Databases Books

Slightly out of date now (Sybase 12.5 is the current version) but still very useful. I originally purchased my copy when I started at Sybase as a new employee (though I had been using Sybase software for about 10 years prior to that).

I have had my copy now for nearly 5 years, and I still use it as much as ever - though I left the employment of Sybase a long time ago (so this is not an official endorsement).

And I'm not the only one in the office to use it - the book is a very good general reference on Sybase - forget the manuals. This book covers most things you want to know - whether you are a DBA or a developer, but perhaps not always in as much depth as you'll need.

I purchased this book hoping that it would cover all the topics for SYBASE system 11 (server configuration, BCP and fine tuning)and it has DELIVERED! I am very pleased with the detailed information and examples (I LOVE EXAMPLES) in this book and I would definitely recommend it to any DBA working on SYBASE system 11.

I already knew Sybase fairly well when I got a copy of this book. So I never felt the need to read the entire thing.

The reason I know it is valuable and the reason I give it 5 stars is this: every time I have a problem or run across something I don't know how to do, I open this book. Then I quickly and easily find the solution. That makes the book good as gold as far as I am concerned.

This book is copyrighted 1996 but don't let that fool you. It is still the best book on Sybase ASE available. Of course this might say more about the efficacy of Sybase than the book, but we aren't reviewing RDBMs here.

There are a few things that are lacking in this book but if you are just starting out with Sybase, either coming from another RDBMs or starting from scratch, this is it. A second revision would be most welcome as would a 'Sybase on Linux Unleashed'.

To sum it up, if you want to use Sybase, buy this book.

This is an excellent Sybase book (probably the best one on the topic), however I still have to go to sybooks.sybase.com for certain things. For example, sp_changedbowner (to change a database owner) isn't mentioned anywhere.

This book is a concise and friendly guide that is great for admins. It proved itself the first time that I had a problem allowing me to quickly find the answer I needed.

This is one of those most have books for any SQL Server DBAs reference library.

Brian Knight covers a LOT of different items and goes into sufficient detail on all topics. Probably the best real world book on SQL Server administration out there. I've worked with SQL Server for over 5 years and have been a senior DBA over a large enterprise SQL Server farm but I still learned a great deal from this book.

This is an excellent book. The coverage of SQL Server is very solid. However, if you plan to purchase the author's newest book, SQL Server 2000 for Experienced DBAs, DO NOT purchase this book. The newer book covers everything this book covers, in addition to the topic of high availability. Owning both books would be completly redundant, a mistake I personally made.

If you're thinking of buying this book, because you've tried everything in Microsoft's online manual "Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Performance Tuning Guide" and are still having some performance problems, then this book could be your solution.

It helped me solve some of the problems I was having with our productive server and helped me understand some basics a bit better than before. It does not contain everything you need to know, but gives you some ideas how you have to look for further information and what you have to look for.

It contains some good reference material, but not all of the hidden features. As with every book under 1000 pages this is not THE bible for the DBA but is a complementary book that will provide some invaluable information not found elsewhere. This book was well worth the price..

SQL Server 2000 Administration headaches? ... Well if you need a rapid reference on system administrative functions that could not only save your company $$$ on downtime and system availability but improve your response to difficult situations this is a DBA must have. I have purchased more books attempting to get reliable information and tips to make my Administration of SQL Server Database systems robust, reliable, and rapid on response I have finally found the information I needed in "One" book. I would recommend this book for Mid to Senior level Database Administrators and as a guide for training Junior level DBA's to prevent bad habits and teach the proper habits of monitoring, managing and maintaining SQL Server databases overall. Oh and the nice touch is that TIPS: and CAUTION: notices throughout the book educate the creative "out of the box" approach to proper system risk management. I hope Mr. Knight considers sharing his talent with future Administrative Guides !!!

I couldn't put this book down until I finished it. Kerry does a great job of taking the reader behind the scenes at Fox.

