Rating: 
Summary: This book is very useful - I don't understand some comments
Review: I really don't understand where some of the other comments on this book come from - I find it to contain lots of information I need, and I've been a DBA for 10 years. The source material of all Oracle books is ultimately the documentation, but these guys seem to have done a very good job of extracting what we need from the docs and presenting it in a useful form. The title is "Reference", so of course it will duplicate some Oracle material. To me, it looks like the init.ora chapter is pretty close to the docs, but they did cut out some unecessary words, and I'm not sure I could write those (boring) descriptions any better than Oracle already did, so why take a chance on introducing new errors? I think the book deserves 5 stars and the reviews that rate it low don't understand its purpose or have unrealistic expectations.
Rating: 
Summary: A severe disappointment
Review: I really expected much more than this from O'Reilly. Almost half of the book is just cut-and-pasted in from the Oracle online documentation (which is available free online!)! Oracle should be getting half the royalties, or the book should cost 50% less. Plus, it doesn't cover 8i so its coverage of Oracle8 topics is incomplete and incorrect. I can't believe this is the best these authors and O'Reilly can do. I rate it 0 stars and plan to send my copy to O'Reilly with comments.
Rating: 
Summary: Oracle, The Essential Reference Review
Review: I've worked on Oracle before, but I certainly wished I had this handy
book back then. It helped that I had an Oracle project to work on so I
could apply what I read. It was also helpful using the book as a
reference to troubleshoot during my project. Assuming the reader has a solid understanding of database principles,
this text is a great tool to have handy in your shop. The focus of the
book is squarely on Oracle 7 and 8. Those looking for help with 8i and
above need to look elsewhere. The book is a great companion to Oracle's Metalink site and is not
intended on replacing any existing references. Any Oracle
troubleshooting should start with this companion to get a general
understanding of the issue with followup requiring other resources. In
terms of troubleshooting, I doubt many will find solutions in this text,
however it will provide some background and insight into most issues. The text is written in a concise manner and does a good job in
explaining the many Oracle tools without being too wordy. An area I
found sorely lacking was the installation chapter which glossed over
options and made assumptions that did not always apply to real-world
situations. However to be fair, an accurate coverage of Oracle
installations and all the pitfalls would probably take several books. The first part of the book serves it's purpose in getting anyone with
some DBA knowledge up and running on Oracle. Practice is vital to
understanding the concepts explained in this section. I highly
recommend executing the queries and peeking into the INIT.ORA files when
necessary or else most of the concepts will escape you. The second part of the book consists of DBA Reference chapters.
Particularly valuable is the SQL syntax and Oracle Data Dictionary
chapters. Again, very concise and does a good job of explaining the
subject without being confusing. All in all, a useful book to have around, especially for those
supporting older Oracle installations. Relies heavily on other
resources, although it does help in navigating the Oracle course. --------------------- ...
Rating:
Summary: Oracle, The Essential Reference Review
Review: I've worked on Oracle before, but I certainly wished I had this handy
book back then. It helped that I had an Oracle project to work on so I
could apply what I read. It was also helpful using the book as a
reference to troubleshoot during my project. Assuming the reader has a solid understanding of database principles,
this text is a great tool to have handy in your shop. The focus of the
book is squarely on Oracle 7 and 8. Those looking for help with 8i and
above need to look elsewhere. The book is a great companion to Oracle's Metalink site and is not
intended on replacing any existing references. Any Oracle
troubleshooting should start with this companion to get a general
understanding of the issue with followup requiring other resources. In
terms of troubleshooting, I doubt many will find solutions in this text,
however it will provide some background and insight into most issues. The text is written in a concise manner and does a good job in
explaining the many Oracle tools without being too wordy. An area I
found sorely lacking was the installation chapter which glossed over
options and made assumptions that did not always apply to real-world
situations. However to be fair, an accurate coverage of Oracle
installations and all the pitfalls would probably take several books. The first part of the book serves it's purpose in getting anyone with
some DBA knowledge up and running on Oracle. Practice is vital to
understanding the concepts explained in this section. I highly
recommend executing the queries and peeking into the INIT.ORA files when
necessary or else most of the concepts will escape you. The second part of the book consists of DBA Reference chapters.
