Oracle Concepts Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting

Introduction to Oracle Concepts

This is a brief introduction to Oracle Concepts for the DBA.  Conceptually, you can think of an Oracle database as nothing more than a large electronic filing cabinet, a place to store and retrieve information. At the computer level, Oracle is a computer program that manages an electronic filing cabinet.

Oracle Platform Concepts

One reason that Oracle has become the world dominant database is because it runs on just about every platform imaginable, from a mainframe to a Macintosh.

Today, most shops run Oracle in UNIX, Linux, and Windows.
Oracle runs on almost every computer ever made, with over 60 diverse platforms such as Intel (like your PC does), Sun Solaris, old IBM mainframes, and many, many others.

Conceptually, Oracle is considered the world’s most powerful, flexible and robust database. Along with this power comes complexity.

Oracle flexibility concepts

Oracle has become the world’s most flexible database and it stores much more than text and numbers. An Oracle database support video, audio and complex spatial applications that are used to build jet fighters and submarines.

Unlike simpler databases, you can control every aspect of Oracle’s behavior. You can control how rows are placed on the data blocks and you can control how Oracle performs hundreds of resource management issues.

Oracle Concepts for Automation

However, Oracle can be simple too! In Oracle 10g, artificial intelligence tools provide basic management, making Oracle a very simple database. You can choose to make your Oracle database simple or robust, it’s your choice.  See the book "Easy Oracle Automation" for details.

As with all software, Oracle must interface with your computer in order to utilize your hardware. You will find that Oracle is extremely knowledgeable about how to partake of your processor power, RAM, and other resources, as we will see in the next sections.

• Oracle Concepts - Oracle on your computer
• Oracle Concepts - Physical Oracle Architecture
• Oracle Concepts - SGA System Global Area
• Oracle Concepts - Shared Pool
• Oracle Concepts - Redo Log Buffer
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle commit Processing
• Oracle Concepts - PGA
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle Background Processes
• Oracle Concepts - Database Files
• Oracle Concepts - Tablespaces
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle Installation
• Oracle Concepts -  The V$ View Relations
• Oracle Concepts - Redo Log Files
• Oracle Concepts - Column Privileges
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle Universal Installer

• Oracle Concepts - Tuning Considerations

• Oracle Concepts - Naming your Oracle Database
• Oracle Concepts - Use Of Roles
• Oracle Concepts - Buffer Pool Related Views
• Oracle Concepts -  Layout, Fragmentation and Hotspotting
• Oracle Concepts - DBCA Database Configuration Assistant
• Oracle Concepts - Example Recovery Script Generator for NT
• Oracle Concepts - Connecting to your Oracle Database
• Oracle Concepts - The SQL*Plus Command Line Interface
• Oracle Concepts - Starting your Oracle Database
• Oracle Concepts - Setting Roles
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle8i INIT.ORA Parameters
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle shutdown commands
• Oracle Concepts - Data Dictionary
• Oracle Concepts - RMAN Catalog Installation
• Oracle Concepts - initialization parameters init.ora
• Oracle Concepts - Example NT Oracle Hot Backup Script Generator

• Oracle Concepts - Backup and Recovery Concepts

• Oracle Concepts - Drop Users System and Object Privileges

• Oracle Concepts - Example Report Showing SQL Reuse Statistics

• Oracle Concepts - pfile and spfile
• Oracle Concepts - Imports and Exports
• Oracle Concepts - SQL Area Contents
• Oracle Concepts - Export/Import Rules
• Oracle Concepts -  Parallel Query Option (PQO)
• Oracle Concepts - Online redo log management
• Oracle Concepts - Archived redo logs & archivelog mode
• Oracle Concepts - Database Administration and System Planning
• Oracle Concepts - Fixed Size Areas and Pinned Objects
• Oracle Concepts - A Matter of Hashing
• Oracle Concepts - General Guidelines for Shared Pool Sizing
• Oracle Concepts -  Database and Instance Startup and Shutdown
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle undo
• Oracle Concepts - Administering Tablespaces
• Oracle Concepts - Temporary Tablespaces
• Oracle Concepts - Administering Oracle Objects
• Oracle Concepts - Policy Usage
• Oracle Concepts - Unlimited Amount of Tablespace Privilege
• Oracle Concepts - The Optimizers & the Analyze Command
• Oracle Concepts - Creating Tables
• Oracle Concepts - Altering Tables
• Oracle Concepts - Dropping Tables
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle Tables and Statistics
• Oracle Concepts - Example Hot Backup Script on Unix
• Oracle Concepts - Gathering Oracle CBO Statistics

