Introduction

Servers, Servers, Servers!

Why write a book called Oracle8 Server Unleashed? The reason is that Oracle offers so many products along with their core RDBMS that a complete set of the Oracle scriptures would create a book that only a gold medalist could lift.

Since most of us computer types have trouble even lifting a laptop, we offer this specialized book concentrating on the Oracle8 Server. Even within the world of the Oracle8 server, we are faced with a huge plethora of options for the many computer configurations that are popular today.

To be honest, even some of the topics covered here, such as replication, data warehouses, and the Web Application Server, could be books themselves. But it was decided that in the jungle of a production environment, it might come in handy to have this massive “quick reference machete” cutting through to the complete world of the Oracle Server and its components.

This isn’t to say that this book is only a quick reference guide; it is more like the embedded knowledge of the top Oracle consultants in the country who were each chosen to tackle particular topics relating to the Oracle8 Server. Unlike reading a manual, this book moves you into the core material quickly, yet also never fails to explain the “big picture.”

Understanding the Oracle8 Server and its components is the key to gaining mastery in the Oracle profession. Of course there are tools like Oracle*Forms, Discoverer, and Programmer/2000 which can help one create a great deal of dazzling software. But all of these products revolve around the Oracle8 Server and are designed to fit within the mindset that Oracle used in the implementation of Relational Database Technology. The key to understanding any Oracle product is to understand first the Oracle Server.

Is This Book for Me?

Regardless of your role or interest in Oracle, this book will be very helpful. It is our belief that technical information can be embedded within informative and even (mildly) entertaining material. We have structured this book so that someone who is very technical will not be bored, while at the same time we step back and paint the big picture so that a non-technical manager will also gain a great deal of high-level understanding regarding the Oracle8 Server and the many non-technical concerns that revolve around the technology.

Because we so boldly tackle huge topics such as the Oracle Media Server, Replication, and Distributed Gateways, we cannot claim to be a manual for each of these vast under-takings.

This book is more like a companion. For instance, if one found himself or herself in the predicament of needing to connect and synchronize an Oracle8 Server to an IBM mainframe running DB2, he or she probably couldn’t do it with this book alone. Instead, the constant reader would first study this book to gain an understanding of the many issues surrounding this Herculean task, using the expert knowledge and examples as a template when referring to specific documentation regarding the many tasks that they faced. Once the large picture has been grasped, the reader might then dive into specific Oracle manuals in order to extract useful details needed to complete the task.

Using Oracle8 Server Unleashed in this way, the reader will save a great deal of time. Instead of getting lost in endless reams of manuals, by first referring to this book, one can focus on the issues and hotpoints surrounding the complex tasks faced in purchasing, installing, and implementing the appropriate Oracle technology.

Grab Your Snowboards

Oracle8 Server Unleashed should be approached as more of a circle than a straight line. One need not read through the book in a linear fashion. Instead, we invite the reader to step into the center of the circle of this informative book and draw towards him or her that aspect of the Oracle Server that is needed.

We refer to the wisdom of a Buddhist monk in the book Surfing the Himalayas, written by Dr. Frederick Lenz. The monk explains to a young snowboarder:

Let us say that we have placed a great deal of information along a straight line. Now, if we are at one end of the straight line, and the piece of information we want to get to is all the way at the other end of the straight line, it will be necessary for us to journey all the way through the information that is between us and the piece of information that we want to access in order to reach it.

But suppose we took the same data and arranged it along the circumference of a circle—and then let us further suppose that we sat down in the middle of that circle of data. Now, all of that information would be equidistant from us, because it is arranged along the circumference of the circle that we are sitting in the middle of.

From this quote we see the power of Oracle8 Server Unleashed. We have arranged information in a circle, so the reader need not sift through endless pages of manuals in order to get to the small piece of information needed. Instead, this book can be read in as many different sequences as there are business needs and professionals who use the Oracle RDBMS.

This type of relational thinking, in which information relates to other pieces of information, yet not in a static order, is the foundation of relational database theory and is also the way in which we have structured this book for you. In the spirit of snowboarding, we wish you good surfing down the many mountains of knowledge you will face. We have designed this book so you can easily jump the deep chasms into which many Oracle acolytes often fall. We dedicate this book to Dr. Frederick Lenz, the young snowboarder who learned this form of relational thinking from an old Buddhist monk many years ago. In the same way, we have gained a great deal of insight and vision from him regarding the world of relational theory and, without which, much of this book would not have been possible.

Put on your bootstraps, and happy snowboarding!