Particularly valuable is the SQL syntax and Oracle Data Dictionary
chapters. Again, very concise and does a good job of explaining the
subject without being confusing. All in all, a useful book to have around, especially for those
supporting older Oracle installations. Relies heavily on other
resources, although it does help in navigating the Oracle course. --------------------- ...
Rating:
Summary: This is the greatest book since sliced bread
Review: In this one book, the authors have distilled at least five Oracle manuals. Want SQL*Plus syntax? It's here. SQL syntax in a concise layout? Here. Every init parameter, descriptions of the various tools DBA's use most, plus a great summary of Oracle starting with an overview, all the way through installation, tuning, backup, and security. The list of steps for creating a new database is wonderful for new DBA's who's primary experience in this area is probably the Oracle course. As a new DBA, this one book will save me lots of time looking through PDF files of Oracle documentation. A great find - this book you'll pry from my cold dead fingers!
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth it.
Review: Not worth the wait. No new content
Rating:
Summary: How to write a book that adds value to manuals
Review: Nowadays countless books are blamed for duplicating manuals. UNIX books copy man pages, Java books list JAVA APIs and Oracle books lump together Oracle manuals. Most readers feel uncomfortable buying such books. Others question what alternative there is. Here's the alternative. Let's say you want to talk about vmstat in a UNIX system admin book. You can say "the w column under procs should always be 0 otherwise...". Or in an Oracle book "in reality, some people set pctincrease to 1 just for the purpose of coalescing extents; some argue it's unnecessary because... Our opinion is...". I guarantee these words won't show up in manuals. But these words "The following section talks about...", "This chapter will discuss..." are typically used in product documentation. This book apparently is overly verbose in uttering what is obvious to every junior DBA. What's not obvious is not obvious to them either. Take "SQL queries to monitor SGA utilization" (Chapter 6) as an example. The authors stopped when they need to talk about what the columns in those views mean (even if we can find this information in manuals) and what kind of values count as warnings to DBAs (this info is not likely in manuals). Whatever computer book you write, if you list the source code, you have the responsibility to talk about the code, at least the hard part of it. If you think that's going to make the book too big and that content should go to a Tuning book, well, there's already so much fat, i.e. verbose talk on easy things. If a big portion of your book is free somewhere, lower the price. There're some good books falling into this category such as Java in a Nutshell, VB&VBA in a Nutshell. But those books are also full of author's wisdom and tips accumulated over the years. How can this book compare?
Rating:
Summary: cut & paste from the oracle doc set.
Review: this book could be obtained much more cheaply by consulting the oracle doc set. the authors get 1 star for the book and 4 stars for their mastery of cut and paste and word processing
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Special
Review: This book is oriented towards Oracle 8. I found at times that certain parameters were missing or at times they were not indicated as to whether they were V7 or V8 only. This book lacks depth to be of any practical use, other than a quick reference. Overall, skip buying this title.
Rating:
Summary: A very useful reference book. Keep it to hand !
Review: This book serves it purpose very well. As the title says, it is an essential reference, and that is exactly what I use it for. As some other reviewers point out, there is a lot of copy-and-paste work in it. But I think that is not a problem. In fact, very often it is much practical than navigating the bulk of on-line books, when you have to wait for the browser to load, search for a word or topic, or even when there's no computer at hand. Not to mention I can carry it around in my bag when necessary. I especially would like to emphasize the coverage of SQL commands, init.ora parameters, data dictionary views and utilities. Although I agree there are some inconsistent topics in this book and some mistakes as well, I think the people who complain about it either expected something very different or did not understand how useful it can be.
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