With the release of its 11g database, Oracle hits another milestone with improvements in availability, scalability, and performance, as well as new compression technology. An increase in the number of features brings a concomitant complexity of choices for the database developer or database administrator (DBA).

Given the pressure and time compression common to the early adopter’s environment, this book offers timely documentation for the weary practitioner. It offers a valuable supplement to the Oracle documentation, without undue repetition. Alapati and Kim’s writing style and balance of explanations and code, as well as the order in which topics are presented, make this book a good and substantial read for the technical adopter of Oracle software. One could even suggest that Oracle should provide such a book to potential customers, as it might trigger adoption due to its insight into many valuable new features of its database management system (DBMS).

The book is organized into 12 chapters, covering most of the relevant new features of the software. While other books addressing similar topics are likely to be published, this volume is targeted to all user levels. A brief introduction situates the improvements of this version of the Oracle database, allowing the restless reader to jump to a particular topic if so compelled by an ongoing project.

In chapter 1, Alapati and Kim explain how to install, upgrade, and manage changes to 11g; there are many new features that differ from previous editions. New features in the server installation, database creation, database upgrade, real application testing, and database software patching are covered. The chapter guides the user through this important step, with parsed notes, screen shots, and code.

Chapter 2 provides a view into Oracle 11g’s first-rate diagnosability infrastructure and the diagnostic and resolution of critical errors. Incident packaging service, support workbench, and the data recovery advisor are well explained.

Chapter 3 delves into database administration, with features that facilitate database automation, new flashback, enhancements to SQL*Plus, online application maintenance, compression features, the new enterprise manager features, and an improved Oracle scheduler.

Performance management has been extended in 11g with features like automatic native compilation of procedural language/structured query language (PL/SQL) code, new server cache, and client-side result caching. Chapter 4 illustrates all of these features with ample examples and explanations of how they work.

Chapter 5 covers a number of security enhancements, from password management and tablespace encryption to the enterprise manager integration relative to security setup, management, and configuration.

Logically, chapter 6 follows with backup and recovery topics. The following key features are addressed: data recovery advisor, enhanced block media recovery, virtual recovery catalogs, network-enabled duplication, long-term backups, multisection backups, and the new validate commands. While an administrator may want to have a book that is dedicated to the Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) and covers the topic in more depth, this chapter provides sufficient information to serve as a useful guide.

Chapter 7 addresses the more specific topic of the data pump and the export/import utilities. The new compression and encryption enhancements of the data pump demonstrate the usefulness of new features in the face of ever-changing compliance regulations.

In chapter 8, data streams exemplify a solution to sharing/replicating information between different versions of Oracle. Alapati and Kim choose the best new features, offering a comprehensive menu of the capabilities introduced in 11g: synchronous capture, combined capture and apply, performance advisor, compare and repair, topology, and split and merge of destinations.

Chapter 9 covers storage management. It defeats some of the misconceptions associated with automated storage management--a feature highly improved in the new version of the software.

Chapter 10 focuses on data guard advancements such as real-time query, snapshot standby, logical standby database, redo log compression, data guard broker enhancements and rolling updates, and the fast-start failover. Alapati and Kim conclude with a brief comparison of third-party vendor solutions.

Chapter 11 addresses the features aimed at application development. The last chapter discusses data warehousing, with large objects and partitioning in particular; it is not meant to provide comprehensive coverage of data warehousing, but it is sufficient for an overview of the new features in this version of the DBMS.

The book ends with a comprehensive index, allowing the reader to access resources needed quickly. While the book has ample illustrative code, the publisher’s Web site does not offer downloadable code; furthermore, the Web site has yet to offer any list of errata.

This is a very good and timely book. A few mistakes have been missed in the editing process. Alapati and Kim have done a good job considering they started their writing before the availability of the final release version of the software; the quantity of information may have prevented regression testing of all features. Even for an experienced user, the book has a lot to offer in terms of valuable advice to the practitioner. It does not delve into theory; instead, it goes straight to the point, providing relevant information that can be put to work from the outset.

As of yet, there are no other books on the subject, so this book has a potentially privileged place on the shelf of the DBA or developer who plans to migrate to Oracle 11g.