First off, I purchased this book as I am taking a course in Relational Database Design using Oracle 9i. I had labs to do that involved setting up user accounts, giving/revoking permissions to tables, etc. THe "Complete Reference" didn't have the necessary information--some but not all. This book--the DBA Handbook--had more complete information that quickly gave me me the information that I needed to answer the questions. I must admit that I shyed away from it at the beginning of the course because I read all the negative comments here. But I am glad that my desperation (because the Oracle product documentation was absolutely no help) pushed me to go to nearest Borders to check it out before purchasing it. I am happy with it.

It is a good compilation of Oracle DBA 9i functionality. When it comes to using for real DBA work, I find it nearly impractical. One can not cover every little detail in a book like this to call it a handbook. With information available from software provider, books need to be written in much simpler manner rather than regrugitating what already exists.

I am more of an Oracle training manuals person which gives many specifics around various concepts and commands. I basically classify basic DBA knowledge at four levels(see below). You can basically control database behaviour at the system level(ALTER SYSTEM) or at the session(SET) level and some programmatically using Oracle supplied(DBMS) packages. Once you understand this idea, you can expand knowledge of various parameters and commands by simply searching them in Oracle documentation and using them as needed. Offcourse I do expect DBAs to know about Oracle architecture. Well can someone write a book in 100 pages that acts as a good starting point rather than redundant reference.

Four Levels:
a)Oracle Software Level(Installing, Patching etc.), Universal Installer teaches you a lot. Knowing OMF and OFA is recommended. Understanding Architecture.
b)Oracle System/Database Level: Setting parameters at instance level, creating control files, parameter files, tablespaces and altering them. Oracle Database Configuration Assistant and OEM can help you here.
c) Control at session level using SET command.
d) Backup and Restore: SQLLoader, Export, Import, RMAN utilities, Operating System Backups.
Tuning issues fall under b and c category.

Hope this helps. I tried using the reference, not very successful in what I wanted to do. Price wise the book is a deal.

It is a good compilation of Oracle DBA 9i functionality. When it comes to using for real DBA work, I find it nearly impractical. One can not cover every little detail in a book like this to call it a handbook. With information available from software provider, books need to be written in much simpler manner rather than regrugitating what already exists.

I am more of an Oracle training manuals person which gives many specifics around various concepts and commands. I basically classify basic DBA knowledge at four levels(see below). You can basically control database behaviour at the system level(ALTER SYSTEM) or at the session(SET) level and some programmatically using Oracle supplied(DBMS) packages. Once you understand this idea, you can expand knowledge of various parameters and commands by simply searching them in Oracle documentation and using them as needed. Offcourse I do expect DBAs to know about Oracle architecture. Well can someone write a book in 100 pages that acts as a good starting point rather than redundant reference.

Four Levels:
a)Oracle Software Level(Installing, Patching etc.), Universal Installer teaches you a lot. Knowing OMF and OFA is recommended. Understanding Architecture.
b)Oracle System/Database Level: Setting parameters at instance level, creating control files, parameter files, tablespaces and altering them. Oracle Database Configuration Assistant and OEM can help you here.
c) Control at session level using SET command.
d) Backup and Restore: SQLLoader, Export, Import, RMAN utilities, Operating System Backups.
Tuning issues fall under b and c category.

Hope this helps. I tried using the reference, not very successful in what I wanted to do. Price wise the book is a deal.

This book falls far short of being a DBA handbook. It is more useful to someone who needs to "get by" for a few weeks while their DBA is away.

It is ok at showing you how to "do things" in some cases (hence 2 stars). But, if you need to work backwards (i.e you might want to query dictionary tables to find out where something lives and why) then this book is almost useless. I am an experienced Oracle DBA and decided to write this review after referencing this book 10 times in the past week and not finding any help at all from this book in each case. The index is worse than useless.

This books title should have been "a DBA overview"

This book falls far short of being a DBA handbook. It is more useful to someone who needs to "get by" for a few weeks while their DBA is away.

