Cost-Based Oracle Fundamentals (eBook)

Jonathan Lewis is one of the world's foremost authorities in this field (he is frequently quoted and reference by other leading experts, such as Tom Kyte - see for example http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/ask/download_file?p_file=3067171813508366601

Book will be strongly co-promoted with Tom Kyte's Expert Oracle Database Architecture (1-59059-530-0)

Highlights traps for those migrating from Oracle 8i to 9i to 10g, potentially averting often disastrous performance issues and downtime (=lost revenue)

The first comprehensive book written to investigate, describe, and demonstrate the methods used by the Cost Based Optimizer

Jonathan is one of very few Oracle authors to maintain online enhancements, errata and addenda pages, so the reader will be supported long after the book is published

Jonathan Lewis has been working in the information technology industry for nearly 25 years, and has been using the Oracle relational database management system for more than 20. For the past 16 years, he has worked as a freelance consultant, often spending only one or two days at a time with any client to address critical performance problems. He also advises on design and implementation problems, and on how to make best use of the most appropriate Oracle features for a given project. Jonathan is also renowned throughout the world for his tutorials and seminars about the Oracle database engine and how to make best use of it. Having visited 42 countries at last count, his exceptional ability has earned him an O1 visa from the United States, allowing him to do consultancy and lecture work there. Jonathan has written two books about Oracle (Practical Oracle8i, Addison-Wesley, 2000; Cost-Based Oracle Fundamentals, Apress, 2005), and has contributed to two others (Oracle Insights, Apress, 2004; Oracle Database 10g New Features, Oracle Press, 2004). He also writes regularly for the UKOUG magazine, and occasionally for other publications around the world. In the limited amount of time he has leftover, Jonathan also publishes high-tech Oracle articles on his blog at jonathanlewis.wordpress.com.

---

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that "e;any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. "e; I believe that observation to be entirely accurate. Someone else later observed that "e;any technologist with sufficient knowledge is indistinguishable from a magician. "e; With that in mind, what you have in your hands right now is a book on magic. However, for as long as I've known the author of this book, Jonathan Lewis (some 11 years according to my research on Google going back over the newsgroup archives), he has never been content to accept "e;magic. "e; He wants to know why something happens the way it does. So, fundamentally, his book is all about understanding: understand v. understood, (-std) understanding, understands 1. To perceive and comprehend the nature and significance of 2. To know thoroughly by close contact or long experience with More precisely, it is all about understanding the Oracle cost based optimizer (CBO), how it works, and why it does what it does. Jonathan conveys to us his understanding of the Oracle CBO through practice and example, and with this understanding, with this knowledge, new options and solutions become available. Put simply, the Oracle CBO is a mathematical model; you feed it inputs (queries, statistics), and it produces outputs (query plans). In order to use the CBO successfully, it is critical that you understand what these inputs are and how the CBO uses them.