This book covers both Oracle7 and Oracle8. Where necessary, we point out differences between the two. Although many organizations have begun to use Oracle8 (and to look forward to Oracle8i ), many others are still using Oracle7. Since we want this book to help DBAs do their day-to-day work, we’ve elected to cover the earlier Oracle7 platform as well. In the next edition, we’ll also cover Oracle 8i, and we’ll probably phase out the Oracle7 material if most of the industry has adopted the later releases.