Many Oracle users and developers are not actively aware of all the system and database management activities that go on around them. But effective management is vital to providing a reliable, available, and secure platform that delivers optimal performance. This chapter focuses on how you can manage Oracle to ensure these virtues for your environment. Much of the management responsibility usually falls upon the database administrator. However, users and developers of Oracle also need to be aware of some of the techniques described here.
The DBA is typically responsible for the following management tasks:
Installing and upgrading the database and options
Creating tables and indexes
Creating and managing tablespaces
Managing control files, online redo logs, archived redo logs, job queues, and server processes
Creating, monitoring, and tuning data-loading procedures
Adding users and groups and implementing security procedures
Implementing backup and recovery plans
Monitoring database performance and exceptions
Reorganizing and tuning the database
Troubleshooting database problems
Coordinating with Oracle Worldwide Customer Support Services
Particularly in smaller companies, DBAs are also often called upon to take part in database schema design and security planning. DBAs in large enterprises may also help set up replication strategies, disaster and high-availability strategies, hierarchical storage management procedures, and the linking of database event monitoring (e.g., specific database tasks and status) into enterprise network monitors.
Oracle Database 10g is designed to enable grid computing, which can introduce additional complexities associated with managing scores of computers in a grid. Manageability of a grid must take into account disk virtualization, resource pooling, provisioning of computer resources, dynamic workload management, and dynamic control of changing grid components. Oracle's grid initiative has resulted in many significant changes in managing databases, all geared toward significantly reducing this complexity. While targeted at simplifying grid management, most of these improvements will have an even greater impact initially in simplifying management of more traditional Oracle database implementations.
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All of the tasks we've just described come under the heading of managing the database. Many of the provisioning duties, including installation, initial configuration, and cloning, are discussed in Chapter 3. This chapter explores the following aspects of managing Oracle:
Using Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM), which provides an easy-to-use interface and underlying framework for many database-management tasks, including new Oracle Database 10g capabilities
Implementing security
Managing database fragmentation, which can affect database performance
Performing backup and recovery operations, which are the foundation of database integrity protection
Working with Oracle Support
You will need an understanding of all of these areas if you're going to design and implement effective management strategies for your own Oracle database environment.