Introduction

This book was borne from our personal experiences with managing, configuring, and migrating databases and applications to the Exadata platform. Along the way, we took notes, tried this, tried that, and eventually came to an understanding of what Exadata could do and how it does it. We didn’t go into great detail on the inner workings of the system (Kerry Osborne, Randy Johnson, and Tanel Pöder have already provided an excellent text at that level), opting instead to provide a guide for the working DBA who may not have time to read through and digest a “nuts and bolts” book. Thus, this book is designed to lead the DBA through what we feel are the most important aspects and concepts of Exadata, without getting bogged down in details. We recommend having access to an Exadata machine, so you can try the scripts, queries, and commands provided and see the results firsthand. Having an interactive experience with Exadata will, we think, make some of the concepts easier to understand.

Our goal in writing this book was to provide experienced Oracle DBAs with the tools and knowledge to take on Exadata, hopefully without fear. No attempt is made to explain how Oracle works—this is not a “learn Oracle by doing” text. Our intent is to leverage the existing knowledge of field-proven and time-tested Oracle professionals, so that they can successfully adapt what they already know to the Exadata platform.