It looks like I'm one of the few reviewers that didn't work for Fox Software. However, I have used and developed in FoxPro a lot over the last 15 years. It's still the best RAD tool that you can buy despite its treatment by Microsoft.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I think that anyone who has worked in software or worked for complete butthead would also like it and relate. It's so well written that I just wish it were longer.

Recently, I read Mr. Nietz's book while on vacation and found it to be very interesting and hard to put down. Within a couple of days I was finished with the book. This book is for all audiences and you don't need a degree in computers to enjoy it. I highly recommend this book and I look forward to reading other books by Kerry in the future.

Once I began this extraordinary book, I could not put it down. It's a page turner with a story that will appeal to all readers. I worked at Fox Software with Kerry for over 4 years. This story of Kerry's experience at Fox Software is a wonderful reminder that how you get to the top is more important than how high you get.

There have been many stories of what the inside of the high-tech business looks like from the most famous and successful business leaders. Most of these stories are attempts to write history and promote themselves. This story is about a hard working and honest guy who wants to work hard and make something of himself by joining a small software company. After reading this book you can tell that Kerry wrote this book to just share his experience. He is not trying to promote himself, and by doing so he tells a story that so many people can relate to, and he records for all of us a fascinating story of a small software company at a time when the industry was growing exponentially.

This story has a happy ending, despite all of the obstacles presented in the book, Kerry and others continued to work hard and were rewarded years later at Microsoft. I am looking forward to more great books from Kerry.

FoxTales is an excellent read. Once I got started, I simply could not put it down. As an employee that actually worked in the offices of Fox Software, I always felt that Fox Software was a company that succeeded more in spite of its uppermost management, rather than because of it. At times Fox was an exciting and awesome place to work and at others, it was humiliating and torturous. Kerry does a great job of presenting the experience as a whole and of wrapping up a series of somewhat loosely related events into a very entertaining story. It's nice to see someone tell the outside world what it was like at Fox Software.

If nothing else, Dr. Fulton had an excellent eye for talented developers and he certainly did manage to assemble an incredible team. It's great to see how Keary and others were eventually rewarded by Microsoft for their efforts and perseverance.

I already read many Oracle books from Oracle Press & other publications. They are very good. This book takes different approch of How-to Style content which is very much practical & solves day to day administrative needs. Topics are covered in detail. Most importantly examples given are from grounds up. Excellent! This book is also helpfull for all who know a little bit of Oracle Database & want to know more in depth

We all know, especially here in Brazil, the money that one pays to have a good Oracle trainning. If you already have a little knowledge of Oracle and its jargon and are self estimulated, this book will take you to high level of expertise without a pain . Want to know Oracle ? Start with it.

Among all the Oracle reference books, I found this one to be the most useful and practical book. This book is very well written and has an easy to read format. The detailed step-by-step instructions in Q&A section helped me solve problems quickly. This saved me much time and effort than going through piles of other reference books and trying to pull pieces of information here and there together to get a complete picture. I highly recommend this book to Oracle DBA's in all levels.

As an Oracle Instructor and DBA I've had the opportunity to review numerous Oracle texts for DBA's and have to say I've been quite disappointed with most of them. Mr. Yuhanna's book however is an exception. Out of the many DBA texts I have on my shelf this is the one I goto most frequently. Unlike other texts which spend excessive amounts of time covering uncommonly used features and little to no time covering commonly used features this books covers almost all the basics in a hands on approach. The book is setup in a step by step how-to format. Although it doesn't discuss concepts much that is not its purpose and the best concepts book is the Oracle Documentation anyway. I've have yet to see a good how-to DBA book until I came across this one. As a consultant/instructor I recommend it quite frequently.

The book is very useful for both new and experienced DBAs because it has a lot of practical examples. I especially like its Q&A format with scripts which makes reading very interesting.

I found this book to be excellent. It clearly defines areas to be researched, how to do that research, where to find the resources and how to make sure the package will meet the needs of the users. It is well written, easily understood by all levels of users and extremely, extremely helpful. If only users of open source software went through these steps, open source would be far more successful than it already is.

