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Rating: 
Summary: everything oracle
Review: As with most O'Reilly books, Oracle Essentials is crammed full of information. The book is geared for DBA's, system admins and developers. The book assumes some general knowledge of databases, but most concepts are explained as they come up. For example, there are sidebars for normalization and RAID.The third edition is updated for Oracle 10g. Since the authors point out which features are specific to Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g, this book is just as useful for older versions of Oracle. For readers of previous editions, the book has an appendix directing the reader to the new 10g content. For developers, using Java with Oracle is explained. There are good sections on SQLJ, JDBC, EJBs and Java stored procedures. For DBA's and system admins, the book covers architecture, failover and deployment. The book uses a good mix of text, diagrams and examples. Many cutting-edge topics are explained with a non-platform specific background of the topic and examples. These topics include OLTP, Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence and of course - Grid Computing. I found the list of major technologies to be extremely useful. Chapter 1 has a paragraph on Oracle features in the database, application server and standalone development tools. The rest of the book focuses on the database itself. This book covers almost everything you would want to know about Oracle and provides references for more detail on each topic. If you are only going to buy one Oracle book, this is the one to buy.
Rating:
Summary: everything oracle
Review: As with most O'Reilly books, Oracle Essentials is crammed full of information. The book is geared for DBA's, system admins and developers. The book assumes some general knowledge of databases, but most concepts are explained as they come up. For example, there are sidebars for normalization and RAID. The third edition is updated for Oracle 10g. Since the authors point out which features are specific to Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g, this book is just as useful for older versions of Oracle. For readers of previous editions, the book has an appendix directing the reader to the new 10g content. For developers, using Java with Oracle is explained. There are good sections on SQLJ, JDBC, EJBs and Java stored procedures. For DBA's and system admins, the book covers architecture, failover and deployment. The book uses a good mix of text, diagrams and examples. Many cutting-edge topics are explained with a non-platform specific background of the topic and examples. These topics include OLTP, Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence and of course - Grid Computing. I found the list of major technologies to be extremely useful. Chapter 1 has a paragraph on Oracle features in the database, application server and standalone development tools. The rest of the book focuses on the database itself. This book covers almost everything you would want to know about Oracle and provides references for more detail on each topic. If you are only going to buy one Oracle book, this is the one to buy.
Rating:
Summary: It IS Essential
Review: I approach each release of Oracle with trepidation simply because each release contains so many new features and with it a considerable amount of documentation. I think everyone who is considering Oracle 10g should definitely purchase Oracle Essentials - Oracle Database 10g. It succinctly gives the highlights of the database in general as well as specific new features in an easily digestable manner. It not only explains the parts and pieces of the database, but why and how they are used. This book is heaven sent for me. This compact book gives me everything I need to know in one terrific volume and encourages me to delve further in the specific areas I need to know. As for one of the authors, Bob Stackowiak, I have known him for many years and have always been impressed with his breadth of knowledge on the database. To recently discover that he is one of the authors of this book makes it all the more compelling to read. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Compact and efficient
Review: I code databases for a living and use Oracle quite often. I picked this book to increase my knowledge on the oracle database partly out of curiosity. The book is refreshingly small (~300 pages) but make no mistake, this doesn't leave many essentials out. It doesn't cover SQL and PL/SQL though. It's a one trick pony which is very good at what it advertises i.e. good intro to database architecture and features
Rating:
Summary: Effective quick introduction to Oracle
Review: I've used a number of different database systems before, but never had the pleasure of working with Oracle's software. I installed a development version of 10g and was somewhat taken aback when the installer proudly announced "169 products installed." I glumly thought "Gee, hope the database server is in there somewhere."
I picked up a copy of Oracle Essentials and found it to be an excellent introduction to Oracle. The book is short enough to read end-to-end, but it is packed with information about Oracle's architecture and most of those 169 products. The authors write lucidly, in an easily accessible style. Even though the book is eminently readable, it doesn't "talk down" to the reader, nor skimp on details. There is surprising depth in so short a book with such broad scope!
As another reviewer mentioned, there is essentially nothing about SQL and PL/SQL in this book. That's okay with me - there are plenty of excellent texts on those two topics.
Oracle Essentials claims it is "What you need to know about Oracle Database architecture and features." I agree completely!
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