Book Image

OCA Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration I: A Real-World Certification Guide

Book Image

OCA Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration I: A Real-World Certification Guide

Overview of this book

Oracle Database Server is the most widely used relational database in the world today. This book gives you the essential skills to master the fundamentals of Oracle database administration and prepares you for Oracle DBA certification."OCA Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration I: A Real-World Certification Guide" prepares you to master the fundamentals of Oracle database administration using an example driven method that is easy to understand. The real world examples will prepare you to face the daily challenges of being a database administrator.Starting with the essentials of why databases are important in today's information technology world and how they work, you are then guided through a full, customized installation of the Oracle software and creating your own personal database. We then examine fundamental concepts of Oracle, including architecture, storage structures, security, performance tuning, networking, and instance management. Finally, we take an in-depth look at some of the most important concepts in the daily life of an Oracle DBA - backup, recovery, and data migration."OCA Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration I: A Real-World Certification Guide" provides you with the skills you need in order to become a successful Oracle DBA, both for certification and real life tasks.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
OCA Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration I: A Real-World Certification Guide
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.packtpub.com
Preface
Index

Understanding database diagnostic information


One of the most important abilities needed for a DBA is the ability to diagnose database problems. The data dictionary is often used for this task. However, Oracle has several other tools that we can use to diagnose problems, including logfiles, trace files, and the Automatic Diagnostic Repository.

Understanding the alert log

The most primary diagnostic tool used by DBAs is the database alert log . The alert log is a plain text log (with an exception for Version 11g that we will discuss shortly) that contains both messages and errors regarding the functioning of the database. As such, many DBAs consider the alert log to be the "first stop" when attempting to diagnose a database problem.

Up until Oracle Version 11g, the alert log was stored in a standard directory. This directory is usually referred to as the BDUMP directory, for background dump. This directory held the alert log as well as files known as trace files, particularly those for the...