Bernard Golden's book offers one of the most comprehensive analytical tools for evaluating open source software projects, his Open Source Maturity Model (which is also featured on his website, www.navicasoft.com.) The book starts with a general overview of open source software, open source business models, and key legal issues, and then discusses the OSMM in depth. It also offers a very detailed and fair evaluation of a major open source project, JBoss.

Whether you are a developer creating an open source project, a user evaluating an open source project, or an investor doing due diligence, this book is a very valuable resource.

This book is perhaps the best resource I've run across on the subject of evaluating open source.

In this book, Golden explains the methodology of applying his Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM). OSMM is a framework for evaluating the maturity of an open source project and its usefulness, specific to an organizations software requirements. The book provides excellent insight into the organization and culture of open source projects and provides a wealth of recommendations for investigating and evaluation open source software.

I was really blown away by the accessibility and accuracy of Golden's writing. Having been involved in open source for about 6 years in one context or another, I found his analysis of open source software to be spot-on. If you are looking for a simple, guided, and clear methodology for evaluating the usefulness and maturity of a specific open source project, you should read this book. It's a goldmine.

Any IT Manager with their eye on the radar knows that open source software is rapidly maturing into a viable alternative to expensive commercial software packages. However, there are still some barriers to entry into the OSS world, especially for IT Managers within large, traditional, non-IT companies.

The OSMM evaluation method described in this book is a perfect fit for an IT Manager trying to find a way to justify their use of open source software inside the software stack of one of those traditional, non-IT companies.

The real-world examples provided by Bernard throughout the book are very interesting and can be used as additional "weight" to your arguments if you are trying to convince your boss that your use of OSS is no longer the pioneering adventure that it once was.

This book not only provides OSMM evaluation method, but also a well-written overview of the current status of OSS in the first three chapters.

I was not able to find blank worksheet templates on www.navicasoft.com although the book indicates that these are located somewhere on the website. I also could not find a way to upload an assessment to share with the OS community. This is a something that should be considered as it would really be a tactical advantage for IT Manager's efforts if there was a section of Navica's website dedicated to sharing OSMM assessments of the different OS packages. I can imagine that a user community would quickly spring up in response to such an portal.

Truly an excellent book!

Have you been wondering how to extend the use of open source software in your organization, but would like to know how to find the right software and do pro-quality evaluations of alternatives effectively? This excellent book by Bernard Golden will show you what's different about open source in detail, how you might make those differences work in your organization, and how to use a simple, effective model that summarizes the necessary elements to compare different apps that might fit into your environment. Using Golden's methods will educate your choices, reduce your risks, and help you to succeed with open source.

This is a "How-To" book for IT managers, but it's also very suitable for beginners. The concepts don't require technical knowledge, and the explanations are clear and concise.

Part I is an overview of everything you wanted to know about open source. It dispells myths, and helps you to understand why open source works at all. Best of all, each chapter has an executive summary, and most paragraphs have a margin note that summarizes the paragraph's concept. This really makes the book easy to read or review. You can skim down the page reading the concept notes until you come to the areas where you want more in-depth knowledge. The overview is excellent.

Part II (which also includes the great paragraph notes) introduces Golden's Open Source Maturity Model, the framework for applying what you learned, or knew, from Part I, and more that you will learn later in Part II. The model is a template that grids the elements for software assessment and weighting factors. When you do the math you get the product maturity score, maturity being how full-featured and ready for production use the product is. Of course, your weighting factors will affect the score to make it useful in light of your organization. Formally scoring a number of products will pinpoint the products you should and should not be considering. This part is pretty simple.

