Not only is this a great reference for "hidden oracle utilities" but since I work on different platforms, AIX and Windows, it helped a lot getting info needed and knowing which commands for the utilities I can execute exactly the same way on two different platforms.

I found this book to be a gold chest of useful tips and tricks to using the dozens of Oracle utilities and I even learned many new Oracle utilities that I had never used before that existed! It is great tool for when you need to perform an Oracle DBA task quickly and may not recall the exact syntax or method to use a particular utility such as export and import. Highly recommended!

Whether you are new to Oracle or a seasoned veteran, Moore's book provides insight into many useful Oracle utilities. This book covers a lot of material in a well organized manner. Many of the noteworthy topics are backed by effective examples (code / scripts) that the DBA/Developer can immediately start using. I felt there was good coverage on PL/SQL packages like dbms_alert, dbms_smtp, and dbms_profiler as well as the more popular utilities like SQL*Loader and Import/Export.

One concern with the book was the size of the font used in printing which I believe was far too large. The size of this book could have been reduced considerably using a smaller font.

I look forward to a second edition of this book from the author that covers newer utilities found in 10g.

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Jeffrey M. Hunter, OCP
Sr. Database Administrator
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FastReader from http://www.wisdomforce.com allow very quickly and efficiently extract, export, import, load, massage large volumes of data from Oracle tables to Oracle or others like DB2 or MySQL or SQL Server. So I only need now is FastReader User Guide. No need for "hidden" Oracle utils

The utilities explained in this book lack details. Which is a critical flaw for a book professesing to explain utilities. Virtually every utility explained in this book had to be researched further by me in the internet to gain a better understanding of when and how to use it, which, of course, defeated the purpose of me paying good money for this book.

One exception, TKPROF is explained beautifully and in detail. Otherwise, the real value of this book is the author's list of Oracle's most useful utilities.

Hopefully pl/sql or Java developers could find something in this book, but as an Oracle DBA I am very disappointed.
This book has a misleading title and does not tell much about the real database utilities.

"Includes Oracle 9i" says the book cover. Well, it is true only if one believes that nine lines of an elementary description are sufficient for learning new 9i feature like External Table. At the same time, an old "utility" - "oerr" - deserved almost seven pages. For the Utilities such as Export, Import, SQ*Loader, and DBV this book simply lists the available parameters (options)... The book cover did not tell us how basic all this was going to be!

To summarize, Oracle "seasoned professionals" who read documentation will hardly find new tricks in this book.
Title and cover pages of professional publications should better reflect the contents and depth of the material, and correctly describe the target audience.

Content directed to new land and showed how to find such info in future releases.. Introduction to OraStack, OraDim, MaxMem.. and Java within Oracle is excellent. Well balanced content..

After reading "Oracle Utilities" by Mr. Moore and Burleson, I have advocated the book as a must for our project teams leveraging Oracle DBs. The book provides insights and tips that would take someone years of experience to acquire. It serves as an excellent reference and its organization makes it easy to locate the information you need. Once you find what you are looking for, the book carefully walks you through the implementation of the techniques found in the book. Our developers and software quality assurance folks have incorporated many of the techniques found in the book into our ISO-9001:2000 and SEI/CMM Level 3 automated testing and QA procedures.

The book has become one of the most utilized Oracle textbooks at the company, to the point where we have "can not leave the building" copies and traveling copies for our road warriors. The book is highly recommended.

This book is another in the series of technical volumes published by "Rampant Techpress," published by Don Burleson. The purpose of this book by Dave Moore is to explain to the reader the use of the various Oracle utilities. Some of these utilities are well-known, such as Tkprof; others are far more obscure-such as the Dbms_Profiler utility, or the PL/SQL Wrap Utility.

Mr. Moore succinctly illustrates how to use each utility. For example, in the section Dbms_Repair, he takes the reader through the following steps: Configuring the environment; Finding corrupt blocks; Repairing corrupt blocks, Rebuilding Freelists. Each topic includes a discussion of the purpose, as well as an example of how to accomplish the action.

One particularly interesting section is the discussion entitled "Dbms_Alert Utility." Mr. More gives a brief background on this tool, explains how it works, provides a sample Java program, provides a sample trigger test script, then shows a sample run display. Finally, he also illustrates the use of an associated database table.

As Mr. Moore explains in the Introduction, this is a PRACTICAL book-not just some theoretical treatise on approaches to performance tuning. He concisely explains the utilities that are available, with plenty of examples. I found the book easy to read, and the examples very clear.

This book fits a niche in my Oracle collection and has already proven useful to me in my job. Moore finally explains in concise terms what these utilities do and how to optimize them. I hope the rumor is true, that Moore is working on an even more detailed version which will also include those utilities in 10g. I'd buy that one, too.

I was surprised how much value I got out of this book, since I have a large collection of Oracle books on a wide range of topics. This one was different though and I quickly learned about utilities I never knew existed. For the ones I already knew about, Moore concentrates on performance instead of going over the basics. TKPROF has finally been explained to me in a format that I can use.

Oracle Utilities is a useful book for me. The table at the beginning of the book was worth the price alone, since it listed all executables and packages, what they did, and which version of Oracle they were available in. I have to admit that I was unaware of many of them listed in the book (orakill, oradim, maxem, autotrace). The author also covers well known utilities (tkprof / imp / exp) but for these concentrates on practical usage instead of what they do.

This book has provided invaluable help in giving clear, comprehensive advise for using the utilities of the Oracle database efficiently. I am indebted to Mr. Moore for his clear writing and practical, step-by-step directions. He has really found a niche that needed to be filled and did it in a most professional way. I would recommend this book to all those who work with this system and who are just feeling their way through some very complicated procedures. Take my word- this book will pay for itself many times over.