Preface

This preface contains these topics:

• Audience

• Documentation Accessibility

• Structure

• Related Documentation

• Conventions

Audience

Oracle Database 2 Day DBA is for anyone who wants to perform common day-to-day administrative tasks with the Oracle Database. Prior knowledge or experience with managing databases is not required. The only requirement is a basic knowledge of computers.

In particular this book is targeted toward the following groups of Oracle users:

• Developers wanting to acquire part-time DBA skills

• Anyone managing departmental servers

• Database administrators managing an Oracle database for small or medium business (SMB)

This book is equally useful for enterprise DBAs. It provides recommended best practices and describes efficient ways of performing administrative tasks with Oracle Enterprise Manager as the primary interface.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

TTY Access to Oracle Support Services

Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services within the United States of America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For TTY support, call 800.446.2398.

Structure

This document contains:

Chapter 1, "Introduction"

This chapter contains an brief overview of Oracle database administration.

Chapter 2, "Installing Oracle and Building the Database"

This chapter discusses how to install the Oracle software and database. It also describes how to configure additional databases, and how to upgrade and older version of a database to the current version.

Chapter 3, "Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Manager"

This chapter introduces you to the Oracle Enterprise Manager and how to use it.

Chapter 4, "Configuring the Network Environment"

This chapter discusses how to configure a network so that clients can access your databases.

Chapter 5, "Managing the Oracle Instance"

This chapter discusses starting and stopping the database instance, and managing initialization parameters.

Chapter 6, "Managing Database Storage Structures"

This chapter discusses management of the database's storage structure.

Chapter 7, "Administering Users and Security"

This chapter discusses how to add and maintain user accounts. It includes information about using system privileges and roles to control user access to the database.

Chapter 8, "Managing Schema Objects"

This chapter discusses managing tables, indexes, and other schema objects.

Chapter 9, "Performing Backup and Recovery"

This chapter discusses how to backup and recover your database.

Chapter 10, "Monitoring and Tuning the Database"

This chapter discusses monitoring database activities and diagnosing performance problems.

Chapter 11, "Managing Oracle Software"

This chapter discusses how to keep your Oracle software up-to-date with product fixes.

Appendix A, "Automatic Storage Management"

This appendix introduces Automatic Storage Management.

Appendix B, "Overview of Real Application Clusters"

This appendix introduces Real Application Clusters.

Related Documentation

For more information, see these Oracle resources:

• Oracle Database Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Advanced Configuration

• Oracle Database Concepts

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Concepts

• Oracle Database Net Services Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Database SQL Reference

• Oracle Database Reference

• Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Basics

• Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Advanced User's Guide

• Oracle Real Application Clusters Installation and Configuration Guide

• Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide

• Oracle Database 10g Installation Guide, Release 2 (10.2) Beta for your platform.

Many of the examples in this book use the sample schemas, which are installed by default when you select the Basic Installation option with an Oracle Database installation. Refer to Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information on how these schemas were created and how you can use them yourself.

Printed documentation is available for sale in the Oracle Store at

http://oraclestore.oracle.com/

To download free release notes, installation documentation, white papers, or other collateral, please visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). You must register online before using OTN; registration is free and can be done at

http://otn.oracle.com/membership/

If you already have a username and password for OTN, then you can go directly to the documentation section of the OTN Web site at

http://otn.oracle.com/documentation/

Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this documentation set. It describes:

• Conventions in Text

• Conventions in Code Examples

• Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

Conventions in Text

We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

Conventions in Code Examples

Code examples illustrate SQL, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, or other command-line statements. They are displayed in a monospace (fixed-width) font and separated from normal text as shown in this example:

SELECT username FROM dba_users WHERE username = 'MIGRATE';

The following table describes typographic conventions used in code examples and provides examples of their use.

[ ]

DECIMAL (digits [ , precision ])

{ }

{ENABLE | DISABLE}

|

{ENABLE | DISABLE}
[COMPRESS | NOCOMPRESS]

...

CREATE TABLE ... AS subquery;

SELECT col1, col2, ... , coln FROM employees;

acctbal NUMBER(11,2);
acct    CONSTANT NUMBER(4) := 3;

Italics

CONNECT SYSTEM/system_password
DB_NAME = database_name

UPPERCASE

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;
SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES;
DROP TABLE hr.employees;

lowercase

SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees;
sqlplus hr/hr
CREATE USER mjones IDENTIFIED BY ty3MU9;

Conventions for Windows Operating Systems

The following table describes conventions for Windows operating systems and provides examples of their use.

C:\oracle\oradata>

C:\>exp HR/HR TABLES=employees QUERY=\"WHERE job_id='SA_REP' and salary<8000\"

HOME_NAME

C:\> net start OracleHOME_NAMETNSListener