The devil, of course, is in the details. Golden discusses different types of organizations, how they should set up their reviews, weightings and interpret scores. Then he applies this process to a real-world example using JBOSS, a significant open source product. Each element is fully explored in its own chapter, and this is where the rubber meets the road. Golden compares how commercial products provide the elements, then he discusses how open source provides the elements, many times by using different mechanisms. He gives great guidance on how to find and use these resources when they differ from the single-point solution of commercial software. If differences between open source and commercial software implementation weren't clear to you before, they will be after these chapters, and you'll begin to know how to get the most out of them, too. Open source may not be the right answer for your environment, but now you'll know exactly why, and what has to change before it is.

This is a well-written and thorough book, good for initiates and decision makers, made easy to use by the paragraph notes. If open source is on your radar, I highly recommend it.

Jeff Davidson is an achiever who writes from an authoritative stance. Anybody who has published more than 3,300 articles, been featured in 68 of the top 75 newspapers in the country, had his speeches published six times in "Vital Speeches of the Day", and has been a professional speaker to numerous well-known corporate clients definitely has something worth listening to.

This book is refreshing reading in that it brings you back to the basics of maintaining focus. In arguing that it's worth the effort to stay organized, Davidson notes, "If you think getting organized is time consuming, try disorganization."

By nature my tendency has been to be a saver, i.e., hold on to things because I may need them someday. Davidson and other writers are causing me to see it's time for a paradigm shift. In the information age, updates occur regularly and with the Internet such data can be acquired online. Collecting materials in this generation takes a new twist when the new realities are considered. Notice I'm cautious in the way I phrase this. I'm still a saver at heart, but I'm learning to eliminate clutter. I think the point is valid. It takes time to change.

This segues perfectly into his sixth point which discusses growing beyond what you've experienced in the past. Be open to possibilities you've never known before. Chapter seven examines the cliche "work smarter." He tells you how to do it. The discovery Vilfredo Pareto made in 1897 is the topic of point 8 in this book. I'm intentionally not revealing what it is to make you curious.

Through reminding us of the basics of getting organized, such as "divide and conquer" various tasks, we're encouraged that the goal is reachable. Overall this book is packed with solid insight that can be applied.

Often times, the problem involving in getting organized is where
to start . . . you may be like me and have many projects going
at the same time, accompanied by even more pieces of paper.

So where do you begin? One approach is to get hold of Jeff
Davidson's book, THE 60 SECOND ORGANIZER . . . Davidson, an author and professional speaker,
presents many useful techniques--60 in all--that don't
take a lot of time to implement . . . but do pay powerful
dividends when utilized.

Many you've probably heard before . . . however, the problem
is that you may well never have put them into practice . . . the
author shows you how, for example, when he says:

* You can fight junk mail by saving all of it for weeks. Then
hire a high school student at minimum wage to send a
form letter to every party who has sent you mail more than
once. Explain carefully that you have no interest in their offer.

When it comes to seeking perfection in everything that you do,
I really liked this bit of advice:

* Studies show that the additional time you spend to take a
project from the 95 percent mark to the 100 percent mark
is, in most cases, not worth it. Striving for perfection, i.e.,
ensuring that the final 5 percent is correctly done, often
takes as much time as the initial 95 percent of effort
required! Gosh, no wonder it felt so difficult!

Lastly, when it comes to writing a book or completing some
other task that will take a good amount of time, Davidson
almost makes it easy when he advises how to do this:

* I have written 32 books, but I wouldn't have finished book #1
if I tried to "write an entire book." Rather, my goal in approaching
each book is to write one chapter at a time. Since most chapters
are made of two or three subsections, I simply aim to finish one
subsection, then another, then another until I finish a whole
chapter. The rest of the day seems like a vacation.

The next day, I go back and start another chapter, approaching
one subsection at a time. All the while, I acknowledge that I
have a contract to honor and that a publisher is breathlessly
waiting for my material. We pick a date in advance, and I agree
to turn in the manuscript no later than that day.

Now that I've finished THE 60 SECOND ORGANIZER, I'm all
set to read another book the author wrote: THE 60 SECOND
PROCRASTINATOR . . . all I have to do is stop procrastinating,
then I'll be ready to begin it.

