Oracle database administration is like most other professional endeavors: the quality of job performance is often related to the tools available. Oracle database administrators are fortunate to have a variety of tools available to aid them in the day-to-day administration of the Oracle database. This chapter provides an overview of the most popular and useful Oracle tools, and shows how each tool can make the DBA’s job a bit easier.

Tools provided run in either GUI (Graphical User Interface) mode, usually on Windows or Motif platforms, or in the more traditional character mode. Since GUI tools are designed to operate intuitively and have complete online help files, we only briefly describe their capabilities. Character mode tools, on the other hand, typically rely on command-line parameters or parameter files and have little or no online help. For these tools, we give information on usage here, and we supply more detailed information on specific character mode syntax in Chapter 16.