It is ok at showing you how to "do things" in some cases (hence 2 stars). But, if you need to work backwards (i.e you might want to query dictionary tables to find out where something lives and why) then this book is almost useless. I am an experienced Oracle DBA and decided to write this review after referencing this book 10 times in the past week and not finding any help at all from this book in each case. The index is worse than useless.

This books title should have been "a DBA overview"

I have 2y. experience on Ora8i & 9i.2 on windows 2000 and winXP german platform. Bought tons of those fat & bulky Oracle books of all these gurus (Loney, Urmann, Trezzo, ...) including 9i reference books. A lot of money thrown out!

Oracle (9i) Universal Installer and oracle Enterprise Manager got more foolproof, I recommend to install w/o a book first & let the wizzard do the work. Oracle 10g should be even more "adaptive".

We had bought the official german translation Oracle Press/Hanser for a migration project from Sybase Adaptive Anywhere 7.0.4 to Oracle 9i.2. well, maybe everything is covered, but explanations are FAR too short.
example 1: the new feature pfile or spfile instead of init<...>.ora
This is not even a reference book! Just a waste of 2.36 inch (6cm) space on your bookshelf to say it straight.
example 2: book index lacks the keywords you are looking for

At least the book (german edition) is long lasting, nicely layouted and printed on decent quality paper. It doesn't fall apart as other Oracle paperbacks from Osborne/McGrawHill. Two stars for that.

All in all, if you are in deep trouble with your Oracle Database don't hope for help of these authors/gurus, i.e. no e-mail support.
Better get a free sign up to Technet (OTN) and save the money for a TOAD license. Or buy a book from Mike Ault.

Last but not least it's an outdated book (as of Sep 2004), Oracle 10g is out. it's a fast paced world.

I'm an Oracle developer who has inherited admin responsiblities for a medium sized database/application. This book DOES provide the information necessary to do that.

I am pursuing the OCA/OCP track as part of this new responsibility and, as other reviewers have stated, this book does NOT act as a study guide by itself.

Additionally, it is NOT a replacement for Metalink for more subtle problems/issues.

Good for reference, obviously I would not enjoy to sit and
read this book in a setting. But if you want to learn about
individual subjects and have a guide book is great.

I'm a beginner DBA, and this book had what I needed to get started. It has great coverage of 9i features. I used the scripts to create the database, set it up, and then tune it. I recommend DBAs also pick up a book on their operating system shell so you can program your management scripts.

Mrs. Theriault, Mr. Loney, the Oracle guys developed a milestone 9i with a lot of new important database features. In your book I can find features of Oracle 8 and 8i. That is not fair. I'm a lucky man, because my company has bought the book! As an Oracle teacher I must order all the new books, but this book I cant't recommend to people who actually have an idea about Oracle 8!

I've bought the good Oracle8 Dba Handbook and I've to tell you that there are few differences between 9i Handbook and 8 Handbook.
I expected that the new features will be explained ...
But this book is very good anyway.

I was wondering how long it would be before this book was out. It sold clean off the shelves at OpenWorld in San Francisco, which was very disappointing for me. The chapter on RMAN was much needed. As usual the rest of the book has what you need as a DBA. Get this book!

You should only consider buying this book if you do not have a good Oracle8i book already or if you are willing to read it completely. There are only a few references to Oracle9i and you have to search them in the index (which means that you have to know the new features BEFORE even reading the book!). It looks like time-to-market has played a key role in the conception of this book.
The one star is for being a pretty good book for Oracle newbies.

Kevin Loney continues to be a major force in documenting the onslaught of new database features from Oracle and this volume is no different.

Don't expect a CD-ROM to be included with this however - mine arrived without one and there is no indication that there ever was one planned. The Oracle Press web site does not mention one. This actually turned out to be a listing error by Amazon and has been corrected. If you like performance tuning, consider Donald Burleson's excellent guide to using and extending the Oracle Statspack utility.