In the never-ending quest to be more personally productive and organized, I got the chance to read 60-second Organizer: Sixty Solid Techniques for Beating Chaos at Home and at Work by Jeff Davidson. For those who aren't ready to commit to a "system" of organization, this is a perfect place to start getting things done...

Contents:
Part 1 - Embracing Powerful Perspectives: Relax - Organizing Is Not So Bad; Learn Your ABCs; Capture Your Best Thoughts; Determine "Who Created That?"; Make Profound Choices; Live and Actually Learn; "Work Smarter" for Real; Heed Pareto and His Principle; Forget about the "Right Mood"; Reward Thyself
Part 2 - Enveloping Provocative Practices: Forsake Excuses for Not Becoming Organized; Defeat Perfectionism; Start Simply; Organize According to Your Milestones; Handle Tough Things First; Immerse Yourself for 60 Seconds; Ask Yourself "Will It Be Any Easier Later?"; Organize Based On Your Priorities; Stake Your Claim
Part 3 - Listing and Charting Your Way: Recognize Fallibilities; Mark Your Calendar; Separate Long-Term and Short-Term Tasks; Develop a Clarifying Checklist; Map It Out; Chart Your Path; Plot Your Way; Add Subtasks to Your Chart; Organize with Flow Charts; Track Your Progress
Part 4 - Reclaiming Your Places and Spaces: Start from Scratch; Conquer Your Desk; Make Your Shelves Work for You; Win the Paper Chase; Face Files with Smiles; Establish Rotating Tickler Files; Pile It High; Pare Down and Win; Reduce Junk Mail; Read with Aplomb
Part 5 - Organize Travel, Meetings, and Online Activities: Manage Your E-mail; Organize Online Research; Create More Organized Meeting, Really!; Maintain Effective Meetings, the Whole Way!; Meet to Achieve Results; Organize for the Road; Handle Commuting and Travel Contingencies; Be Productive on Public Transportation; Fly Friendlier Skies; Book Your Flight Right
Part 6 - Making Your Home Your Castle: Destroy Enemy Outposts; Pick a Regular Day and Time; Approach Spaces Strategically; Adopt a Replacement Policy; Improvise When Storage Space Is Limited; Organize Your Gift Shopping; Organize Your Purchases and Related Paperwork; File Taxes on Time and Without Grief; Hire an Organizing Professional; Divide, Literally, and Conquer
Summary; Bibliography; About the Author

It seems to be all the rage to follow an organizing system these days, a system that presents a complete package of how to get and stay organized. But realistically, it takes a lot of effort to overcome that inertia, and often the system ends up gathering dust on a shelf. Davidson's book is great in that it gives you a number of tips to get organized, and it's not an "all or nothing" thing. You can start in any area that is a problem in your life, such as your workspace or your storage/junk piles. The 10 tips in that particular area of the book are quick to read, easy to understand, and you can quickly try out the recommendation. For instance, if your filing system is broken (or nonexistent), Part 4 of the book gives you plenty of ideas on how to clean up the existing mess as well as keeping it cleaned up. Rotating tickler files, single location for file, and questions to ask before filing all help to keep the important stuff, throw out the trash, and keep the process going.

If you've read any books on organization before, you'll probably recognize some of the material presented here. But it never hurts to review great ideas, and what didn't strike you as important a year ago may be exactly what you need now. Well worth the time commitment to read and review...

I hate paper. And nowadays, the stuff that comes in the house can't just be sorted to be dealt with or thrown out, you have to SHRED a lot of the trash. Holy hell, what a pain THAT is. If you let any of it sit, you have a huge pile in no time. And online billpay is not really reducing any of this mess. In fact, I find that the mix of paper payments and online just makes a confused mess.

The author has sixty ideas to get organized. I've incorporated quite a few of them (pare down email is one: I now unsubscribe to anything I don't want to read regularly and another is pare down; 1 magazine subscription.) He suggests a calendar and how to organize your desk for action. All these things really work.

