This is a typical database beginner’s guide. The material is not new, and could readily be replaced with information on older versions of Oracle, such as 9i or 8i, in many places. The “g” section consists of exactly two pages, which, for the most part, rehash how clusters enable grids. The book is a bit over the top in its introductory praise for Oracle and its founder; the simplistic definition of the GRID also serves Oracle marketing well, if not readers. This is good marketing for Oracle, from insiders who get all of their income from Oracle-related activities, but not accurate in the least about GRID requirements.

The authors clearly define this as a beginner text, with simple goals, which they achieve admirably. Oracle is a very complex package, and finding the balance between depth and breadth is a difficult one. The book includes enough information to be useful, but not so much that it is overwhelming. The real benefit of the book is the organization and overall coverage of the material. It surveys all the main components and features of Oracle 10g: database administration, networking, structured query language (SQL), PL/SQL, backup and recovery, and so on. It is, however, not a crash course in everything one would need to know to maintain or develop for an Oracle database, nor would it allow the reader to quickly get in control of a complex data system.

The book starts with an adequate introduction to the Oracle architecture. After this brief introduction, the authors move to Oracle data types and the basic environment (like tables, views, and indexes). The section on SQL is well written and detailed, as is the chapter on writing PL/SQL.

For those interested in database administration, there are good sections on what an Oracle database administrator (DBA) should do. This complete, high-level view, with some deeper examples, particularly in networking, is helpful. These sections won’t make you a DBA, and I wish the complexity of the role had been discussed.

The rest of the book contains feature/function information useful to database developers and DBAs. Oracle’s use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Java, as well as large database issues, are discussed. The Java, XML, and large database sections are not beginner material, and do not deserve their own chapters; these subjects are, however, the areas of expertise of the authors in their consulting businesses. The space could have been better spent discussing installation requirements or migration from other versions or databases, or presenting an introduction to performance.

As the organizing theme, the authors use what they term critical skills, heading important sections in chapters this way. It will serve the reader well to look at the text from this viewpoint, for further study. The internal chapter organization is well laid out. I especially like the question and answer sections (“Progress Checks”), quizzes for you to test yourself on critical topics, as you read, and the mastery checks at the end of each chapter, to test retention.

If you are brand new to Oracle, this book is an acceptable survey introduction. The format and retention checks are well done. If you have any skills in Oracle at all, you will not find a value here. Buy either a much more detailed volume, or wait until 10g itself further matures, and material with specific depth emerges.