and Data Mining in the Database
Section 10.5. Managing the Data Warehouse
Section 10.6. Other Software for the Data Warehouse
Section 10.7. The Metadata Challenge
Section 10.8. Best Practices

Chapter 11. Oracle and High Availability
Section 11.1. What Is High Availability?
Section 11.2. System Failure
Section 11.3. Protecting Against System Failure
Section 11.4. Recovering from Failures
Section 11.5. Complete Site Failure
Section 11.6. Data Redundancy Solutions
Section 11.7. Rolling Upgrades

Chapter 12. Oracle and Hardware Architecture
Section 12.1. System Basics
Section 12.2. Uniprocessor Systems
Section 12.3. Symmetric Multiprocessing Systems
Section 12.4. Clusters
Section 12.5. Non-Uniform Memory Access Systems
Section 12.6. Grid Computing
Section 12.7. Disk and Storage Technology
Section 12.8. Which Platform Deployment Solution?

Chapter 13. Oracle Distributed Databases and Distributed Data
Section 13.1. Accessing Multiple Databases As a Single Entity
Section 13.2. Moving Data Between Distributed Systems

Chapter 14. Oracle Extended Datatypes
Section 14.1. Object-Oriented Development
Section 14.2. Extensibility Features and Options
Section 14.3. Using the Extensibility Framework in Oracle

Chapter 15. Beyond the Oracle Database
Section 15.1. Application Express
Section 15.2. Oracle Fusion Middleware
Section 15.3. Oracle SOA Suite

Appendix A. What's New in This Book for Oracle Database 11g
Section A.1. Introducing Oracle
Section A.2. Oracle Architecture
Section A.3. Installing and Running Oracle
Section A.4. Data Structures
Section A.5. Managing Oracle
Section A.6. Oracle Security, Auditing, and Compliance
Section A.7. Oracle Performance
Section A.8. Oracle Multiuser Concurrency
Section A.9. Oracle and Transaction Processing
Section A.10. Oracle Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
Section A.11. Oracle and High Availability
Section A.12. Oracle and Hardware Architecture
Section A.13. Oracle Distributed Databases and Distributed Data
Section A.14. Oracle Extended Datatypes
Section A.15. Beyond the Oracle Database

Appendix B. Additional Resources
Section B.1. Web Sites
Section B.2. Books and Oracle Documentation