Excellent little book, no fluff.

This is one of two "60 Second" booklets written by Jeff Davidson that I recently read, the other being The 60 Second Procrastinator. With all due respect to how much can be accomplished in one minute, most (if not all) of those who need to get organized are procrastinators and most (if not all) procrastinators need to organized. In my opinion, few (if any) of them will read books such as these and then apply - and (key point) continue to apply -- what they have learned from them. (Davidson is also the author of more than a dozen other books, including seven Complete Idiot's Guides.) He may not share this opinion. However, here's another opinion with which he presumably agrees: On occasion, a single insight ("tip," "secret," "key," etc.) can help to elevate one's standard of living and/or improve one's quality of life.

In this volume as in the other 60 Second booklet, Davidson offers "sixty solid techniques" for "beating chaos at home and at work." They comprise a series of thought-provoking statements and direct questions that can help many readers to gain new perspectives on the micro and macro dimensions of their lives.

Obviously, there are many reasons why people have problems completing getting and then staying organized, and those reasons vary from one individual to the next. That said, self-improvement initiatives must be anchored in a strong faith in what can be accomplished. Henry Ford was right: "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." It would be a fool's errand to attempt to act upon, immediately, all of Davidson's sound advice. He correctly suggests selecting a few especially troublesome areas and concentrate on them. In this context, my metaphor of preference is locating and then picking "low-hanging fruit."

Of course this booklet could conceivably be helpful to almost anyone but I think it can be especially valuable to those now enrolled in schools, colleges, and universities as well as to those who have only recently begun a career. Davidson thinks clearly, writes well, and is by nature a pragmatist rather than a theorist. How to rate it? I realize that there are dozens (hundreds?) of other sources that provide more fully developed ideas about how to avoid or overcome procrastination. However, for chronically disorganized people, any advice given is probably best presented as clearly and as simply as possible, and I do not damn Davidson's booklet with faint praise when saying that. His is not a definitive source nor does he make any such claim. If each reader finds only one suggestion that helps her or him to become - and then remain - better-organized, Davidson will have achieved his primary and indeed worthy objective.

Thanks a lot, we are very happy to have this book in our library!

I found this book while browsing the programming section of Borders (the programming section of my local Borders is amazing!), and I've found it to be a real gem.

The book covers so much more than just Apache security. It covers installation and configuration, and explains a little of how Apache works along the way. There are also chapters or sections on:

- Understanding and securing PHP
- An explanation of SSL
- DOS attacks
- Traffic shaping in Apache
- Logging is covered extensively
- There's a chapter on web security in general, where all the common attacks are explained
- Using Apache as a proxy or a reverse proxy

I especially enjoyed the Web Security Assessment chapter where the author explained how to systematically analyze and probe web applications/servers, with many real world examples.

There is a large section discussing mod_security, which is an amazing Apache module. Mod_security is an intrusion detection and prevention engine for web applications (a web application firewall). The book is written by the author of mod_security (Ivan Ristic), so he really knows what he's talking about in this area. Also covered is mod_dosevasive, which, obviously helps prevent against denial of service attacks.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any Apache administrator, user, or web programmer. Its one of my favorite books on my bookshelf.

This book is worth every single dollar. The examples are very clear and also provide invaluable information about security.

A must have for everybody using Apacge.

Excellent book. The chapters on PHP and logging are especially useful.

I recently received copies of Apache Security (AS) by Ivan Ristic and Preventing Web Attacks with Apache (PWAWA) by Ryan Barnett. I read AS first, then PWAWA. Both are excellent books, but I expect potential readers want to know which is best for them. The following is a radical simplification, and I could honestly recommend readers buy either (or both) books. If you are more concerned with a methodical, comprehensive approach to securing Apache, choose AS. If you want more information on offensive aspects of Web security, choose PWAWA.