• Oracle Concepts - OFA Guidelines

• Oracle Concepts - Administering Oracle Indexes
• Oracle Concepts - DB_VERIFY Utility
• Oracle Concepts - Creating Oracle Indexes
• Oracle Concepts - Special Non-Tree Indexes
• Oracle Concepts - Function-based indexes
• Oracle Concepts -  Re-creation of a Database
• Oracle Concepts - Alerting Profiles
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle8 Recovery Manager Facility
• Oracle Concepts - Undocumented Initialization Parameters for 8i
• Oracle Concepts - Shared Pool and Multi-Threaded Server (MTS)
• Oracle Concepts -  Major Tuning Steps and Responsibilities
• Oracle Concepts - Index-only tables
• Oracle Concepts - Tablespace and Datafile Sizing
• Oracle Concepts - initialization parameters init.ora
• Oracle Concepts - Disk IO and the Shared Pool
• Oracle Concepts - Row Level Security
• Oracle Concepts - Example Output from the Hot Backup Script Generator
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle Constraints tips
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle Views tips
• Oracle Concepts - Creating Oracle Users
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle alter user syntax
• Oracle Concepts - grant user privileges
• Oracle Concepts - Managing Oracle Synonyms
• Oracle Concepts - Creating a Resource Plan
• Oracle Concepts - Administering a New Resource Plan
• Oracle Concepts - DBMS_REPAIR Package Procedures
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle Roles
• Oracle Concepts - finding table and index tablespace locations
• Oracle Concepts -  Killing From the Oracle OS Side 
• Oracle Concepts - Find indexes for a table
• Oracle Concepts - Dynamic Performance v$ Views
• Oracle Concepts - Oracle8 and Oracle8i System Global Area
• Oracle Concepts - RDBMS Architecture
• Oracle Concepts - Query for active users with v$session
• Oracle Concepts - Companion Package
• Oracle Concepts - Guidelines for Tuning the Oracle Shared Pool
• Oracle Concepts - Query for database wait events with v$system views
• Oracle Concepts - RMAN
• Oracle Concepts - RMAN Online & Offline backups
• Oracle Concepts - Recovery of your Oracle Database with RMAN
• Oracle Concepts - SQL Query Basics
• Oracle Concepts - Programming in PL/SQL
• Oracle Concepts - List of Oracle Event Codes
• Oracle Concepts - Managing the Database
• Oracle Concepts - Changing Resource Manager Objects
• Oracle Concepts - DUMP_ORPHAN_KEYS
• Oracle Concepts - Displaying PL/SQL Output
• Oracle Concepts - PL/SQL IF/THEN/ELSE Statements
• Oracle Concepts - PL/SQL WHILE Loop
• Oracle Concepts - PL/SQL REPEAT-UNTIL Loop
• Oracle Concepts - PL/SQL FOR Loop

Oracle Database Administration Concepts

Now that we have installed Oracle and created a database, we need to learn a thing or two about how to manage Oracle. First we will talk about the Oracle documentation, and then we will talk about how to startup and shutdown the database. Then we will discuss the data dictionary and database parameter files, wrapping-up with administration of the Oracle online redo logs, UNDO segments, and the administration of Oracle tablespaces.

Oracle Database Documentation

Oracle is a big product, and it is well documented with thousands of pages of documentation. That much documentation can be really hard to find your way though, but Oracle does a nice job of helping you. Oracle provides a web site located at tahiti.oracle.com that has all the current Oracle documentation and you can also search the Oracle documentation at search.oracle.com.

Oracle documentation comes in the form of books, each written on different subjects. There is documentation about Oracle concepts, database administration, backup and recovery and there is also reference documentation that contains details on parameters and SQL command syntax.

The documentation change with almost every release, but the basic topics remain the same.

These are the books/topics you will be most interested in during your Oracle DBA career:

* The SQL Reference Guide
* The Oracle Database Reference
* The Oracle Concepts Guide
* The Oracle Administrators Guide
* Oracle Backup and Recovery

We recommend reviewing the Oracle Concepts Guide after you are done reading this book. It will be a nice second step to becoming an Oracle Certified Master DBA!