Before I go further, I must mention that Ivan Ristic cites me and my books twice, on pages 2 and 229. While humbling, I tried not to let this fact influence my review.

AS is an extremely well-thought-out book. My favorite aspect of AS is the decision to start with a blank httpd.conf file, rather than accepting the file packaged with Apache and making edits as needed. By building up httpd.conf from scratch, the author shows exactly what components are needed in a very clear manner. This was not the approach used by PWAWA. I would like to see other technical books adopt this teaching method.

AS includes better coverage of several topics which I believe are core to securing Apache. I liked AS' discussion of chroot environments and jails, although the author should distinguish between chroot on Linux or BSD and jail on BSD alone. AS features a whole chapter on proper PHP deployment (Ch 3), and a whole chapter on SSL/TLS (Ch 4). AS devotes another chapter to explaining how to host multiple Web sites on one host (Ch 6), which is critical to many Apache environments. AS' chapter on Web infrastructure (CH 9) also covers topics not found in PWAWA.

AS is also less explicitly Linux-centric than PWAWA. As a primary FreeBSD user, I found AS' approach more applicable to my environment. PWAWA seemed to assume everyone was running Red Hat Linux. It's fine to use a single OS for all examples, but I had to personally identify tools and techniques that would probably only work on Red Hat.

I had very little trouble with any of the text in AS. My main concerns involve Ch 1, where the author spends time on certain security concepts. I would consider the following with regards to threat modeling on p. 5: (asset) what might be compromised; (motivation) why compromise; (vulnerabilities) where compromised; (attack) how compromised; (threat) who compromised you; (risk) threat X vulnerability X asset value. On pp 9-10 the author should also have used the risk equation just mentioned.

Overall, I really liked AS. The book really is about Apache security, so if you are more interested in attacking Apache you might prefer PWAWA. If you want to learn about Web application hacking in general, your best bets are probably Hacking Exposed: Web Applications, 2nd Ed, and Professional Pen Testing for Web Applications. I will read and review those two books shortly.

This is not a highly technical Oracle book but it does demonstrate how many of the Oracle features rely on intuition instead of science. It is not the kind of book that you will refer to later, but it is an excellent one time read

This book is a great place to start to learn about performance tuning for Oracle. The book covers the different type of performance tuning methods in a neutral and matter of fact manner. I like the candidness of the author and the fact that he does not push or suggest one method is better than any other. Use this book to start to understand the different methods then move on to more in depth books on a particular performance tuning method. Take a moment and look at the Table of Contents

Lawson gives the Oracle DBA many useful ideas on customising your Oracle database. He pretty much assumes you already possess a reasonable background in Oracle. There is no wasted space on elementary SQL or Oracle tasks.

Perhaps the key chapters are 7, "Oracle Pathologist" and 8, "Analysing SQL Bottlenecks". Later chapters add important refinements. But if you are in search of quick gains, chapters 7 and 8 could be the most fruitful. The ideas in those might not have to involve a major overhaul of your architecture.

Great book,nice and easy to follow approach,fine life examples.

Among other things the author very intelligently also reiterates

the importance of a good self image and the importance of a

good relationship to co-workers in a very casual,realistic and

non intrusive manner

The technical Oracle performance tuning section doesn't start until Chapter 5. The first 94 pages of the book is spent on topics such as "Maintain a Healthy Skepticism","Blame should be Avoided","The Cost of a Poor Working Relationship", and "The Universal Law of Reciprocity". Although the author's advice on these matters is sound, the first 94 pages clearly does not provide what the users are looking for.

The crown jewel of this book is its technical explaination of wait events. Its explaination of v$SQL, v$system_event, v$session_event, and V$Session_wait tables is well worth your money and your time. If you do not know of these tables, then do yourself and your Oracle users a great service and buy this book and master its contents. You will not regret it.

The weakspot of this book is in the resolution of Oracle's slow performance. Although the book provides strong hints that most Oracle issues can be resolved with better indexing and index hints, the book does not emphasize it as much as it should. It also doesn't provide a whole lot of suggestions on how to optimize the SGA.

In my estimation The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit is a good source of information for the topic that covers the majority of your Data Warehouse efforts, the ETL process (or ECCD if you prefer, which you probably will after finishing this volume). I took away some good ideas on items that I probably would not have considered, mostly due to my own ignorance, relating to Meta Data, QA and Error Corrections, Data Lineage and Scoring, etc.

The Authors (Kimball and Caserta) do a good job of pointing out other source books for items that the user will probably want to look at in depth.

There is also a pretty good section explaining how to manage your ETL project, the different roles of people who should be involved and a pretty good project plan / checklist to use as you are getting started.

My only complaint is that I did not read this prior to starting my own project and am instead having to correct items as I try to implement these best practices.

The book was mailed well within time mentioned by seller and is a new book.

A great basic tool book for datawarehousing and ETL. I've purchased for my teams here and in India.

This is a very good book from the Data Warehouse toolkit series by Ralph Kimball et al. This one is all about ETL - extract, transform and load, although the authors may put it a little bit different sometime:

[quote]
We expand the traditional ETL steps of extract, transform, and load into the more actionable steps of extract, clean, conform, and deliver, although we resist the temptation to change ETL into ECCD!
[/quote]

Anyhow, ETL or ECCD, it's the same thing - fetching the data from your live operational systems and putting it in your data warehouse.

The book thoroughly covers the entire ETL process. Believe me, I tried to squeeze a digest here. A few times. It goes out of hand. A lot, a huge lot of all sorts of information. Useful, extensive, clear and interesting to read.

Having read the first (?) book in the series - The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling -
helps greatly in understanding, because this book uses the same (standard) terminology - dimensions, facts, and so on.

Probably the only thing to whine about is the pictures. They could have definitely been better. Some of them are cryptic and some of them have no real value. Let's put it this way - some of the pictures do not help.

Anyhow, great book.

This book gives practical guidelines to follow through the ETL cycle, it does not matter if you are using an Industry Standard ETL tool or writing your own ETL process from scratch, this book will be useful for both. I found it very useful. Definitely worth a read for anyone who is new to ETL.

This book definitely deserves 5 stars because : - Range of topics covered - Detailed - Clarity and treatment of the subject - Useful questions and answers at the end of the chapters - Clarity , again .

I am especially pleased with the organization and depth you present; one gets a good overview, yet can drill down for thorough understanding.

This book is amazing! . As a DBA , I keep on referring this book again & again . It has very useful information & can be used by anyone who wants a really good understanding of DB2

Cheers to the author for writing such a wonderful book!

I used Wiorkowski work for the tuning of a large DataWarehouse for a firm in the shipping industry.

Outside the IBM manuals, there are primarily three works for the tuning and performance of OS/390 DB2: Wiorkowski, Craig Mullins, and Lawson & Ford.

Each have their merits. Estimating how the the DB2 database engine works for large volumes of data is often an art, wherefore several texts and perspectives are clearly beneficial.

Wiorkowski's book is organized in an unconventional way. The chapters are not numbered but they are abbreviated with two letters (as the standard). Therefor the reader's overview of the table of contents is necessary. Fortunately this reflects important aspects and views of DB2.

Wiorkowski's work covers precisely and in depth many DBA issues.
For example (using the DataWarehouse example)issues which are necessary for optimising a single access method for a few tables in the DataWarehouse. We use pages 127-129 (partitioning index) and pages 218-219 for this purpose (logical partitioning index usage), among other things, and the notions of cardinality and clustering in a partitioned index.

Wiorkowski's book is in the category of serious works on optimising a database for a particular database engine (here OS/390 DB2): it demands attentive study.

The 2nd edition (March 2000) is the first to include V6 features and facilities. We certainly have a myriad of impressive features to use to our advantage in 2000 and Gabrielle covers them all as well as all you need to design and develop applications full of tips and techniques for performance.